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Talk about speedy work. Hot on the heels of the news that simply dipping adult mouse cells in acid could turn them into cells with the potential to turn into any cell in the body, it appears that the same thing may have been done using human cells.

The picture above, given to New Scientist by Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, is said to be images of the first human "STAP cell" experiments.

Last week, the scientific world was bowled over by a study in Nature showing that an acidic environment turned adult mouse cells into "totipotent" stem cells– which can turn into any cell in the body or placenta. The researchers called these new totipotent cells stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells.

"If they can do this in human cells, it changes everything," Rob Lanza of Advanced Cell Technologies in Marlborough, Massachusetts, said at the time. The technique promises cheaper, quicker and potentially more flexible cells for regenerative medicine, cancer therapy and cloning.

Now, Vacanti and his colleagues say they have taken human fibroblast cells and tested...