Parabiosis: rejuvention by young blood

Read up on how young blood apparently rejuvenates older blood. While interpretations were often simplified and no, young blood can’t make you live forever, there has been a number of findings over the last decade around the power of blood that have significant implications for human health and the ageing process. More at TheLong+Short here:…

Drug Restores Hair Growth in Patients

Drug Restores Hair Growth in Patients with Alopecia Areata Clinical trial results suggest that JAK inhibitor may be first effective treatment for people with an autoimmune type of hair loss NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 22, 2016—Seventy-five percent of patients with moderate to severe alopecia areata—an autoimmune disease that causes patchy and, less frequently, total hair…

Stem cell therapy helps paralyzed man regain use of arms and hands

The 21-year-old who suffered a cervical spine injury in March gains significant improvement in his motor function at Keck Hospital of USC after a team of doctors injected an experimental dose of 10 million AST-OPC1 cells directly into patient’s cervical spinal cord in early April 2016. Two weeks after surgery, Boesen began to show signs…

Swedish Scientist Seeks To Edit DNA Of Healthy Human Embryos

Breaking Taboo, Swedish Scientist Seeks To Edit DNA Of Healthy Human Embryos A scientist in Sweden has started trying to edit the DNA in healthy human embryos, NPR has learned. The step by the developmental biologist Fredrik Lanner makes him the first researcher known to attempt to modify the genes of healthy human embryos. That…

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative commits to investing $3 billion to cure diseases

The philanthropic initiative founded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, will spend $3 billion over the next decade in an effort to cure and manage all human diseases. The Chan Zuckerberg’s latest effort will begin with a $600 million investment in a project called Biohub, an independent research center located at…

Fighting the aging process at a cellular level

It was about 400 BC when Hippocrates astutely observed that gluttony and early death seemed to go hand in hand. Too much food appeared to ‘extinguish’ life in much the same way as putting too much wood on a fire smothers its flames. If obesity led to disease and death, he thought, then perhaps restraint…

Mixed messages from Genetically Engineered Crops Study

According to new research from University of Virginia economist Federico Ciliberto, widespread adoption of genetically modified crops has decreased the use of insecticides, but increased the use of weed-killing herbicides as weeds become more resistant. So while less corn-munching critters are present, more chemicals are used to kill the weeds around the crops, chemicals which…

Robot operates inside eye in world first

Surgeons have used a robot to operate inside the eye and restore sight – in a world first. A team at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital used the device, controlled via a joystick, to remove a membrane one hundredth of a millimetre thick. Prof MacLaren said: “There is no doubt in my mind that we have…

Interscatter communication enables first-ever implanted devices, smart contact lenses, credit cards that ‘talk’ Wi-Fi

University of Washington researchers have introduced a new way of communicating that allows devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics to talk to everyday devices such as smartphones and watches. This new “interscatter communication” works by converting Bluetooth signals into Wi-Fi transmissions over the air. Using only reflections, an…