Tech Suki

DailyTech – Nanoparticle Combination Painkiller to Save Lives at Home and on the Battlefield. Morphine + special new drug + polymer nanoparticles = a lifesaver. With injury, chronic or sudden, comes pain.  The severity of pain can cause a variety of detrimental effects and dangers.  One of the most common pain-relievers, used both on battlefields [...]

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | We’re all mutants, say scientists. Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology. Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years. However, only now has it [...]

BBC NEWS | Health | Gel hope for brain injury repair. An injectable hydrogel could aid recovery from brain injury by helping stimulate tissue growth at the site of the wound, researchers say. Research on rats suggests the gel, made from synthetic and natural sources, may spur growth of stem cells in the brain.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | A step closer to ‘synthetic life’. In what has been described as a step towards the creation of a synthetic cell, scientists have created a new “engineered” strain of bacteria. A team successfully transferred the genome of one type of bacteria into a yeast cell, modified it, and [...]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Artificial brain ’10 years away’. A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain. The Blue Brain project at Swizerland’s EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale [...]

BBC NEWS | Health | Killer parasites’ genes decoded. Scientists have decoded the genetic blueprint of two parasitic flatworms responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide every year. Researchers working on the genetic blueprint of S. masoni, the most widespread of the schistosomiasis parasites, found that it was made up of 11,809 genes – about 10 [...]

DailyTech – Students Embed Stem Cells Into Sutures for Tendon Repair. Biomedical engineering students from Johns Hopkins have demonstrated a way to use stem cells from a patient to help repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The students demonstrated a method of embedding the patient’s own stem cells into a surgical thread that [...]

DailyTech – Study Shows Drug Rapamycin Extends Lifespan of Mammals. Researchers have discovered the first drug that has been proven to extend the lifespan of mammals when taken late in life. The drug is called rapamycin and is derived from bacteria that lives in the soil on the remote and legendary Easter Island most well-known [...]

BBC NEWS | Health | Coffee ‘may reverse Alzheimer’s’. Drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer’s disease, US scientists say. The Florida research, carried out on mice, also suggested caffeine hampered the production of the protein plaques which are the hallmark of the disease. Previous research has also [...]

BBC NEWS | Health | Universal embryo test ‘very near’. A gene mapping test that can test embryos for almost any inherited disease could be available in the UK within a year, say researchers.

DailyTech – Scientists Use Sudoku to Speed Genome Sequencing. Scientists thing the new method can save millions in sequencing costs Scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have discovered a new method of pooling a multitude of DNA samples for sequencing. The new method is being called DNA Sudoku because it uses a method [...]

DailyTech – New Study: Smoking and Second Hand Smoke Cause Brain Damage. A new study shows that smoking tobacco cigarettes, like consuming alcohol, can lead to severe brain damage, though the mechanism is different. The study also suggests that second hand smoke exposure can also lead to brain damage. (Source: The New York Times)

BBC NEWS | Health | New cancer drug ‘shows promise’. Researchers say a new type of cancer treatment has produced highly promising results in preliminary drug trials. Olaparib is the first successful example of a new type of personalised medicine using a technique called “synthetic lethality” – a subtle way of exploiting the body’s own [...]

BBC NEWS | Health | Hysterectomies a stem cell source. Discarded fallopian tubes from hysterectomies could be a good source of donor stem cells, say researchers.

Girl Who Does Not Age, Brooke Greenberg Baffles Doctors – ABC News. At about 16 pounds and 30 inches, 16-year-old Brooke Greenberg has not aged significantly, physically or apparently cognitively, since she was a toddler.