October 6 is "Stem Cell Awareness Day". But where are the celebrations? Extensive googling failed to yield news of festivities. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was set up to promote research on human embryonic stem cells, has a section on its website dedicated to “Stem Cell Awareness Day 2010”.  But if you click on the link, you come to a half-finished site, without graphics or information, a scientific Marie Celeste bobbing on the internet.

The only feature that works is a video made for Stem Cell Awareness Day last year in which a high school teacher tells his students that stem cell research is more important than health care, that stem cell research is health care. “Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see everybody rejoicing about stem cell awareness because it has a fantastic potential to play a very important part in our lives,” said the CIRM’s director, Australian scientist Alan Trounson, in the 2009 video. Has the helium leaked out of the balloon?