The Scientific Advancements Thread
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Scientists grow human lungs in a laboratory for the first time... but they won't be transplant ready for at least 12 years
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
In a new frontier in regenerative medicine, scientists have grown human lungs in a laboratory for the first time - but they won't be ready for transplants for at least 12 years. University of Texas Medical Branch researchers produced the healthy ? last year but only unveiled it yesterday after months of testing. The development has the potential to benefit more than 1,600 people awaiting a lung transplant, after the lab lungs are tested on pigs for at least a decade.
'It's so ? cool,' Dr. Joan Nichols, lead University of Texas Medical Branch researcher, told CNN. 'It's been science fiction and we're moving into science fact.' According to ABC 13, researchers began the process with lungs from children who had died from 'trauma', most likely a car accident. 'We removed all the cells all the material in it, and just left the skeleton of the lung, or the scaffold, behind - the pieces of the lungs that are no cells,' Dr. Nichols said. 'That's why it's so white and pretty and there's no blood in it, it's very pretty looking.
'And then we added back cells from another lung that couldn't be used for transplant but still had some viable cells in it.' But it took months until UTMB medical student Dr. Michael Riddle built a piece of equipment that sped up the process. 'He's the one who went home and actually built using - I'm not kidding - a fish tank that he went and bought from a pet store, is what he built the first piece of equipment,' Dr. Nichols said.
Could the smell of your EARWAX reveal where you've been, what you've eaten and even if you are ? ? Scientists say substance is 'overlooked source of personal information' Have we finally discovered the Amazon's source? Scientists pinpoint its origin - making the river 57 miles longer than previously thought. The team said it took about 'four months to take the cells from the lung to where all you have is a bio-scaffold, and we took that process down to about three days'.
'It's taken us a year to prove to ourselves that we actually did a good job with it,' Dr. Nichols said. 'You don't run out immediately and tell the world you have something wonderful until you've proved it to ourselves that we really did something amazing.' She said researchers hope to transplant the first set of lab-grown lungs in pigs in the next two years.
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The implant - known as a Raindrop - would be placed underneath the cornea in a bid to reverse vision problems associated with ageing. The technique was pioneered in America, but has made its way across the Atlantic and is now being used at Space Healthcare in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. It could replace laser surgery, which until now has been deemed the only long-term treatment, even though it leaves some recipients requiring reading glasses.
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Throughout the last 100 years, the world has witnessed incredible advances in medicine that have dramatically improved the lives of the sick.
But while there may be more drugs on the market than you could possibly fathom, many diseases can’t be treated by popping pills.
That’s why DARPA is working towards a futuristic medical implant that not only continuously monitors the condition of your organs, but also helps your body heal itself when problems arise.
The program, known as Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx), aims to develop technology that could “fundamentally change the manner in which doctors diagnose, monitor and treat injury and illness,” DARPA’s Doug Weber said in a news release.
Moving away from conventional medicine, DARPA plans to develop an implantable device that works somewhat like an intelligent pacemaker, continually monitoring the body’s condition and providing feedback in the form of a stimulus that would help maintain healthy organs.
The idea behind the ElectRx implant is that it would act as a neuromodulatory device. Neuromodulation is the reversible alteration, or “modulation,” of the nervous system through stimulation of various nerves.
These changes in neural activity can be achieved either through drugs or electrical stimulation, both of which are introduced by implants.
In the body, the peripheral nervous system (the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord) is constantly monitoring your organs and regulating responses to infection, injury or disease.
Certain conditions can unfortunately cause this process to go haywire and rather than resolving the problem, peripheral nerve signals start to actually worsen the situation, triggering pain, inflammation and immune system problems.
That’s where ElectRx’s tiny little device would come in. After sensing problems, it would send out tailored electrical impulses to populations of nerves that help the body heal itself, keeping patients healthy using their own ? systems rather than drugs.
There already exists a market for neuromodulatory devices, but current models are bulky, around the size of a deck of cards, and consequently require invasive surgery to fit them into patients.
ElectRx devices, on the other hand, would be similar in size to individual nerves and could therefore be implanted with ease, perhaps with a needle.
Thanks to the recent identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of immune system function, these devices could possibly be useful in the treatment of various inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.
Furthermore, it could one day lead to better treatments for various brain and mental health problems, such as epilepsy, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But ElectRx has got a long way to go before these ambitious devices can become a reality.
Researchers need to first develop novel biosensors and also devise techniques that would allow the precise targeting of single nerves or small populations of nerve fibers that control relevant organs. -
Oya_Husband wrote: »Wow, this is evil and perverse in the name of Jesus, The devil is coming faster and faster, but ya'll won't hear until you are on your knees and saying Jesus is Lord. Smh and that day you would know you ? up.
You are the reason we need a gtfoh button. -
housemouse wrote: »Oya_Husband wrote: »Wow, this is evil and perverse in the name of Jesus, The devil is coming faster and faster, but ya'll won't hear until you are on your knees and saying Jesus is Lord. Smh and that day you would know you ? up.
You are the reason we need a gtfoh button.
I was in trolling mode back then bruh -
THE LALALA 'HEARING AID'
The LaLaLa is currently just a concept but its inventors think it could become a reality in just two years. The gadget is designed to FIT inside the ear and hook round over the tragus, curling behind the ear. It is intended to give people selective hearing so they can zone in on an interesting conversation in a noisy room, while cancelling out BACKGROUND noise so they can hear it clearly. It would do this by using an array of built-in microphones as well as a camera to track movement. LaLaLa's creators think it could replace the smartphone and that people would wear it constantly. Future iterations of the design could also allow people to translate other languages in real-time.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2788297/the-hearing-aid-spies-clip-amplifier-eavesdrops-conversations-translates-foreign-languages-real-time.html#ixzz3G4irlafn
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Google X Labs is developing a pill that could one day detect cancer and heart disease. The pill would contain 2,000 nanoparticles coated with antibodies and molecules capable of detecting other molecules, and travel through the patient's bloodstream in search of malignant cells. The findings would be transmitted to a sensor on a wearable device.
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io9.com/surgeons-in-brazil-successfully-implant-a-3d-printed-ti-1708681517
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2stepz_ahead wrote: »http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-way-humans-get-electricity-is-about-to-change-forever/ar-AAbZhP2
The renewable-energy boom is here. Trillions of dollars will be invested over the next 25 years, driving some of the most profound changes yet in how humans get their electricity. That's according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets to 2040.
Here are six massive shifts coming soon to power markets near you:
1. Solar Prices Keep Crashing
The price of solar power will continue to fall, until it becomes the cheapest form of power in a rapidly expanding number of national markets. By 2026, utility-scale solar will be competitive for the majority of the world, according to BNEF. The lifetime cost of a photovoltaic solar-power plant will drop by almost half over the next 25 years, even as the prices of fossil fuels creep higher.
Solar power will eventually get so cheap that it will outcompete new fossil-fuel plants and even start to supplant some existing coal and gas plants, potentially stranding billions in fossil-fuel infrastructure. The industrial age was built on coal. The next 25 years will be the end of its dominance.
2. Solar Billions Become Solar Trillions
With solar power so cheap, investments will surge. Expect $3.7 trillion in solar investments between now and 2040, according to BNEF. Solar alone will account for more than a third of new power capacity worldwide. Here's how that looks on a chart, with solar appropriately dressed in yellow and fossil fuels in pernicious gray:
3. The Revolution Will Be Decentralized
The biggest solar revolution will take place on rooftops. High electricity prices and cheap residential battery storage will make small-scale rooftop solar ever more attractive, driving a 17-fold increase in installations. By 2040, rooftop solar will be cheaper than electricity from the grid in every major economy, and almost 13 percent of electricity worldwide will be generated from small-scale solar systems.
4. Global Demand Slows
Yes, the world is inundated with mobile phones, flat screen TVs, and air conditioners. But growth in demand for electricity is slowing. The reason: efficiency. To cram huge amounts of processing power into pocket-sized gadgets, engineers have had to focus on how to keep those gadgets from overheating. That's meant huge advances in energy efficiency. Switching to an LED light bulb, for example, can reduce electricity consumption by more than 80 percent.
So even as people rise from poverty to middle class faster than ever, BNEF predicts that global electricity consumption will remain relatively flat. In the next 25 years, global demand will grow about 1.8 percent a year, compared with 3 percent a year from 1990 to 2012. In wealthy OECD countries, power demand will actually decline.
5. Natural Gas Burns Briefly
Natural gas won't become the oft-idealized "bridge fuel" that transitions the world from coal to renewable energy, according to BNEF. The U.S. fracking boom will help bring global prices down some, but few countries outside the U.S. will replace coal plants with natural gas. Instead, developing countries will often opt for some combination of coal, gas, and renewables.
Even in the fracking-rich U.S., wind power will be cheaper than building new gas plants by 2023, and utility-scale solar will be cheaper than gas by 2036.
Fossil fuels aren't going to suddenly disappear. They'll retain a 44 percent share of total electricity generation in 2040 (down from two thirds today), much of which will come from legacy plants that are cheaper to run than shut down. Developing countries will be responsible for 99 percent of new coal plants and 86 percent of new gas-fired plants between now and 2040, according to BNEF. Coal is clearly on its way out, but in developing countries that need to add capacity quickly, coal- power additions will be roughly equivalent to utility-scale solar.
6. The Climate Is Still Screwed
The shift to renewables is happening shockingly fast, but not fast enough to prevent perilous levels of global warming.
About $8 trillion, or two thirds of the world's spending on new power capacity over the next 25 years, will go toward renewables. Still, without additional policy action by governments, global carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector will continue to rise until 2029 and will remain 13 percent higher than today's pollution levels in 2040.
That's not enough to prevent the surface of the Earth from heating more than 2 degrees Celsius, according to BNEF. That's considered the point-of-no-return for some worst consequences of climate change.
The report assumes there will be no further policies supporting renewable energy from 2018 onward. The EPA's Clean Power Plan and any unforeseen climate agreements could change the forecast. The share of total generation from renewables will be higher, at 46 percent. The world's power capacity mix will go from two-thirds fossil fuels today to 56 percent zero emissions, according to BNEF. -
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Special contact lenses that change the curve in the eye when they are worn overnight can improve eye-sight
Http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3338218/Special-contact-lenses-change-curve-eye-worn-overnight-improve-eye-sight.html -
A common treatment for diabetes could enable adults to live well into their 120s, scientists say.
They will carry out the first trials on metformin next year in the hope it may stave off illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers have already conducted tests on animals which show it significantly extends their lives.
Now the Food and Drug Administration, the American regulator, has given the go-ahead for the same trials in humans.
Researchers are to carry out the first trials on
If successful, it would mean that, for example, a person in their 70s could have the same biological age as a healthy 50-year-old.
Professor Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California, who will lead the study, said: ‘If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3338807/Diabetes-pill-help-live-120-Common-treatment-set-trialled-year-hope-stave-illnesses-Alzheimer-s-Parkinson-s.html -
Young Chitlin the poster of the year IMO
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silverfoxx wrote: »Young Chitlin the poster of the year IMO
Preciate it bro -
Salicylic acid in aspirin binds to an enzyme called GAPDH
Stops enzyme from entering the nucleus of cell, where it can cause death
Parkinson's drug, deprenyl, blocks GAPDH's acts in the same way
Experts say discovery raises hopes for treatments for neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntingdon's
A daily dose of aspirin is thought to help ward off heart disease, and some studies have suggested it helps in the fight against cancer.
But now, a new study has revealed the painkiller could also help ward off neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntingdon's.
A component in the drug binds to an enzyme called GAPDH, which is thought to play a role in the conditions.
Researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute and Johns Hopkins University discovered that salicylic acid, the primary breakdown product of aspirin, binds to GAPDH.
Http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3340010/Could-aspirin-protect-against-DEMENTIA-Ingredient-blocks-enzyme-kills-brain-cells-help-treat-Alzheimer-s-Parkinson-s-disease.html
https://youtu.be/ik3l4U_17bI