Cells

Robert Chacon Citing the coming anniversary former President Ronald Reagan's death, Rep. David Dreier was among 50 House Republicans who broke ranks with more conservative colleagues and voted Tuesday for a bill that would loosen funding restrictions on stem cell research. Stem cells are taken from human embryos created by doctors at fertility clinics. If not used, they are usually frozen, and many are discarded. Scientists say the cells can be used to find cures to many diseases, including Alzheimer's, which Reagan had. President Bush allowed the federal government to fund research on stem cells, but only on cells created before August 2001.

With the help of a microscope, Roosevelt Middle School students took a look at a small part of themselves. Students analyzed their own cell tissues under a microscope after scraping the inside of their cheeks with a toothpick to get a cell sample. “You are looking at what makes you who you are,” science teacher Jozet Petrosian said. Leylani Ruiz, 12, gently rubbed the inside of her cheek with a toothpick. She smeared the contents onto a glass slide and used an eye dropper to squeeze a drop of water onto the slide.

The nation’s Catholic bishops followed through on their desire to put forward an initial statement opposing embryonic stem cell research. They voted almost unanimously — 191 to 1 — to approve the statement at their annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. The seven-page policy statement from the Committee on Pro-Life Activities calls embryonic stem cell research “a gravely immoral act” that crosses a “fundamental moral line” by treating human beings as mere objects of research.

Loved the animation Geoff Nuanes, 16, of Tujunga is a junior at Providence High School in Burbank. I've always been fascinated by the human body and how it works. It's incredible how all our cells work together to keep our bodies free from bacteria and other terrible things that pass through it. This is exactly what fascinated me about "Osmosis Jones." The film was directed by the Farrelly brothers ("Something About Mary," "Dumb and Dumber")

Stem cell research generates more misinformation than any other single issue in the current public debate. The debate is usually cast in terms of being pro- or anti-science and progress. The truth is you can be concerned about the direction of some of the research and still promote scientific progress. The major source of confusion is that there are two distinctly different types of stem cell research. The first -- human somatic stem cell research (SSC)

The weather has not been kind this year to Charlotte Zaremba's science class at Orange Coast Middle College High School. Each of the last two years, Zaremba's students have started the fall quarter by building and running hydrogen fuel-cell cars -- small, plastic models that operate through chemical reactions. Last autumn, the class raced the cars outside, using solar panels; the sunlight fired up the cells. This time, faced with one overcast morning after another, Zaremba kept her students indoors and charged the cars with batteries.

GLENDALE — Expectant couples shared concerns and anxieties Sunday at Verdugo Hills Hospital as part of a crash course on the trials and tribulations of new parenthood. A handful of expectant mothers and their partners lunched through two hours of “Baby 101,” a series of mini lectures on everything from research and medical treatments to swaddling and changing diapers. Christy Taylor and Michael Aguilera expect their first child — a daughter whom they plan to call Aliana — on Oct. 12. The couple recently secured one of the nonprofit hospital’s 158 beds to give birth, and came this weekend with a range of questions.

Amber Willard DOWNTOWN -- Jail cells are in place in rough form and the parking structure for patrol cars will be done in a few months -- the city's new police station is starting to look like a police station. Workers kick up dust as they pour concrete and set steel rods in place. Nearby, cinder blocks and timber are stacked in piles, nails strewn on the ground. "It's more complex than other public buildings," senior design associate Craig Booth said of the facility, which is across the street from the current police headquarters at 140 N. Isabel St. Special building needs include sturdiness -- it has to withstand at least an 8.0 earthquake -- and security, because a jail will be part of the 158,000 square foot facility.

I’ve waited in vain the past couple of weeks for someone to respond with some obviously missing parts of the discussion in the weekly In Theory column. The question on the ethics of using embryonic stem cells in medical research has a similar “elephant in the room” aspect (“A life-and-death debate on stem cells,” In Theory, Saturday). While the medical and ethical issues of stem cell research itself were well covered, no one touched on a major part of the argument.

Dear Parents (and you know who you are), I would like to thank those of you who felt that the third grade was an appropriate age to give your child a cell phone. I'm sure you have every good reason for doing so. But thanks to your generosity, I am subjected to my kids' constant complaining and begging for a cell phone, because apparently “everyone else has one.” I am barraged daily by their incessant pining for a device that, until this decade, every human being on the planet was able to survive adolescence without.

A laptop and cell phone were returned to a Burbank Water and Power employee Wednesday after the items were stolen from him while he was walking to his car the day before, police said. A person dropped the items off at the front desk of BWP and the employee, Mahesh Saraswat, informed police that he had his city-owned phone and personal laptop were in his possession, Burbank Police Sgt. Darin Ryburn said. Saraswat was leaving work and walking in the 100 block of West Magnolia Boulevard shortly after 6 p.m. on Jan. 10, beneath the underpass toward his car, when he was confronted by two men, Ryburn said.

Faced with providing service for ever more data-hungry cellphones, telecommunications carriers are in a nonstop race costing billions of dollars to boost the capacities of their networks. To handle the heavy volume of video, music and Web pages that smartphone users are downloading, office buildings, strip malls, condominiums, schools, churches and just about every other type of structure - including water towers and freeway overpasses - are being pressed into service as cell signal relay stations, or cell towers.

A 41-year-old Pasadena woman was arrested Sunday after police used a global positioning tracking system to trace her to an alleged stolen cell phone, officials said. Yesenia Sanchez was arrested and cited after allegedly admitting to finding the $525 phone outside a yard sale in La Crescenta and not asking its owner whether it was on sale because she was “afraid they would lie to her and keep it for themselves,” according to Glendale police reports. The owner told police she placed her Motorola Droid 3 cell phone on top of a storage bin inside her garage as she tended to customers at her yard sale, but noticed it was missing about 2:45 p.m. The cell phone owner helped police track it down by using an application used to locate lost or stolen phones, eventually tracing it to a home on the 1700 block of North Allen Avenue in Pasadena.

A 21-year-old Tujunga woman pleaded no contest Friday to striking and killing an 80-year-old Glendale man with her car last year while she was texting, officials said. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Patrick Hegarty ordered Ani Voskanian to serve three years formal probation, 300 hours of community service and to develop a lecture program for junior and high school students on the dangers of texting while driving, officials said. Voskanian - who pleaded to a felony manslaughter charge for killing Misak Ranjbar - will not be allowed to possess a cell phone while inside a vehicle, officials said.

AT&T officials showed off the company's stealth cellular antenna site Tuesday near the In-N-Out restaurant on Harvey Drive and said more sites are on the horizon - a signal of what may be to come as service providers seek to boost their capacity to handle the increased data demand of smart phones. The so-called stealth cell sites, masked to resemble trees or hidden inside flag poles, could ease their proliferation into dead zones where cell phone signals are weak. Efforts to do so in residential neighborhood have been met with strong resistance on aesthetic grounds and fears of unknown health risks.

There have been several articles in the last few weeks reporting ticketing for illegal cell phone use and texting while driving. I applaud these enforcement efforts and hope they will continue. I am certain I'm not the only driver who is dismayed at the number of such violations, which can be noted on even the shortest trips around town. Several reputable studies have been conducted that conclude that people cannot drive safely while engaged in activities of this type. I'm sure I'm not alone in noticing that people talking on cell phones or texting often drive erratically and are not alert at intersections.

GLENDALE — Applying lipstick, eating a burger or texting may land some distracted motorists a hefty citation today. California Highway Patrol and Glendale police will step up enforcement on drivers using cell phones, eating, reading or doing anything else that may make them a danger on the road. "Officers have been enforcing it, but it is difficult to catch people," said Officer Charmaine Fajardo, a CHP spokeswoman. CHP officers have found that when they stop inattentive drivers, the driver often denies being distracted, Fajardo said.

The council introduced a set of regulations for local cellular antennas, setting the stage for a final vote next week. Officials have spent more than a year crafting the regulations. The council first introduced a moratorium on all cellular antenna applications in response to a T-Mobile proposal for the 500 block of Cumberland Road that prompted residents to organize an opposition campaign. The proposed regulations — which greatly increase city oversight of the antenna’s placement — take a tiered approach in which cellular equipment proposed for residential areas or in an “unattractive form” would face a more intense review process.