Right now, today, the world is teetering on the brink of a new Enlightenment. Only this time, it's not about where we are. It's about what we are, how we're put together and the origins of life itself.

If you've paid attention to any news over the past five years, you've heard of stem cells. You know they've got something to do with clones (oooh! science fiction!), and you've probably heard something about angry debates in Congress, and, if you're anything close to the average American, that's about it. The fact that you're not up to date on the latest scientific minntiae shouldn't scare you. The fact that your politicians aren't either should.

Stem cell research "represents the dawn of a new age in medicine," says Michael West, president of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) of Worcester, Massachusetts. He should know. After years of backbreaking work, last Halloween his company produced the first human clones, artificially spawned embryos that lasted all of five days and measured about the size of the head of a pin. West's research team wasn't hoping to create Xerox copies of themselves, or even an army of genetically advanced super-soldiers.

"Scientifically, biologically, the entities we are creating are not individuals," he explains. "They're only cellular life. They're not human life." What ACT and hundreds of similar laboratories are after are stem cells. These functionally immortal cells can develop into any type of cell in the body. They can replace anything in you that's alive. Heart attack? Have it rebuilt. Alzheimer's? Here's some new brain tissue. Diabetes? Pancreas replaced while you wait. What these researchers are after is nothing less than the Holy Grail of medical research. Unfortunately, a lot of very important people don't see it that way. For the scientists, here's the crux of the debate: cloning technology will someday cure millions of sick and dying people by creating unrejectable transplant tissues out of genetically identical stem cells. It will be a revolution bigger than the discovery of antibiotics. For the religious right, however, the issue becomes tainted twice-once with the Frankensteinian notion of white-coated madmen creating human Xeroxes, and again

It's not a pretty thought. Luckily, it's not an accurate one either.

Biology lesson

So what are stem cells?

They're the raw material your body is made from, and they come in three basic flavors: totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent.

Totipotent stem cells can create any organ in the body, including the placenta that feeds a growing embryo in the womb. Think of a fertilized egg-a single cell that can eventually become a human being.

Pluripotent stem cells are those capable of becoming any kind of tissue except a placenta. They're found once a fertilized egg has multiplied enough to form a nearly microscopic, hollow ball called a blastocyst. These are the "blank slate" cells, the ultra-useful super cells that all the fuss is about. They tend not to last in an embryo more than a few weeks before becoming specialized cells-eyes, kidneys, genitals, toenails, whatever.

Multipotent stem cells give rise to specific kinds of specialized cells; for example, the multipotent stem cells in bone marrow produce white blood cells, platelets and red blood cells. They exist in adults, but have proved very hard to harvest and even harder to work with. It's not easy turning blood into pancreatic tissue, even on the cellular level.

So, thus far, researchers have been feeling their way around the new technology using pluripotent cells, which offer the greatest results with the least amount of effort. The problem is, the best source for these is human embryos, and if you're a legitimate research scientist, there's only two places you can get those. The first is abortion clinics-and we all know the political land mines surrounding these. The second, ironically, is fertility clinics.

In an August 9 television address, President Bush spoke out against embryonic research, yet praised in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a "process... which helps so many couples conceive children."

His advisers must not have mentioned to him that the "family friendly" process generates thousands of unused human embryos. They're routinely thawed out and discarded. Bear in mind, we're not talking black rubber bags filled with wriggling fetuses here. We're talking about clusters of a dozen cells or so which have shown an ability to reproduce themselves. Most of them wouldn't develop into fetuses even if given a chance. But for stem cell researchers, this is a gold mine-one which the government is busy putting a barbed wire fence around.

For the right-to-life lobby, the idea that human life begins at conception-even before cells begin to divide-is an absolute certainty, based on the revealed truth of God. Scientists enjoy no such certainty. And in our system, lack of certainty can be a big political problem. When conservative Congressional committees ask researchers if they're destroying a potential human life, the answer "kinda, but not really" just doesn't cut it.

The controversy isn't necessarily helped by certain elements in the progressive camp, either. Take, for example, the Raelians, a UFO cult following the teachings of an enlightened Canadian sportswriter who now goes by his space-name, Ra-El. They're behind organizations like Clonaid (a very real scientific entity) because of their belief that only once humanity achieves immortality through cloning will we be united with our Blessed Space Brothers.

Clonaid's director, chemist Brigitte Boisselier, was in Washington, D.C. this August, one of hundreds of scientists gathered at the National Academy of Sciences to discuss the scientific ethics of cloning.

"We need to proceed with human cloning," she declared. "I believe it's a fundamental right to reproduce the way you want."

You may remember the conference. Unlike most scientific summits, this one featured angry protestors and hourly updates on CNN. The meeting ended with a panel of scientists assigned to hack their way through the ethical jungle dividing science and the law. As this article goes to press, the panel has yet to issue its recommendations to the legislature.

There's little time to lose. Last July, before the meeting took place, the House of Representatives voted to make all embryonic stem cell research a federal crime. The bill was drafted by Florida's own Rep. Dave Weldon (R). Floridian Peter Deutsch (D) and Pennsylvanian Jim Greenwood (R) sponsored an amendment making Rael-style reproductive cloning illegal but allowing doctors to continue therapeutic research. It was voted down. When the bill reached the Senate, it decided to put off its vote for a few months. This was partially due to anthrax attacks on pro-cloning legislators Tom Daschle (D) and Arlen Specter (R). (Not that this humble typist wishes to draw any conclusions.)

After the House vote, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer crowed: "The president is pleased that it passed. It has the proper measure of ethics, science and respect for a culture that places value on life."

It's not over 'til the fat lady sings

A similar bill in Britain last summer banned reproductive cloning-which even advocates admit is a hazardous, imperfect process-while allowing vitally important stem cell research to continue. At least one American researcher, Roger Pedersen of the University of California at San Francisco, is emigrating to the United Kingdom to continue his work unrestricted. He could be the first of many.

On the heels of the House vote, George W. Bush cut funding for embryonic stem cell research. Researchers who depend on federal funding are now limited to working with 60 already-existing cell lines, "where a life-and-death decision has already been made." In other words, the embryos that produced the lines have already been destroyed. If it turns out that there's some problem with those 60 cell families, tough luck. Even by allowing this extremely limited funding, the president risked alienating himself from the core of his own party and violated one of his own campaign promises. He also put the task of pioneering this brave new science on the shoulders of privately funded biotech entrepreneurs, rather than publicly responsible university labs. Already, researchers are petitioning the National Institutes of Health to make privately owned cell lines available to the public research community-but as far as biotech business is concerned, information is never free. It's intellectual property. It comes with a price. That is, if Congress doesn't succeed in outlawing it first.

As the government lumbers ponderously towards a total ban on embryonic stem cell research, the medical revolution is blazing forward. And, as is often the case, the latest findings are leaving the dogma-bound opposition in the dust. If the scientists can only continue unhindered long enough, cells from human embryos will be rendered obsolete. Instead, the medical revolutionaries will be living off the fat of the land-literally.

"Adult tissues don't appear to be as restricted as they once were," explains University of Florida neurologist Dennis Steindler. "Once we figure out their molecular genetics, we should be able to coax them into becoming almost anything we want them to be."

Steindler is working with stem cells harvested from the brains of adult cadavers. It's pretty safe business-the religious right long ago abandoned their opposition to plundering the dead for the sake of the living. But one of Steindler's colleagues is doing him one better. Adam Katz of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has been looking for stem cells in the less-than-appetizing "slurry" sucked out during liposuction.

"We can take gallons and gallons," he beams. "Most people are more than willing to part with it. Usually we just throw it away."

Katz decided to see what would happen when he mixed the slurry up with growth factors, chemicals that stimulate stem cells into reproducing. When his team tested the mixture, they found some of the cells floating in the slurry weren't fat anymore. Instead, they had turned into bone, cartilage and muscle cells-just as embryonic stem cells do. Now, it's just up to researchers to figure out how to isolate those stem cells... how to transform America's beer guts and cellulite into the Holy Grail of medicine.

Galileo's observations took a lifetime to flower into Newton's descriptions of the universe, but the stem cell revolution is taking place right now, on a scale of weeks, not years. Doctors recently announced a stunning success using stem cells to regrow severed optic nerves. Think of it: new eyes for the blind. Another team reported stem cell injections seem to help repair brain damage in stroke victims. Leukemia victims are already conquering their illness with stem cell therapy. This is already happening, without the imprimatur of the federal government.

By the time the Senate gets around to their vote, there's no telling what breakthroughs will have taken place-how many lives will have been saved-without their having lifted a finger to stop it.