Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
Realising potential - the story of the stem cell
A small Japanese trial has reported some positive results for stem cell therapy to treat spinal-cord injuries
(Left) Human embryonic stem cells; (right) A patient after incomplete paraplegia with a knee-ankle-foot orthosis with an integrated stance phase control knee joint
[(L to R) Nissim Benvenisty/CC - Orthokin/CC] 
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
IN 1697, John Dryden, translating the Roman poet Virgil, wrote that “From one root the rising stem bestows a wood of leaves, and vi’let-purple boughs.” More than 150 years later, the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel used the green stem of a plant that rises into unfolding complexity as an analogy for the diversification of life from single-celled ancestors, which he called Stammzellen: stem cells.
Haeckel believed that the development of a foetus followed a sequence corresponding to life’s historical evolution — from a single cell through a series of progressively more complex forms — often summarised in the phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” The single cell at the root of this sequence, and thus analogous to the single-celled organisms, was the fertilised egg. This Stammzell gave rise through repeated divisions to the approximately two hundred different cell types that make up a human body: from muscle cells to red blood cells, neurons to the liver. This definition of stem cell indicated that potential. Others later extended the definition again, to cover any cell capable of differentiating into different types.
A stem cell is a bundle of potential: scientists call it “pluripotent.” The genome inside all human cells is the same, or very close to it.
More from this author
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
