8/17/2011 PERMALINK
Existing drug found to rejuvenate the 'power plant' of your cells to youthful levels.. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found a protein normally involved in blood pressure regulation in a surprising place: tucked within the little 'power plants' of cells, the mitochondria. The quantity of this protein appears to decrease with age, but treating older mice with the blood pressure medication losartan can increase protein numbers to youthful levels, decreasing both blood pressure and cellular energy usage. The researchers say these findings point the way to new treatments for mitochondrial–specific age-related diseases like diabetes, hearing loss, frailty and Parkinson's disease.
'We've identified a functional and independently operated system that appears to influence energy regulation within the mitochondria,' explains Jeremy Walston, M.D., professor of geriatric medicine at Hopkins. 'This mitochondrial angiotensin system is activated by commonly utilized blood pressure medications, and influences both nitric oxide and energy production when signaled.'

8/17/2011 PERMALINK
Breakthrough eliminates a major risk associated with using stem cells to reverse effects of aging and disease. Chad Tang and colleagues at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine have found a way to prevent the application of stem cell therapies from causing tumors. An important risk in the clinical application of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells (hESCs and hiPSCs), is teratoma formation by residual undifferentiated cells. A teratoma is an encapsulated tumor with the wrong kind of tissues which may be quite different from surrounding tissues and may be highly disparate; teratomas have been reported to contain hair, teeth, bone and, very rarely, more complex organs such as eyes, hands, feet, or other limbs.
The scientists were able to raise a monoclonal antibody against hESCs, designated anti–stage-specific embryonic antigen (SSEA)-5, which binds a previously unidentified antigen highly and specifically expressed on hPSCs—the H type-1 glycan. Separation based on SSEA-5 expression through fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) greatly reduced teratoma-formation potential of heterogeneously differentiated cultures. To ensure complete removal of teratoma-forming cells, the researchers identified additional pluripotency surface markers (PSMs) exhibiting a large dynamic expression range during differentiation: CD9, CD30, CD50, CD90 and CD200. Immunohistochemistry studies of human fetal tissues and bioinformatics analysis of a microarray database revealed that concurrent expression of these markers is both common and specific to hPSCs. Immunodepletion with antibodies against SSEA-5 and two additional PSMs completely removed teratoma-formation potential from incompletely differentiated hESC cultures.

8/16/2011 PERMALINK
Wearware brain-computer interface. Research conducted by Professor Todd Coleman at the University of California, San Diego has demonstrated that a thin flexible, skin-like device, mounted with tiny electronic components, is capable of acquiring electrical signals from the brain and skeletal muscles and potentially transmitting the information wirelessly to an external computer. 'The development opens up a slew of previously unimaginable possibilities in the field of brain-machine interfaces well beyond biomedical applications,' said Professor Coleman of UCSD's Department of Bioengineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering. The new device eliminates the clunky, artificial coupling previously required by brain/computer interfaces and other types of body monitoring wearware. 'The brain-machine interface paradigm is very exciting and I think it need not be limited to thinking about prosthetics or people with some type of motor deficit,' said Coleman. 'You could evolve a very nice coupling that is remarkably natural and almost ubiquitous. That is what really fascinates me – really the coupling between the biological system and the computer system.'

8/15/2011 PERMALINK
Pushing up against the tipping point where starvation, unrest and instability on a scale never before seen will quickly become the new global norm. The Fed is desperately printing money to buy up the US Gov's debt to prevent interest rates from rising.

Much of this buying is open, but some of it is covert. The Fed is, for example, helping China to invisibly reduce its exposure to US Gov debt. They are doing this by pumping liquidity into American banks and pushing them to make massive loans to various entities controlled by China with China's US Gov debt as the only security for these loans.

The Chinese are then using these dollars to go on a massive worldwide buying spree. For the last two years they have been acquiring mines, farms, fisheries and other commodity producing assets all over the globe at a breakneck pace. These dollars are also funding the construction of the roads, railroad and port facilities necessary to get the output of their newly acquired commodity production assets out of the country of origin and back home to China.

Like a powerful billionaire, who discovers he's been fleeced by a Ponzi Scheme and goes to the operator threatening to expose the scam unless he gets his money back. The Chinese have managed to pressure Fed into secretly helping them convert their US debt holdings into a worldwide commodities empire.

So far, Americans have been spared most of the price inflation that would normally come with so much dollar printing. Other countries, desperate to keep on exporting to America, have ordered their Central Banks to print up lots of their own money and buy up all the Fed's surplus dollars that their exporters are accumulating. This has worked to shift much of the Fed's dollar inflation onto the backs of the citizens of the Developing World.

However, this game has a hard limit. The cost of food in the Developing World can only rise so much. The Fed's policy is now pushing up against a tipping point, past which, starvation, unrest and instability on a scale never before seen will quickly become the new global norm.

And the Fed is still pushing.

8/10/2011 PERMALINK
dsRNA breakthrough proves able to cure ANY type of viral infection. A team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection. Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
When viruses infect a cell, they take over its cellular machinery for their own purpose — that is, creating more copies of the virus. During this process, the viruses create long strings of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which is not found in human or other animal cells. As part of their natural defenses against viral infection, human cells have proteins that latch onto dsRNA, setting off a cascade of reactions that prevents the virus from replicating itself. However, many viruses can outsmart that system by blocking one of the steps further down the cascade.
The new compound works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. 'In theory, it should work against all viruses,' says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology. Rider had the idea to combine a dsRNA-binding protein with another protein that induces cells to undergo apoptosis (programmed cell suicide) — launched, for example, when a cell determines it is en route to becoming cancerous. Therefore, when one end of the DRACO binds to dsRNA, it signals the other end of the DRACO to initiate cell suicide.
The researchers have tested their drug against 15 viruses so far, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

8/10/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers use human cells to engineer functional anal sphincters in lab Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have built the first functional anal sphincters in the laboratory. Suggesting a potential future treatment for both the fecal and urinary incontinence that often develops with ageing. Made from muscle and nerve cells, the sphincters developed a blood supply and maintained function when implanted in mice. 'In essence, we have built a replacement sphincter that we hope can one day benefit human patients. This is the first bioengineered sphincter made with both muscle and nerve cells, making it 'pre-wired' for placement in the body,' said senior author Khalil N. Bitar, Ph.D., a professor of regenerative medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

8/06/2011 PERMALINK
Germany's top financial newspaper: "We are not far away from the abyss." The foreign response to the dollar downgrade by S&P has been scathing. Not just the tabloids, even the editorial in the Xinhua, the official party news agency in China, and Germany's top financial newspaper condemned the malfeasance in office of America's clueless politicos.

Here's a summary of what Xinhua said:

The recent downgrade of America’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s showed the need for America to cure its addiction to debts and to reestablish the common sense principle that one should live within its means. China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets.
The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered. The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.
Dagong Global’s initial downgrade last year was met then with a sense of arrogance and cynicism from some Western commentators. But now the Standard & Poor’s downgrade has proved what its Chinese counterpart has done is nothing but telling the global investors the ugly truth.
The fiscal problems in the U.S. make clear the necessity to begin the discussion over introducing a new global reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

Handelsblatt's top story was to quote the Chinese view of the downgrade. Then they concluded:

Because of the importance of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency and because the world economy already is suffering from the euro crisis. This could put the situation into a tailspin. Nevertheless, France's Economy Minister François Baroin does not worry about the U.S. economy. "France has a full confidence in the stability of the American economy," he said on Saturday. Baroin praised the U.S. government for their "decisive action" to get the debt under control and said that the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating should not be overestimated.

Handelsblatt normally is a very conservative newspaper, not in the habit of calling a minister's statement bull. But that is pretty much what they did above, which vividly illustrates just how far confidence in politicos and governments has fallen worldwide. None of them seem to have a clue.

The second story on Handelsblatt's front page was an analysis of the overall situation, with a giant headline summing it up:

"We are not far away from the abyss." The situation is so grim that conservative financial newspapers are now running tabloid headlines.  Because they've become true.

The extraordinarily expensive and deceptive measures that governments have undertaken to try to preserve an obviously flawed and failed status quo. Have left all of them so financially weak and has so utterly destroyed their credibility with their citizens and markets. That the end game of the world's current financial troubles could well unfold exactly like slipping on a high trail and plunging into the abyss.

8/04/2011 PERMALINK
Having the country in charge of the world's reserve currency degenerate into a kleptocratic, idiocracy certainly makes for interesting times. Wow, the Fed's massive money printing is really destabilizing the world's financial system now. Even those central banks that previously had the good sense to try to avoid screwing their own consumers by debasing their currencies in response to the Fed's insanity, have now thrown in the towel and started printing amazing amounts of their own money.

Every major central bank is now printing money to keep their currencies from rising in response to the Fed's massive debasement of the dollar. Central banks have also gone from gradual gold sellers to heavy gold buyers in the last two years. Obviously, I'm no longer the only person worried that the Fed's actions could precipitate a dollar hyperinflation, which might infect most, if not all, of the world's other fiat monies.

The dollar, euro, yen and pound all seem like a bunch of drunken sailors staggering down the dock trying to get back to their ship. If any one of them trips, they are all going down.

In the very short term, the outbreak of a major new battle in the ongoing worldwide currency war could prove positive for America consumers. Since it will export much of the inflationary effect of the Fed's dollar debasement scheme to other currencies.

Estimates I've seen of just how much money has been created worldwide in the last three years are simply stunning. And here we go, into yet another heavy round of retaliatory money printing.

The outbreak of a full blown currency war, certainly adds a lot of credence to my theory that a hyperinflation in the dollar is likely to trigger a domino effect that could destroy the buying power of most of the world other fiat currencies.

Yep! Having the country in charge of the world's reserve currency degenerate into a kleptocratic idiocracy, certainly does make for interesting times.

8/03/2011 PERMALINK
‪Why are our kids becoming like this kid? That was the question a friend recently emailed to me along with this YouTube clip.
It isn't by accident. It is by design.
Politicos get off on controlling other people's lives. The more they crave it, the more despotic they become. Politicos use three powerful techniques to fulfill their power fetish. 1. They try to make certain that every citizen is dependent on money or services that only government can provide them. 2. They design a system of laws so Byzantine that no one can go through life without constantly breaking laws. Leaving all citizens constantly subject to arbitrary arrest. 3. They requiring children to be put through tweleve years of brainwashing called 'public education.' Where they are indoctrinated into believing that they have lots of 'entitlements' guaranteed to them, at someone else's expense, by their beneficent politicos.
This system effectively converts freedom loving kids into lifelong slaves. Not happy slaves, but slaves who are none-the-less willing to cooperate with politicos in their own subjugation.
Children are never allowed to reach adulthood, assuming full responsibility for their own lives. Instead, their dependency on their parents is replaced by a dependency on the state. They are effectively controlled throughout their lives by never being allowed to grow up.
It is import to understand that from the point of view of a power hungry politico, the young man in this video isn't an aberration. He is the perfect citizen. Exactly the sort of citizen the system that our politicos have put into place was designed to produce.