Science marches on - at least it does in Britain

Eight years of the Bush administration has seen the US lose significant ground in the arena of basic science as the government continues to suppress, outlaw or refuse to fund science that does not agree with its political or religious ideas. The gap will widen a bit further as the UK looks set to give the creation of hybrid human / animal embryos the go ahead. The embryos will be used for the extraction of embryonic stem cells for research into treatments for currently untreatable conditions. The British public, split roughly 50-50 over the idea in abstract, is firmly behind the idea, 61% for v 25% against, when told the specific uses of the embryos.

I feat that this will mean another chink in the special relationship as we all know the Decider(TM) is not going to approve of this.