Welcome to Cloning and Stem Cells!
Thank you Sage for motivating me to learn about stem cells. I've always been interested in what makes cells different from one another, but I knew nothing of the cells which give birth to differentiated daughters until I was asked to present this seminar.
What's so fascinating about this topic, besides the basic science, are the ethical issues that it raises. Questions such as "When does life begin?", "Should we clone humans?", and "Should we resurrect extinct animals?" will, no doubt, get people agitated. It certainly should stimulate some lively discussions! No fisticuffs please.
References
Probably the best book about stem cells for non-scientists is "Stem Cells: An Insider's Guide" (World Scientific Publishing Co.Pte. Ltd, 2013), by Paul Knoeplfler of the University of California at Davis. Paul is a scientist, not a writer, and it shows. But the book is up to date and not filled with too much jargon. I got the Kindle version from Amazon, but it is available in paper as well.
Two books by Ian Wilmut are worth reading if you want to learn about cloning. The first, “The Second Creation” by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell, and Colin Tudge. Harvard University Press, 2000, is written in the spirit of Jim Watson's epic, "The Double Helix". It is real insight into how "Dolly" came into being. A later book on the same topic, “After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning”, by Ian Wilmut and Roger Highfield . WW Norton & Co., 2006, is not as entertaining, but is worthwhile as well.