Saturday, March 07, 2009

What's Wrong?

If you couldn't tell from my post yesterday, I approve of the president's impending action to lift funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cells. While, I've not had the time to post much about this issue, I have been reading others' takes. The Washington Post has a nice blog/column about religion and gives good time to science and religion bits. A piece likening stem cell ethics to organ transplantation caught my eye, because I've thought about this connection before and wanted to read what an 'expert' would say about it. I'd recommend you check out the article by Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, and the counterpoint by Thomas J. Reese, but what I did a doubletake on was this image:
This type of tube is commonly used to store frozen cells, including stem cells. The tube is thawed, because the red media is clearly not a chunk of ice. I'm thinking the photographer wanted an illusion of pipetting into the vial. But in the picture, the scientist is actually pipetting into the cap. There is a good chance that the diagonal tube is a forceps (tweezers), but with the cinematic techniques used so often on CSI and other science-enriched TV shows, I'm still putting my money on the theory that we're supposed to think there's pipet action going on.

Which is all to say, LOL.

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