The LA Times reports: “In a busy lab at Duke University, Dr. Miguel Nicolelis is merging brain science with engineering in a bid to create something fantastical: a full-body prosthetic device that would allow those immobilized by injury to walk again.

Nicolelis and an international group of collaborators declared that they had cleared a key hurdle on the path toward that goal, demonstrating they could bypass the body’s complex network of nerve endings and supply the sensation of touch directly to the brains of monkeys.

Nicolelis and his collaborators — engineers, neuroscientists and physiologists from Brazil, Switzerland, Germany and the United States — are working toward an ambitious objective: On the opening day of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil, they hope to send a young quadriplegic striding out to midfield to open the games, suited up in the ‘prosthetic exoskeleton’ they aim to build…” (Daniel 12:4 “knowledge shall be increased” just preceding Christ’s return. Health will fill Christ’s Kingdom upon His return – “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the tongue-tied shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” – Isaiah 35:5, 6. See the next report.)

Reuters reports: “U.S. scientists for the first time have used a cloning technique to get tailor-made embryonic stem cells to grow in unfertilized human egg cells, a landmark finding and a potential new flashpoint for opponents of stem cell research.

The researchers were trying to prove it is possible to use a cloning technology called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, to make embryonic stem cells that match a patient’s DNA.

The achievement, published in the journal Nature, is significant because such patient-specific cells potentially can be transplanted to replace damaged cells in people with diabetes and other diseases without rejection by the immune system.

This technique could ignite new controversy because some opponents consider it to be cloning, which they fiercely oppose.

‘This paper will be seen as significant both by those who are trying to use SCNT to produce human patient-specific embryonic stem cell lines and by those who oppose human ‘cloning’ experiments,’ said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, a division head at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research…”