"Stem cell research in the United States has been hobbled for years by severe and misguided restrictions on federal funding. But now a vexing additional problem is slowing even privately financed research. There are distressingly few women willing to donate their eggs for experiments at the frontiers of this promising science.

A respected team of stem cell researchers at Harvard spent nearly $100,000 over the course of a year advertising for egg donors. Hundreds of qualified women were interested enough to call but, after hearing what was entailed, not one was willing to donate eggs. Many were likely deterred by the time, effort and pain required - including daily hormone injections and minor surgery - to retrieve the eggs. And they were almost certainly discouraged by the meager compensation.

...With few human eggs available, some privately financed stem cell scientists are studying animal eggs to see if they can work the same magic when injected with a human nucleus. That may send shivers of apprehension through people who imagine rogue scientists creating grotesque half-human, half-animal creatures in the laboratory. But a thorough examination of the process by British regulators should alleviate such fears.

The British have approved, in principle, the creation of 'cybrid embryos,' produced when scientists grow human embryos in animal eggs. Although the embryos would be, in some sense, animal-human hybrids, there would be remarkably little animal - only about 0.1 percent - in the mix. The embryos, and the stem cells derived, would be virtually identical to cells in the patient."

"Anthony Ozimic, secretary of pro-life group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said he 'deplored' the HFEA's [British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority] decision.

'This is not just a case of the 'yuk' factor - there are grave ethical and moral objections to this research and the way it is being promoted.'

And Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said the HFEA was wrong to be pushing ahead with a decision which should be left to parliament.

'Using hybrid embryos has never been acceptable - it offends the dignity of humans and animals.'

Dr. Helen Watt, of the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, said the technique was a violation of the rights of the embryo. 'The embryo is deprived not only of its life in the course of the experiment, but of any human parents,' she told the BBC. 'It is further dehumanised by the very method of its creation.'"

As the transition to formal schooling sets a trajectory that influences a child's long-term prospects, scholars continue to look for risk factors for children making that transition. Recently Shannon Cavanagh and Aletha Huston at the University of Texas found that family instability-or changes in parents' relationships with their "partners" between birth and the end of kindergarten-increases children's behavioral problems in the first grade. Perhaps more important, they also discovered that parental marital status at birth plays a critical role in reducing or exacerbating that instability.

Looking at longitudinal data on a sample of more than 1,000 children drawn from Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICND), the research team discovered that only 25 percent of the sample suffered from a change in their parents' intimate relationships. However, less than 20 percent of children born to their natural and married parents experienced any family instability, compared to more than half of those born to single parents and nearly two thirds of those born to cohabiting parents.

Likewise their multivariate tests found direct links between family instability and family structure at birth to three measures of problem behaviors. Family instability was modestly related to teacher reports of externalizing behavior and to observed disruptive behavior with peers (each correlation, p<.10) and significantly related to observed disruptive behavior with teachers (p<.001). Family structure was related to the last two measures, as children born to single parents engaged in more disruptive behavior with peers (p<.001) and with teachers (p<.01), as were children born to cohabiting parents (p<.10 for behavior with peers, p<.05 for behavior with teachers). These patterns held even when controlled for household environment factors, including maternal depression, maternal sensitivity, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores, and family income.

Furthermore, the children born to married parents seemed less affected by subsequent family instability. While the extent of family instability did influence their behavior as measured by teacher reports of externalizing behavior, the number of parental transitions did not affect the two classroom measures of disruptive behavior as it did with their peers born to single and cohabiting parents.

The researchers hope their findings help the public "better understand the ways families change." Yet they ironically shy away from highlighting what their study clearly shows: that the changing structure of the American family itself poses greater risks to children than any factors related to it.