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Insulin-producing pancreatic cells created from human skin cells
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have successfully converted human skin cells into fully-functional pancreatic cells. The new cells produced insulin in response to changes in glucose levels, and, when transplanted into mice, the cells protected the animals from developing diabetes in a mouse model of the disease.
The new study, published in Nature Communications, also presents significant advancements in cellular reprogramming technology, which will allow scientists to efficiently scale up pancreatic cell production and manufacture trillions of the target cells in a step-wise, controlled manner. This accomplishment opens the door for disease modeling and drug screening and brings personalized cell therapy a step closer for patients with diabetes.
"Our results demonstrate for the first time that human adult skin cells can be used to efficiently and rapidly generate functional pancreatic cells that behave similar to human beta cells," says Matthias Hebrok, PhD, director of the Diabetes Center at UCSF and a co-senior author on the study. "This finding opens up the opportunity for the analysis of patient-specific pancreatic beta cell properties and the optimization of cell therapy approaches."
In the study, the scientists first used pharmaceutical and genetic molecules to reprogram skin cells into endoderm progenitor cells--early developmental cells that have already been designated to mature into one of a number of different types of organs. With this method, the cells don't have to be taken all the way back to a pluripotent stem cell state, meaning the scientists can turn them into pancreatic cells faster. The researchers have used a similar procedure previously to create heart, brain, and liver cells.
more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160106091738.htm
US government kills coyotes from the air for Oregon ranch
By Tom Knudson / January 5, 2016
While Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond have been battling the U.S. government over arson charges, another federal agency quietly has helped them kill predators.
Internal government records obtained by Reveal show that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services has gunned down coyotes from the air over Steven Hammond’s ranch as part of a far-flung aerial gunning program targeting predators for ranchers across the West.
In recent months, the Hammonds have become folk heroes to anti-government protesters, serving as the inspiration for the armed group that seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge visitor center in Oregon over the weekend. (The Hammonds haven’t taken a position on the occupation.)
…
And the Hammonds have gotten help from Wildlife Services, a division of the USDA that has long specialized in killing animals deemed a threat to ranchers in ways that can be inhumane, excessive, at odds with science and sometimes illegal.
The aerial gunning of predators takes place on private and public land across more than a dozen Western states. Federal data show that more than 350,000 coyotes and other animals have been killed over the past 15 years. The document shows that the government killed five coyotes by air for the Hammonds between 2009 and 2011.
more
https://www.revealnews.org/blog/u-s-government-killed-coyotes-from-the-air-for-hammond-ranch/
Why This Socialist Feminist Is Not Voting for Hillary
By Liza Featherstone
Socialism, it turns out, can be a form of identity politics. Some feminists, including Suzanna Danuta Walters, brandish a “red-diaper baby” heritage or some other cultural or sentimental affinity to hint that supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy doesn’t just represent some corporate gloss on feminism; it’s a genuinely radical position.
But no one who makes this argument can articulate what, beyond her identity as a woman, qualifies Clinton as a passable candidate for socialist feminists. That’s understandable because, in a primary against an independent socialist who has been attracting an astonishing level of grassroots support, there are no socialist-feminist reasons to support Hillary Clinton.
...
In a normal election season, all of this would be reason to agitate, but not necessarily to work or vote against the candidate—after all, what’s the alternative? This year, however, there is an inspiring reason to vote against Hillary: an actually existing socialist-feminist candidate in the Democratic primary. I’m talking, of course, about Bernie Sanders. He’s no Marxist revolutionary—if you’re waiting for someone who will expropriate the expropriators, you’ll have to wait a little longer—but he has spent his life fighting, consistently and without apology, for social-democratic policies that would improve the lives of a majority of American women. In contrast to Clinton’s devotion to imposing shame and austerity on poor women and their kids, Sanders helped lead the Senate opposition to Republican efforts to cut the WIC program, which provides nutrition assistance for mothers, babies, and pregnant women—and he has said that, as president, he would expand it. Other prominent planks in his platform that should be of interest to feminists include free college tuition, single-payer healthcare, high-quality childcare for all Americans, and a $15 minimum wage. In contrast to Clinton’s waffling on Planned Parenthood, Sanders has said that he would increase federal funding to the organization; and as part of his single-payer plan, he would expand support for women’s reproductive-health services.
Of course I’d like to see little girls—still besieged by the pressure to be pretty at the expense of being powerful—to be inspired by the image of a woman president, as they have been by the rise of the US Women’s World Cup team. But unless those girls are part of a small elite, most will never grow up to enjoy equality with men absent the kind of reforms that Sanders is advocating. A Clinton presidency would be symbolically uplifting, even as it slammed the door on the possibility of genuinely improving the lives of most of the world’s women.
the rest
http://www.thenation.com/article/why-this-socialist-feminist-is-not-voting-for-hillary/
Tuesday Toon Roundup 4: The Rest
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