Word: stemming
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Last year Thomson testified before the U.S. Senate on the value of stem-cell research. ("Scared me to death," he says.) So far, he has sold embryonic stem cells (at $5,000 for two vials) to some 30 research groups. Though he believes stem cells may someday be used to replace the faulty cells at the root of diseases like Parkinson's, he sees a more fundamental and perhaps more important role for them: explaining why some cells grow up healthy while others get sick and die. "We are simply ignorant about very early development," he says...
...animated graphic of embryonic stem-cell research, go to time.com/americasbest.com
Cells and souls and science and promises. How does a politician balance such volatile substances? George W. Bush tried as he pondered the research spearheaded by one of America's pioneering scientists. Biologist James Thomson's wizardry with embryonic stem cells had not only raised hopes for a medical panacea but also set off the national debate on whether that potential public good provided the moral justification for the infusion of public money over the objection of many. Already, Thomson's personal balancing act--juggling scientific imperative and ethical caution, technical brilliance and moral quandary--had made...
...small group of men (and a few women) working mostly in isolation. Today, the scientific universe consists of interconnected microcosms of expertise. Apart from Thomson, our list of America's Best includes pioneers in a wide range of fields. Although few of these areas are as controversial as stem-cell research, they are all just as important to the way we live our daily lives. Among them: Lonnie Thompson, a climatologist who scales mountaintops to better understand global warming; Elizabeth Spelke, a developmental psychologist who has shown that babies are smarter than we thought...
...Bang; that atoms are made of protons, electrons and neutrons; that evolution proceeds by natural selection. Though today's problems are less sweeping, they are no less important. The diseases scientists are trying to cure still cause human misery and death; the answers they are seeking still stem from the central questions of human existence: Where did we come from? Where are we going...