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POPSWorld First: Brain Tissues from Stem Cells
continues: "In regenerative therapy, only a limited number of diseases can be cured with simple cell transplants. Transplanting tissues could raise hopes for greater functional recovery," the institute said in a statement. "Cultivated tissues are still insufficient and too small to be used to treat stroke patients. But study of in-vitro cultivation of more mature cortex tissues, such as those with six zones like in the adult human brain, will be stepped up," it said. The tissues could also serve as "a mini organ" for use in studying the cause of the Alzheimer's disease and developing vaccines, it said. Embryonic stem cells are harvested by destroying a viable embryo, a process that some people find unacceptable. Riken said cortex tissues were also obtained from "induced pluripotent stem cells," which are similar to embryonic stem cells but artificially induced, typically from adult cells such as skin cells. The research was led by Yoshiki Sasai at Riken Centre for Devel
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POPSDo we get wiser with age? "Is age a prerequisite for wisdom, though? We all know a few elderly people who lack wisdom, while we may know few young people that have wisdom in spades. People certainly aren't always at peak brainpower in old age; after all, when wrinkles begin appearing on the face, it usually means that wrinkles have started disappearing on the brain. The brain shrinks slightly with age, and aging leads to a normal decline in cognitive function that may eventually bloom into dementias such as Alzheimer's disease".
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POPSPalin and the fruit fly or just plain ignorance
One might have thought that Sarah Palin would take a more active interest in one aspect of scientific research. Palin's youngest son has Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. Although a geneticist by training, I am certainly no expert on the pathogenesis of this condition, nor the significance of Drosophila research into Down's syndrome. So, I typed "drosophila trisomy 21" into PubMed, the scholarly biomedical equivalent of Google. There were 109 results, the most recent published just the day before Palin's gaffe. The concluding sentence of that study — about the genetic cues that steer nerve fibres around during the growth of the fruit fly — suggests that the paper will "have implications for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome". These two are drops in the ocean of fruit fly research that have clinical relevance. Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, autism, diabetes, ageing research, cancers of all types
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POPSHeavy Metals, Mercury Amalgams, Detox The A.D.A. has been in denial about this problem for many years. If you do due diligent research, the evidence is too great to ignore any more.Mercury as well as other metals do not belong in your body, especially your mouth!
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POPSWhat Myriad's Split Means For Gene Diagnostics Myriad's up 7% on news that it's going to split its drug development business from its gene diagnostics business, creating two independent public companies. You'd think that gene-based drugs and gene-based diagnostic tests would be a match made in heaven, right? But so far most companies seem to get hitched to one approach or the other. And it's not really so hard to figure out why. Creating a test and creating a drug both involve huge outlays of expense, and much of the science and regulatory expertise doesn't overlap. Also, having a big success in either field is as rare and difficult as capturing lightning in a bottle. So when you hit a home run in one business, as Myriad has in diagnostics, it is pretty tough to keep it shackled to an effort that is still trying to find its footing, like Myriad's drug development business after the failure of Alzheimer's drug Flurizan.
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POPSThey Wanna Know "In exchange for the decoding of their DNA, participants agree to make it available to all — along with photographs, their disease histories, allergies, medications, ethnic backgrounds and a trove of other traits, called phenotypes, from food preferences to television viewing habits." The project has drawn criticism from scientists and bioethicists who caution that even its highly educated volunteers cannot understand the practical and psychological risks of disclosing information long regarded as quintessentially private."
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POPSArtificial memory storage this is amazing. if it works it can be used not only for the sick, why not having an external hard drive to store memories, and new information, or to download some existing one, making space to newer? sounds intriguing, and yes it woulkd change human identity. But hey, why not?
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POPSInternet Searching May Boost Brain Over 50's can celebrate something - those of us who battle against wrong learnings to understand and operate these machines. Your brains are on fire. Relax and enjoy.
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POPS"Miracle Cure For Alzheimer's Disease?" continues: The new study documents a dramatic and unprecedented therapeutic effect in an Alzheimer's patient: improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF. Etanercept is FDA approved to treat a number of immune-mediated disorders and is used off label in the study. Griffin and Mark are pioneers in the field of neuroinflammation. Griffin published a landmark study in 1989 describing the association of cytokine overexpression in the brain and Alzheimer's disease. "It is unprecedented that we can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention," said Griffin. "It is imperative that the medical and scientific communities immediately undertake to further investigate and characterize the physiologic mechanisms involved. This gives all of us in Alzheimer's research a tre
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POPS Brain's Hub of Fear Found The results of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Yerkes Center, are detailed in the October issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. The genetically engineered virus was injected into the amygdala of the mice by Emory graduate student Kimberly Maguschak. The amygdala is a part of the brain thought to be important for forming memories of emotionally charged events. "We found that after beta-catenin is taken out, the mice can still learn to fear the shocks," Maguschak said. "But two days later, their fear doesn't seem to be retained because they spend half as much time freezing in response to the tone." So it appears that beta-catenin is turned on in the amygdala to help in signaling during the learning process, Maguschak said.
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POPSElderly man with Alzheimer's MISSING Please contact Scottsdale Police if you have any information about John Vowells: Phone: (480) 312-3111 Fax: (480) 312-2888 7447 E. Indian School Rd Scottsdale, AZ 85251 Please help find John Vowells!
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POPSOld Man Yells at Clouds - Again In a performance reminiscent of Ronald Reagan in his later years as Alzheimer's was taking hold, McCain appears to confuse Spain and Mexico. Or maybe it's just the case of his talking points getting garbled.
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