Artificial hearts can be clunky and flawed, but making one out of foam could be an efficient and reliable solution.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,152
Boom Or Bust: Why Does Cancer Immunotherapy Have Such Mixed Results?
Treating cancer by boosting the immune system has been hailed as a major breakthrough in cancer treatment. It may melt away tumours in some patients but it isn’t always effective, and can even be dangerous.
The FDA approved two new immunotherapy drugs in 2015, and over half current cancer trials now involve immunotherapy. The field has the potential to completely change cancer treatment, but it’s still early days.
Transhumanism Immortality Bus Underway Across America
New article on Immortality Bus trip promoting transhumanism with new videos:
It seemed a wild, impossible dream a year ago when I told my wife and young daughters I was going to drive a bus shaped like a coffin across America to raise life extension issues. A week ago, I just finished the second stage of the tour. Soon I’ll begin the third stage from Arizona to Texas, and then across the Bible Belt to Washington DC, where I plan to post a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol building.
If the bus tour seems like a wacky idea–especially for a presidential candidate –it’s because it is. Of course, to transhumanists, a more wacky idea is how most of our nation largely accepts death as a way of life. In the 21st Century, with the amazing science and technology this country has, I don’t believe death needs to be left unconquered. If, as a nation, we would just apply our ingenuity and resources, we could probably conquer death in a decade’s time with modern medicine. That’s precisely the reason why I’m running for president and driving the coffin bus around the country; I want to tell people the important news and get them to support radical technology and longevity science.
Construction of the bus in San Francisco — Photo by Zoltan Istvan
Of course, along the way, I’m also having a wild adventure. The tour officially began with an Indiegogo campaign which successfully raised $25,000 to buy the bus and start the journey. Once I received the money, I began scouring the internet to buy a bus. Eventually my dad helped me find one, and I purchased the 1978 Bluebird Wanderlodge coach for $10,000. It didn’t run at first, but I spent some time and money on the engine and was able to get the bus rolling again. Later — to the wide-eyed stares of my neighbors — I drove the bus onto my suburban front yard in Mill Valley, California, where I transformed the coach into a giant coffin through a few weeks of noisy construction.
Our Aging World: The Striking Statistics About Dementia
Today, dementia affects over 46 million people worldwide, by 2050 it will affect more than 131 million people.
Global costs of dementia are estimated at $818 billion. As a result, if dementia care were a country, it would be the world’s 18th largest economy.
Dementias are one of the most expensive diseases for the healthcare system as patients require long-term care with daily activities like washing, getting dressed and eating. It has been estimated that the US health care would save an astonishing 40 billion dollars annually if the age of onset for Alzheimer’s disease was delayed by just 5 years. The estimated annual cost of dementia worldwide is 818 billion dollars, more than the current US defence budget. By 2018 the cost may reach a trillion dollars. Remarkably, if dementia were a country, it would be the 18th largest economy on earth.
The Dark Side of Antioxidants
The story of the dark side of antioxidant research isn’t well known outside of medical circles. It’s an unseemly story, profoundly unsettling; it doesn’t fit the “antioxidants are good for you” mantra that sells billions of dollars per year of blueberry- and pomegranate-fortified granola bars.
Not all vitamins are good for all people, all the time. In fact, some can kill you. And guess what? We know where the bodies are buried.
Scientist: We’ve grown a nearly full human ‘mini brain’ — CNN.com
A Harvard medical pioneer calls it “astounding” — an “incredible achievement” and a “quantum leap forward” in the battle against cancer, autism, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
What’s going on? Scientists at Ohio State University say they’ve figured out a way to grow the genetic equivalent of a nearly complete embryonic human brain.
China now spends more on science than the EU, will soon overtake the US
Maybe we can convince the Chinese to start funding our space program.
On Monday, Chinese scientist Youyou Tu was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of a new malaria therapy. It was remarkable research in its own right, but equally significant is the fact that Tu is the first scientist to ever be awarded a Nobel Prize for work done at a Chinese institution — despite the fact that the country trains more scientists and engineers than any other nation on Earth.
In fact, China now spends more money on research and development than Europe, and by 2020, it’s predicted to outspend the US, as Nature editor Ed Gerstner wrote last month in Research Information. But despite that investment, there’s a big reason for why Chinese science has lagged behind other parts of the world — it has a long history of pumping out dodgy research.
It’s no secret that Chinese scientists have faked fossil records, pushed the boundaries of gene editing in humans, and have frequently been involved in peer review scams. The extent of fraud has been called “endemic” by a Chinese researcher, and a 2010 study of 32,000 Chinese scientists backed this up, revealing that 55 percent knew someone guilty of academic fraud.
Stem cells from human skin turned into kidney tissue
“The result could be a major step towards animal replacement and improved safety screening for drugs, as well as towards transplantable kidneys”
Scientists in Australia succeed in growing ‘organoids’ comparable to early stage of a baby’s kidneys that have collecting ducts and filtering units called nephons.