California’s finances may be approaching meltdown as governor and legislature argue over cuts to schools, prisons and welfare to tackle a $24bn budget deficit – but for advanced bioscience the Golden State still lives up to its name. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is building labs and hiring scientists as it begins to spend $3bn on stem cell research. And CIRM’s opponents can do little about it, because the funding was written into the state constitution in a 2004 referendum.

While some regard CIRM as an extravagant folly, there is a much more positive way of looking at the world’s biggest stem cell programme. It is a magnificent gesture of faith in the long-term future of the state and its science.