Twitch, the online streaming game center, wants to fund stem cell research. To do so, they’ve concocted a Minecraft Marathon, where top level Minecraft gamers will participate in a 24-hour long uninterrupted building session.
Set to profit the National Stem Cell Foundation, the charity event is called Reason2Play and on June 5-6, aforementioned prominent Minecraft players will set out to log 10,000 hours of continuous play. During the event, which runs from 8pm to 8pm, Twitch will be reaching out to the gaming community at large for donations.
“Mastering Minecraft requires a great deal of ingenuity, creativity, and social cooperation,” said Dr. Paula Grisanti, the National Stem Cell Foundation’s chairman. “Not only that, it has proven to be a highly successful educational tool all over the world.”
Of course, stem cell research has long been in the domain of controversy because it popularly relied on the use of fetuses for the studies — a big no-no with conservative Christians.
And while stem cells can be extracted from other tissue than fetuses (aborted and otherwise) and can be an invaluable potential source for cancer cures, helping amputees regain limbs and numerous other positive health applications, even the words “stem cells” tend to make religious fundamentalists bristle.
We’ll see how this works out. Perhaps they’ve moved on to hating Bruce Jenner or something.
The National Stem Cell Foundation funds adult stem cell research.