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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2733

Aug 26, 2015

This guy is running for president with the goal of using science to cure death and aging

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, geopolitics, life extension, transhumanism

A new story on transhumanism from Tech Insider which is Business Insider’s new tech site:


This presidential candidate wants you to live forever.

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Aug 25, 2015

Modifiable Risk Factors For Alzheimer’s

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

After a wide analysis of evidence, researchers have come up with a number of factors that appear to have the strongest influence on the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Nearly 17,000 studies, released from 1968 to 2014, were scrutinized and 323 were chosen — covering 93 different risk factors. After collecting the data and grading factors according to their impact strength, researchers came up with a number that had a Grade 1 impact.

So what are they?

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Aug 24, 2015

Scientists Get One Step Closer to a Universal Flu Vaccine

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Two new studies bring us closer to a flu vaccine that works every year.

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Aug 23, 2015

The Future Of Health: Stem Cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension

Stem cells are a daily feature of science news nowadays and related fields are creating an astonishing array of advancements within regenerative medicine. Unfortunately unlesss you have a scientific background the differences between types can be terribly confusing. We are here to help.

The term stem cell can encompass:

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Aug 22, 2015

Rise Of The Organoids: Miniature Human Brain Most Complete To Date

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension, neuroscience

As regenerative medicine expands, our ability to engineer organs is growing with it. Researchers can now grow a number of so called ‘organoids’ — mini-organs which can teach us more about developmental biology and enable vastly improved testing. In the latest addition to the bunch, a team from Ohio State University has successfully engineered the most complete model yet of a human brain, with a similar maturity to a 5 week old fetus.

Containing 99% of the genes present in the human fetal brain, and about the size of an eraser, the organoid was developed from transformed adult human skin. This method could allow more ethical and precise clinical trials, both speeding up and enabling more rigorous, personalized testing. As animal testing frequently fails to predict varied human responses, these organoid models offer an alternative approach which could revolutionize clinical trial methodology.

“It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain. We’ve struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering. The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.”

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Aug 22, 2015

The Longevity Reporter: The Weekly Newsletter on Aging (22nd August, 2015)

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension

Checkout the latest Longevity Reporter Newsletter (22nd August, 2015), covering this week’s top news in health, aging, longevity.

This week: An Entire Nervous System Captured On Film; 10 Enduring Health Myths, Debunked By Science; Peto’s Paradox: Why Don’t Larger Animals Get Cancer More Often?; Antioxidants: Separating Myth From Reality; And more.

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Aug 22, 2015

Alzheimer’s Disease: Is It Time To Look Beyond Amyloid?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

While billions have now been spent on researching dementia in its various forms, progress is still limited and the underlying triggers are still not clear. The majority of research over the past 30 years has revolved around targeting the amyloid plaques that build up in the disease, but this has resulted in limited success. Is it time to focus resources on other hypotheses instead?

The real problem with tackling these conditions is the sheer complexity of the brain and biology. Research is usually a trial and error process filled with intelligent guesswork, but this means it can often take a great deal of time to establish what’s actually going wrong. The cause or effect conundrum is a significant roadblock in research and working out which aspects drive a disease and which are a result of another malfunction can take serious resources and time. When researchers first began analysing Alzheimer’s patients, perhaps the most obvious feature was the now famous amyloid plaque, but while amyloid may seem like a clear culprit because it’s so clearly out of place, it could easily be a smokescreen; the reason why it appears at all may be far more relevant than the plaque itself.

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Aug 20, 2015

Have scientists at Harvard and MIT found a cure for obesity?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Snipping out bad DNA code could prevent or even cure obesity in those people with a faulty gene, say scientists from two top US universities.

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Aug 20, 2015

This narcolepsy ‘smart drug’ makes ordinary people smarter

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

A medication called modafinil is commonly used to treat people who experience narcolepsy, but it’s suspected that the vast majority of those who use the drug are taking it for another purpose that isn’t medically authorised: as a general cognitive enhancer for tasks such as studying or meeting a deadline.

Now a comprehensive review of the medication has looked at this ‘off licence’ use of the drug by healthy, non-sleep-deprived subjects to determine whether modafinil is safe – and to confirm whether the belief that it acts as a general-purpose ‘smart drug’ is grounded in reality.

According to researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK and Harvard Medical School in the US, modafinil delivers on both counts, constituting what’s thought to be the first safe smart drug that can provide demonstrable cognitive and concentration benefits. Brainpower in a pill, in other words.

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Aug 20, 2015

Cancer breakthrough: MRI scanners can rid body of cancerous tumours, scientists claim

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

SCIENTISTS have discovered MRI scanners, often used to diagnose cancer, can actually help combat the disease and with less side effects than some current treatments.

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