BODY PARTS GROWN ON DEMAND WITH NO REJECTION FACTOR

At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Anthony Atala’s lab is the largest in the world “manufacturing” body parts. We’re not talking about prosthetics here, and not robotics – this is growing new, living organs – and they are yours – made up of identical tissue found in the rest of your body. Growing a finger from the ground up: layering cartilage, bone, then muscle. A beating, engineered heart valve that’s learning how to pump blood before it’s implanted. It’s regenerative medicine and the goal is to help the tens of thousands of people worldwide waiting for organ transplants. In Pittsburgh, Dr. Steven Badylak has discovered a compound that tricks the body into repairing itself, much like the body knows how to do when it’s in the womb. The U.S. military has invested $250 million in regenerative research aimed at helping soldiers with severe battle injuries, regrowing muscle and skin for burn injuries, as well as transplant technology for lost limbs.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Personal sensors creating “civilian scientists”

The way it is presently, most scientific data must be gathered by scientists, who have to go out in the field and set up sensors or other data recording devices. Within five years, however, a lot of that data could be gathered and transmitted by sensors in our phones, cars, wallets, computers, or just about anything else that is subjected to the real world. Such sensors could be used to create massive data groups used for everything from fighting global warming to tracking invasive species. IBM also sees custom scientific smartphone apps playing a part in “citizen science,” and has already launched an application called Creek Watch, that allows us citizens to update the local water authority on creek conditions.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Brain scans could steer career choices

IRVINE, Calif. (UPI) — Your talents and abilities could someday be revealed through a brain scan, possibly guiding your career choices, U.S. scientists say.

Neuroscientists at the University of California, Irvine, scanned 6,000 volunteers in an effort to build a brain “map” that could match particular areas to particular skills and knowledge, The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

While being scanned, volunteers performed cognitive tests to see if there was a connection between brain and aptitude, the newspaper said.

Researchers said the amount of gray matter, areas of the brain used for computations, and white matter, used for communication, and where they were positioned seemed to suggest how good someone would be at a number of tasks including arithmetic, learning and remembering facts and figures.

The results, though preliminary, suggest brain scans could eventually be used to help a person consider a career path, psychologist Professor Richard Haier said.

“A person’s pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses is related to their brain structure, so there is a possibility that brain scans could provide unique information that would be helpful for vocational choice,” he said.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood

Pressure, Research Finds

Science (June 28, 2010) — For people with hypertension, eating dark chocolate can significantly reduce blood pressure. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medicine combined the results of 15 studies into the effects of flavanols, the compounds in chocolate which cause dilation of blood vessels, on blood pressure.

Dr Karin Ried worked with a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, to conduct the analysis. She said, “Flavanols have been shown to increase the formation of endothelial nitric oxide, which promotes vasodilation and consequently may lower blood pressure. There have, however, been conflicting results as to the real-life effects of eating chocolate. We’ve found that consumption can significantly, albeit modestly, reduce blood pressure for people with high blood pressure but not for people with normal blood pressure.”

The pressure reduction seen in the combined results for people with hypertension, 5mm Hg systolic, may be clinically relevant — it is comparable to the known effects of 30 daily minutes of physical activity (4-9mm Hg) and could theoretically reduce the risk of a cardiovascular event by about 20% over five years.

The researchers are cautious, however, “The practicability of chocolate or cocoa drinks as long-term treatment is questionable,” said Dr Ried.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha

‘Computer Viruses gone to your head?’

Science (May 26, 2010) — A scientist at the University of Reading has become the first person in the world to be infected by a computer virus.

Dr Mark Gasson, from the School of Systems Engineering, contaminated a computer chip which had been inserted into his hand as part of research into human enhancement and the potential risks of implantable devices.

These results could have huge implications for implantable computing technologies used medically to improve health, such as heart pacemakers and cochlear implants, and as new applications are found to enhance healthy humans.

Dr Gasson says that as the technology behind these implants develops, they become more vulnerable to computer viruses.

“Our research shows that implantable technology has developed to the point where implants are capable of communicating, storing and manipulating data,” he said. “They are essentially mini computers. This means that, like mainstream computers, they can be infected by viruses and the technology will need to keep pace with this so that implants, including medical devices, can be safely used in the future.”

Dr Gasson will present his results next month at the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society in Australia, which he is also chairing.

A high-end Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip was implanted into Dr Gasson’s left hand last year. Less sophisticated RFID technology is used in shop security tags to prevent theft and to identify missing pets.

The chip has allowed him secure access to his University building and his mobile phone. It has also enabled him to be tracked and profiled. Once infected, the chip corrupted the main system used to communicate with it. Should other devices have been connected to the system, the virus would have been passed on.

Dr Gasson said: “By infecting my own implant with a computer virus we have demonstrated how advanced these technologies are becoming and also had a glimpse at the problems of tomorrow.

“Much like people with medical implants, after a year of having the implant, I very much feel that it is part of my body. While it is exciting to be the first person to become infected by a computer virus in this way, I found it a surprisingly violating experience because the implant is so intimately connected to me but the situation is potentially out of my control.

“I believe it is necessary to acknowledge that our next evolutionary step may well mean that we all become part machine as we look to enhance ourselves. Indeed we may find that there are significant social pressures to have implantable technologies, either because it becomes as much of a social norm as say mobile phones, or because we’ll be disadvantaged if we do not. However we must be mindful of the new threats this step brings.”

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 28th May 2010

Researchers Reveal

Process of Making Ribs

ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2010) — Like all vertebrates, snakes, mice and humans have in common a skeleton made of segments, the vertebrae. But a snake has between 200-400 ribs extending from all vertebrae, from the neck to the tail-end, whereas mice have only 13 pairs of ribs, and humans have 12 pairs, in both cases making up the ribcage.

In the latest issue of Developmental Cell, researchers from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, in Portugal, reveal that, contrary to what was thought, making ribs is not the default state for vertebrates, but is actually an active process of balancing the activities of a remarkable class of genes — the Hox genes.

It was thought that the rib less region of the mouse embryo was the result of a rib-inhibiting programme, driven by Hox10 genes. Indeed, previous studies, in which Hox10 genes were inactivated in the embryo, generated mice with extra ribs. However, by forcing another class of Hox genes (Hox6) to be activated in future rib-less regions of the mouse embryo, Moises Mallo and his team bred mice that also have extra ribs, both in the neck area, and from just after the rib cage, all the way down to the tail, resembling a snake-like skeleton.

“It was an extraordinary, and clear-cut result,” says Mallo, “suggesting that these two groups of Hox genes balance each other out: one actively promotes rib formation to produce the thoracic region, while the other blocks this activity in the lumbar region. Our results have unveiled this balance.”

The researchers went on to unpick the genes involved in this process, and came up with yet another surprising finding: that the whole process relies on first hitting so-called muscle genes in the embryo, which then provide signals to switch on the ‘rib’ genes to make both ribs and muscle, in a coordinated process.

According to Mallo, “Our findings reveal a more complicated process than we would have imagined, but one that makes perfect sense, from a functional and evolutionary point of view: it is no good to make ribs without muscle, so, in the embryo, the production of both ribs and their associated muscles is under the control of a single and coordinated mechanism.”

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 29th April 2010