News of the Day - by Philip

Since I am the twin who reads more than just the sports section of the newspaper (note to everyone under the age of 25 -- newspapers are like web sites that you hold in your hand), here are a couple of fun news items from today.

Scientists at Stanford University have successfully obtained stem cells from adult male testes. They're hailing this as a huge breakthrough in stem cell research, but it's really the biggest non-item of the day. The researchers may as well have said that they found a trove of stem cells in the anuses (ani?) of giant wooly mammoths living on the moon because they have just as much chance of sticking a needle into those as they do into the testes of a willing adult male.

In fact, the researchers didn't even bother posting an ad saying, "University research study: Get paid for letting us stick a needle in your testes!" because they didn't have enough money in their multi-million-dollar endowment to entice any takers. Instead, they used tissues from biopsies that had already been removed from patients for health reasons. I'm surprised they even found those since many guys would rather die of testicular cancer than undergo that procedure.

I'm glad that scientists are looking for more sources of stem cells, but they really should look for sources that they have at least some chance of harvesting. Oh, and for those of you who think that they can just keep looking for stems cells in biopsied tissues, of course that's the only possible end result of this research. But willfully ignoring that fact allowed me to write the entire article above, so there.

One other news item from today states that researchers have determined that people who regularly get fewer than 8 hours of sleep are more susceptible to catching colds. In a related note, every single American over the age of 14 currently has a cold. Saturday Night Live, I am awaiting your call.