Several years ago, Japan formed a huge research center in Kobe to focus on "regenerative medicine technologies like embryonic stem cells and cloning". So unsurprisingly, in my recent remarks about the skin-cell breakthrough, I assumed that Japan's government was also specifically funding that research.

But apparently not:

A Japanese government agency decided to allocate funds for research to scientists who discovered how to convert human skin cells into stem cells, public broadcaster NHK reported, without citing anyone.

So here's the irony: Japan's government had invested massive amounts in embryonic stem cell research, and a small group of university researchers scooped that effort by focusing on adult, not embryonic cells.

Meanwhile, Time Magazine echoes last weekend's New York Times sneer: "Don't think this makes everything okay!"

Why Science Can't Save the GOP

.... [E]ven if this were a true turning point in stem-cell research, people like me are not going to quickly forget those six lost years. I am 56. Last year I had a kind of brain surgery that dramatically reduces the symptoms of Parkinson's. It received government approval only five years ago.

He certainly has my sympathy, but let's note, that surgery had nothing to do with embryonic stem cells. Yes, the government is slow and inefficient. (And perhaps it shouldn't try so hard to stop people with terminal conditions from receiving experimental therapies.) But noticing that should make one more conservative, not less.

Second, and on that same note, unlike the rest of the economy, government grants are a zero-sum game. That which goes to one kind of research does not go towards another. So far, the most promising treatments for Parkinson's so far have involved adult stem cells; yet here is a man -- who has the most to lose -- arguing we should, instead, have focused on what, so far, has been the less promising and successful approach.

(Indeed, just yesterday Science Daily ran a report that adult mid-brain neural stem cells could be used to treat Parkinson's without incurring tumors -- "a potential risk that has precluded the clinical development of embryonic stem cells." But no matter, this isn't about good science. This is about this poor man's apparent (but mistaken) conviction that there are an unlimited amount of dollars to spend on every possible avenue of research, and Time's chagrin at being forced to admit the world isn't actually flat.)

To continue:

Third, although the political dilemma that stem cells pose for politicians is real enough, the moral dilemma is not and never was. The embryos used in stem-cell research come from fertility clinics, which otherwise would discard them.

Yet the moral debate isn't only (or even mostly) about embryos. Instead, it's about a technique ("therapeutic cloning") and line of research which, scientific problems aside (tissue incompatibility, tumor formation, etc.), will necessitate the production of human fetuses from which cells and donor tissue would be ultimately harvested.

If that prospect doesn't even raise a potential "moral dilemma" then we're much further gone than I imagine.