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Scientists cure Muscle Paralysis in Mice

Photo credit: John Carnett/Popular Science - Optogenetics, tested in rodents, can control electrical activity in a few carefully selected neurons.

Photo credit: John Carnett/Popular Science – Optogenetics, tested in rodents, can control electrical activity in a few carefully selected neurons.

Searching for a new way to cure paralysis, a team of scientist has come up with a remarkable and off the wall idea. This discovery comes out of the labs at the University College London. The team, lead by Linda Greensmith, used stem cells and optogenetics to control leg muscles in mice and completely circumvent the nervous system in the process.

For those of you who are not familiar with Optogenetics [and really, why would you be familiar with it?] here is a overly simple rundown of what we are talking about.

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Posted by  |  April 4, 2014 | Categories: Health and Medicine, Neuroscience Research | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gene Editing in Live Mice Cures Rare Liver Disease

gene

A chromosome [the “x”] with a DNA strand ‘close up’ in the circle.

Scientists at MIT have successfully used the CRISPR method to replace faulty genes in live mice, curing a rare liver disease. This type of genetic modification has been done in the past, but only in vitro [think petri dish]. Making this a monumental step forward for curing people who are suffering from genetic disease.

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Posted by  |  April 3, 2014 | Categories: Genetics | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Even more stem cell woes ahead

Stem cell

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.

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Posted by  |  April 2, 2014 | Categories: Biology, News | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Did you hear the one about Vaccinations?

doctor office

So a lawyer walks into a Doctors office and offers the Doctor large amounts of money if he can come up with a link between the MMR vaccine and some other problem. Not a very good start to a joke, I know, and if you are looking for a punch line there isn’t one.

Unfortunately this isn’t a joke, it is exactly how the vaccination controversy got started. The only punch line here is children catching preventable diseases and I don’t think anyone is laughing.

Just how did one man single handedly cause so many problems?

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Posted by  |  April 1, 2014 | Categories: Health and Medicine | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The [real life] Doomsday Vault

Svalbard seed 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.

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Posted by  |  March 31, 2014 | Categories: Biology | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Cyberdyne, Google, and the Rise of Drones

terminator hand

Set in a futuristic dystopian world where humans are pitted against advanced robots controlled by an AI, Terminator plays out like the hollywood blockbuster it turned out to be. Set to pit a person’s innate fear of the unknown against the fear of technology itself, it was a big hit.

Any good apocalyptic movie needs to have a grounding in reality before it can take the leap from ordinary to extraordinary, but when events slowly play out, that are eerily similar to the movie, should you be worried?

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Posted by  |  March 30, 2014 | Categories: Politics, Robotics | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Orphan Deseases- A Silent Suffering

genetics unwound

Cancer is sexy, it’s hip, it’s in, it’s news. All types of cancer, think of a cancer organization; I bet you can. Rightly so since cancer sucks, a cure should be found and we should shout at the top of our lungs that there are people suffering.

There is a beautiful sense of cooperation and unity when you can get a group of people together, like people suffering from cancer and start turning the large wheels of progress to find a way to cure something so dynamic.

 

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Posted by  |  March 24, 2014 | Categories: Health and Medicine | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

[Not so] Big News for Stem Cells

stem_cell_rev

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.

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Posted by  |  March 11, 2014 | Categories: Biology, Health and Medicine | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Physics for children – Atom smashing!

Here at Loony Labs, we have lots of friends to help us understand physics! So with that, I am happy to introduce my friend Atom.

intro

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Posted by  |  March 9, 2014 | Categories: Science Fun | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fear Factor- How it Works in the Brain

neuron_cluster

What are you afraid of? Like it or not your brain knows and now, scientists are starting to understand how it does it.

Scientists at Columbia University in New York have found the neurons responsible for preventing mice from forming fearful memories by looking at a part of the brain called the hippocampus [no, that isn’t where hippos go for an education; yes, that was a awful attempt at a joke].

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Posted by  |  February 26, 2014 | Categories: Neuroscience Research | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Surprising New Synthetic Muscle

Photo credit goes to Popular Mechanics

Photo credit goes to — Popular Mechanics

It’s the stuff movies are made from. A new “super” synthetic muscle that is 100 times stronger than the muscle in your own body. It can be easily made, can be reused millions of times, and reacts much in the same manner as it’s natural counterpart.

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Posted by  |  February 25, 2014 | Categories: Engineering, Technology | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Monkey Mind Control

Monkeying around...

Monkeying around…

What does a rhesus monkey and a the Blockbuster Hollywood film Avatar have in common?

They both use mind control to operate an ‘Avatar’.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital placed a neural implant on the ‘master’ monkey that could monitor up to 100 neurons, this allowed the ‘master’ money to control a second ‘avatar’ monkey.

To test this. they trained the ‘master’ monkey to use a joystick and find a target on the screen.

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Posted by  |  February 21, 2014 | Categories: Health and Medicine | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Prosthetic hand gives amputee feeling again

Amputee Dennis Aabo Sorensen tests the prosthetic hand in Rome last year. Photo credit [and caption] goes to the independent

Amputee Dennis Aabo Sorensen tests the prosthetic hand in Rome last year. Photo credit [and caption] goes to the independent

Imagine losing an arm. You pick up your smartphone to read this and without even thinking about the thousands of advancements your phone has inevitably made to enable you to do that, the Doctor walks into the room and explains your choices.

Hook or hand?

Those are your choices, do you want a fake non-movable plastic hand, or would you prefer the hook? At that point you are probably wondering why they are now making smartphone watches, but you are stuck getting [almost] the same technology that was used during the civil war.

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Posted by  |  February 19, 2014 | Categories: Health and Medicine | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Tired of the weather? Blame the jet stream.

queens_new_york_city

Polar vortexes, snow storms and hurricanes, oh my!

Who’s tired of the crazy weather that most of the US and the UK are dealing with? I suspect that most are, in fact I don’t remember the last time I heard someone talk excitedly about being snowed in.

There is good news and bad news though, and like a true gentleman I will give the good news first. We know what is causing the weather changes we’ve seen.

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Posted by  |  February 17, 2014 | Categories: News, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

It’s a swarm… of robots?!

roboticconst

The rather cute TERMES robots doing their thing. Photo credit goes to Eliza Grinnell, Harvard SEAS

You’ve seen a swarm of bees, you’ve seen a swarm of ants. But now, a research group at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have introduced us to a new kind of swarm, a swarm of robots.

The idea stems from, of all things, termites.

Normally, when you have any sort of large scale building operation, like a home for example, you have someone in charge telling each individual what to do. There are specialized functions for each person, a electrician, a carpenter, etc and if one of them walks out on the project, the project is stalled until they are replaced.

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Posted by  |  February 15, 2014 | Categories: Robotics | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Vitamin C Cures Cancer?

orange juice

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.

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Posted by  |  February 13, 2014 | Categories: Biology, Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Neutrinos have a weight problem

cmb neutrinos

Photo credit goes to: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

There have been some unfortunate problems with the Standard Model of Cosmology. These problems came from the fact that the neutrinos mass was never accurately measured. Thanks to some new observations, we now have managed to [hopefully] find the mass of a neutrino for the first time.

The study I am referring to was completed by Richard Battye and Adam Moss. It was recently published in Physical Review Letters. Using the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009, scientists have been able to observe directional dependent aspects of the Cosmic Microwave Background [CMB].

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Posted by  |  February 12, 2014 | Categories: Classical Physics | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Indecisive? So is Quantum Mechanics.

k-bigpic

This is a particle [or atom], cute no?

A atom walks into a bar. Bartender says ‘What will you have?’ The atom says ‘I’m uncertain’.

Or my personal favorite Heisenberg gets pulled over by a police officer, officer says ‘Do you have any idea how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg replies ‘No, but I know EXACTLY where I am.’

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Posted by  |  February 11, 2014 | Categories: Classical Physics | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment