Now that George W. Bush has proclaimed himself the Oil President War President Building Secular Democracies President Anti-Oil Pro-Science President we can all look forward to an increase in funding. Whether or not any of this money will go toward basic research (pretty please) is unclear. If you can find any way to link your research to bioterrorism, cancer, or biomedicine there's quite a bit of money out there to be obtained. If you're just out to increase the knowledge base, you're a dog begging for scraps from the table.
Apparently this increase in funding will come with a few strings attached. We know Dubya won't fund the stem cells, and who knows what he'd do if he knew that the government spent money on evilution. But, as PZ points out, he don't want no human-animal hybrids either (humans are animals, so wouldn't this exclude heterosexual intercourse?). Little does the Dubster realize that this is a legitimate area of research:
"[A] team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system."
[link]
I have written about molecular chimera before, so I'll be brief. You cannot walk into a molecular biology lab that does not have organisms with genes from another species. Some of these (like the one PZ describes) even have human DNA. This just seems like an example of talking without saying much -- standard fare in the political world -- but it could be worse. Will the government cut off funding for this valuable research? Did they just not bother doing their homework before they send Dubyahoo out to (not) tell us about the state of the union?
And, yes, I realize that I am a few days behind in the news, but you should see how far behind I am in terms of fashion.
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Thanks for bringing up this overlooked comment from the SOTU. I wrote about this (http://complexmedium.blogspot.com/2006/02/human-animal-hybrids.html), too.
I would doubt that Bush would try to pass a law preventing the creation of transgenic organisms that express human genes. I'm more concerned about his definition of a human-animal hybrid. Does implanting human cells of any kind constitute a chimera? If this practice is banned, it will take away an essential tool from researchers.
More ethically troubling is implanting embryonic stem cells into animals, especially primates. This will be the next big ethical debate in science. But a poorly written, hastily passed law is not the answer.