According scientists at Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing in the U.K. and Keio University School of Medicine, they say they have cracked the secret of why some people live a healthy and physically independent life over the age of 100: keeping inflammation down and telomeres long.
Continue reading… “Leading scientists reveal secrets for reaching the age 100”
rHealth Device
This month, the XPRIZE Foundation announced the winner of the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE. The global competition was aimed at accelerating the availability of hardware sensors and software sensing technology as a means to smarter digital health solutions. The winning device is called the Reusable Handheld Electrolyte and Lab Technology for Humans (rHEALTH) system. It can potentially run hundreds or even thousands of lab tests using a single drop of blood, and those tests, in turn, can be used to diagnose a range of diseases. (Video)
Continue reading… “rHEALTH diagnoses hundreds of diseases using a single drop of blood”
When people consume modern processed foods high in sugar, refined flour, and vegetable oils, they get sick.
The main reason why people all over the world are fatter and sicker than ever before is our modern diet. Everywhere modern processed foods go, chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease soon follow.
Continue reading… “What’s wrong with our modern diet in 11 charts”
A normal mitochondria (left) contain distinctive folds known as cristae, but these folds are lost in damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria (right).
A team of Penn State scientists have discovered a “maternal age effect” that could be used to predict the accumulation of mitochondrial DNA mutations in maternal egg cells — and the transmission of these mutations to children — could provide valuable insights for genetic counseling. These mutations cause more than 200 diseases and contribute to others such as diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Loring (front row, center) with the Loring Lab Group at the Center for Regenerative Medicine.
Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Scripps Research Institute, and her colleagues transplanted a set of cells into the spinal cords of mice that had lost use of their hind limbs to multiple sclerosis. Within a week, as the experimentalists had expected, the mice rejected the cells. But after another week, the mice began to walk.
Continue reading… “Reprogrammed cells could fight ‘untreatable’ diseases in the future”
FDA vouchers were created as an incentive to encourage drug companies to work on medicines for neglected diseases.
In March, when the Food and Drug Administration gave the OK to a new treatment for a parasitic disease called leishmaniasis, the Canadian company that owns the medicine got something that’s quite likely to prove even more valuable than U.S. sales of the drug will ever be.
Continue reading… “FDA vouchers encourage drug companies to focus on neglected diseases”
The “off-switch” could help scientists develop treatments for patients with some brain diseases.
Scientists have essentially developed an “off-switch” for the brain by using light pulses to effectively shut down neural activity.
Continue reading… “Scientists develop an ‘off-switch’ for the brain”
Technique lets children avoid inheriting certain diseases – and give them genes from another woman besides mom.
Last week, the U.K. government issued proposed regulations that would allow researchers to try a new and controversial in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure in patients. The technique could allow women who are carriers of mitochondrial disease to have healthy, genetically related children. But it also transfers DNA from one egg or embryo into another, a form of genetic alteration that could be passed on to future generations. Altering the genes of human egg cells or embryos in IVF procedures is now forbidden in the United Kingdom.
Continue reading… “UK government proposes regulations on making ‘three-parent embryos’”
Placebo effect
Placebos are the miracle pills that shouldn’t really do anything. They come in all shapes and sizes, but they contain no active ingredient. And yet, mysteriously, they often seem to work.
Continue reading… “Placebos – the medicine in our minds”
A nanomotor inside a HeLa Cell.
A Pennsylvania State University team has discovered that nanomotors made from tiny metal rods can be manipulated by sound waves and magnets, giving them precise control over their actions inside of cells.
Continue reading… “Tiny motors that fit inside human cells could one day treat diseases”
In vitro fertilization (IVF)—involving DNA from three parents—could become legal in the UK by July.
The prospect of altering DNA to produce a genetically-modified human could move from science fiction to science reality by the middle of 2014. The UK parliament is likely to vote on whether a new form of in vitro fertilization (IVF)—involving DNA from three parents—becomes legally available to couples by July. If it passes, the law would be the first to allow pre-birth human-DNA modification, and another door to the future will open.
Continue reading… “Altering DNA to produce a genetically-modified human could begin in 2014”
What if we had the ability to turn back time? A team that has identified a new way in which cells age has also reversed the process in old mice whose bodies appear younger in several ways. The discovery has implications for understanding age-related diseases including cancers, neurodegenerative disorders and diabetes.
Continue reading… “Scientists reverse aging in mice”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.