London is the latest city to gain a city bench with the ability to absorb as much pollution as a small forest. The vertical garden, which doubles as a bench, is Green City Solutions’ CityTree. Using a vertical installation of moss, the bench can absorb as much pollution as 275 trees in 1 percent of the space.
The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million premature deaths occur each year from air pollution, making it one of the largest environmental health risks in the world.
US biotechnology company called Bioquark has been given permission to recruit 20 clinically dead patients and attempt to bring their central nervous systems back to life. They hope to eliminate patients’ need to rely on machines by reanimating parts of the upper spinal cord, where the lower brain stem is located, to potentially energize vital body functions like breathing and heartbeats.
Trial participants will have been declared certified dead and kept alive solely through life support machines. “This represents the first trial of its kind and another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime,” said CEO of Bioquark Inc., Ira Pastor.
The team, who has been granted ethical permission from an Institutional Review Board at the National Institutes of Health in the US and India to begin trials on 20 subjects, is looking to recruit patients for its ReAnima Project as soon as possible.
OA Text is an independent open-access scientific publisher showcases innovative research and ideas aimed at improving health by linking research and practice to the benefit of society.
A stroke occurs when blood flow to an area of the brain is suddenly cut off. The brain cells get deprived of oxygen and begin to die quickly. Having a stroke is a scary thought, but you can be mindful of your health to reduce the chances of having one.
A supposedly rare genetic quirk might be more common than we think, according to new research out Thursday. The study, based largely on 23andMe data, suggests that one in every 2,000 people are born with two copies of a gene from only a single parent, often with no serious health consequences.
Ordinarily, a person’s egg or sperm cells have one set of the genes that make up their chromosomes (other cells in our body have two sets). When a sperm fertilizes an egg, the resulting fertilized zygote will then have two sets of 23 chromosomes, one from each parent, making 46 chromosomes in total. If all goes well, the zygote multiplies and divides until it becomes a person, one with an even allocation of gene copies from both parents.
Scientists are exploring how to edit genomes and even create brand new ones that never existed before, but how close are we to harnessing synthetic life?
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Scientists have made major strides when it comes to understanding the base code that underlies all living things—but what if we could program living cells like software?
The principle behind synthetic biology, the emerging study of building living systems, lies in this ability to synthesize life. An ability to create animal products, individualized medical therapies, and even transplantable organs, all starting with synthetic DNA and cells in a lab.
There are two main schools of thought when it comes to synthesizing life: building artificial cells from the bottom-up or engineering microorganisms so significantly that it resynthesizes and redesigns the genome.
With genetic engineering tools becoming more and more accessible, researchers want to use these synthesized genomes to enhance human health with regards to things like detecting infections or environmental pollutants. Bacterial cells can be engineered that will detect toxic chemicals.
And these synthesized bacteria could potentially protect us from, for example, consuming toxins in contaminated water.
EVANSTON, Ill. — A new Northwestern University study finds that despite human’s close genetic relationship to apes, the human gut microbiome is more similar to that of Old World monkeys like baboons than to that of apes like chimpanzees.
These results suggest that human ecology has had a stronger impact in shaping the human gut microbiome than genetic relationships. The results also suggest the human gut microbiome may have unique characteristics compared to other primates, including increased flexibility.
“Understanding what factors shaped the human gut microbiome over evolutionary time can help us understand how gut microbes may have influenced adaptation and evolution in our ancestors and how they interact with our biology and health today,” said Katherine Amato, lead author of the study and assistant professor of anthropology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern.
Could our food be making us sick – very sick?
In the second episode of this two-part special, Dr Graham Phillips reveals new research about the interplay between food and the bacteria deep within our guts.
