Swamp Thing and Plant Communication
Maybe I’m dating myself here, but ever see the swamp thing movie, television show, or even the comic? Call me picky, after all we are talking about a human/plant hybrid, but he never needed to talk. I know, some of you are probably rolling your eyes at me given it’s a comic, movie or tv show [depending on your level of geek], but come on, this is science!
Bringing the Fight to hidden HIV
We’ve got even more news for the HIV cure front. Yesterday we talked about broadly neutralizing antibodies, today we are going to be touching on that yet again,so if you missed it, you can read more about that here. Now, although HIV can now be effectively suppressed using anti-retroviral drugs, it still comes surging back the moment the flow of drugs is stopped. We sadly saw this delayed response in an infant that was thought to be effectively “cured” of HIV. It is unfortunate, but latent reservoirs of HIV-infected cells, invisible to the body’s immune system and unreachable by pharmaceuticals, ensure that the infection will rebound after therapy is terminated. This is a big reason that, even when the viral load drops below detection, you still need constant check ups and continuous anti-retrovirals.
HIV Vaccine One Step Closer to Reality
The war on HIV, that tricky little guy has avoided every thing we could throw at it in a broad sense. Sure a few people here and there get lucky, but we have yet to actually make any sort of we’re going to kick your ass headway [don’t worry it’s the technical term for it]. That is hopefully going to change with a new scientific discovery that has enormous implications for HIV vaccine development. Researchers have uncovered novel properties of special HIV antibodies that promise to help eliminate HIV.
Treatment and Prevention of PTSD
It’s no secret for anyone who follows me that I am a Marine veteran. It’s also no secret for anyone who follows me that I’ve had my own ups and downs in life because of my experiences. PTSD is a nightmare, one that you can’t quite shake no matter how hard you try. Then again, not everyone reacts the same way to the trauma that typically causes PTSD, not everyone walks away from war with it. The big question that scientists set out to answer was, why? And now they might just have an answer.
New Hope for Autoimmune Diseases
Autoimmune diseases are on the rise. Since I have a history of over sharing, my Uncle suffered from a form of lupus. It caused him intense and — in my opinion — unbearable pain although he shouldered it like the incredible man he was and never complained. My sister unfortunately is suffering from a rare disease that has yet to be diagnosed, which in my opinion has autoimmune dysfunction as the root cause. If you or anyone you know suffers in a similar fashion then you know that the treatments for such things are, expensive, moderately effective at best, and are overall inadequate.
The Self Assembling Brain
Let’s face it, if the brain were a lego set I would still be staring at the box wondering what I got myself into. So I guess we can just chalk that one up to yet another thing the body can do than I can. When the brain is just developing, special proteins that act like a sort of molecular tugboat. These proteins push or pull on the growing nerve cells, or neurons, helping them organize and placing them in their assigned places amidst the brain’s wiring. Doing a better job organizing all those cells than I ever did organizing my sock drawer.
Nerve Regeneration: Everyone does it, but you
Dogs do it, frogs do it, and even whales do it! No, this isn’t everyone poops. I’m talking about regrowing nerves after an injury and sadly, we don’t do it… yet. Now, thanks to a small molecule that may be able to convince damaged nerves to not just grow, but effectively rewire circuits, that all could change. Such breakthrough could eventually lead to therapies for the thousands of Americans with severe spinal cord injuries and paralysis.
Possible treatment and Prevention for Parkinson’s
From the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research — you can donate by clicking the link.
Parkinson’s disease affects neurons in a particular brain region, when it develops brain cells have their mitochondrial activity cease and then the cells die. But now researchers have shown that supplying D-lactate or glycolate [two products of the gene DJ-1] can stop and even counteract this process, a huge step forward to finding a cure or even a way to prevent parkinson’s.
A New Hepatitis C Treatment offers Hope
Well this might seem weird, but today is world hepatitis day. I guess I should qualify weird with the fact that it’s only weird because no one really knows. What better day than to share some new news coming out of labs regarding the fight against hepatitis and what news it is! Researchers have cured 93 percent of patients with Hepatitis C in 12 weeks. Better still was well tolerated by patients. But that isn’t the only surprise so read on and find out!
Antiretrovirals and Pregnancy Risk
Don’t drink when you are pregnant, we all know that you aren’t supposed to do that. We also know you shouldn’t smoke, use drugs, and should talk to your Doctor about what medications you are taking while pregnant. So then what about when your husband is HIV positive and you want to get pregnant, are antiretrovirals safe to be using while a woman is pregnant? As it turns out, there is no real research on it, and the answer might be a little harder to get at.
Unraveling the Connections of the Brain
Yes it’s a brain hat, and yes I do want one!!
The brain is complex, heck if it wasn’t then we wouldn’t be smart enough to figure out how it works. I guess it’s one of those stupid catch-22 type things. Still, little is known about how the brain forms connections and the process that is behind all that. Thankfully new research provides an important glimpse into the processes that establish connections between nerve cells in the brain. These connections [also known as synapses] allow nerve cells to transmit and process information involved in thinking and moving the body. Sounds simple enough, but the formation is quite complex.
Infant once thought Cured of HIV tests Positive
I hate doing sad posts, it’s not my thing. But this is a big deal so I thought I would share it, the child known as the “Mississippi baby” — whom for those of you who don’t know is an infant whom had been treated directly after birth and was cured of HIV which was reported as a case study of a prolonged remission of HIV infection in The New England Journal of Medicine last fall — now has detectable levels of HIV. Even after more than two years of not taking antiretroviral therapy without evidence of virus, according to the pediatric HIV specialist and researchers involved in the case.
Antioxidants can Accelerate Cancer, ya really!
Oh rly?
Oxidative stress on the body caused by free radicals, billed as a bad thing. Fruits, veggies and just about anything with the word healthy in the title is “jam packed” with antioxidants. But they don’t provide the health benefit the are billed to have, that’s because oxidative stress isn’t a bad thing for the body in some cases. Now researchers have shown that antioxidants can accelerate cancer and we also know why.
Breast Cancer… and Cholesterol?!
Cholesterol, it’s bad for the heart. We know LDL bad, HDL good, eat healthier or ruin your arteries. I’m sure most of us have seen the public service announcements [at least here in the states]. But if that wasn’t a good enough reason for people to watch their cholesterol then how about cancer?An association between high blood cholesterol and breast cancer has been found in a study of more than 1 million patients over a 14 year time period in the UK.
Anti-aging drug has a Catch… but not for Long
Dietary restriction holds the key to longevity. It’s no secret that as you drastically reduce calories, your metabolism will slow down with it [ask anyone who’s tried to crash diet about that one]. Science has been trying to crack that egg for awhile now and because of that, it is the most researched method for slowing down the aging process. That was why researchers were so excited to find that a drug — rapamycin — appears to mimic that anti-aging effect.
Rapamycin, an antibiotic and immunosuppressant approved for medical use about 15 years ago, has drawn extensive interest for its apparent ability — at least in laboratory animal tests — to emulate the ability of dietary restriction in helping animals to live both longer and healthier. If the name sounds familiar that is because rapamycin is primarily used as an immunosuppressant — to help prevent rejection — specifically for people who have had organ transplants.
New Obesity drugs: Coming Soon to a Store Near You!
Afraid to go into public because you think those double doors might be a little narrow for you? Are you pretty sure you have feet, even though you haven’t seen them for awhile now? Did you recently find something you think may have been a twinkie at one point in your folds? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then science might be able to help.
Believe it or not weight gain is complex –or at least the biological aspect of it– for example hormones control our appetite and even the uptake of food. In recent years, science has taken on the seemingly insurmountable quest of investigating these physiological functions and finding a medical way to fight the ever growing obesity epidemic.
[Creepy] Plasmids and Antibiotic Resistance
If the title didn’t give it away, plasmids are creepy. For those of you who are confused by that statement let’s cover what a plasmid is exactly. Plasmids are very short circular pieces of DNA that are like little virus’. What makes the little buggers creepy is that they aren’t technically living, but possess all the qualities that would make you think otherwise.
Weight Loss Science Fact: Odd but True
Okay boys and girls, time to grab those love handles and hold on tight, because it’s another round of weight loss science fact. With a little luck [and a little reading] you won’t be holding them for long. With that let’s just jump right in, for those who are not in “the know” there are two types of fat: white adipose tissue and brown adipose tissue. The normal person’s body will preferentially choose white adipose tissue over brown. I’ll let you guess which one is the better of the two.
Coaxing Stem Cells: Where is that manual…
Breaking news: Stem cells don’t come with user manuals. That may be a little daunting for those of us who remember the VCR with its blinking 12:00 that you could never seem to get rid of. But thanks to some persistent scientists, the secrets of stem cells are finally coming out and a new discovery just helped solve a huge piece of the puzzle. All this thanks to a new technique that coaxes stem cells [which can become any cell in the body] to take the first step to specialization.
No pain, no [weight] gain?!
Pain is… well a pain. As it turns out pain does more than just hurt. A study just released shows that chronic pain not only lowers life expectancy, but can also slow the metabolism.
Tearing down the [Blood Brain Barrier] Wall
The blood brain barrier, it can be very picky about who [or what] can come in.
The blood-brain barrier helps that finicky brain of yours maintain the delicate environment that it needs to thrive. There’s just one problem: The barrier is so good at what it does, it won’t let medicines pass through. Like most things with the brain, we don’t know enough about it to control it for our benefit.
Cheaper, Cleaner Biofuel: A Temporary Fix to a Big Problem
Algae, the other, other biofuel
Biofuels seem to be all the rage these days, not a bad thing since that whole global warming thing [that people are scared to admit is real] is going on. It is then, very unfortunate that every biofuel or even “green alternative” has an achilles heel the size of Texas keeping it from becoming our fossil fuel replacement.
[Useless Loony Fact: I shudder every time I have to use the word “Green” referring to anything other than the color. Oh and Jesus roundhouse kicks a panda in the face, so save the pandas and stop using the word green for anything but the color]
Deepwater Horizon Oil spill: The Environmental Impact
It was a disaster that ended up as one of the worst oil spills in modern history, the Deepwater Horizon didn’t just leak, it gushed. The depth of the well made the spill extremely difficult to repair and it required an incredible engineering feat to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the problem was not immediately resolved when the leak was stopped. Between 492,000 – 627,000 tonnes of oil were dumped into the ocean, but it wasn’t just oil that was dumped, 500,000 tons of natural gas was also dumped into the Gulf of Mexico offshore waters over during the period of 84 days.
With the seemingly insurmountable cleanup effort, many were probably breathing a sigh of relief over the reports following the disaster that naturally-occurring microbes had consumed much of the gas and oil.
Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides, Or Save the Bees!
Die hard, the bee version.
Bees, who needs them? They are scary, they sting and they seem to find magical ways into your securely locked home. I’m not bias, even though I run screaming like a little girl when I see one… okay maybe a little. But as it turns out we need the bees!! Who knew, right? After the colony collapse that came out of nowhere and could not be explained [at the time] everything from global warming to government conspiracy was being blamed. But now a new study helps strengthen the cause of the collapse.
Two widely used insecticides– in the class called neonicotinoids [for those of you who think you will be tested on this at the end]– appear to do significant damage to honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly in bad winters [hello global warming, I’m looking at you].
We can build it better: The First Semi-Synthetic Organism
Not anymore…
Normally I do one post a day, but I could NOT wait to share this. Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have engineered a bacterium whose genetic material includes an added pair of DNA “letters,” not found in nature. The cells of this new bacterium can even replicate the unnatural DNA bases more or less normally, for as long as the molecular building blocks are supplied to the bacterium.
I don’t even really know where to start with this, so let’s start with the basics, normally in nature, everything, everywhere [that we know of] has four different letters in it’s DNA, A-T, G-C, that is is and they only go together in that order A with T and G with C, never will you see a T with a G for example.
Another Road to the Fountain of Youth
Photo credit goes to: Robert F. Bukaty, AP
Recently on Lunatic Laboratories we reported on a new path to the fountain of youth that had been found [at least for mice]. Well today, we are happy to announce that another road to the fountain of youth has been potentially discovered. This time the discovery was made by Harvard Stem Cell Institute [HSCI] and Stanford researchers.
Being the over achievers they are, they released not one, not two, but three studies showing that substances in the blood of young mice rejuvenate the brain and muscles of aging mice. Two of those three studies, by Harvard researchers were released early online just yesterday, but won’t be published until later this week in the journal Science. The two are similar to the third [albeit not connected], Stanford study that suggests the same reversal of aging also happens to their hearts.
The Fountain of Youth [Coming to a store near you]
The fountain of youth, as it turns out, isn’t so much a fountain, it’s a new drug. There has been countless dollars thrown at anti-aging research, some producing better results than others. So when scientists at northwestern medicine in collaboration with Tohoku University in Japan, released a new study I am sure there was more than one happy person seeing the results.
The team, building on previous research, have managed to extend the life of accelerated aging mice more than four times longer than the control group. All thanks to an experimental drug — not only did it extend the life, it also protected the lungs and cardiovascular system from aging.
How a Mother’s Diet Shapes a Child
Peanut butter and pickles, yummy… well maybe if you are pregnant, speaking of which, [see how that works?] researchers from the MRC International Nutrition Group, based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have shown a link between a mother’s diet before conception and the effect it has on a babies genes.
The study, which was done in rural Gambia, where the population’s dependence on locally grown foods and a very different seasonal climate impose a large difference in the eating habits between rainy and dry seasons, gave researchers the ability to look specifically at the how diet would affect the genes in an unborn child.
Radiation is for the Birds… at least at Chernobyl
The control room of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant at Pripyat. Photo credit goes to: RIA Novosti
Twenty eight years ago yesterday brought about the worst nuclear disaster to date, I am [of course] talking about Chernobyl. Chernobyl was supposed to be the flagship of a peaceful atomic energy program by the USSR. It’s easy to think with everything going on in the Ukraine now, that the incident is far in the past and is never coming back, neither of those is the case.
Could a Vaccine for Cancer be a Reality?
How do you take out an unstoppable enemy? You don’t take the enemy head on, you take out the supply lines and the rest will take care of itself. This is not a new idea, but this not so new approach to war is being taken to an enemy on a new battlefield, your body.
Cancer in most cases can be an unstoppable force, collateral damage from chemotherapy can be, and in most cases is unacceptable. That was the thinking from a group of researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their idea, to attack the supply lines instead of the enemy directly.
Silly Putty and Stem cells? What a combo!
Cultured the stem cells on ultra-fine carpets made of microscopic posts. All from a key ingredient in Silly Putty. Credit: Ye Tao, Rose Anderson, Yubing Sun, and Jianping Fu.
Working with stem cells can be a little unruly, it’s sort of like asking a five year old what they want to be when they grow up– then making them stick to that plan. However, researchers have found a key piece of the puzzle needed to help coax stem cells into the adult cells they want and the key, silly putty.
DNA nanobots perform in living cockroach
Cockroaches, not the cutest thing on the planet.
The six million dollar man has nothing on these cockroaches. We can rebuild them, better than they were before. We have the technology, and as it turns out, we do! While DNA robots may not, in itself be a new thing,a study published in Nature Nanotechnology is definitely not only new, but it’s something to talk about.
Zombie Cancer Cells Return from the Dead
Zombies, they are the stuff of movies. But an interesting new study by the University of Colorado Cancer Center shows that sometimes reality mirrors fantasy. The study shows that cancer cells will partially eat themselves in times of distress just to come back to life and divide later on.
Autophagy [from the Greek “to eat oneself”] is a process in which proteins, or other surplus materials in the cell that are not explicitly needed for cellular function are cannibalized in times of stress. What was surprising, in this study we see this process used as a method to survive chemotherapy.
DARPA wants Biotech Companies
Science fiction… for now.
DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Project Agency] has a long history of making high-risk, high-reward moves. After all, they have helped shape the field for prosthetics, they have been pushing for big battlefield medical advancements and in 1997, they made a large effort to combat biological hazards.
Even more stem cell woes ahead
A few weeks back we reported on the latest stem cell research and the controversy surrounding it. I held my breath, wanting so badly to believe that there was a novel and cheap way to make new stem cells that would be controversy free.
The investigating body involved with trying to separate the mess and determine what may have been accidental, such as the mislabeled images in Nature, which could have been a simple publishing error has come to a decision about the work.
The [real life] Doomsday Vault
The real life entrance to the real life doomsday seed vault.
It sounds like something out of a sci fi movie, a vault that is designed to withstand the end of days. A ‘doomsday vault’, tucked deep in a mountain, designed to be self sufficient and keep it’s contents protected and safe for decades if not millennia.
From the outside it looks like some secret military bunker. A solid concrete tube that juts out of a mound of snow; a chain on either side of a ramp acting as a guide to the entrance, a man made object in the middle of nothingness.
[Not so] Big News for Stem Cells
Ever hear if it is too good to be true, then it probably it probably is? Well that seems to be the case for the not so latest news for stem cell research.
Just weeks ago, the science world was buzzing when Japanese scientists announced that it had discovered a novel way to produce stem cells that was free of controversy, cheaper than traditional methods and simple.
Vitamin C Cures Cancer?
Does Vitamin C actually cure cancer?
Well, no, not quite. But new research shows that vitamin C can improve the response of the chemotherapy drugs. The tests, which have primarily been done on mice and in the lab, show promise for future options in treatment.
Vitamin C, which is water soluble, easily passed from the body, and has low side-effect risk might be the key to better cancer therapies. If larger trials show promise, this could prove to be a low-cost addition to treatments already in place.
Lunatic Laboratories 