All you greying, half-deaf Def Leppard fans, listen up. A drug applied to the ears of mice deafened by noise can restore some hearing in the animals. By blocking a key protein, the drug allows sound-sensing cells that are damaged by noise to regrow. The treatment isn’t anywhere near ready for use in humans, but the advance at least raises the prospect of restoring hearing to some deafened people — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A strong family history of seizures could increase the chances of having severe migraines, says a study in Epilepsia journal.
Scientists from Columbia University, New York, analysed 500 families containing two or more close relatives with epilepsy.
Their findings could mean that genes exist that cause both epilepsy and migraine.
Epilepsy Action said it could lead to targeted treatments — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Totally blind mice have had their sight restored by injections of light-sensing cells into the eye, UK researchers report.
The team in Oxford said their studies closely resemble the treatments that would be needed in people with degenerative eye disease.
Similar results have already been achieved with night-blind mice.
Experts said the field was advancing rapidly, but there were still questions about the quality of vision restored.
Patients with retinitis pigmentosa gradually lose light-sensing cells from the retina and can become blind.
The research team, at the University of Oxford, used mice with a complete lack of light-sensing photoreceptor cells in their retinas. The mice were unable to tell the difference between light and dark — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A team of Queensland researchers has found a unique way to help people living with dementia stay in contact with their friends and family.
More and more Australians are being diagnosed with dementia, and for many it can be a very lonely life, particularly if their relatives cannot visit them regularly.
In response the researchers have created a mobile robot with an inbuilt camera, which can be used to set up video calls between people with dementia and their loved ones.
Professor Wendy Moyle from the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre says the giraffe-shaped robot, named Gerry, is designed to facilitate video calls and has been described as Skype on wheels
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
While any soldier dreads the idea of being shot, sustaining an internal abdominal injury from an explosion or other impact can be far worse. Bleeding from wounds that can’t be compressed causes some 85 percent of preventable battlefield deaths.
As part of DARPA’s Wound Stasis program, Arsenal Medical has developed an injectable polymer foam that expands inside the body to staunch internal bleeding.
Based on testing in pigs, DARPA says the product can control haemorrhaging in an abdominal cavity for at least an hour, a critical window to get the soldier to a medical facility — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Ovarian tissue transplants could be used like egg-freezing to preserve a woman’s fertility into her 40s and 50s but IVF specialists say they will only offer it to women whose fertility is threatened by illness such as cancer.
On Wednesday Monash IVF announced it had preserved a woman’s fertility by taking ovarian tissue from her before she had breast cancer treatment in 2005, freezing it, and reimplanting it in her this year. It allowed the 43-year-old woman’s body to resume natural ovulation.
Now six weeks pregnant, the Melbourne woman is the 20th in the world and the first in Australia to achieve pregnancy with the ground-breaking technique — via redwolf.newsvine.com
For the first time, blind people could read street signs with a device that translates letters into Braille and beams the results directly onto a person’s eye.
The technology is a modification of a previous device, Argus II developed by Second Sight, which has been implanted on 50 patients, many of whom can now see colours, shapes, and movements. The complicated device uses a camera attached to a pair of glasses, a small processor to convert the signal of the camera into electrical stimulation, and a microchip with electrodes attached directly to the person’s retina — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The threat of flu looms large in the northern hemisphere as winter starts to set in. But getting a preventative shot might not be the best line of defence any more — because new research suggests a small dose of crystal meth might be effective too.
Researchers, from the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan and the University of Regensburg in Germany, have been working together to investigate how methamphetamine interacts with different viral infections. Meth is a widely abused drug, and there’s a wealth of evidence that suggests chronic use can dramatically increase the risk of picking up viruses because it suppresses the immune response of the body.
The researchers guessed the same would be true for influenza, but, like all good scientists, they had to prove their hypothesis — so they set to testing it out. First, they took human lung cells and nurtured them in the lab before exposing some of them to cystal meth. They then exposed the cells to the H1N1 influenza virus.
What they observed surprised them. Instead of increasing the rate of development and spread of the virus, meth seems to reduce susceptibility to flu. The results are published in PLoS One — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A breakthrough new experimental treatment that uses nanoparticles covered with proteins to trick the immune system, managed to stop it attacking myelin and halt disease progression in mice with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). The researchers say the approach may also be applicable to other auto-immune diseases such as asthma and type 1 diabetes.
Corresponding author Stephen Miller is the Judy Gugenheim Research Professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago in the US. He says in a statement:
We administered these particles to animals who have a disease very similar to relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis and stopped it in its tracks.
We prevented any future relapses for up to 100 days, which is the equivalent of several years in the life of an MS patient,
he adds — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists have reversed paralysis in dogs after injecting them with cells grown from the lining of their nose.
The pets had all suffered spinal injuries which prevented them from using their back legs.
The Cambridge University team is cautiously optimistic the technique could eventually have a role in the treatment of human patients.
The study is the first to test the transplant in real-life
injuries rather than laboratory animals.
In the study, funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the neurology journal Brain, the dogs had olfactory ensheathing cells from the lining of their nose removed.
These were grown and expanded for several weeks in the laboratory — via redwolf.newsvine.com
An alleged rogue surgeon
has been suspended by the General Medical Council after it emerged he might have performed unnecessary or inappropriate
breast operations on more than 1,000 women in Britain.
Ian Stuart Paterson, a breast cancer specialist who worked at NHS and private hospitals in the Midlands from 1994 until last month, is suspected of misdiagnosing at least 450 of the women with breast cancer when they were in fact healthy, and then performing unnecessary lumpectomy
surgery.
He also performed unconventional cleavage-sparing
mastectomies on 700 other women, despite the procedure not being sanctioned in the UK. The technique involved leaving breast tissue around the cleavage area for cosmetic reasons but went against national guidelines which state that no excess tissue should be left behind as this could lead to a return of the cancer.
According to Thompsons solicitors, who are representing almost 100 of the affected patients on a no win, no fee
basis as they launch compensation claims: Many of the women operated on by Mr Paterson using this controversial technique have had to undergo further surgery to remove the excess tissue and unfortunately some have had their cancer return
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists have created an artificial eye lens out of 800,000 layers of plastic that could revolutionise eye implants and aerial surveillance.
Based on research from 2008 published in journal Optics Express, the new plastic eye closely copies the structure of the human eye and other natural materials including tendons and butterfly wings.
Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, working with spin-off lab PolymerPlus, created the lens by stacking up layers of laminated plastic. Weighing a tenth of a traditional lens, the polymer version is up to three times more powerful and, crucially, had the capability to be flexible enough to incrementally change its refraction of light.
The new polymer lens can refract light thousands of different ways because each layer has its own refractive index. This multilayer lens design is called gradient refractive index optics, or GRIN optics. That contrasts to traditional lenses that have a single surface and a single refractive index — via redwolf.newsvine.com
For the first time, the United Nations says access to contraception is a universal human right.
In its annual report released Wednesday, the UN Population Fund says family planning could dramatically improve the lives of women in poor countries and declared any legal, cultural or financial barriers to contraception an infringement of women’s rights.
Women who use contraception are generally healthier, better educated, more empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive,
Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the fund, wrote in a statement obtained by CBS News. Women’s increased labour-force participation boosts nations’ economies.
The report is not binding and has no legal effect on national laws — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Adding calm down
genes to hyperactive brain cells has completely cured rats of epilepsy for the first time, say UK researchers.
They believe their approach could help people who cannot control their seizures with drugs.
The study, published in the journal Science Translation Medicine, used a virus to insert the new genes into a small number of neurons.
About 50 million people have epilepsy worldwide.
However, drugs do not work for up to 30% of them. The alternatives include surgery to remove the part of the brain that triggers a fit or to use electrical stimulation — via redwolf.newsvine.com
It sounds like the theoretical impossibility of perpetual motion, but engineers at the University of Michigan have created a pacemaker that is powered by the beating of your heart — no batteries required.
The technology behind this new infinite-duration pacemaker is one that we’ve discussed before at length on ExtremeTech: piezoelectricity. Piezoelectricity is literally pressure electricity
, and it relates to certain materials that generate tiny amounts of electricity when deformed by an external force. Piezoelectricity is exciting because it can harvest energy from kinetic energy that is currently wasted — the vibration of machines, the straining of floorboards in public/commercial spaces, the wobbling of bridges, the soles of your feet as you walk.
A conventional pacemaker. The long electrode is embedded in the heart. The main unit must be replaced when the battery runs out.
Or, in the case of the perpetual pacemaker, the vibrations in your chest as your heart pumps blood around your body. Piezoelectric devices generate very small amounts of power — on the order of tens of milliwatts — but it turns out that pacemakers require very power, too. In testing, the researchers’ energy harvester generated 10 times the required the power to keep a pacemaker firing — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Researchers say they have seen the earliest ever warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease among a high-risk group of 20-somethings in the ongoing quest for early detection and prevention.
A major problem in the search for a cure for this debilitating form of dementia is that symptoms appear years after irreversible brain decay has already set in.
For the study, a team of scientists from the United States and Colombia tested 18- to 26-year-old members of an extended Colombian family that share a common ancestor and a genetic predisposition to develop an inherited form of Alzheimer’s — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This reference, published by the Hesperian Foundation, is used the whole world over. It’s distributed by the Peace Corps, and while its emphasis is largely on the third world, it contains information on treating a number of diseases and ailments without medical expertise. If you need to set a fracture or deliver a baby, this is the reference for you. Hesperian also offers a number of other health-related titles, including Where There is No Dentist, Where Women Have No Doctor, Water for Life, and Cleanliness and Sanitation, all of which are available for purchase or as free downloads
A cheap test which could detect even low levels of viruses and some cancers has been developed by UK researchers.
The colour of a liquid changes to give either a positive or negative result.
The designers from Imperial College London say the device could lead to more widespread testing for HIV and other diseases in parts of the world where other methods are unaffordable.
The prototype, which needs wider testing, is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In a medical breakthrough, Australian surgeons have managed to regrow breast tissue for women who have had cancer surgery.
They say in one patient, breast tissue was successfully grown from her own fat cells.
It is hoped regrowing breasts after a mastectomy could one day become an alternative to silicone implants — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Spider silk is pretty amazing stuff. Pound for pound, it’s as strong as steel and more durable than Kevlar. It can be stretched to incredible lengths, but it’s no more cumbersome than cotton or nylon. Because it’s so awesome, scientists have long been searching for good ways to synthesize the stuff (it’s not exactly easy to milk spiders in any meaningful quantity), and they’ve made some good progress. Thanks to the latest work from biomedical engineer Fiorenzo Omenetto of Tufts University in Boston and Nolwenn Huby from the CNRS Institut de Physiques de Rennes in France, they’ll have a little extra motivation to get it done soon.
Omenetto and Huby are both presenting their work on Monday at a conference in Rochester, New York. It’s hard to tell who’s more impressive. Omenetto’s team is developing silk-based materials that look and act like plastic, but because of their unique chemical makeup, are completely and safely biodegradable. That means they could build special microchips that could be implanted inside of the body to serve a particular purpose and simply dissolve when the job’s done. A broken bone, for instance. Doctors might not be completely sure when the bone will be healed could theoretically implant one of their spider silk microchips onto the bone to monitor the progress, and it would simply disappear when everything is back to normal — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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