Listening to the radio this morning, I heard the first mention of claims that scientists had discovered a way to create "embryonic" stem cells without creating or destroying a human life in the process. Such claims are significant news, because, despite the fact that there is much more significant progress in research using "adult" stem cells, it seems scientists are wedded to the idea of using these "embryonic" type stem cells.
Unfortunately, reading about the development, I have found it to be, or at least appear, far less than advertised.[1][2] What they seem to have done is merely limit how many lives their research requires, by taking stem cells from an embryos, and creating an unusually high number of usable stem cells from that original set by fusing them in some way with adult skin cells. They hope to pass this off as the creation of stem cells without loss of life, glossing over the fact that it requires you start with cells that must come at the cost of a life.
[1] BBC News. "Stem cell research hybrid hope" BBC
News (World Edition, online). 2005-08-22
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4174400.stm
[2] Fox, Maggie.
"Scientists send skin cell back to embryo stage" Reuters. 2005-08-22
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=uri:2005-08-22T055304Z_01_DIT221123_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-CELLS-DC.XML&pageNumber=0&summit=