Letters to the Editors; October 2004; Scientific American Magazine; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

Take an issue that featured an SA Perspectives, "Stem Cells: A Way Forward"; add "The Stem Cell Challenge," by Robert Lanza and Nadia Rosenthal; then fold in a Q&A with Microsoft's Bill Gates; and garnish it with "Nuclear Explosions in Orbit," by Daniel G. Dupont--and you have a recipe for a hot-and-spicy June.

The hottest topic was stem cell research. An e-mail from Bobby Winters poses a dilemma: When asked, "If your child could be helped, would you use an embryo?" he responds, "To save the life of one of my children, I would have no problem dismembering unwilling adults, but one of the purposes of law is to tame such emotional reactions. The question is not the depth of emotion nor the worth of the cure, but the value of human life."