Biosingularity

Source: Fat cell, TEM.

A 3D printer-created lower jaw has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman’s face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind. The transplant was carried out in June in the Netherlands, but is only now being publicised. The implant was made out of titanium powder – heated and fused together by a [...]

In June 2006 pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis began selling a new weight-loss drug called rimonabant in Europe. Rimonabant worked in part by reducing appetite, and the company claimed it could also treat addiction, harmful cholesterol, and diabetes. Lab tests even suggested the drug produced healthier sperm. But within six months, the company had received more than [...]

WITH the nation’s economy in poor health, the congressional “super” committee appointed to propose areas for cuts to reduce the national deficit offered the promise of a cure. But when it ended deliberations without a proposal, it provided instead a bitter pill — $1.2 trillion in mandatory across-the-board cuts, half from defense and half from [...]

It sounds too good to be true but new research says having dessert – along with the traditional fry up – burns off the pounds. Morning is the best time to consume sweets because that’s when the body’s metabolism is most active – and we have the rest of the day to work off the [...]

Last month, a 114-year-old former schoolteacher from Georgia named Besse Cooper became the world’s oldest living person. Her predecessor, Brazil’s Maria Gomes Valentim, was 114 when she died. So was the oldest living person before her, and the one before her. In fact, eight of the last nine “world’s oldest” titleholders were 114 when they [...]

Anyone who has felt the pressure of a weeklong sinus infection won’t be happy to hear it, but a study finds that a commonly prescribed medicine doesn’t clear up such attacks any better than the body does on its own. The findings, in the Feb. 15 Journal of the American Medical Association, don’t apply to [...]

While many of us wonder just how much exercise we really need in order to gain health and fitness, a group of scientists in Canada are turning that issue on its head and asking, how little exercise do we need? The emerging and engaging answer appears to be, a lot less than most of us [...]

Organisms that live at the frigid poles of our planet have evolved strategies to withstand temperatures that would kill most species instantly. Some secrete ice-nucleating substances that control the freezing process, for example, while others accumulate anti-freeze proteins that allow their cells to remain unfrozen even at subzero temperatures, a phenomenon known as supercooling. Now, [...]

About 15 years ago, MIT professors Robert Langer and Michael Cima had the idea to develop a programmable, wirelessly controlled microchip that would deliver drugs after implantation in a patient’s body. This week, the MIT researchers and scientists from MicroCHIPS Inc. reported that they have successfully used such a chip to administer daily doses of [...]

In a small clean room tucked into the back of San Diego–based startup Organovo, Chirag Khatiwala is building a thin layer of human skeletal muscle. He inserts a cartridge of specially prepared muscle cells into a 3-D printer, which then deposits them in uniform, closely spaced lines in a petri dish. This arrangement allows the [...]

Insects cover our planet. Filed into 750,000 different species, at any given time there are one million trillion bugs buzzing around the globe. About 14,000 of those species are blood-feeders, meaning they drink their meals by puncturing the skin of vertebrates, including humans. Besides being a nuisance, blood-feeding insects, such as certain strains of mosquitoes, [...]

A club drug called “Special K” is generating a lot of buzz among researchers who study depression. That’s because “Special K,” which is actually an FDA-approved anesthetic named ketamine, can relieve even suicidal depression in a matter of hours. And it works on many patients who haven’t responded to current antidepressants like Prozac. Those traditional [...]

Bacteria don’t normally take photographs. Nor do they attack tumor cells or produce chemicals. But with some help from biological engineer Chris Voigt, they can do all that and more. Voigt, who joined MIT’s faculty in July as an associate professor of biological engineering, likes to tinker with bacteria and other microbes to get them [...]

For decades, scientists have looked for explanations as to why certain conditions occur with age, among them memory loss, slower reaction time, insomnia and even depression. They have scrupulously investigated such suspects as high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and an inactive lifestyle. Now a fascinating body of research supports a largely unrecognized culprit: the aging [...]

It was an ice age squirrel’s treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. [...]

At last, a member of the celebrated sirtuin family of proteins has been shown to extend lifespan in mammals — although it’s not the one that has received the most attention and financial investment. Sirtuin genes and the proteins they encode have intrigued many researchers who study ageing ever since they were first linked to [...]

Back in 2000, when Larry Smarr left his job as head of a celebrated supercomputer center in Illinois to start a new institute at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, he rarely paid attention to his bathroom scale. He regularly drank Coke, added sugar to his coffee, and enjoyed [...]

Curcumin, an active component of the Indian curry spice turmeric, may help slow down tumor growth in castration-resistant prostate cancer patients on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), a study from researchers at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center suggests. Reporting in a recent issue of Cancer Research, Karen Knudsen, Ph.D., a Professor of Cancer Biology, Urology and Radiation [...]

Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. The findings, published February 3 in Cell, may help scientists develop new therapies for neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and [...]

In a blinded clinical trial, neither the patient nor the clinician should know who is receiving placebo and who the active drug. But during a trial of Kalydeco (ivacaftor), a cystic-fibrosis treatment approved by the US Food and Drug Administration on 31 January, Drucy Borowitz says it was sometimes easy to tell the difference. “We had [...]

A nearly 13-year-old skin cancer drug rapidly alleviates molecular signs of Alzheimer’s disease and improves brain function, according to the results of a new mouse study being hailed as extremely promising. Early-stage human clinical trials could begin within months. In the study, published online in today in Science, researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland [...]

UC Davis researchers, with colleagues at the USDA Western Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif., assessed tumor size in mice fed different diets for 9, 18 and 24 weeks. They found that the mice that consumed the human equivalent of 2.4 ounces of whole walnuts daily, gained weight at the same rate as mice fed a [...]

Testosterone makes us overvalue our own opinions at the expense of cooperation, research from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) has found. The findings may have implications for how group decisions are affected by dominant individuals. Problem solving in groups can provide benefits over individual decisions as we are able [...]

New study finds potential link between daily consumption of diet soft drinks and risk of vascular events Individuals who drink diet soft drinks on a daily basis may be at increased risk of suffering vascular events such as stroke, heart attack, and vascular death. This is according to a new study by Hannah Gardener and [...]

A new method for rating the attractiveness of a compound could help chemists discern potential new drugs from duds. Researchers have come up with a way to quantify a compound’s drug potential that moves beyond simply “hot or not,” instead providing a measure that allows compounds to be ranked as well. The approach “takes things [...]

Stressed yeast cells frantically reshuffle their chromosomes in a desperate last bid to find a combination that survives. This “panic” response enables them to rapidly evolve resistance to drugs. The discovery might also apply to cancer, because cancer cells often have abnormal numbers and arrangements of chromosomes. Understanding one of the mechanisms by which cancers [...]

Federal regulators Monday approved the first drug for people with advanced forms of basal cell carcinoma, the most common kind of skin cancer, as well as the most common cancer in general in the United States. The drug, made by South San Francisco’s Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, is designed for [...]

Mouse skin cells can be converted directly into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is an extension of a previous study by the same group showing that mouse and human skin cells can be directly converted into functional neurons. [...]

In studies that observe the brain in action, the right hemisphere seems to be the sexy hemisphere. It lights up during orgasm—so much so that, in one study, much of the cortex went dark, leaving the right prefrontal cortex as a bright island. New research suggests the right hemisphere is also hyperactive amongst the “hypersexual,” [...]

For years, the open science movement has sought to light a fire about the “closed” journal-publication system. In the last few weeks their efforts seemed to have ignited a broader flame, driven mainly, it seems, by the revelation that one of the most resented publishers, Elsevier, was backing the Research Works Act — some tomfoolery [...]

Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called “synapses”. But how do these synapses stay strong and keep memories alive for decades? Neuroscientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies: Hardy, self-copying clusters or oligomers of a synapse protein are an [...]

Stressed yeast cells frantically reshuffle their chromosomes in a desperate last bid to find a combination that survives. This “panic” response enables them to rapidly evolve resistance to drugs. The discovery might also apply to cancer, because cancer cells often have abnormal numbers and arrangements of chromosomes. Understanding one of the mechanisms by which cancers [...]

Mice don’t have tails on their backs, and their ribs don’t grow from lumbar vertebrae. And for a good reason. EPFL scientists have discovered the mechanism that determines the shape that many animals take – including humans, blue whales, and insects. Why don’t our arms grow from the middle of our bodies? The question isn’t [...]

Scientists working at the Medical Research Council have identified changes in the patterns of sugar molecules that line pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus, a condition called Barrett’s dysplasia, making it much easier to detect and remove these cells before they develop into esophageal cancer. These findings, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, have important implications [...]

Researchers Find Unique Protein Organization In Arteries Associated with Cardiovascular Disease. Knowledge could assist in tissue replacements, treatments for high blood pressure and diabetes. ..Human arteries – some smaller than a strand of hair – stiffen as a person ages. This stiffening is a factor in cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the [...]

Have you ever wondered what a virus sounds like? Or what noise a bacterium makes when it moves between hosts? If the answer is yes, you may soon get your chance to find out, thanks to the development of the world’s tiniest ear. The “nano-ear,” a microscopic particle of gold trapped by a laser beam, [...]

The compound—delta-12-protaglandin J3, or D12-PGJ3—targeted and killed the stem cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML, in mice, says Sandeep Prabhu, associate professor of immunology and molecular toxicology at Penn State. The compound is produced from EPA—Eicosapentaenoic Acid—an omega-3 fatty acid found in fish and in fish oil. “Research in the past on fatty acids [...]

Anyone who’s passed basic biology knows that we get one copy of a gene from our mother, a second from our father. But few people realize that not all of these genes end up being treated equally. Imprinted genes are expressed from only the maternal or paternal allele, rather than both. And, when this process [...]

A mysterious bony growth found in elephants’ feet is actually a sixth “toe”, scientists report. For more than 300 years, the structure has puzzled researchers, but this study suggests that it helps to support elephants’ colossal weight. Fossils reveal that this “pre-digit” evolved about 40 million years ago, at a point when early elephants became [...]

The computer assisted design (CAD) tools that made it possible to fabricate integrated circuits with millions of transistors may soon be coming to the biological sciences. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed CAD-type models and simulations for RNA molecules that make it possible to engineer biological components [...]

Do we finally have a miracle weight loss drug? I mean, for real this time? The data seems to support such a claim, at least for overweight monkeys that simply can’t drop those extra pounds no matter what they try. After receiving the drug for just four weeks, the monkeys lost between 7 and 15 [...]

Simulating How Proteins Self-Assemble, Or Fold – YouTube.