teknia micro news

2007 stem cell breakthrough is like turning lead into gold

Quote: ""This is truly the Holy Grail: To be able to take a few cells from a patient -- say a cheek swab or few skin cells -- and turn them into stem cells in the laboratory," said Robert Lanza, a stem cell pioneer at Advanced Cell Technology."

Link: AFP

CHICAGO (AFP) — It was the kind of breakthrough scientists had dreamed of for decades and its promise to help cure disease appears to be fast on the way to being realized.

Researchers in November announced they were able to turn the clock back on skin cells and transform them into stem cells, the mutable building blocks of organs and tissues.

Then just earlier this month a different team announced it had cured sickle cell anemia in mice using stem cells derived from adult mouse skin.

"This is truly the Holy Grail: To be able to take a few cells from a patient -- say a cheek swab or few skin cells -- and turn them into stem cells in the laboratory," said Robert Lanza, a stem cell pioneer at Advanced Cell Technology.

"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone - the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," he told AFP.

"It's bit like learning how to turn lead into gold."

Cogitating monkeys can calculate statistics

Link: New Scientist

Cogitating monkeys can calculate statistics
03 June 2007  NewScientist.com news service     * Bob Holmes

Rhesus monkeys turn out to be pretty good statisticians, a study reveals. They can accurately assess which of two behaviours is more likely to bring them a reward by summing together a series of probabilistic clues. And their reasoning is reflected in the firing rate of individual neurons in their brain. Tianming Yang and Michael Shadlen at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Washington in Seattle, US, tested the reasoning of two rhesus macaques by showing them a series of abstract shapes on a video screen.

Save My Bananas Please

Interesting article at the Popular Science Magazine website about bananas and pending doom for 'the perfect' fruit as we know it...

PopSci.com Article Link:

Can This Fruit Be Saved? By Dan Koeppel | June 2005
The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. For scientists, the battle to resuscitate the world’s favorite fruit has begun—a race against time that just may be too late to win.

“A Banana,” says Juan Fernando Aguilar, “is not just a banana.” The bearded botanist and I are traipsing through one of the world’s most unusual banana plantations, moving down row after row of towering plants and ducking into the shade of broad leaves in an attempt to avoid the Central American midday heat. In an area about the size of a U.S. shopping mall, Aguilar, 46, is growing more than 300 banana varieties. Most commercial growing facilities handle just a single banana type—the one we Americans slice into our morning cereal.

18 Tricks to Teach Your Body

Link: Men's Health Online

Soothe a burn, cure a toothache, clear a stuffed nose...

By: Kate Dailey, Photographs by: Michael Cogliantry, Illustrations by: Headcase Design & Zohar Lazar - Posted on 10/24/2005

1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear!

When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, but you're more discriminating. Take that tickle in your throat; it's not worth gagging over. Here's a better way to scratch your itch: "When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm," says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. "This spasm relieves the tickle."