Vegan Stem Cells and Neurons

The generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells

Just a quick post today:  You can now make/use vegan neurons and stem cells from skin cells.  Well, the process is vegan, atleast.  This was not the work (as far as I can tell) by an elite cabal of underground vegan scientists, but just researchers trying to make cells that meet standards for safe use in humans.  This doesn't mean that it's free of all those mysterious unnamed 'toxins' from animal flesh as much as free from allergens and crude variable (and unpredictable) animal extracts. 

A Scientist up in Arm(chair)s

A pig in a poke for only $42!

I have a confession.  I am not a professional scientist at the moment.  I am, as they say, between jobs.  But all the world's a lab and all the people are scientists, or so it says in my Shakespeare fan fiction.  We all do experiments in our lives, some with more rigor than others, and part of my regimen to keep my mind sharp is to maintain this blog.

However, one major problem with a move from a lab stool to an armchair is journal access.  Perennially a problem, even for scientists at major universities, it is exceedingly so once one looses affiliation.  I feel it is one of the biggest problems with the field today.

For those lay-folk who are not familiar, journal access is online access to articles in scientific journals.  Besides a few scattered open-source titles, the majority of publications are behind huge paywalls. As in, you have to pay US $35.00 or so to see one article, if you're not fortunate enough to have access through your university's or institution's subscription.

Typically the most one can get for free is the abstract, which is like the movie description on your DVR, and about as useful.  Also, each article is only published in a single journal, so even if you have some journal access there are usually articles out there you can't access.  Just like all those movies you want to stream but you can't.

Also the obvious refuges one would think would have access have poor to no access:  Public libraries have superficial access if any, and alumni have little or no access (or atleast my Ivy League diploma doesn't get me anywhere).

And before you ask why I don't bother my old coworkers, it's because they're either too busy working 14 hour days, or they will run into the same nonsense as I do.

So this is a problem, but is it really that big of a deal?  I think so, because we need the public to know what we do.  We must have our results and methods be transparent and accessible to all.  We can complain all we want about how a newspaper article exaggerated, misrepresented, or otherwise misinformed the public.  Yet if the public has no other source of information and cannot go to the source, should we be surprised?  This is but an extension of the ivory tower, and although it may not be entirely to blame for distrust and ignorance of evolution or global climate change, it certainly cannot be helping.

Scientific Vegan

Just read a post that was the converse of my site. Being more of a vegan heading towards science than the other way around. A Mr. Meaner at QuarryGirl.com undertakes some rigorous testing on food served at all-vegan restaurants in the Los Angeles area. They determined that a number of places had food contaminated with animal products, and in one case suspect foul play. Mostly though, as the trail is taken all the way to the Taiwanese goverment, they blame poor labelling at the manufacturer. And kudos to them for being so persistent. It is noted that new legislation in Taiwan on such matters goes into effect tomorrow and should help straighten things out. Expect a some changes at your local restaurants, especially the Asian veg ones.

I do see a few issues with the experiment. First, I'd like to know which tests specifically they used. As Schmod on BoingBoing points out:

For starters, are there any legitimately vegan ingredients that could register a false-positive on these tests? What is the effectiveness of the testing kits that they used? Why were they afraid to disclose the manufacturer of said kits?

Ideally the manufacturer's protocol and so forth could be published to eliminate these questions.

Also, I think they should have a better negative control than just the lab bench. That information is good, but ideally you want something in the ballpark of the other things being tested, perhaps a home-cooked vegan dish with known ingredients. Similarly, I think they should have found menu items that were the as close to similar as possible at each restaurant. I note that quesadillas were common, but I think they should have done only quesadillas (or close analogs like a taco or something). At the very least, only doing veg-chicken dishes or something with a single unifying common ingredient (or supposed common ingredient). I can't really compare a quesadilla to tiramisu.

All in all though, they did a good job, and i'd like to see more of this thing. Perhaps Mr. Meaner can repeat the experiment in a year or so after the labelling laws in Taiwan go into effect? One can hope.

http://www.quarrygirl.com/2009/06/28/undercover-investigation-of-la-area-vegan-restaurants/

Epic First Post!

Hello all. Or maybe just hello me at this point. In any event, I have started this blogarooni.

Basically I hope this site will fill a need I see out there. I'm vegan, and a scientist, and I don't want to leave my ethics behind when I'm in the lab. I always loved animals and most living things, and that's why I went into biology. I never really understood the "I like animals, let's kill one and study it." mindset that some biologists have. But I guess to draw parallels to eating, I'm sure people just don't think about it too much. Which is odd for a scientist, I suppose: To not be thinking.

But beyond the visceral avoidance of vivisection, as a vegan I am always looking at ingredient labels and trying to figure out what is what and where it comes from. I do it at the market and I reflexively do it the the chemical supply cabinet. But unlike food, for which there are endless guides and resources out there, there isn't much information on what lab chemicals are made from. I'm hoping to start remedying that.

So I hope to gather information on animal use and animal products, and share what I find out with the interwebs. I also hope to have some discussions about various questions that arise. I know when people think about vegan issues and discussion they think trollbait, but I am going to try real hard to keep things civil here. I don't want any fights people, so be nice!

So there you go. Not too much ramble was it? Let me know what you think. And feel free to drop a line with topic ideas or suggestions. This won't just be about Biology, but that's what I know best, but if you know that theres some animal issue with particle physics or something, let's hear it!