The End of Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

From Time - apparently two separate research teams have managed to doctor adult cheek cells to simulate embryonic stem cells:

...scientists have surged ahead of ethicists and politicians in finding ever more clever ways to generate stem cells. But where other breakthroughs relied on using cells from living embryos — tiny bits of inchoate life, fraught with ethical issues — the work by Yamanaka and Thomson sidesteps that abyss by nursing adult cells into a state in which their cellular destiny is yet to be fulfilled. No embryos, no eggs, no hand-wringing over where the cells come from and whether it is ethical to make them in the first place.

The researchers admit that cheek cells are not yet able to provide the same benefits as embryonic stem cells, so the ethical and legislative debates may continue. At the very least, this seems to kill any hope the Left may have had (think California's Proposition 71 from a few years back) of acquiring public funds to continue human embryonic stem cell research...