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A heart won't beat once it's been ripped out of the chest Indiana Jones style. But disembodied heart cells, when nurtured in a petri dish, will beat on their own. More »
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It's one of the biggest milestones for stem cells since their discovery. Researchers yesterday published the first results of a clinical trial where doctors transplanted of stem cells into the eyes of patients suffering from a form of progressive blindness. And the preliminary results look very good. More »
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As we age, vision problems are unavoidable. Age-related macular degeneration breaks down a thin layer of cells in the back of your eye — the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) — on the way to causing vision loss. More »
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These two rhesus monkeys are called Roku and Hex. They look like regular old rhesus monkeys, and indeed they were born completely normal and healthy. But they are, in fact, chimeras, each the result of splicing six different genomes together. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5873406&view=rss&microfeed=true Tucked away in that useful little organ constantly toiling in your chest is a previously untapped well of stem cells, which could be used for the future of heart surgery. New research published in Cell Stem Cell identifies a pool of stem cells in the heart, found near blood vessels throughout the organ. Even in adults, these cells can form into a number of different types, including muscle, bone, and neural cells, but the authors think they have a natural propensity towards growing into heart cells. More »
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In research published this week, scientists report that they've successfully transplanted human stem cell-derived neurons into the brains of living mice. That's right, we're talking about a functioning trans-species transplant of brain matter. The researchers took human embryonic stem cells, and grew them in a culture with mouse neurons that had a specific trait — they're activated by light. The stem-cell derived neurons don't normally have this ability, but progressively gained it when grown with the mouse neurons. More »
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Researchers have known for some time that women who experience weakened heart function in the months before and after childbirth (a condition known as peripartum cardiomyopathy) recover more quickly than any other group of heart failure patients. Now, a team of researchers from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine thinks it may know why. More »
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The use of embryonic stem cells in medical research has been a hot-button moral and ethical debate for years — but there may be a way to sidestep the issue entirely. Scientists have now isolated embryonic-like stem cells in human breast milk. More »
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Yesterday afternoon, voters in Mississippi took to the polls to vote on Initiative 26 — aka "the Personhood amendment." The ballot measure proposed to amend the state's constitution to redefine "person" to mean "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof." If approved, the amendment would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights and privileges of infants and adult humans, making abortion illegal in the state of Mississippi. More »
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Injuries to parts of the nervous system — the spinal cord, for example — are among the most devastating that human beings can sustain. But the recent discovery of a new class of spinal cord cell could soon lead to novel therapies capable of regenerating parts of the central nervous system. More »
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Biology is all about communication. Molecular signals travel within and between cells, passing on information that keeps your body from from developing diseases, chemical imbalances, fatal maladies . . . and baldness. More »
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In the emerging field of regenerative medicine, some of the most promising developments revolve around so called "pluripotent cells" — cells like embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) that can develop into just about any type of cell in your body. More »
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Scientists have refined tissue repair techniques using stem cells to the point where they believe we might have pills that repair heart muscles in 10 years. Reports the BBC: More »
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The cool trick about stem cells is that they're super adaptable, and can become any other sort of cell, right? So why not use a mass of stem cells to regenerate a limb? Or grow an extra one? Well, it looks like it's all a bit more complicated than that. According to new research on the self-regenerating Zebrafish, the fish don't just form a mass of stem cells on a fin's stump to regrow the limb. Zebrafish actually use a slurry of cells, of different origins and with different purposes. Think salad, not soup. More »
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You've heard of stem cell therapies being used to cure or at least partially restore mobility in animals with damaged spinal cords. But what about in humans? Now there are two studies underway. Here's how close we are to seeing humans released from paralysis thanks to stem cells. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5779932&view=rss&microfeed=true It's been known for a while that certain injuries can cause cancers, but the reasons why are still foggy. Now, new research shows at least part of the answer when it comes to skin cancer. Follicular stem cells, associated with the spots on your skin that grow hair, are generally dormant. But when you get a scrape or cut on your skin, those stem cells flock to your wounds as part of the healing process. More »
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Stem cells should be the ideal treatment for fetuses with genetic disorders - their nascent immune systems could adopt the incoming cells seemingly without trouble. Yet these treatments have never worked. Until now. More »
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Researchers in Japan are celebrating a step forward in treating spinal injuries. A monkey whose spinal cord was severed at the neck has partially recovered with the use of stem cells. More »
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Scientists gave injured mice stem cells to boost their recovery. The treatment worked unbelievably well - in days, the rodents' muscles grew back twice as big as before, and they remained super-strong for the rest of their lives. More »
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Former runway-model Laura Brown and her husband Stephen van Rooyen are still fighting extradition from South Africa, for an alleged scam to provide a stem cell "cure" for neurological diseases. But one doctor who worked with them wasn't so lucky. More »
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Wisdom teeth, the vestigial molars that ancient humans used to grind plants but nowadays serve no purpose, might have their uses after all. The teeth possess a gold mine of cells that can be reprogrammed into pristine, treatment-ready stem cells. More »
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Hold off on the megadoses of antioxidant vitamins like C and E. A study by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute shows that you can overdose on these health aids, and the result could be mutated stem cells that cause cancer. More »
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For the first time, scientists have captured on video what happens when stem cells are born. Now they know where blood-making stem cells form in the body, and what the process looks like. Their research could help with leukemia therapies. More »
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There is no doubt that science has become more like science fiction in the past decade, with amazing innovations and discoveries that increased our understanding of the universe. We list ten of the biggest science stories from the past decade. More »
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Breastfeeding may be vital to a child's development, claims a new study suggesting that it contains stem cells promoting the immune system and growth of both muscle and bone tissue. Take that, bottle-fed weaklings. More »
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Stem cells are versatile cells that can turn into almost anything - skin, organs, brain tissue. They could revolutionize medicine, but these cells are hard to get. Until now. New research proves human fat will yield an endless supply. More »
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It's medical tourism's bleeding edge: people traveling to countries with no stem cell bans. Last year, a boy went to Russia for stem cell injections in his brain – he got only tumors. Is this the future of medical innovation? More »
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Stem cell therapy has the potential to rejuvenate Alzheimers-damaged brains, and has already helped cure some kinds of blindness. And there are two more reasons to be hopeful about stem cell treatments, announced this week. More »
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People who suffer from angina, or clogged arteries around the heart, often feel extreme pain when they exercise. But a new study shows that injections of their own stem cells (pictured) could be a cure. More »
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The surgical world is abuzz today with news that a team has successfully given a woman a new trachea grown from her own stem cells. For others with damaged windpipes, it promises a future of transplants free from immune-suppressing drugs. Meanwhile, researchers are working on growing other tailor-made body parts from our stem cells. And next on the agenda may be lab-grown faces. More »
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Want to know what presidential candidate Barack Obama will do to make the U.S. a great nation for science again? Among other changes, he promises to create a position of "chief technology officer" for the country, and to recreate a space advisory council that reports directly to the president. In addition, he claims the rDNA Advisory Committee will have his administration's ear. Obama discussed his science policies in detail for Science Debate 2008, a group of thousands of scientists, engineers, and science-oriented groups like the AAAS, who are working to keep the public educated about presidential candidates' science policies. Here are the highlights. More »
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When your dog dies, it's a tough loss. But now you can bring back Fido, and not in the "Pet Cemetery" evil-pet way, either. BioArts International, a biotech company in California announced this week that they're partnering with South Korean cloning expert (and fraudster) Hwang Woo-Suk to deliver dog copies to the five highest bidders in their pet-cloning auction. Bids start at $100,000 dollars. More »
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With all the controversy about stem cells, it's about time you get to try them for yourself. That's why SmartCells is selling kits for sucking the blood out of your baby's umbilical cord and storing up all the nice stem cells inside it for a rainy day when you need to regrow an organ or something. Or maybe you just want a whole mess of stem cells and you don't care where they come from? Here are some online shopping options for you. More »
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Shrinky Dinks, the plastic toy that shrinks when you expose it to oven heat, has become the preferred material for lab equipment at Michelle Khine's University of California Merced biology lab. Taking the spirit of DiY life sciences into the realm of the pragmatic, Khine previously used Shrinky Dinks to make microfluidic devices. Now she's shrinking the clear sheets of plastic down to make tiny breeding grounds for stem cells — you can see some of the cells hanging out in the shrinky dink above. Check out a how-to video, below. More »
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With a little help, our brains can be trained to heal themselves. After a traumatic brain injury, some of your brain cells go into reset mode, reverting to a stem cell-like state. Using these "reset cells," a group of German researchers were able to coax the brains of injured mice to regrow neurons to replace damaged tissue (the images above are micrographs of the cells regrowing over time). More »
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Today a man in Finland has a new jaw, thanks to specially-treated stem cells harvested from his fatty tissues and grown in his stomach. It's not the first time researchers have grown bones inside a stomach (we featured a picture of some bioengineered teeth grown in rats' stomachs), but it's the first successful surgery of this type with a human. A group of Finnish doctors today announced the transplant was successful and that nobody looking at the patient would be able to tell that he'd had the procedure done. More »
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Now you can have your embryo and donate it to stem cell science too. A team of researchers has proven that it's possible to harvest one cell from an early-stage embryo called a blastocyst without harming the developing creature. In other words, no unborn babies have to be harmed to create stem cells. One day, parents who need a little extra money can even sell a few embryonic cells from their developing tots to start their college funds. Here's how it works. More »
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Hwang Woo-Suk, the stem cell researcher whose scientific papers were revealed as frauds over two years ago, has quietly been applying for permission to get back into stem cell research again in South Korea. Hwang is still up on charges of fraud, embezzlement and ethical breaches after he claimed (falsely) that he'd created the first human stem cells via cloning. There were also shenanigans in his lab involving the lady researchers being forced to donate their eggs for experiments. Officials in Seoul, where Hwang applied for his research permit, have until next month to make a decision about whether to grant it. [AFP] More »
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Is the United States the least futuristic post-industrial country? Every week we hear about cool robots playing soccer and musical instruments in Japan, or the Tron-looking Pad building in Dubai (see photo.) Meanwhile, the U.S. is retiring its space shuttles and has the slowest broadband in the universe. What's going on? Five futuristic inventions from a world that has left the U.S. behind, after the jump. More »
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You may have been wondering why President Bush vetoed bills that would have authorized government funding for stem cell research that could lead to cures for everything from Alzheimers to paralysis. Apparently it's partly due to reading parts of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic 1930s scifi dystopia about a world where the government genetically engineers everyone to be obedient workers. What's hilarious is that Huxley was a leftist, and he would have despised Bush's anti-science policies. More »
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