links for 2010-07-23

• RNA offers a safer way to reprogram cells
  In recent years, scientists have shown that they can reprogram human skin cells to an immature state that allows the cells to become any type of cell. …However, the techniques now used to transform cells pose some serious safety hazards. …Now, for the first time, MIT researchers have shown that they can deliver those same reprogramming genes using RNA, the genetic material that normally ferries instructions from DNA to the cell's protein-making machinery.