The health benefits of raw, unprocessed honey are well known, but in Australia, scientists recently made a startling discovery – that one particular, obscure type of honey is capable of killing just about everything scientists throw at it, including some of the worst bacteria known to man.
The findings were published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (June 2009 edition), and could hold special significance at a time when many of the world’s top antibiotics are failing, especially against resistant “superbugs”.
The honey in question is known as manuka honey, which is produced in New Zealand and also goes by the name of jelly bush honey.
On July 11–12, we will be hosting our second annual Ending Age-Released Diseases conference. This conference focuses on the progress of aging research along with the business and investment side of rejuvenation biotechnology.
Aging research is on the cusp of some major breakthroughs in the battle against age-related diseases, and we invite you to join us for an action-packed event filled with exciting talks and discussion panels featuring some of the leaders of aging research and the biotech business.
Almost one in ten heart attacks and strokes could be avoided if check-ups were targeted at high risk patients, new research has revealed.
People aged 40 and over in England and Wales are currently eligible to have their heart health assessed every five years.
Blood pressure, cholesterol, blood-sugar levels, smoker status, age and family history are factors considered by doctors when working out a person’s chance of having a heart attack or stroke.
Seven months later, following stringent monitoring of signs of immunorejection, the team transplanted a fertilized embryo engineered with IVF into the donor uterus. By 35 weeks, the baby was delivered without complications through a C-section.
The woman was a lucky case. Others who underwent the same procedure experienced immunorejection that prevented them from keeping the womb. The team actually removed the transplanted womb following the successful childbirth, citing that they wanted to currently focus on giving infertile women their first child.
These are still early days for uterine transplants—dead or alive—but the proof-of-concept shows that women who had to previously rely on surrogates may have an alternative way. The team is looking to further refine the protocol, for example, for how much immunosuppressant to give and harvesting the organ as early as possible, to potentially increase success rates.
The idea is to give craftspeople the tools they need to incorporate digital services to the items they’re already making. Poupyrev made it clear that he doesn’t want fundamentally change tried and tested items, like a jacket, into a computer first, and an article of clothing second. He wants to imbue everyday items with digital functionality.
In its final form, Poupyrev envisions clothing, furniture, and accessories that are all connected to the cloud, each providing their own, specialized functionality. Users will interact with screens using their sleeves and pause their music by tapping their glasses. Step trackers will live in our shoes, translators will live in our ears, and medicinal nano-robots could be injected into our blood streams. The very notion of a computer will radically change as little computers get placed into everything.
“This could allow makers to image and create a new world where things are connected and we don’t need keyboards, screens, or mice to interact with computers,” he said. “I’ve been working on this for 20 years and as it’s taken shape I’m realizing that we’re not building an interface. We’re building a a new kind of computer, an invisible computer.”
The brains of decapitated pigs can be partially revived several hours after the animal has died, researchers have revealed, with some of the functions of cells booted back up when an oxygen-rich fluid is circulated through the organ.
The scientists stress that the brains do not show any signs of consciousness – for example, there was no sign that different parts of the brain were sending signals to each other – and that it does not change the definition of death.
But they say they have found a way to prevent brain cells from sustaining irreparable damage as blood stops circulating, and even to restore some of the cells’ functions.
On Monday, a UPenn spokesperson confirmed to NPR that the institution’s researchers have officially started using CRISPR on humans — marking a national first that could lead to a more widespread use of the technology in the future.
Last Resort
The spokesperson told NPR that the UPenn team has thus far used CRISPR to treat two cancer patients, one with multiple myeloma and one with sarcoma. Both had relapsed after standard cancer treatments.
Circulation and cellular activity were restored in a pig’s brain four hours after its death, a finding that challenges long-held assumptions about the timing and irreversible nature of the cessation of some brain functions after death, Yale scientists report April 18 in the journal Nature.
The brain of a postmortem pig obtained from a meatpacking plant was isolated and circulated with a specially designed chemical solution. Many basic cellular functions, once thought to cease seconds or minutes after oxygen and blood flow cease, were observed, the scientists report.
“The intact brain of a large mammal retains a previously underappreciated capacity for restoration of circulation and certain molecular and cellular activities multiple hours after circulatory arrest,” said senior author Nenad Sestan, professor of neuroscience, comparative medicine, genetics, and psychiatry.
The first thing our doctor noticed the day after his patient received the ACIST stem cells was her saying hello to him in a heartwarming fashion — completely different from the day before treatment when she was quiet and withdrawn. Post-op day one was a new beginning for this beloved mother and her daughter, fighting moms Alzheimers disease together.
When I brought the car to start driving her home, my mother got in and instead of being confused and trying to put the safety belt into the door as was typical, she put it in the buckle! excitedly explained her daughter during a call while driving home that same day.
Her mother had enrolled in MD Stem Cells new Alzheimers Autism Cognitive Impairment Stem Cell Treatment Study or ACISThis is the first open-label, non-randomized study designed for patients with dementias, including Alzheimers, treating them with their own bone marrow stem cells called BMSC. All enrolled patients receive active BMSC treatment- there is no placebo arm — making it different from most drug studies.
