1/27/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers find a way to reverse the aging process of the immune system. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered a way to reverse the aging process by removing old B lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell in the vertebrate immune system) from old mice, and forcing the production of young, potent cells to replace them.

1/25/2011 PERMALINK
Is Homeland Security secretly preparing for a dollar collapse? Is the Department of Homeland Security, through its FEMA unit, getting read to feed all of their department's essential personnel for a year in the chaos following a US dollar collapse? Perhaps so, since they just put out a request for 140 million of the military's MREs (meals ready to eat). The bid specifies that:

1/13/2011 PERMALINK
The microbes in your gut regulate genes that control obesity and inflammation. If you are looking to lose weight in the coming year, the bacteria in your gut can help. That's because scientists have discovered that the bacteria living in your intestines plays a far more significant role in weight loss and gastrointestinal problems than ever imagined. Richard Kellermayer, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Section of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston has shown that a deficiency of Toll-like receptor 2 (Tlr2), used by mammals (including humans) to recognize resident microbes in the intestines, leads to changes in gut bacteria that resemble those of lean animals and humans.

1/13/2011 PERMALINK
'Longevity' protein SIRT1 may ward off precursor to prostate cancer. Researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson and two other institutions have discovered new evidence that suggests the 'longevity' protein SIRT1, known for its life-spanning effects in different species, can inhibit the development of a known precursor to prostate cancer, prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia.

1/13/2011 PERMALINK
The modENCODE project is a massive ongoing effort to map all the elements in organisms that affect whether genes are silenced or expressed. The modENCODE project is a part of the burgeoning new field of epigenetics. One researcher described it as an effort 'to put flesh on the bones' of the Human Genome Project. A full understanding of the mechanisms involved will give us the ability to switch on and off our gene expression to maintain health and retard or reverse the aging process.

1/12/2011 PERMALINK
In a major breakthrough a way has been found to grow blood vessels wthin lab-grown tissues. Researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have broken one of the major roadblocks on the path to growing transplantable tissue in the lab have found a way to also grow the necessary blood vessels and capillaries needed to keep the tissues alive.

1/12/2011 PERMALINK
Scientists believe that measles viruses can be modded to target and attack only tumor cells. A new discovery about the process by which measles invades cells has brought the dream of transforming the virus into a weapon against cancer one step closer to reality. A research team including scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the Mayo Clinic have produced a detailed picture of the intricate molecular mechanism that measles virus uses to attach to and enter the cells it infects. The key players are two proteins that form the spherical envelope surrounding the genetic material of the measles virus. One is an attachment protein that binds to receptor molecules on the outer membrane of a host cell, and the other is a fusion protein that merges the viral envelope with the cell membrane, enabling the virus to infect the cell.

1/12/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers say they can eliminate your tinnitus by re-tuning your brain. Brain scientists at UT-Dallas have found a way to rebooting the brain to stop the ringing of tinnitus in rats. The researchers were able to eliminate tinnitus in a group of rats by stimulating a nerve in the neck while simultaneously playing a variety of sound tones over an extended period of time. Similar to pressing a reset button in the brain, this new therapy was found to help retrain the part of the brain that interprets sound so that errant neurons reverted back to their original state and the ringing disappeared.

1/11/2011 PERMALINK
Lab on a chip research brings the autodoc closer to reality. A new device invented by a team of engineers and students at the University of Rhode Island uses just a pinprick of blood in a portable device that provides results in less than 30 minutes. "This development is a big step in point-of-care diagnostics, where testing can be performed in a clinic, in a doctor's office, or right at home," said Mohammad Faghri, URI professor of mechanical engineering and the lead researcher on the project. "No longer will patients have to wait anxiously for several days for their test results. They can have their blood tested when they walk into the doctor's office and the results will be ready before they leave." With the new lab-on-a-chip technology, a drop of blood is placed on a plastic polymer cartridge smaller than a credit card and inserted into a shoebox-sized biosensor containing a miniature spectrometer and piezoelectric micro-pump. The blood travels through the cartridge in tiny channels 500 microns wide to a detection site where it reacts with preloaded reagents enabling the sensor to detect certain biomarkers of disease.

1/11/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers help Pentagon build mind-controlled prosthetics reliable enough to last a lifetime. Badrinath "Badri" Roysam, chair of University of Houston's department of electrical and computer engineering, is leading a multi-institution team effort to identify the combination of factors that cause neural implants to fail. Neural implants can fail within six to eight weeks due to changes in the surround tissue. Roysam's team is seeking to eliminate this problem, creating neural implants that can last for a lifetime.

1/11/2011 PERMALINK
Why an 'independent' Federal Reserve is a bad meme that is destroying America's economy.

By independence, they are referring to the Fed's ability to greatly impact the economy with virtually no meaningful oversight. We only recently learned that the bankers at the Fed were able to use the latest financial crisis to bail out Wall Street cronies and foreign central banks with billions of dollars that were created and wasted, instead of appropriated and voted on by representatives of the people. The Fed and its supporters in Congress vehemently fought even this small bit of transparency and without this one-time provision in the financial reform act forcing disclosure, we would still not have this information. Indeed, we are in the dark on so much of what the Fed has done. This is extremely dangerous for our country, yet this power and secrecy is defended as some kind of public good, which is patently ridiculous.

The above is the application of a vitally important meme, best expressed in the following quote.
"We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert." - J. Robert Oppenheimer

1/11/2011 PERMALINK
The more you use humods techonologies, the more human you become. In an interesting talk at TED, anthropologist Amber Case explains why using humods technologies won't turn you into a borg, but will instead make you MORE human. More powerfully connecting you to your humanity than has ever been possible before.

1/11/2011 PERMALINK
Singapore scientists discover a way to switch off all your anxiety. Scientists from the A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, and the National University of Singapore have made a breakthrough into how anxiety is regulated in the vertebrate brain. The team of scientists, led by Dr Suresh Jesuthasan from the A*STAR/Duke-NUS NRP, showed that disrupting a specific set of neurons in the habenula prevents normal response to stressful situations. The dream of every battlefield commander comes true, the perfect cannon-fodder, troops with no fear.

1/10/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers say molecular medicine gene mods can prevent and reverse age-related vision loss. Dr. Richer is director of Ocular Preventive Medicine at the James A. Lovell Federal Health Facility says that his research shows that molecular medicine can avert vision loss due to aging. Age-related vision loss is predicted to rise from 17 million patients today to 55 million by the year 2050, it's possible this catastrophe can be averted and lost vision even restored using molecular medicine. "The human retina has tremendous regenerative capacity when molecular medicine is applied," says Dr. Richer. "We are just beginning to appreciate and document the value of small natural molecules that can pass through the blood-retinal barrier and influence the genetic machinery within living cells."

1/07/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers find that grape ingredient resveratrol increases beneficial fat hormone. In a study published this week, researchers at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio describe a novel way in which resveratrol achieves its lifespan extending health effects. Resveratrol, a compound in grapes, which displays antioxidant and other positive properties, also stimulates the expression of adiponectin, a hormone derived from cells that manufacture and store fat, the team found. Adiponectin has a wide range of beneficial effects on obesity-related medical complications, said senior author Feng Liu, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and member of the Barshop Institute of Longevity and Aging Studies at the Health Science Center.

1/06/2011 PERMALINK
Google begins to make Star Trek's Universal Translator a reality. By combining a high speed text translation bot with a text to speech/speech to text bot, Google ‘Conversation Mode’ is the realization of Star Trek's Universal Translator.

1/06/2011 PERMALINK
How mitochondrial signals extend lifespan. Add dialing down your mitochondria to your pro-longevity New Year's resolutions. It turns out that slowing the engines of these tiny cellular factories could extend your life-an observation relevant not only to aging research but to our understanding of how cells communicate with each another.

1/06/2011 PERMALINK
Stem cell discovery could lead to improved bone marrow transplants. Researchers at University of California Santa Cruz have identified a key molecule for establishing blood stem cells in their niche within the bone marrow. The findings may lead to improvements in the safety and efficiency of bone marrow transplants.

1/06/2011 PERMALINK
Diabetes Defeated by a Microchip? Silicon Pancreas To Treat London Patients in 2011. Pantelis Georgiou and Nick Oliver at ICL have developed a special blood glucose control chip that reacts to changes in sugar levels just like the cells in your body. The 'Silicon Pancreas' mimics the insulin controlling beta cells, as well as the glucagon controlling alpha cells, normally found in the healthy organ.

1/05/2011 PERMALINK
Biological joints could replace artificial joints soon, say researchers. A team of University of Missouri and Columbia University researchers have found a way to create these biological joints in animals, and they believe biological joint replacements for humans using the patient's own cells aren't far away. Artificial joint replacements can drastically change a patient's quality of life. Painful, arthritic knees, shoulders and hips can be replaced with state-of-the-art metal or ceramic implants, eliminating pain and giving a person a new lease on life. But, what if, instead of metal and plastic, doctors were able to take a patient's cells and grow an entirely new joint, replacing the old one with a fully functional biological joint? James Cook, a researcher in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and Dept of Orthopaedic Surgery participated on a research team that created new cartilage in animals using a biological "scaffold" in the animals' joints. The scaffold was implanted in rabbits with a surgical technique currently used for shoulder replacement in humans. The surgery removes the entire humeral head, or the ball part of the ball-and-socket shoulder joints. The scaffolds are infused with a growth factor, which encourages the host's own cells, including stem cells, to become cartilage and bone cells. The advantage to this technique is that it avoids the need to harvest and implant cells, which requires multiple surgeries.

1/04/2011 PERMALINK
Male pattern balding is a stem cell activation problem. Penn researchers used cell samples from men undergoing hair transplants to compared follicles from bald scalp and non-bald scalp. They found that bald areas had the same number of stem cells as normal scalp in the same person. However, they did find that another, more mature cell type called a progenitor cell was markedly depleted in the follicles of bald scalp.

1/03/2011 PERMALINK
The genes that determine your height discovered. Researchers from the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have complete a new meta-analysis of data from more than 100,000 people and identified novel variants in over two dozen genes associated with adult height. The study team's technique may be useful in discovering genes in complex human diseases.

1/03/2011 PERMALINK
For some unknown reason a major extinction event happens like clockwork every 27 million years. Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas and Richard Bambach at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC have brought together a massive set of extinction data from the last 500 million years, a period that is twice as long as anybody else has studied. And their analysis shows an excess of extinctions every 27 million years, with a confidence level of 99%. All of the suggestions for why this might be true have been ruled out by further researcher, so at this point, no one has a clue why this happens so regularly. Fortunately, the last extinction level event in the cycle was only 11 million years ago. So we should some time to figure this out and get ready for it. Yet another mechanism in our Verse that causes it to function as an intelligence generation engine.