Stem Cell Breakthrough

Two scientific papers published this week in the journals Cell and Science document a cross-continental team's success in making ordinary human stem cells take on the properties of embryonic stem cells. This is a major achievement in itself, but it's also a promising step toward eliminating the main controversy of stem cell research--that is, gathering stem cells through the cloning of human embryos. The only downside is that the skin cells' DNA is damaged in the procedure, so any tissue grown from them would probably become cancerous. The embryos aren't out of the woods yet. More details here.