Thursday, August 25, 2011

Tooth regrowth gel spells the end of dentist visits


Tooth regrowth gel spells the end of dentist visits | Ubergizmo

A team of French scientists at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research in Paris tested if the hormone could stimulate tooth growth.
Their findings, published in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, could signal hurtnot just an end to fillings, but the dreaded dentist drill as well. They stumbled across the solution in the form of a tooth treatment gel that is said to stimulate regrowth of a natural tooth. This gel is made up of a natural chemical that can be found in our bodies, and so far tests in mice have proved to be effective, although there are no known results of long term effects just yet.

See also: http://www.credentis.com/
and: http://www.naturalnews.com/030632_teeth_cavities.html

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Drug From New Zealand Kills Cancer Cells By Starving Them Of Glucose

Drug From New Zealand Kills Cancer Cells By Starving Them Of Glucose

Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand have designed a new compound that starves certain cancer cells of glucose, depriving them of energy and causing them to die.

“Normal cells can use glucose efficiently, whereas many cancers produce energy inefficiently through aerobic glycolysis. These cells become addicted to glucose and need to import large quantities of glucose to survive,” explains Associate Professor Michael Hay from the Auckland Cancer Society Research Center (ACSRC) and Maurice Wilkins Center for Molecular Biodiscovery.

“Using STF-31 we have shown that it is possible to selectively inhibit the ability of certain cancer cells to take up glucose. This starves them of energy and causes them to die. Importantly, treatment with STF-31 did not appear to cause toxicity in normal cells and so presages a novel way to selectively target cancer cells.”

Link: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/3/94/94ra70.abstract




Thursday, August 18, 2011

BBC News - IBM produces first 'brain chips'


BBC News - IBM produces first 'brain chips'

IBM has developed a microprocessor which it claims comes closer than ever to replicating the human brain.

Dharmendra Modha, IBM's project leader, explained that they were trying to recreate aspects of the mind such as emotion, perception, sensation and cognition by "reverse engineering the brain."

IBM's work on the SyNAPSE project continues and the company, along with its academic partners, has just been awarded $21m (£12.7m) by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Link IBM: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/business_analytics/article/cognitive_computing.html

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Hydrogen made by enzyme is faster and cheaper

Scientists have shown how an enzyme from a microbe can produce hydrogen from water more quickly and cheaply.

"This nickel-based catalyst is really very fast," said co-author Morris Bullock of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state in the US. 

The new research published in Science takes us a step closer to this vision by avoiding the use of rare and costly chemicals to extract it from water.


Although it is fast, at present the process uses up too much electrical energy to be viable for real-world applications.

However, the authors note that "these results highlight the substantial promise molecular catalysts hold for the production of hydrogen".

BBC News - Hydrogen made by enzyme is faster and cheaper