For decades, the road to a stem cell transplant has been paved with toxic compromise. Patients in need of lifesaving transplants have had to endure high-dose chemotherapy or radiation to clear out diseased bone marrow, trading one set of devastating risks for the hope of recovery. The harsh reality: many patients were too fragile to survive the very treatments meant to prepare them for healing. But a breakthrough at Stanford Medicine may mark the beginning of the end for this era. With an antibody-based approach, scientists are showing that stem cell transplants can be performed without toxic chemotherapy or radiation, opening doors to safer and more widely accessible cures.
Continue reading… “The End of Chemo and Radiation? Stem Cell Transplants Enter a New Era”The next challenge for getting to Mars: What happens to the human body in space
From NASA’s Moon to Mars program to Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to send a million people to Mars by 2050, the race is on to get human feet on the red planet. With increasingly sophisticated rockets and robotics, the technological challenges standing in the way of this goal are fast being eroded.
But there might be a different issue which hampers plans to take people off-planet and send them out to explore the rest of the solar system. Strange things happen to the human body in space, and we’re going to need to find ways to address these medical issues if we want to be able to send astronauts on long-duration missions like the several years that a Mars mission might require.
Digital Trends spoke to University College London cardiologist Dr. Rohin Francis, who has performed studies into space medicine, about how human bodies respond to long-term habitation of the space environment and what that might mean for manned missions to Mars.
Continue reading… “The next challenge for getting to Mars: What happens to the human body in space”
Flight attendants have higher rates of many cancers, study says
Flight attendants are exposed to a number of known cancer-causing risks, but few studies have rigorously quantified that risk, and researchers say they are an understudied occupational group.
The Harvard Flight Attendant Health Study (FAHS), begun in 2007, addresses some of the gaps in understanding health risks among flight attendants. In the latest report, published in the journal Environmental Health, researchers found that flight attendants had higher rates of many cancers, including breast cancer and melanoma, compared to the general population.
Continue reading… “Flight attendants have higher rates of many cancers, study says”
Future smartphone cameras could see through walls
X-ray spex in your cell phone?
Researchers at UT Dallas have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.
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15 of the best data visualization projects of 2011
This was the year of big data. Data graphics continue to thrive and designers are putting more thought into what the data are about, and that’s a very good thing.
Continue reading… “15 of the best data visualization projects of 2011”
Wifi-enabled laptops damage sperm
Laptops with wifi can damage sperm.
The digital age has left men’s nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.
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How much radiation are you exposed to on a plane?
Radiation is all around you on an airplange.
Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, you’ve probably heard me and other people talk about the radiation exposure we experience in everyday life. All humans, throughout history, have been exposed to background radiation produced constantly by the natural environment. Then there’s added exposures from modern sources: X-rays and medical scans, living near power plants (both coal and nuclear, and the coal is actually worse), and flying in airplanes…
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Safety Shorts – underwear that protects cellphone users from harmful radiation
Safety Shorts
At first glance, it may seem kind of silly, but radiation proof underwear certainly has more to it than meets the eye.
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Fukushima grows sunflowers to clean up radiation contamination
A geiger counter is placed in front of sunflowers in full bloom in Fukushima.
Burning strips of paper swirled into the hot summer sky as they carry the names of the dead above a temple in Fukushima where thousands of sunflowers have been planted to help fight the omnipresent radiation.
Continue reading… “Fukushima grows sunflowers to clean up radiation contamination”
Flaxseed might protect against death from radiation
Another benefit from flax?
Flaxseed may protect against the damaging effects of radiation, whether from a terrorist’s dirty bomb or a routine cancer treatment, a new study in mice suggests.
Mice that ate flaxseed either before or up to six weeks after receiving a large radiation dose to the chest were more likely to survive and had fewer lung problems than mice not given flaxseed. Four months after receiving radiation, up to 88 percent of mice that ate flaxseed were still alive, compared with just 40 percent of mice who did not eat flaxseed.
Researchers have been particularly interested in finding a cheap, safe supplement to give to people who have been exposed to radiation in the event of a terrorist attack…
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World’s First Solar Power Plant That Generates Electricity at Night
Gemasolar Power Plant
The Gemasolar Power Plant looks like a giant art project. But this symmetrical, circular pattern of mirrored panels is the world’s first solar power station that generates electricity at night.
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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Radiation
Click on the image to expand to full size. It’s filled with useful info, and delves more into the basics behind the different kinds of radiation and their effects on the human body…
Continue reading… “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Radiation”
