8/31/2010 PERMALINK
Early puberty of girls living in unstable environments is caused by survival of the fittest. ITEM: Girls who physically mature earlier tend to start dating, have sexual intercourse at a younger age, and have more sexual partners than girls who develop later. That puts them at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and makes them more likely to have a child while they're still teenagers. These are generally seen as bad things, says Jay Belsky, of Birkbeck University in London, given that many psychologists and doctors think there are right and wrong ways to develop. But he says it makes more sense to look at development the way nature does, from an evolutionary perspective. This leads to the expectation that growing up in a risky, unstable environment, the kind that fosters an insecure rather than secure attachment of infant to mother, should accelerate pubertal maturation thus increasing the chances that one could reproduce before they die.

8/31/2010 PERMALINK
An experience like none that you've ever had before. The Wilderness Downtown : I just experienced something pretty amazing. It will move you. It is an interactive song that asks you for the address where you grew up, or any address that is meaningful to you. Then, it uses Google to find aerial and ground pictures of that place. And as the song plays, a kid runs down your childhood street in a hooded jacket, so girl or boy, you are suddenly that kid again. Running past your childhood home, you look up and see the birds above. And in a kid's daydreaming come true, you are flying over your house with that flock of birds. Other childhood daydreams play out as the music continues. It uses HTML5, so it will only work on Chrome or Firefox browsers, but if you don't have one of those, get one or borrow a computer. Because it is an amazingly moving experience. I've never experienced anything that took me back to another time and place in my life as powerfully as this art managed to do. In more rural areas, Google's images aren't as good, so it may not be as powerful. But if you grew up in a city or suburb, as I did, you are in for a cool experience, powerful, personalized interactive art. Never had an experience quite like it before.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
U of Alberta researchers discover important mechanism for fighting infection. ITEM: Richard Lamb and his post doctoral fellow Virginie Mieulet, in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, may be able to explain why proper nutrition is so vital in fighting infection. They have discovered an amino acid, called arginine, is required to let the body know that it's being attacked by an infection.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
For the first time, researchers identify and isolate adult mammary stem cells in mice. ITEM: For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have identified and isolated adult mammary stem cells in mice. Long-term implications of this research may include the use of such cells to regenerate breast tissue, provide a better understanding of the role of adult stem cells in breast cancer development, and develop potential new targets for anti-cancer drugs.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Did China and the US just pull off the slickest web disinformation campaign of all time? When America's financial troubles began, Chinese officials soon began to squawk loudly about the safety of their multi-trillion dollar exposure. When the constant squawking suddenly stopped, some assumed that a secret deal had been reached between the US and Chinese governments to lesson China's dollar/debt exposure.

Soon thereafter the US Government formal acceptance responsibility for the massive debt load of Fannie and Freddie, a large chunk of which was held by China.

Then a funny thing began to happen. China went on a wild, worldwide buying spree. Snapping up mines and farms and funding the development of new mines and farms all over the planet with tens of billions of dollars. Not just buying commodities producers, but also buying and upgrading railroads and ports to ship the commodities back home. Often these would be handled through offshore corporations in places like the Cayman Islands, so that the China-connection remained unknown.

The world's financial press has recently begun to catch on to this, but no one has yet connected all of the dots to determine the full magnitude of their recent investments of surplus dollars into commodities investments.

Certainly the magnitude of dollars spent on these investments far exceeds the number of Treasury Bond the Chinese claim to have redeemed lately. Could a US/China deal exist under which the Fed might have secretly redeeming a much larger amount of Treasury bonds?

If so, at some point, a cover story would be needed to explain the discrepancy in China's bond holdings.

Now rumors are circulating that China has lost $430 billion of its Treasury bond holding in some sort of hedge that went wrong. The man the rumors blame is People’s Bank of China (PBC) Gov. Zhou Xiaochua. Has poor old Zhou been selected to take a bullet to cover up the secret dollar redemption necessary to pay for China's massive commodities spending binge?

He sure seems like the perfect fall guy, since rumors have circulated several times before about his being involved in previous Chinese financial scandals.

With the world's politicos all in full national security mode for the duration of the world's financial crisis. All important decision about economic policy are being made within the realm of National Security Councils, where covert ops are the preferred modus operandi.

As long as that continues to be the case, there is just no telling what sort of covert operations could be underway to prop up America's dollar, debt and markets.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Researchers find a way to stop colon cancer by activating an anti-cancer gene. ITEM: Researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health Sciences have succeeded in decoding the genetic key that gives particular intestinal cells their identity. With this knowledge of the complex network of genes the researchers now hope to stop colon cancer by activating special anti-cancer genes.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
MIT researchers develop a better way to grow stem cells. ITEM: MIT chemical engineers, materials scientists and biologists have devised a synthetic surface that includes no foreign animal material and allows stem cells to stay alive and continue reproducing themselves for at least three months. It's also the first synthetic material that allows single cells to form colonies of identical cells, which is necessary to identify cells with desired traits and has been difficult to achieve with existing materials.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Researchers advance understanding of enzyme that regulates DNA. Item: Thanks to a single-molecule imaging technique developed by a University of Illinois professor, researchers have revealed the mechanisms of PcrA helicase, an important DNA-regulating enzyme. To prevent unwanted recombination of a damaged or degraded section of DNA, the enzyme binds at the point of the break, where the double- and single-stranded regions meet. Then, it uses its motor function to 'reel in' the tail, like a fisherman pulling in a rope, knocking off recombination proteins along the way.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Building a cloud computing platform out of Smart Phones. Item: Turning an entire paradigm on its head, an international group of researchers has figured out how to implement cloud computing's most widely-used algorithm, one that's usually deployed in giant, hugely-powerful server farms, on a couple of dozen cell phones.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Breakthrough gene therapy prevents retinal degeneration Item: A study from researchers at Tufts University demonstrates that nonviral gene therapy can delay the onset of some forms of eye disease and preserve vision. The team developed nanoparticles to deliver therapeutic genes to the retina and found that treated mice temporarily retained more eyesight than controls. The study brings researchers closer to a nonviral gene therapy treatment for degenerative eye disorders.

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
Using bone marrow stem cells to treat critically ill patients on verge of respiratory failure. Item: Researchers are reporting new evidence of the therapeutic potential of stem cells derived from bone marrow for patients suffering from acute lung injury, one of the most common causes of respiratory failure in intensive care units. "We found that these stem cells secreted a significant quantity of a protein that restored the barrier that keeps fluid and other elements out of the lungs," said Jae W. Lee at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco. "We're optimistic about the promise that future clinical trials may hold."

8/30/2010 PERMALINK
UCLA scientists map all mammalian gene interactions. Item: In one of the first efforts of its kind, UCLA researchers have taken mammalian genome maps, including human maps, one step further by showing not just the order in which genes fall in the genome but which genes actually interact. The findings will help researchers better understand which genes work together and shed light on how they collaborate to help cells thrive or die.

8/29/2010 PERMALINK
First genetic link to common migraine discovered. Item: Researchers have found the first ever genetic risk factor associated with common types of migraine. The team found that patients with the DNA variant have a significantly greater risk for developing migraine and suggest that an accumulation of a chemical known as glutamate in nerve cell junctions in the brain may play a key role in the initiation of migraine attacks. The research opens the door for new studies into migraine in humans. "Although we knew that the EAAT2 gene has a crucial role to play in neurological processes in human and potentially in the development of migraine, until now, no genetic link has been identified to suggest that glutamate accumulation in the brain could play a role in common migraine," says co-senior author of the study Professor Christian Kubisch of University of Ulm, Germany.

8/29/2010 PERMALINK
Study points to key genetic driver of severe allergic asthma. Item: Scientists have identified a genetic basis for determining the severity of allergic asthma in experimental models of the disease. The study may help in the search for future therapeutic strategies to fight a growing medical problem that currently lacks effective treatments, researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report in the Aug. 29 Nature Immunology.

8/29/2010 PERMALINK
Neuronal diversity makes a difference, says Carnegie Mellon study. Item: Much like snowflakes, no two neurons are exactly alike. But it's not the size or shape that sets one neuron apart from another, it's the way it responds to incoming stimuli. Carnegie Mellon University researchers have discovered that this diversity is critical to overall brain function and essential in how neurons process complex stimuli and code information. The researchers have published their findings, the first to examine the function of neuron diversity, online in Nature Neuroscience.

8/26/2010 PERMALINK
Attention couch potatoes: walking 40 minutes 3 times per week will boost your brain connectivity and function. A group of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professional couch potatoes who also happen to be researchers have proven that even moderate exercise, walking at one's own pace for 40 minutes three times a week, can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits, combat declines in brain function associated with aging and increase performance on cognitive tasks. The study followed 65 adults, aged 59 to 80, who joined a walking group or stretching and toning group for a year. All of the participants were sedentary before the study, reporting less than two episodes of physical activity lasting 30 minutes or more in the previous six months. The researchers also measured brain activity in 32 younger (18- to 35-year-old) adults. Rather than focusing on specific brain structures, the study looked at activity in brain regions that function together as networks.

8/25/2010 PERMALINK
Biosynthetic corneas formulated with recombinant collagen restore lost vision and nerve growth in humans. FibroGen Inc. has announced results of a two-year clinical study demonstrating that surgical implantation of biosynthetic corneas, formulated with the company's proprietary recombinant human type III collagen (rhCIII), restored vision and promoted nerve regeneration (restoring sensitivity) in patients who had corneal damage and significant vision loss.

8/25/2010 PERMALINK
Plant scientists move closer to making any crop drought-tolerant. A collaborative team of scientists has made a significant advance on the breakthrough discovery last year by the University of California, Riverside's Sean Cutler of pyrabactin, a synthetic molecule that mimics a naturally produced stress hormone in plants to help them cope with drought conditions. Reporting that they have a clearer understanding of how pyrabactin works, the scientists say other more effective molecules for bringing drought-resistance to plants can now be developed. (Playing around with the stress response in both plants and animals appears to be capable of producing some extremely interesting results, including extended lifespans. -- Editor)

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
Eating berries activates your brain's natural housekeeper for removing dementia-causing toxic proteins. Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston have found evidence that eating blueberries, strawberries, and acai berries can help your brain stay healthy as you age in a critical, previously unrecognized way. The study concluded that berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain's natural housekeeper mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline. Shibu Poulose, Ph.D., who presented the report, said previous research suggested that one factor involved in aging is a steady decline in the body's ability to protect itself against inflammation and oxidative damage. This leaves people vulnerable to degenerative brain diseases, heart disease, cancer, and other age-related disorders. 'The good news is that natural compounds called polyphenolics found in fruits, vegetables and nuts have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect that may protect against age-associated decline,' said Poulose.

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
200-fold boost in fuel cell efficiency can bring practical personalized energy systems say researchers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers say they have a major new breakthrough that will make personal energy systems practical. Soon, say researchers, you will be able to make all of your own energy for heating, cooling and powering your vehicles. The breakthrough is the discovery of a powerful new catalyst, 200 times more efficient than existing catalysts, which will let solar energy production systems turn daytime production into hydrogen to provide power at night. 'Our goal is to make each home its own power station,' said study leader Daniel Nocera, Ph.D. 'We're working toward development of personalized energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed inexpensively.'

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
Vitamin D found to influence the function of over 200 of your genes, deficiency increase your risk for numerous diseases. New research from the University of Oxford shows the extent to which vitamin D interacts with your DNA. They used new DNA sequencing technology to create a map of vitamin D receptor binding across the genome. The vitamin D receptor is a protein activated by vitamin D, which attaches itself to DNA and thus influences what proteins are made from your genetic code. The extent to which vitamin D deficiency may increase susceptibility to a wide range of diseases is dramatically highlighted in this new research. Scientists have mapped the points at which vitamin D interacts with our DNA – and identified over two hundred genes that it directly influences. It is estimated that one billion people worldwide do not have sufficient vitamin D. This deficiency is thought to be largely due to insufficient exposure to the sun and in some cases to poor diet. Vitamin D deficiency increase your susceptibility to autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, as well as certain cancers, rickets and even dementia.

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
Engineering a reshaping of your gut microbiome could soon become a path to better health and longer life. Scientists from University Hospital Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (Barcelona, Spain), the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO), and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) have analyzed the long-term effects of gut bacterial transplantation in rats, revealing crucial insight that can aid efforts to maintain good health. A healthy human body contains at least tenfold more bacteria cells than human cells. The most abundant and diverse microbial community resides in the intestine, and unhealthy changes to the gut microbiota have been linked to numerous diseases like ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. By sequencing and analyzing microbial DNA present in the feces of recipient rats, the group could identify bacteria present and monitor changes in microbial diversity induced by the donor microbiota. Surprisingly, they found that not only could gut microbial diversity be successfully reshaped to resemble that of the donor, but that these changes are long-term, persisting three months after transplantation

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
So what do I make, a reader asks, of the big in/de-flation debate among economists.. The great in/de-flation debate is just an unimportant distraction. It is purely a matter of definition. Some don't include dropping real estate prices, regarding real estate as more of an investment, while others insist this should be included. Included, deflationary, excluded, inflationary, so what? I don't grok the extreme significance here, that makes it worth such seemingly endless debate.
The metric that matters is confidence in the US debt and dollar. As long as that hold out, we will have a world economic system. When that fails, we won't, and it will be necessary to build a new one from scratch.
As the world's politicos are as fine a collection of scum and villainy as has ever been assembled. A faith-based monetary system that substitutes for a guarantee of gold redemption, a politico's promise to be frugal with your money, seems an obvious folly. How to get that corrected is what we should all be thinking about, instead of whether the money in our pocket has 1% less or more buying power than it did yesterday.

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
Engineering the blood vessels around them to prolong the life of cyborg implants. Researchers at the University of Louisville / Jewish Hospital's Cardiovascular Innovation Institute have found a way to engineer a unique system of blood vessels to interact with the tissue surrounding an implanted device, that can extend the longevity and enhance the function of these devices. 'One of the biggest problems with any kind of implanted device, such as pacemaker, a chemotherapy port or the glucose sensors necessary to monitor blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, is the body's natural reaction to recognize it as foreign and form a scar around it,' said Stuart Williams, PhD, scientific director of the CII and a senior investigator on the study. 'Scars have very little blood flow and because this connection between the body and the device is compromised, the function of the device over time can decline, threatening health and leading to additional interventions to replace it.'

8/23/2010 PERMALINK
Never have so many lost so much, to bail out the malinvestments of so few.

3rd Quarter GDP Likely Negative, Recession Never Ended. What is truly amazing is that despite all the fiscal, monetary, and bailout stimulus, the level of real economy activity, as per the M.A. monthly data, is still 2.5% below the prior peak. To put this fact into context, the entire peak to trough contraction in the 2001 recession was 1.3%! That is incredible.

Far lower interest rates, virtually zero, than ever before necessary before to inflate a new bubble before. An order of magnitude more stimulus than has ever been necessary to get a new bubble going before. An order of magnitude more government assumption of private risk and bad assets than has ever been necessary to inflate a new bubble before. Far more nationalization of private companies than the government has ever had to engage in before. And dwarfing all of the above, the initiation of a vast investor fraud, the first ever government-sanction accounting fraud. To cover up most of the losses that our nation's financial institutions have suffered, by forcing accountants to suspend their mark to market rules. Even with all they did do, they were still forced to hide the lion's share of the problem create by the Keynesian bubble economy.

Never have so many lost so much, to bail out the malinvestments of so few. And yet most of those malinvestments still remain hidden on the books of our nation's financial institutions.

We appear to be witnessing the final unraveling of the fatally flawed fiat money/credit expansion economic model.   The last remaining Keynesian bubble, sovereign debt, has been so severely weakened by the reliance on it in the failed attempt to re-inflate economy's other deflated bubbles, that it now appears as if it may have sprung a leak.

Our politicos have gone into full panic mode and booted the bubble maintenance problem up to the murky realm of the national security tricksters. These are the guys politicos turn to when they need some really big lies or especially dirty tricks to maintain their hold on political power. Once in national security mode, the most blatant lies and most perverse corruptions of our sacred principal that only laws and not men rule over us, become justified in the eyes of our politicos and their minions in the interests of 'national security.'

8/19/2010 PERMALINK
Human neural stem cells restore motor function in mice with chronic spinal cord injury. A University of California, Irvine study is the first to demonstrate that human neural stem cells can restore mobility in cases of chronic spinal cord injury, suggesting the prospect of treating a much broader population of patients. Previous breakthrough stem cell studies have focused on the acute, or early, phase of spinal cord injury, a period of up to a few weeks after the initial trauma when drug treatments can lead to some functional recovery. The UCI study, led by Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, is significant because the therapy can restore mobility during the later chronic phase, the period after spinal cord injury in which inflammation has stabilized and recovery has reached a plateau. There are no drug treatments to help restore function in such cases.

8/19/2010 PERMALINK
Restoring chemo or xray damaged bone marrow with stem cells doesn't fix other damage done by these procedures. A new study by City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, CA shows that although hematopoietic cell transplantation can cure many blood diseases, two-thirds of patients report developing at least one chronic health condition after the procedure. Overall, these patients were three and a half times more likely to develop a severe or life-threatening health condition, such as cardiovascular, endocrine, or musculoskeletal problems, as well as new cancers, as were their cancer-free siblings. 'Although hematopoietic cell transplants have helped thousands of patients survive cancer, the burden of chronic illnesses borne by these survivors is substantial,' said senior study author Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, professor and Ruth Ziegler Chair in Population Sciences. 'We hope the results of this study build awareness of the problem to help ensure a continued high quality of life among transplant survivors through life-long follow-up and proactive care.' It is estimated that more than 45,000 patients undergo HCTs each year to combat life-threatening diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. The procedure restores blood-forming cells in the patient's bone marrow that have been destroyed by anti-cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy. Although previous studies have shown that more than 70 percent of those who survive the first two years after HCT are expected to become long-term survivors, the elimination of the cancer has not always led to a full restoration of health. The high-intensity chemo and radiotherapies needed prior to transplantation can damage many organs and have a negative impact on the overall health of HCT survivors.

8/19/2010 PERMALINK
In regenerative med breakthrough, researchers reprogram one type of stem cell to generate another type of tissue. Scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the University of Edinburgh's Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine have reprogrammed stem cells from a key organ in the immune system into another type without the need for genetic modification. The development could provide a significant breakthrough for tissue regeneration. Researchers, who used rat models, grew stem cells from the thymus, an organ important for our immune systems, in the laboratory using conditions for growing hair follicle skin stem cells. When the cells were transplanted into developing skin, they were able to maintain skin and hair for more than a year. The transplanted follicles outperformed naturally-produced hair follicle stem cells, which are only able to heal and repair skin for three weeks. Once they were transplanted, the genetic markers of the cells changed to be more similar to those of hair follicle stem cells. The research, published in the journal Nature, shows that triggers from the surrounding environment, in this case from the skin, can reprogramme stem cells to become tissues they are not normally able to generate. 'These cells change because of the environment they come into contact with, the skin,' said Professor Yann Barrandon, Joint Chair of Stem Cell Dynamics at the Ecole Polytechnique who led the study. 'In theory this operation could be recreated with other organs as well.'

8/19/2010 PERMALINK
The breakdown of connections in your brain, slows your response times as you age. The new study by Rachael Seidler, associate professor in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology and Department of Psychology found that slower reactivity is associated with an age-related breakdown in the corpus callosum, a part of the brain that acts as a dam during one-sided motor activities to prevent unwanted connectivity, or cross-talk, between the two halves of the brain. At other times the corpus callosum acts at a bridge and cross-talk is helpful, such as in certain cognitive functions or two-sided motor skills.

8/19/2010 PERMALINK
Suppressing a newly discovered gene can lengthen lifespan. A team of University of Michigan scientists has found that suppressing a newly discovered gene lengthens the lifespan of roundworms. Scientists who study aging have long known that significantly restricting food intake makes animals live longer. But the goal is to find less drastic ways to achieve the same effect in humans someday. The U-M results offer promising early evidence that scientists may succeed at finding targets for drugs that someday could allow people to live longer, healthier lives. Scientists found that a gene, drr-2, is an important component in a key cellular pathway, the TOR nutrient-sensing pathway, where many scientists are looking for potential drug targets. The U-M scientists then found that when they caused the drr-2 gene to be under- or over-expressed, they could lengthen or shorten lifespan in C. elegans, a worm widely used in research. Manipulating the drr-2 gene's action produced the same effects as reducing or increasing caloric intake. "We showed that in C. elegans, drr-2 is one of the essential genes for the TOR pathway to modulate lifespan," says Ao-Lin Allen Hsu, Ph.D., the study's senior author and a scientist at the U-M Geriatrics Center. The study also found that drr-2 appears analogous to a human gene, eIF4H, that controls similar cell functions.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
Merlin protein found to control liver stem cells, prevent tumor development. A Massachusetts General Hospital research team had described finding that a protein called merlin, encoded by the NF2 gene, controls the activity of adult stem cells that give rise to the two major types of liver cells. The merlin protein, known to be involved in a rare hereditary cancer syndrome, may have a role in the regulation of liver stem cells and the development of liver cancer.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
Breakthrough technique for purifying human embryonic stem cells to obtain just the right cells for treatments. University of California in San Francisco researchers are reporting the first success in very rapidly purifying one type of embryonic stem cell from a mix of many different types of embryonic stem cells in the culture dish. The technique, which avoids the need to genetically alter the cells to distinguish them, is a key advance, the researchers say, for obtaining the appropriate cells for repairing specific damaged tissues.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
Researchers program 'smart' adult stem cells to repair damaged hearts. Mayo Clinic investigators work with Cardio3 Biosciences, Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium have demonstrated that rationally "guided" human adult stem cells can effectively heal, repair and regenerate damaged heart tissue. Stem cells isolated from patients have normally a limited capacity to repair the heart. This innovative technology boosts the regenerative benefit by programming adult stem cells to acquire a cardiac-like profile. Primed by a cocktail of recombinant cardiogenic growth factors, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) harvested from the bone marrow of a cohort of patients with coronary artery disease showed "superior functional and structural benefit without adverse side effects" over a 1-year follow-up in a model of heart failure according to the study. These findings provide proof-of-principle that "smart" adult stem cells have added benefit in repairing the heart, providing the foundation for further clinical evaluation," says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic researcher and senior investigator of the study. "The successful use of guided "lineage specified" human stem cells is based on natural cardiogenic cues" adds Atta Behfar, M.D., Ph.D. first author of the study. The pre-clinical data reported in this seminal paper have cleared the way for safety and feasibility trials in humans, which were recently conducted in Europe.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
New nanoscale DNA sequencing can revolutionize health care by personalizing every treatment. In experiments with potentially broad health care implications, a research team led by a University of Washington physicist has devised a method that works at a very small scale to sequence DNA quickly and relatively inexpensively. That could open the door for more effective individualized medicine, for example providing blueprints of genetic predispositions for specific conditions and diseases such as cancer, diabetes or addiction. 'The hope is that in 10 years people will have all their DNA sequenced, and this will lead to personalized, predictive medicine,' said Jens Gundlach, a UW physics professor and lead author of a paper describing the new technique.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
Scientists successfully use human induced pluripotent stem cells to treat Parkinson's in rodents. Researchers in the laboratory of Xianmin Zeng, Ph.D. at the Buck Institute for Age Research have successfully used human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to treat rodents afflicted with Parkinson's Disease (PD). The research, which validates a scalable protocol that the same group had previously developed, can be used to manufacture the type of neurons needed to treat the disease and paves the way for the use of iPSC's in various biomedical applications.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
A prototype silk biosensor could someday alert your autodoc when you are about to get sick. According to Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University, silk is a natural platform for medical implants--it's biocompatible, and while it's delicate and pliable, it's also tougher than Kevlar. Implanted in the body, silk can conform to any tissue surface, and, unlike conventional polymer-based implants, it could stay in place over a long period of time without adverse effects. Omenetto has previously taken advantage of these properties to mold silk into tiny chips and flexible meshes, pairing the material with transistors to track molecules, and with electrodes to monitor brain activity.

8/18/2010 PERMALINK
Study finds the gene that gives your brain the ability to learn and store memories. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators showed a gene named Prox1 is a key player in normal development of a brain structure crucial for learning and memory and remains active throughout life, nurturing the cells vital for making new memories. This study focused on a small region of the hippocampus known as the dentate gyrus, a brain structure needed for memory and learning that is home to the subgranular zone where the neural stem cells destined to become granule cells are housed. The dentate gyrus is one of two regions of the adult brain where neural stem cells continue to produce the precursor cells that ultimately differentiate into neurons. Researchers showed that by removing Prox1 at different stages of mouse development, the dentate gyrus fails to develop properly and that Prox1 remains important throughout mammalian life to ensure production of new granule cells, which are needed to form new memories.

8/17/2010 PERMALINK
Einstein scientist discovers stem cell 'partnership' that could advance regenerative medicine A study led by a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has revealed a unique 'partnership' between two types of bone marrow stem cells to enable tissue regeneration. The study was led by Paul Frenette, M.D., the new director of the Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research at Einstein. Dr. Frenette conducted the research while at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the bone marrow perform the vital task of producing all blood cells in the human body. The study revealed that HSCs pair up in the bone marrow with another type of stem cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells, which give rise to bone, cartilage, fat and other tissues. This pairing, the research shows, form a unique stem cell 'partnership' that could lead to advances in regenerative medicine.

8/16/2010 PERMALINK
Newly identified RNA sequence is key in microRNA processing. Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center have identified an RNA sequence that promotes increased numbers of specific microRNAs (miRNAs), molecules that regulate cell growth, development, and stress response. The discovery helps researchers understand the links between miRNA expression and disease. 'A growing body of evidence shows that abnormal expression of miRNAs can contribute to human diseases such as heart disease and cancer. A better understanding of how miRNAs are generated and how they regulate genes may provide important insights into the mechanisms of physiological disorders such as heart disease and cancer,' said senior author Akiko Hata, PhD, associate professor in the department of biochemistry and a member of the biochemistry and cell, molecular and developmental biology program faculties at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

8/16/2010 PERMALINK
Researchers engineer ultrasound devices so small they could be placed inside cells to perform intracellular ultrasonics. Scientists and Engineers at The University of Nottingham have built the world's smallest ultrasonic transducers capable of generating and detecting ultrasound. These revolutionary transducers, which are orders of magnitude smaller than current systems, are so tiny that up to 500 of the smallest ones could be placed across the width of one human hair. While at an early stage these devices offer a myriad of possibilities for imaging and measuring at scales a thousand times smaller than conventional ultrasonics. They can be made so small they could be placed inside cells to perform intracellular ultrasonics. They can produce ultrasound of such a high frequency that its wavelength is smaller than that of visible light. Theoretically they make it possible for ultrasonic images to take finer pictures than the most powerful optical microscopes.

8/11/2010 PERMALINK
Cops begin deploying automatic robo-license-plate-readers on their cars. Bot maker Motorola points out that officers can only manually check a small fraction of the license plates they see while on the beat, while their bot can check all of them. While testing Motorola's system, police in Long Beach, California were able to make 50 extra arrests, identify nearly 1,000 stolen or lost license plates and seize 275 stolen vehicles in just six months. The readers also alert cops to tags of those with outstanding traffic tickets, so they can be hauled off to jail and forced to pay up.

8/11/2010 PERMALINK
Scientists identify DNA mechanism that dictates your personal physical traits and disease risks. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scanned the human genome and discovered what they believe is the reason people have such a variety of physical traits and disease risks. The team identified a near complete catalog of the DNA segments that copy themselves, move around in, and insert themselves here and there in our genome. The insertion locations of these moveable segments, called transposons, in each individual's genome helps determine why some are short or tall, blond or brunette, and more likely or less likely to have cancer or heart disease.

8/11/2010 PERMALINK
Engineers perfect bot turret able to detect and shoot automatically.. Engineers offer a sneak peak at their project to create a terminator turret. Clip shows off the capabilities of our new Dynamixel/ArbotiX Microcontroller based pan/tilt units from Trossen Robotics. This one uses RX-64 Dynamixels, an electronic paintball gun, an ArbotiX, ArbotiX Bridge, ArbotiX Commander handheld controller, Xbee radios, and an electronic relay for firing. Next step, say the engineers, is improving their aiming code and working on autonomous tracking/firing via Roborealm Camera. Doing this kind of research is just plan evil.

8/11/2010 PERMALINK
Precog criminal though detection system can read your mind to see if you are planning a crime with near perfect accuracy. In a new study by researchers at Northwestern University, if specifics of a planned terrorist attack were know, P300 brain waves could be used to pick out those with guilty knowledge with 100 percent accuracy in the lab, said J. Peter Rosenfeld, professor of psychology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Using P300 brain wave measuring by electrodes attached to the scalp, researchers were able to pick out those subjects that had engaged in planning, but not carried out, crime. Even when the researchers had no advance details about the mock terrorism plans, the technology was still accurate in identifying critical concealed information. 'Without any prior knowledge of the planned crime in our mock terrorism scenarios, we were able to identify 10 out of 12 terrorists and, among them, 20 out of 30 crime-related details," Rosenfeld said. 'The test was 83 percent accurate in predicting concealed knowledge, suggesting that our complex protocol could identify future terrorist activity.'

8/10/2010 PERMALINK
Research team finds that human cells can copy RNA directly. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Helicos Biosciences Corp., Integromics Inc., and the University of Geneva Medical School have found that your cells can synthesizing RNA by copying RNA molecules directly. 'For the first time, we have evidence to support the hypothesis that human cells have the widespread ability to copy RNA as well as DNA,' said co-author Bino John, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Computational and Systems Biology, Pitt School of Medicine. 'These findings emphasize the complexity of human RNA populations and suggest the important role for single-molecule sequencing for accurate and comprehensive genetic profiling.'

8/10/2010 PERMALINK
Brain-on-a-chip designers create a new way to monitor the activity of your brain cells. The University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine scientists who proved it is possible to cultivate a network of brain cells that reconnect on a silicon chip, or the brain on a microchip, have now developed new technology that monitors brain cell activity at a greater resolution than previously achieved. 'This technical breakthrough means we can track subtle changes in brain activity at the level of ion channels and synaptic potentials,' said Naweed Syed, PhD, professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute.

8/08/2010 PERMALINK
In a significant advance, researchers for the first time induced regeneration of nerve connections after a spinal cord injury. A team of researchers from University of California Irvine and San Diego, along with Harvard University have turned back the developmental clock in a molecular pathway critical for the growth of corticospinal tract nerve connections. They did this by deleting an enzyme called PTEN (a phosphatase and tensin homolog), which controls a molecular pathway called mTOR that is a key regulator of cell growth. PTEN activity is low early during development, allowing cell proliferation. PTEN then turns on when growth is completed, inhibiting mTOR and precluding any ability to regenerate. "Until now, such robust nerve regeneration has been impossible in the spinal cord," said Oswald Steward, anatomy & neurobiology professor and director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine. "Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable, but our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people."

8/07/2010 PERMALINK
UCLA researchers discover protein that controls the power level and growth of your cells. Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles have uncovered a show a new role for a protein called polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPASE) in regulating the import of RNA into mitochondria, the 'power plant' of your cells. Reducing the expression of PNPASE decreased RNA import, which impaired the processing of mitochondrial genome-encoded RNAs. Reduced RNA processing inhibited the translation of proteins required to maintain the electron transport chain that handles oxygen to produce energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate, the energy currency of a cell. With reduced PNPASE, unprocessed mitochondrial RNAs accumulated, protein translation was inhibited and energy production was compromised, leading to stalled cell growth. "This discovery tells us that PNPASE regulates the energy producing function of mitochondria by mediating cytoplasmic RNA import," said Dr. Michael Teitell, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and co-senior author of the study. "The study yields new insight for how cells function at a very fundamental level. This information provides a potential new pathway to control mitochondrial energy production and possibly impact the growth of cells, including certain types of cancer cells."

8/06/2010 PERMALINK
Scientists have discover a new method for regenerating heart muscle by direct reprogramming cells. In the laboratory of Institute director Deepak Srivastava, M.D. at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, scientists have directly reprogrammed structural cells called fibroblasts in the heart to become beating heart cells called cardiomyocytes. In doing so, they also found the first evidence that unrelated adult cells can be reprogrammed from one cell type to another without having to go all the way back to a stem cell state.

8/06/2010 PERMALINK
Scientists have transfered a newts' ability to regenerate limbs into mouse cells. Tissue regeneration a la salamanders and newts seems like it should be the stuff of science fiction. But it happens routinely. Why can't we mammals just re-grow a limb or churn out a few new heart muscle cells as needed? New research suggests there might be a very good reason. Restricting our cells' ability to pop in and out of the cell cycle at will, a prerequisite for the cell division necessary to make new tissue, reduces the chances that they'll run amok and form potentially deadly cancers. Now scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a big step toward being able to confer this regenerative capacity on mammalian muscle cells. They accomplished this feat in experiments with laboratory mice in which they blocked the expression of just two tumor-suppressing proteins. The finding may move us closer to future regenerative therapies in humans — surprisingly, by sending us shimmying back down the evolutionary tree. 'Newts regenerate tissues very effectively,' said Helen Blau, PhD, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor and a member of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. 'In contrast, mammals are pathetic. We can regenerate our livers, and that's about it. Until now it's been a mystery as to how they do it.'

8/06/2010 PERMALINK
Why do we grow old and what can we do to stop it? This is the question we all want answered, but researchers are finding it a complex question to answer. New research published by Monash University researcher Dr Damian Dowling has found that a small set of genes in mitochondria (a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells), passed only from mothers to offspring, plays a more dynamic role in predicting life expectancies than ever previously anticipated. The research discovered that the particular mitochondrial haplotypes that confer long life in virgin females are not the same combinations that result in long life in females that mate once, or in females that mate many times. This suggests that a high degree of individualized genetic analysis and personalization of therapies could be required for effectively life extension.

8/06/2010 PERMALINK
Caloric restriction and exercise slow muscle decline in mice.
The connections between your nerves and muscle deteriorate with age, a phenomenon that may help explain the serious loss of muscle that often strikes older people. New research suggests that a very-low-calorie diet, and to a lesser extent exercise, can prevent or slow age-related muscle decline.

8/05/2010 PERMALINK
Researchers find gene regulating your susceptibility to chronic pain. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere have succeeded in identifying for the first time a gene associated with susceptibility to chronic pain caused by nerve injury in humans, signalling a significant step toward better understanding and treating of the condition.

8/05/2010 PERMALINK
Gene that determined the shape of your teeth found. No healthy teeth would form without the gene Jagged2. If during tooth formation (odontogenesis) the Jagged2 gene is inactivated, and hence the Notch signalling pathway interrupted, tooth crowns will be malformed and enamel will be lacking. Since this signalling pathway is involved in the formation of all tissues and organs, the new insights from the University of Zurich research team have wider implications.

8/05/2010 PERMALINK
Technique for producing large quantities of artificial blood sent to FDA for approval. A company called Arteriocyte has further developed research performed at Johns Hopkins University to mimic the function of bone marrow, where your red blood cells develop. Hematopoietic cells isolated from umbilical cord blood are cultured in an environment that provides them with all the nutrients and molecular signals they need to develop into red blood cells. Currently, it takes about 3 days to generate up to 20 units of transfusion-ready blood from a single unit of umbilical cord blood.

8/04/2010 PERMALINK
Biologists discover microRNAs that control function of blood stem cells. One key to fighting diseases such as leukemia and anemia is gaining an understanding of the genes and molecules that control the function of hematopoietic -- or blood -- stem cells, which provide the body with a constant supply of red and white blood cells and platelets. Biologists at California Institute of Technology have taken a large step toward that end, with the discovery of a novel group of molecules that are found in high concentrations within hematopoietic stem cells and appear to regulate their production.

8/04/2010 PERMALINK
The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it was awarded a $34.5 million contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years.

8/03/2010 PERMALINK
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: The War on Progress, Freedom, and Human Civilization. A clandestine international treaty is currently being negotiated among parties including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the European Union, Japan, Singapore, and Morocco. It can justly be called the greatest threat of our time to the advancement of human civilization. Considering the magnitude of the other abuses of power pervading the world today, this might seem an exaggeration, but the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) contravenes every principle of civilized society, both in its content and in the nature of the proceedings leading to its creation.

8/03/2010 PERMALINK
Research progresses in how to figure out what tissue a stem cell will become. Within 24 hours of culturing adult human stem cells on a new type of matrix, University of Michigan researchers were able to make predictions about how the cells would differentiate, or what type of tissue they would become. "We show, for the first time, that we can predict stem cell differentiation as early as Day 1," said Jianping Fu, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering who is the first author on the paper.

8/02/2010 PERMALINK
When memory-related region of your brain is damaged, other areas can compensate, new research finds. Many neuroscientists believe the loss of the brain region known as the amygdala would result in the brain's inability to form new memories with emotional content. New University of California, Los Angeles research indicates this is not so, and suggests that when one brain region is damaged, other brain regions can compensate.

8/02/2010 PERMALINK
Your brain can be taught to control cravings, researchers find. Standard therapeutic techniques decrease cravings of cigarette smokers by regulating activity in two separate but related areas of the brain, a new study led by a Yale University researcher shows.

8/02/2010 PERMALINK
Purified blood stem cells improve success of bone marrow transplants in mice, Stanford study shows Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have challenged decades of accepted wisdom about bone marrow transplantation with a new study showing that mice receiving purified blood stem cells are less prone to complications than mice receiving stem cells plus purified T cells.

8/02/2010 PERMALINK
Synthetic bone graft recruits stem cells for faster bone healing. Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have developed a material for bone grafts that could one day replace the 'gold standard' natural bone implants. A new study shows how particles of a ceramic called calcium phosphate have the ability to stimulate promising bone regrowth by attracting stem cells and 'growth factors' to promote healing and the integration of the grafted tissue. 'The rate of bone repair we see with these materials rivals that of traditional grafts using a patients' own bone,' said Professor Joost de Bruijn from the School of Engineering and Materials Science. 'And what sets it apart from other synthetic graft substitutes is its ability to attract stem cells and the body's natural growth factors, which coincide to form new, strong, natural bone around an artificial graft.'