10/29/2011 PERMALINK
Breakthrough cancer curing mod produced by open source research. Jay Bradner gives a TED talk explaining how his lab found a molecule named JQ1 that has the ability to mod cancer cells back into normal cells. Animal trials have been very successful. But instead of patenting JQ1 and keeping it secret, as a corporate pharma lab would routinely do. The researchers published their findings and mailed samples to 40 other labs to work on, to see if the open-source concept that runs the internet could work in medical research. The results vividly illustrated how much more powerful an open-source future for medical research will be, compared to the existing meme.  Other labs quickly found ways to apply this breakthrough to many other types of cancer.  Progress is happening at light speed, compared to the current old, tired proprietary research model.

10/26/2011 PERMALINK
Mod that can increase the strength of your brain synapses by 300%. Each of the brain’s 100 billion neurons forms thousands of connections with other neurons. These connections, known as synapses, allow cells to rapidly share information, coordinate their activities, and achieve learning and memory. With age your synapse connections tend to weaken. But MIT postdoc Peng Shi is on the path to a mod that not only might fix but could enhance the strength of your synapses by 300 percent.. The MIT researchers’ goal was to find HDAC inhibitors that specifically turn on genes that enhance synaptic connections. To determine which had the strongest effects, they measured the amount of a protein called synapsin found in the presynaptic neurons. Those tests yielded several HDAC inhibitors that strengthened synapses, with the best one improving synapse strength by 300 percent.

10/19/2011 PERMALINK
Worm offspring inherit longevity even without the modded genes of their parents. Worms given life-span-enhancing mutations produce offspring that lack the responsible genes but live longer anyway. The tiny soil-dwelling worms C. elegans, when given mutations that make them live longer, transmit that trait even when their progeny don't inherit the life-extending mutations. The findings present a modern-day version of Lamarckian inheritance, in which acquired characteristics can be passed to offspring without changes to the genetic code.

10/19/2011 PERMALINK
Political insanity replaces Silicon Valley as America's top growth industry. Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area. Ten of the nation's sixteen wealthiest counties are now those surrounding DC. When Silicon Valley, the source of the technological ingenuity that has driven nearly all of America's real growth and productivity increases for the last three decades, gets supplanted by our nation's capital as the center of wealth and high incomes, you can be sure that America's future will not be bright.

10/14/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers have created robotic/prosthetic muscles with 1,000 times more power than previously materials. The researchers show that the new yarn can spin an paddle 1,800 times heavier than itself at 590 revolutions per minute. They demonstrate how a simple device based on this concept could be used to mix two liquids on a microfluidics chip; in a fluid mixer, a 15-micrometer-wide yarn rotated a paddle that was 200 times wider and 80 times heavier than itself at up to one rotation per second. Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, led the work.

10/07/2011 PERMALINK
New project gets under way to allow your brain to directly control a robotic body. Leading research centers around the world have announce a new international consortium called The Walk Again Project for scientific collaboration to develop and implement the first Brain Machine Interface (BMI) capable of restoring full mobility to patients suffering from a severe degree of paralysis. This lofty goal will be achieved by building a neuroprosthetic device that uses a BMI as its core, allowing the patients to capture and use their own voluntary brain activity to control the movements of a full-body prosthetic device. This “wearable robot,” also known as an “exoskeleton,” will be designed to sustain and carry the patient’s body according to his or her mental will. Hopefully, they will decide to make all the results open source.

10/07/2011 PERMALINK
By adding just 3 genes to a mature liver cells, scientist turn them into a functional neurons. Fully mature liver cells from laboratory mice have been transformed directly into functional neurons by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The switch was accomplished with the introduction of just three genes and did not require the cells to first enter a pluripotent state. It is the first time that cells have been shown to leapfrog from one fundamentally different tissue type to another. The accomplishment extends previous research by the same group, which showed in 2009 that it is possible to directly transform mouse fibroblasts, or skin cells, into neurons. “These liver cells unambiguously cross tissue-type boundaries to become fully functional neural cells,” said Marius Wernig, MD, PhD assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “Even more surprising, these cells also simultaneously silence their liver-gene expression profile. They are not hybrids; they are completely switching their identities.” The cells make the change without first becoming a pluripotent type of stem cell — a step long thought to be required for cells to acquire new identities.

10/07/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers design a molecule that can eliminate all allergies without side effects. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame have announced a breakthrough approach to allergy treatment that inhibits food allergies, drug allergies and asthmatic reactions without suppressing a sufferer’s entire immunological system. The therapy centers on a special molecule the researchers designed, a heterobivalent ligand (HBL), which when introduced into a person’s bloodstream can, in essence, out-compete allergens like egg or peanut proteins in their race to attach to mast cells, a type of white blood cell that is the source of type-I hypersensitivity (that is, allergy). “Unlike most current treatments, this approach prevents allergic reactions from occurring in the first place,” says Basar Bilgicer, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and chemistry and biochemistry and principal investigator in Notre Dame’s Advanced Diagnostics & Therapeutics initiative.

10/05/2011 PERMALINK
Steve Jobs -- 1955-2011 Insanely great. So what were the memes that made the man? Here is a truly excellent list: 12 lessons for us all from the life of Steve Jobs

10/03/2011 PERMALINK
Direct neuron/machine data transmission achieved by embedded nano magnets in neuron-controlling ion channels. University at Buffalo scientists have used magnetic nanoparticles to remotely control ion channels, neurons in cell culture and even the movement of a tiny worm. "Our early understanding about the brain's functional regions came from patients who showed changes in their behavior after losing a part of their brain to traumatic brain injury or a tumor," said Arnd Pralle, the assistant professor of physics who is leading the new UB study. "The ability to now reversibly turn individual cells off or on and to observe the animal's behavior brings us finally to the level of the actual neurological circuit, which is extremely exciting."