Nature Insight on Stem Cells
The latest Nature Insight makes for good reading on the topic of stem cell research. It includes a bloglike forum for comments, podcast interviews with scientists, and free access to a number of interesting papers - such as "Stem cells, ageing and the quest for immortality": "There is an overall decline in tissue regenerative potential with age, and the question arises as to whether this is due to the intrinsic ageing of stem cells or, rather, to the impairment of stem-cell function in the aged tissue environment. Unravelling these distinct contributions to the aged phenotype will be critical to the success of any therapeutic application of stem cells in the emerging field of regenerative medicine with respect to tissue injury, degenerative diseases or normal functional declines that accompany ageing."
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/stem_cells/index.html