A feel good story on 3D printers.
This lil’ kitty named Sonic is now bionic.
The black-and-white cat, who was surrendered to Denver Animal Shelter over three months ago, had been born with a leg deformity called radial agenesis, according to Meghan Hughes, communications director for Denver Environmental Health.
Because of the deformity, Sonic was forced to drag his leg on the ground to move, she told ABC News today.
German researchers on Wednesday presented a Trojan horse method of attacking cancer, sneaking virus impersonators into the human body to unleash an anti-tumour immune offensive.
Tested in only three people so far, the treatment claims to be the latest advance in immunotherapy, which aims to rouse the body’s own immune army against disease.
Made in the lab, this Trojan horse is composed of nanoparticles containing cancer RNA—a form of genetic coding—enclosed by a fatty acid membrane.
Scientists have successfully created mice with significantly longer telomeres than normal, resulting in a drop in molecular ageing, without using genetic manipulation.
Telomeres, which are found at the end of all animals’ chromosomes, are thought to be vital to ending ageing, as their shortening as we age is a key factor in cellular ageing and the onset of age-related disease. However, when they are lengthened beyond normal levels in mice, they have the precise opposite effect, protecting against ageing and related diseases, and increasing lifespan.
The mice, which are chimeras carrying both regular and “hyper-long” telomeres, were created using a technique based on epigenic changes, where embryonic stem cells are expanded in vitro, prompting changes to telomeres.
The cells with hyper-long telomeres in these mice appear to be perfectly functional. When the tissues were analysed at various moments (0, 1, 6 and 12 months of life), these cells maintained the additional length scale (they shortened over time but at a normal rhythm), accumulated less DNA damage and had a greater capacity to repair any damage. In addition, the animals presented a lower tumour incidence than normal mice.
These results show that pluripotent stem cells that carry hyper-long telomeres can give rise to organisms with telomeres that remain young at the molecular level for longer. According to the authors, this “proof of concept means that it is possible to generate adult tissue with longer telomeres in the absence of genetic modifications”.
The Telomeres and Telomerase Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), in collaboration with the Centre’s Transgenic Mice Core Unit, has succeeded in creating mice in the laboratory with hyper-long telomeres and with reduced molecular ageing, avoiding the use of what to date has been the standard method: genetic manipulation. This new technique based on epigenetic changes that is described today in the pages of Nature Communications, avoids the manipulation of genes in order to delay molecular ageing. The study also underlines the importance of this new strategy in generating embryonic stem cells and iPS cells with long telomeres for use in regenerative medicine.
Telomeres (the protective structures located at the ends of chromosomes) are essential to the stability of our genetic material and to maintain the “youthful state” of our cells and of our bodies. However, telomeres get shorter as we age. Once they reach a critical length, cells enter a state of senescence or die. This is one of the molecular causes of cellular ageing and of the emergence of ageing-related diseases.
ENJOY!!! 2045 A.D. Cybernetically enhanced beings are in control of society. A new genetic disease is making humans reject their own organs, forcing one man to steal cybernetic implants from others to survive. By director Nguyen-Anh Nguyen.
Temple is a concept for a feature film project, produced by the team of the Akira Project.
For media/financing enquiries contact: [email protected]
**Check out this class by Anh about indie filmmaking and how he made the Akira Project and Temple. http://skl.sh/anh
A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health.
According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians’ bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare.
The new single-payer system would be funded mostly by existing US government funding. The physicians point out that the US government already pays for two-thirds of all healthcare spending in the US, and a single-payer system would cut down on administrative costs, so a transition to a single-payer system would not require significant additional spending.
Italian neurosurgeon Dr. Sergio Canavero is firm on his promise to deliver the first human head transplant to the world. He says a Chinese man will be the first patient in 2017, and now all he needs is approval and funding. Other experts are highly skeptical.
Last year, Dr. Sergio Canavero created quite the ruckus (to put it mildly) when he vowed to be the first person to transplant a human head onto a deceased donor’s body. Yes, he is planning on attempting the world’s first human head transplant (or body transplant, depending on how you look at it).
In fact, it has been about a year since his initial proclamation, and the Italian neurosurgeon still stands firm on his declaration, despite claims from other experts that it is nothing but a PR Stunt (at best) or a hoax. Some have even hypothesized it’s all just a plot meant to promote Metal Gear Solid.
Imagine these fighter jets being equipped with the DARPA death laser that is being worked on. Very deadly mix.
The size of a matchstick, the stentrode can provide the “brain-machine interface” or BMI necessary for thought-controlled devices. Neural implants currently in use require invasive surgery.
Stentrodes can be attached to the brain using catheter angiography. This procedure passes the device through blood vessels in the neck and into the brain without cutting open the skull.
Development of the minimally invasive stentrode is a key step in the widespread use of thought-controlled devices such as prosthetics and weapons.
