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.

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.

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.

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.

Police plan to step up enforcement activities Friday against motorists using their cell phones while driving. The plan follows last month's distracted-driving crackdown in which more than 400 citations were issued. Officers assigned to the enforcement operation, which is being funded through a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, will be focused that day on looking only for distracted drivers, Glendale Police Sgt. Harout Bouzikian said. In April, officers cited 425 motorists for holding their cell phones while behind the wheel, he said.

Inmates at the Glendale city jail more than paid for the cost of their incarceration in 2012, anteing up roughly $96,000 to stay at the facility. The facility's pay-to-stay program, which allows certain inmates to serve out short court sentences for $85 per day, generated $96,475 in 2012, up from $67,995 in 2011, according to Glendale Police Department reports. The program has earned $1.6 million since it was established in 2008, helping to offset operational costs at the jail. "I don't feel that burden should be placed on the taxpayers," Jail Administrator Juan Lopez said, adding that inmates "should pay their own way. " As the program's earnings increase, more arrestees also paid the jail's booking recovery fee. Everyone who is booked at the jail must pay $135 to cover the costs of being processed.

I'd like to see in the near term a review of the current policy the city has for community notification in R-1 zones where major improvements are planned using the city's easement rights for erecting/construction of wireless transmission facilities. The current process is deeply flawed and puts the homeowner or the homeowners association in an almost a no-win position, as well as in a financial straitjacket before we know what is hitting us. Signs that are posted become city property, which can't be touched during the 30-day notification period without being a misdemeanor even on homeowners association property.

A former assistant volleyball coach is scheduled to appear in court next week to face charges that he used a cellphone to take photos up a woman's skirt at the Glendale Galleria, police said. John Puncel, 50, of Sylmar, turned himself in to Glendale police on Oct. 15 after a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with the Jan. 30 incident, Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. Puncel faces one felony count of possessing child pornography, three misdemeanor counts related to the skirt incident as well as a misdemeanor count of battery on a Glendale police officer, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court complaint.

Glendale police are attributing a decline in the number of citations issued for texting and talking while driving to increased public awareness. Officers wrote 2,182 tickets for the first eight months this year, down from the 3,236 issued last year, according to the Glendale Police Department. More motorists are aware of laws restricting cell phone use, and as a result, the number of citations issued has dropped, Traffic Bureau Lt. Steve Robertson said. At the same time, his department has stepped up public education, he added.

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 49-year-old man was arrested Monday after police allegedly saw him using his cell phone to record up the skirt of a woman on a Glendale Galleria escalator. Police immediately tried to detain the man, John Puncel, who allegedly pulled away in an attempt to keep his phone, according to police reports. Officers also saw Puncel allegedly press buttons on the phone as they tried to grab him. One of the officers suffered a cut and complained of pain as a result of his struggle with Puncel, police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

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.