The George W. Bush administration was often accused of, among other things, muzzling or ignoring science. That criticism was based in part on the then-U.S. president's order — twice upheld — to ban federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. So it was no wonder many members of the worldwide science community breathed a sigh of relief when President Barack Obama took the bold step of overturning that ban earlier this month. Even though his Republican opponent, John McCain, said on the campaign trail that he too would change horses on the matter if elected, it was Obama who had to step to the plate, and did. Obama's decision reopened a long-simmering debate about the ethics of stem cell use. To make stem cell studies appeal to a wider spectrum of the public, science is figuring out how to develop them without sacrificing human embryos, a factor which is key to the debate. Read more here.
