Beaker Hill’s bureau at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute has picked up on another major breakthrough…or maybe we read about it in the Washington Post. Those tricky HSCI guys threw a curve ball this time, though, because this work did not actually involve stem cells at all! Instead, researchers Doug Melton and Qiao “Joe” Zhou were able to take a common type of mouse cell and, using some chemical wizardry, converted them into the mouse’s beta cells, which produce insulin. This cellular alchemy will directly aid in treatments for diabetes (somewhere, Wilford Brimley is throwing a party*), and much sooner than may be expected. Melton hopes that trials involving diabetic individuals can start as soon as within the next five years, and no doubt other scientists will look for similar cell conversions in the treatment of other diseases. The Harvard paper was published on the 27th in the online edition of Nature.

In news that appears particularly relevant with the ramping up of hurricane season over the past week (though thankfully and unsurprisingly, the Hub has been spared so far), MIT grad student Michael Metzger has constructed a computer model which shows the most efficient way an evacuation should be carried out. His general suggestion is that the evacuation should be done in pieces: first the elderly, then tourists, then families with children, and finally the rest of us (the worthless twentysomethings). The model adjusts for the demographics of a particular area, which would certainly throw a wrench into things for our fair city since it seems like we’re all worthless twentysomethings from where this Bostonist is perched. Metzger has already been in contact with federal and state emergency management officials to discuss his research, though there’s no word if President Bush told him he was “doing a heck of a job.” (We can only hope he did not.)

*If you didn’t get that Wilford Brimley reference, clearly you have not watched enough daytime TV. Image of Mr. Brimley courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.