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7/01/2008 Permalink
  Human-pig chimera embryos given go ahead The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in the United Kingdom has approved an application from the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick to create human-pig chimera embryos. The center has been given a 12 month license starting July 1. Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Care-O-bot® a mobile robot home assistant  Care-O-bot® was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) in Stuttgart, department robot systems as a mobile robot home assistant for elderly or handicapped people. The latest version 3.0 is a vision of a future household product for any home. It unites numerous innovations in the area of control, sensors and kinematics that make it suitable for performing numerous household tasks. The hardware of the robot is based on two completely autonomous systems. The mobile platform with the adjustable walking supports and the top level system with a 6-dof manipulator and gripper designed for handling objects in home environments and a tilting sensor head for 3-D scanning and vision. The control software for both, the mobile and arm/head control platform of Care-O-bot II is based on the Robotics Toolbox, an extensive software library, which - in several independent packages - contains modules for implementing all necessary robot control functions, such as navigation, sensor and actuator drivers, task planner etc. This software library not only enables the development of complex robot control programs in a short time, it also facilitates the transfer of existing programs to different hardware platforms and operating systems. Labels: Bots Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Creating nano-spies to infiltrate cells & report back A team of Duke University materials engineers and chemists has developed tiny gold nanostructures that can create signals from subtle changes in light reflecting off their nanoscale surfaces. The sub-cellular size of the nanostructures and their ability to absorb or scatter light as their structure changes makes them appealing as biological sensors suited to creating tiny “spies” able to infiltrate individual cells and report back in real time on the cell’s inner workings, the researchers said. By measuring color changes, researchers can tell what is happening at the molecular level, said lead researcher Anne Lazarides, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke’s Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics. But while these light-reporting particles are relatively easy to see, it is a challenge to get things that small organized. “When dealing in such small realms, it is important that any nanostructure be able to assemble itself in a reliable and predictable fashion,” she said. “We engineered a structure whose organization and response to light are both reproducible and well-controlled.” Because they are just a few thousandths the size of a living cell, nanoparticles are small enough to pass through cell membranes, another reason they are an attractive potential biomedical sensor. The Duke construct is known as a “core-satellite” structure, resembling a planet with numerous smaller moons tethered to it by tiny strands of DNA. Gold core particles and smaller satellite particles are mixed together in solution with strands of DNA and under controlled circumstances assemble themselves into the desired core-satellite structure. “In order for a nanostructure to work within a living system, it needs to include a biological component, like DNA, that recognizes other molecules,” Lazarides said. “DNA is both the glue that holds all the particles together and also the material to which specific target molecules bind.” The results of Lazarides’ experiments were published online in Nano Letters, a journal published by the American Chemical Society. Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon - - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
GPS Locator tracks your dog, car, kids or spouse  Zoombak says that their Universal A-GPS Locator is a simple and ingenious way to keep track of anything that needs keeping track of — including bicycles, backpacks, cars and more! When you install this on your vehicle, if you find you must remove one that is already there, Homeland Security requests that you mail it back to them. Labels: Cloud Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
How to change cancer cells back into normal cells Cancer starts when key cellular signals run amok, driving uncontrolled cell growth. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that lowering levels of one cancer signal under a specific threshold reverses this process in mice, returning tumor cells to their normal, healthy state. The finding could help target cancer chemotherapy to tumors while minimizing side effects for the body's healthy cells. The researchers identified a precise threshold level of the signaling molecule Myc that determined the fate of tumor cells in a cancer of the immune system in mice. Above the threshold, high levels of Myc drove immune cells to grow too large and multiply uncontrollably. When the researchers lowered Myc levels below the threshold, the same cells shrank to normal size, stopped multiplying and began dying normally. "This is a new concept," said Catherine Shachaf, PhD, an instructor in microbiology and immunology who shared lead authorship of the study with colleague Andrew Gentles, PhD, a research associate in radiology. Previous research demonstrated that turning Myc and other cancer signals all the way off can kill a tumor, but Myc is essential, at lower levels, for normal cell function. So, switching Myc all the way off is not an option for treating cancer. This is the first time scientists have demonstrated a specific midway point at which a cancer signal reverted to a healthy level, Shachaf said. The findings will be published in the July 1 issue of Cancer Research. The study's results will be used to design future cancer treatments, the team said.Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
DNA microarray allows for personalized medicine  The dream of personalized medicine — in which diagnostics, risk predictions and treatment decisions are based on a patient's genetic profile — could soon be widely available. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) Physical Biosciences Division has invented a technique in which DNA or RNA assays — the key to genetic profiling and disease detection — can be read and evaluated without the need of elaborate chemical labeling or sophisticated instrumentation. Based on electrostatic repulsion — in which objects with the same electrical charge repel one another — the technique is relatively simple and inexpensive to implement, and can be carried out in a matter of minutes. "One of the most amazing things about our electrostatic detection method is that it requires nothing more than the naked eye to read out results that currently require chemical labeling and confocal laser scanners," said Jay Groves who led this research. Groves and members of his research group Nathan Clack and Khalid Salaita, have published a paper on their technique in the journal Nature Biotechnology, which is now available online. The paper is entitled Electrostatic readout of DNA microarrays with charged microspheres describes how dispersing a fluid containing thousands of electrically-charged microscopic beads or spheres made of silica (glass) across the surface of a DNA microarray and then observing the Brownian motion of the spheres provides measurements of the electrical charges of the DNA molecules. These measurements can in turn be used to interrogate millions of DNA sequences at a time. What's more, these measurements can be observed and recorded with a simple hand-held imaging device — even a cell phone camera will do ... more Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Less good cholesterol, more memory loss, dementia Low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) — the "good" cholesterol — in middle age may increase the risk of memory loss and lead to dementia later in life, researchers reported in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association. Observing 3,673 participants (26.8 percent women) from the Whitehall II study, researchers found that falling levels of HDL cholesterol were predictors of declining memory by age 60. Whitehall II, which began in 1985, is long-term health examination of more than 10,000 British civil servants working in London. "Memory problems are key in the diagnosis of dementia," said Archana Singh-Manoux, Ph.D., lead author of the study and Senior Research Fellow with the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM, France) and the University College London in England. "We found that a low level of HDL may be a risk factor for memory loss in late midlife. This suggests that low HDL cholesterol might also be a risk factor for dementia." Researchers defined low HDL as less than 40 mg/dL and high HDL as 60 mg/dL or higher. The team compared blood-fat and memory data collected in phases 5 (1995?) and 7 (2002?) of Whitehall II, when the average ages of the study members were 55 and 61 years, respectively. Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Using light twizzers to measure protein bonds MIT researchers have developed a novel technique to measure the strength of the bonds between two protein molecules important in cell machinery: Gently tugging them apart with light beams. "It's really giving us a molecular-level picture of what's going on," said Matthew Lang, an assistant professor of biological and mechanical engineering and senior author of a paper on the work appearing in the June 30 advanced online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Last fall, Lang and others demonstrated that light beams could be used to pick up and move individual cells around the surface of a microchip. Now they have applied the optical tweezers to measuring protein microarchitectures, allowing them to study the forces that give cells their structure and the ability to move. Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
New map IDs the core of the human brain  An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate. Their groundbreaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain. It not only provides a comprehensive map of brain connections (the brain "connectome"), but also describes a novel application of a non-invasive technique that can be used by other scientists to continue mapping the trillions of neural connections in the brain at even greater resolution, which is becoming a new field of science termed "connectomics." "This is one of the first steps necessary for building large-scale computational models of the human brain to help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries," said Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study and neuroscientist at Indiana University. The team of neuroimaging researchers used state-of-the-art diffusion MRI technology, which is a non-invasive scanning technique that estimates fiber connection trajectories based on gradient maps of the diffusion of water molecules through brain tissue. The work by the researchers from Indiana University, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and Harvard Medical School appear in the journal PLoS Biology. Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Spys label life extension a "disruptive" technology The National Intelligence Council has included life extension in their report: Disruptive Civil Technologies ~ Six Technologies with Potential Impacts on US Interests out to 2025. Biogerontechnology, says the report, offers the means to accomplish control over and improvement in the human condition, and promises improvements in lifespan. The advancement of the science and technology underlying the biological aging process has the potential to not only extend the average natural lifespan, but also to simultaneously postpone many if not all of the costly and disabling conditions that humans experience in later life, thereby creating a longevity dividend that will be economic, social and medical in nature. The disruptive potential comes in the form of new treatment modalities, shifts in the cost, and resulting allocation and use of health care resources. Nations will be challenged as a result of changing demographic structures, new psychologies, activity patterns of aging yet healthy citizens, and the resulting requirement to formulate new national economic and social policies. Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - -
7/01/2008 Permalink
Understanding how molecules bind to a protein  Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a tiny molecule that packs a powerful punch, is the primary energy source for most of your cellular functions.Now researchers at the University of Illinois Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology have identified a key step in the cellular recycling of ATP that allows your body to produce enough of it to survive. Without this cycling of ATP and its low-energy counterpart, adenosine diphosphate (ADP), into and out of the mitochondrion, where ADP is converted into ATP, life as we know it would end. Researchers have for the first time simulated the binding of ADP to a carrier protein lodged in the inner membrane of the mitochondrion. It is the first simulation of the binding of a molecule to a protein. “The carrier is a reversible machine,” said biochemistry professor Emad Tajkhorshid, who led the study which was conducted by graduate student Yi Wang. “Both ATP and ADP can bind to it and make it to the other side using this transporter.” Their findings appear this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Watch movie of simulation. Labels: Mods Home + What are Humods? + Subscribe: RSS + FriendFeed + Twitter + Post To: Delicious + Digg + Facebook + FriendFeed + Reddit + StumbleUpon- - - - - - - - - Send comments to: humods [at] gmail [dot] com |