Well, this is cool.

Elizabeth Blackburn was born in Tassie, and studied in Melbourne before completing her doctorate at Cambridge. She is now the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California.

Her Nobel prize was awarded for her research into cell aging and regeneration, and in particular, chromosome structure, teleomeres (bits of repetitive DNA at the ends of chomosomes which Professor Blackburn says are like the tips on the ends of shoelaces to keep them unravelling) and telomerase, the enzyme which maintains them.

Well done!

But Blackburn is wrong to support embryonic stem cell research, and the cloning of human beings so that the clone’s tissue and organs can be harvested.

Not only is embryonic stem cell research a waste of money, not having  produced a single useful result (whereas other forms of stem cell research are promising), but more importantly, any culture whose members  deliberately destroy the lives of other human beings to enhance their own longevity or comfort is corrupt and immoral and will fail.