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A Dallas-based researcher says he’s pulled off a medical first: successfully treating mice and rats dying of insulin-dependent diabetes without using insulin.Dr. Roger Unger, chair of diabetes research at UT Southwestern Medical School, is quick to warn that practical applications, if any, are years away. But the research team he headed used high levels of leptin, a substance naturally produced by fat cells, to somehow reverse the otherwise fatal effects of diabetes. If the experiment is repeated in other labs, and then if leptin can be adapted to treat humans, it might offer the first alternate to the multiple insulin...

The governing board of California's stem cell agency awarded a total of $59 million Wednesday to support the budgets of 23 young scientists and physicians throughout the state who have proposed new stem cell research projects. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, created with a $3 billion bond issue approved by voters in 2004, announced the five-year grants, bringing the total awarded by the Institute to more than $614 million. More than a third has gone to individuals and teams of scientists at 27 California universities and research institutes, ... The institute is governed by the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee,...

Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series of columns first posted on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's (IRLC) website [http://www.illinoisrighttolife.org/] written by Bill Beckman, IRLC's executive director. The column discusses research on "brain dead" and "almost dead" patients. This series warns readers about end of life issues and the need to monitor the care given to loved ones. The IRLC director also describes what readers can do to protect themselves from the looming culture of death which permeates the thinking of many medical facilities in our nation. The following was written by Bill Beckman Life is precious,...

No extreme hazards found in basement workshop that alarmed authorities MARLBORO— Victor Deeb, the retired chemist who stored hundreds of chemicals in his house, was allowed to return home yesterday after authorities spent three days dismantling his basement laboratory. None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.

This thread can be used to compile research and Gaffe's on Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. I've started keeping a file on him. I really hope the McCain people are paying attention. Stupid Remarks Obama says he'll be President for 8 to 10 years. Obama says small town Americans cling to guns and religion and they are bitter. Obama says one bomb on Pearl Harbor. Obama says 9-11 happened because Al-queda lacks empathy Iraqi Prime Minister denies supporting Obama's plan. Obama snubs foreign press Obama says he's on the Banking Committee.Source 2 banking Committee. Obama claimed tornadoes in Kansas killed...

FORT MYERS, Fla. - A WINK News exclusive: new details in the possible cure for cancer. On Sunday night, "60 Minutes" re-broadcast their profile of Sanibel resident John Kanzius, which originally aired in April. WINK News talked with John Kanzius Sunday night over the phone. In the conversation, we learned this is just the beginning, and some incredible advancements have been made in the past few months. "That piece was shot in January. The research is so far ahead that piece I look at it in amazement," John Kanzius said. John Kanzius is part-time Sanibel resident. He suffers from leukemia...

...the pharmaceutical industry has become a lightning rod for critics. For example, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, blasted the drug industry in a much-publicized 2004 book, accusing it of profiteering and having become "a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit." She maintained the pharmaceutical industry's reputation for innovation is a myth, that it "feeds off the NIH" and that new drugs "nearly always stem from publicly supported research." ...Mr. Zycher and his colleagues concluded that scientific contributions of the private sector were essential for the discovery and/or development of virtually all the...

Research Casts New Light on History of North America Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso’s research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois – were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought. Newswise — Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his...

Here's one one interesting idea for getting water to desert regions. Consider gypsum. There's lots of it in the southwest. The chemical formula for gypsum is CaSO4.2H2O. Notice the H20 on the end? Gypsum is 20% water by weight. Did you know that you can quickly cook the water out of gypsum at 212F degrees 100C . Gypsum occurs in flat planes often not far from the surface--especially in old dry lakebeds. You could cook those planes. Leaving a mineral residue called bassanite--water would percolate up and the earth would subside causing a lake. Think you could find a heat...

Self righteousness can be a disease afflicting the true believers in any cause. But the animal rights movement seems to be home to more than its share of people who believe their cause is so right that they are excused from normal human constraints. They have no more consideration of others than the beasts they whose interests they place above humanity's. More than two decades ago, a childhood friend who grew up to become a world-renowned medical researcher, whose work has improved the lives of countless people suffering a horrible affliction (and who has had the extraordinary honor among medical...

USDA report says climate change affecting crops, livestock By JUDITH KOHLER | Associated Press Writer 12:06 AM CDT, May 28, 2008 Article tools DENVER - Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation's water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report released Tuesday. Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 years, said the report compiled by 38 scientists

Research Advances May Help Prevent And Improve Diagnosis Of Celiac Disease ScienceDaily (May 21, 2008) — For those suffering from celiac disease, there may be good news on the horizon. New research presented at Digestive Disease Week® 2008 (DDW®) will discuss the latest advancements in the diagnosis and prevention of celiac sprue. "At this time, the only effective treatment for celiac disease is a lifelong gluten-free diet, a lifestyle that is difficult for many patients to manage," said Peter H. Green, MD, Columbia University Medical School. "Unfortunately, many people are unaware that they have celiac disease, and if left untreated,...

Doctor No by: Deborah Lambert, April 24, 2008 Among the questions that apparently plague academics these days is—Why don't more conservatives pursue doctorate degrees? When Matthew Woessner and his wife April Kelly-Woessner of Elizabethtown College wrote about this subject, they made some interesting discoveries. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “the Woessners found that in a variety of ways conservative students were less interested than liberals in subject matter that leads to doctoral degrees, and less interested in doing the kinds of things that professors spend their time doing.” On the other hand, liberal students reportedly savored the opportunity...

~~~snip~~~ Cryobank doesn't reveal the identities of donors but allows people to choose based on the traits they'd like their child to have. Jackaway decided on "Donor X" because he appeared philosophical and intelligent on paper. He liked music, loved to travel and had a high IQ and a degree in economics. What she couldn't know then is that her son would have autism. So she started to wonder whether Donor X might carry a gene that could have contributed... ~~~snip~~~ Researchers have found some genetic areas associated with autism, but it could take years before the gene or genes...

Russian-American research team examines origins of whaling culture Submitted by Kerynn Fisher Phone: 907-474-6941 04/02/08 Un'en'en archaeological site on the Chutkotka Peninsula.(Photos by Sarah Meitl)Detail on the ivory carving excavated during the summer 2007 field season. Recent findings by a Russian-American research team suggest that prehistoric cultures were hunting whales at least 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than was previously known. University of Alaska Museum of the North archaeology curator Daniel Odess presented the team's findings at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia last week. "The importance of whaling in arctic prehistory is clear....

Academics Downgrade Socialized Medicine by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 25, 2008 Throughout the Twentieth Century into the new millennium, academia has been the incubator for a flood of ideas on how to nationalize health care. Now, it seems, academics themselves are admitting that it doesn’t work, even as various presidential candidates still float ideas to provide “universal health care.” The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at Harvard recently compiled a survey of 20 developed countries. As relayed by John Goodman of the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis, the NBER concludes that: 1. There is no general relationship between...

(IsraelNN.com) The initial findings of a study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem show that a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, marijuana, may hold out hope for slowing down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The research, still at an early stage, indicates that memory loss, the first and primary symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, can be slowed down significantly in mice by cannabidiol. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, affects some 24.3 million people worldwide. In the study conducted by Professor Raphael Mechoulam and a team led by Dr. Maria de Ceballos at the Cajal Institute in Madrid, Spain, mice...

Go With Your Gut -- Intuition Is More Than Just A Hunch, Says New Research ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2008) — Most of us experience ‘gut feelings’ we can’t explain, such as instantly loving – or hating – a new property when we’re househunting or the snap judgements we make on meeting new people. Now researchers at Leeds say these feelings – or intuitions – are real and we should take our hunches seriously. According to a team led by Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School, intuition is the result...

SEATTLE  —  Within the next 18 months, medical researchers will be asking people in Seattle to volunteer to be exposed to the deadliest form of malaria to help them test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates.The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute is collaborating with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to accelerate malaria vaccine research by opening a new vaccine testing center in Seattle's south Lake Union neighborhood.Scientists at the center will use early testing of vaccines to weed out those that don't work so they can speed up research on the ones that are effective. Malaria vaccine testing has already begun...

In A Nutshell, Boiled Peanuts Better For You By KENT FAULK   Lex Legate, owner of the Peanut Depot in Birmingham, Ala., prepares to boil peanuts. (Photo by Michelle Williams)     BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Boiled peanuts, a mushy snack enjoyed by many in the South, may be better for your health than raw peanuts or those roasted dry or in oil, a new study by a group of Huntsville researchers suggests.Boiling brings out up to four times more healthy phytochemicals in the peanuts than raw, dry- or oil-roasted nuts, according to the study by three Alabama A&M University researchers...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - An asteroid that exploded over Siberia a century ago, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown down trees, wasn't nearly as large as previously thought, a researcher concludes, suggesting a greater danger for Earth. According to supercomputer simulations by Sandia National Laboratories physicist Mark Boslough, the asteroid that destroyed the forest at Tunguska in Siberia in June 1908 had a blast force equivalent to one-quarter to one-third of the 10- to 20-megaton range scientists previously estimated. Better understanding of what happened at Tunguska will allow for better estimates of risk that would allow policymakers to decide...

This new legal search engine is free and allows you to search and rank by authority US Supreme Court and US Court of Appeals cases. Alpha site is at www.precydent.com/alpha

Pot Slows Cancer in Test Tube Marijuana Ingredients Slow Invasion by Cervical and Lung Cancer Cells By Daniel J. DeNoonWebMD Medical News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD Dec. 26, 2007 -- THC and another marijuana-derived compound slow the spread of cervical and lung cancers, test-tube studies suggest.The new findings add to the fast-growing number of animal and cell-culture studies showing different anticancer effects for cannabinoids, chemical compounds derived from marijuana.Cannabinoids, and sometimes marijuana itself, are currently used to lessen the nausea and pain experienced by many cancer patients. The new findings -- yet to be proven in human studies --...

The origins of ice-skating have been traced by scientists to the frozen lakes of Finland about 5,000 years ago, when people used skates made from animal bone. Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University have calculated that skating on the primitive blades would have reduced the energy cost of travelling by 10 per cent, suggesting that it emerged as a practical method of transport and not as recreation. Southern Finland has been identified as the most likely home of skating through an analysis of the shape and distribution of lakes in central and northern Europe, which shows that the early Finns would...

Ok, this is the first I've heard of this---maybe I just don't read "Scientific American" enough---but Sundance Channel had a "documentary" called "The Origin of AIDs." Before you flame, I know all about Sundance, which is why I'm asking for evidence and sources! The program, researching a book by Michael Hooper (a journalist, not a doctor), claims that AIDs was an accidental human creation that resulted from using chimpanzee tissue as a culture in African labs by a U.S. researcher named Koprowski who was trying to beat Sabin to an oral polio vaccing. There was a conference on Hooper's book,...

The 2007 Human Development Report says Iceland now leads annual United Nations Index. Iceland has narrowly passed Norway to take the top spot on the Human Development Index (HDI), according to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today. Norway had held the number one ranking for the previous six years. This change in ranking is a result of new estimates of life expectancy and updated GDP per capita figures, stress the Report authors. Introduced with the first HDR in 1990, the HDI assesses the state of human development through life expectancy, adult...

An Australian scientist who had worked closely with Alan Trounson, the newly named chief of California's $3 billion stem cell program, has been cited for "research misconduct" in an Australian university probe of a scuttled government-funded study. According to Australian press accounts, Trounson was never a target of the Monash University investigation, which began when data for internal progress reports by senior research fellow Yuben Moodley could not be verified with his laboratory notebooks. Moodley resigned from the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories in February, after the Australian government refused to renew funding of the experiment studying repair of...

What actually happened when a Swedish newspaper published a picture of the prophet Mohammed as a dog? The Swedish Emergency Management Agency wants to find out, and is to give funding to Örebro University to look at reaction to the controversial publication. The university will also compare the reactions around the world to what happened following a similar publication by a Danish newspaper 2 years ago, but which reached much larger proportions. And the artist that first drew the pictures of Mohammed is taking his own look back at the controversy, by writing a musical about the events. Lars Vilks...

For an organ that has been scanned millions of times by experts using high-end imaging technology, the brain remains in large part a shrouded landscape, as lost in darkness as the ocean floor. One reason has less to with the brain’s complexity than its uniformity: it contains billions of identical-looking cells, most sprouting multiple identical-looking branches to other cells, near and far. A needle in a haystack at least looks different from the strands around it; finding and mapping large numbers of neurons is more like working out the root system beneath a tropical rain forest. But last week, researchers...

Former Intel CEO Andrew S. Grove says the pharmaceutical industry could learn a lot from the computer and chip businesses. ...On Sunday afternoon, Grove is unleashing a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways. ...

The Danish Council of Ethics has proposed a set of rules to deal with the prospective possibility that human and animal genes will be combined The first hybrid sheep-goat was created some 20 years ago, and science has since used cell and gene research to put a baboon heart into an infant and use other animal organs to save human lives. But where this technology will eventually lead to is of great concern to both the Danish Council of Ethics and the Council for Animal Ethics, who Tuesday presented their proposals for dealing with the unnerving prospect of combining human...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Stockholm, Sweden (LifeNews.com) -- Three researchers who work with controversial embryonic stem cells shared the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their role in looking at mouse genes and using their studies to determine the human genes that cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Pro-life advocates oppose embryonic stem cell research on human beings because days-old unborn children must be killed to obtain their cells. They support the use of animal and adult stem cells.Americans Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and British scientist Sir Martin Evans split the prestigious award and its prize of...

Sweden has long been at the forefront of brain research, but what is happening in this field today? And is it really possible to train the brain, as Professor Torkel Klingberg claims?

The Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Americans Mario R Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, and Briton Sir Martin J Evans, it has been announced. The trio are being given the award in recognition of "their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells," according to the citation. They will share prize money of ten million kronor. The trio's discoveries led to the development of gene targeting in mice. This technology is now being used in almost all areas of biomedicine, from basic research to the development of new therapies,...

Stem cells that normally make sperm can be taught to make other tissues as well, perhaps offering men a medical repair kit, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. They found a way to easily pick the cells out from other tissue in the testicles and to grow them into batches big enough to use medically. This provides a new source of stem cells, the body's master cells, which experts hope can be used to treat injuries, replace diseased tissue and perhaps even regenerate organs. Dr. Shahin Rafii of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute...

We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong. Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye. These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more...

Female chimpanzees 'sell' sex for fruit By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent Last Updated: 4:01pm BST 11/09/2007 Female chimpanzees are "selling" sex to the males that gather the most fruit, according to new research. Behavioural psychologists found that female chimps mate with the males that give them the most fruit, while male chimps steal "desirable" fruits such as papaya from farms and orchards in a bid to woo potential mates. Oranges, pineapples and maize are among the most sought after crops, with bananas proving far less popular. The scientists also discovered that the chimp that gathered the most fruit in the...

Court Blocks DirecTV's Heavy-Handed Legal Tactics San Francisco - In an important ruling today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked satellite television provider DirecTV's heavy-handed legal tactics and protected security and computer science research into satellite and smart card technology after hearing argument from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The cases, DirecTV v. Huynh and DirecTV v. Oliver, involved a provision of federal law prohibiting the "assembly" or "modification" of equipment designed to intercept satellite signals. DirecTV maintained that the provision should cover anyone who works with equipment designed for interception of their signals, regardless of their motivation...

Shock: kids smarter than chimps By Will Dunham IN another case of researchers reporting the bleeding obvious, European scientists have found that children are smarter than chimpanzees. A unique study comparing the abilities of human toddlers to chimpanzees and orang-utans found that two-year-old children have social learning skills superior to the apes, the researchers said. In one social learning test, a researcher showed the children and apes how to pop open a plastic tube to get food or a toy contained inside. The children observed and imitated the solution.

Associated Press Pity the fisherman or sailor who staggers on deck in the morning and through bleary eyes sees a giant water spider, legs akimbo and buzzing ominously, coming at him. No cause for alarm, however. It's just Proteus, a so-called Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel designed for everything from military uses to biological studies, ocean exploration and sea rescue. The spindly catamaran is so efficient that it can travel 5,000 miles — farther than across the Atlantic — on one load of diesel fuel. Daniel Basta, director of the National Marine Sanctuaries for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said...

A British pro-life group warns that a new type of embryo research, likely to be approved this week by a U.K. government panel, undermines human dignity. Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority is expected to give a green light this week to U.K. laboratories seeking to create the first animal-human embryos for medical research using eggs taken from dead cows. British scientists want to use the hybrid embryos in order to research genetic diseases. Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, opposes the embryo-destructive research. He says that an "a-nucleated" cow egg will only...

A new study out of California shows that Wikipedia isn’t a trusted source of information for college students. Instead most turned first to college resources such as the school library and databases, followed by trusted news websites and search engines. Only 3% of students surveyed, actually turned to Wikipedia for information. This is good news considering Wikipedia is notorious for being a bastion of liberalism, and shows little neutrality on political or cultural topics. Many of the editors on Wikipedia are actually recruited from the leftist website Democratic Underground. A quick perusal of the Wikipedia entry on Democratic Underground shows...

LONDON (Reuters) - The smallest dinosaur could reach speeds of nearly 40 mph (64 kph) and even the lumbering Tyrannosaurus rex would have been able to outrun most modern-day sportsmen, according to research published on Wednesday.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Aug. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists are developing portable pyrolysis units that can convert poultry litter into bio-oil in a system that addresses biosecurity issues. Virginia Tech Associate Professor Foster Agblevor, who is leading the research, said the technology can convert poultry litter into three value-added byproducts -- pyrodiesel, producer gas, and fertilizer. The pyrolysis unit heats the litter until it vaporizes, the scientists said. The vapor is then condensed to produce the bio-oil and a slow-release fertilizer is recovered from the reactor. The gas can then be used to operate the pyrolysis unit, thereby making it a...

Swedish researchers have joined Danish colleagues in an attempt to establish Denmark's claims to parts of the Arctic region. The expedition follows the planting of a flag on the underwater Lomonosov Ridge by a Russian expedition last week. The expedition, led by Swedish icebreaker Oden, set off from Norway on Sunday. It is being led jointly by Martin Jakobsson of Stockholm University and Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark. The Danes claim that the ridge is on the same continental shelf as Greenland, which is a Danish territory. They hope that the expedition will prove the country's claim...

THE HOME OF DR. ARTHUR ROSENBAUM isn’t hard to find. He lives a few blocks south of Sunset Boulevard, near the UCLA campus, in a white two-story house with a front yard jammed with aspen trees. There is a short driveway on the side of the home, and during the evening, a bright, white light illuminates the carport. If someone wants to sabotage the doctor’s car under the cover of night, a flashlight isn’t needed. On Sunday, June 24, just that kind of person struck. Rosenbaum, a highly regarded pediatric ophthalmologist who had been regularly harassed by animal-rights activists for...

New research shows us that people around the world, including in the West, are satisfied with their lives and are enjoying a rising quality of life. So why are westerners so pessimistic, asks Nima Sanandaji, of think-tank Captus. Our planet is a happier place these days. That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center is telling us. Their latest survey of global attitudes in 47 nations has found a number of trends that are worth analyzing. According to Pew, people in the developing world are growing ever more satisfied with their personal and financial situations. In Latin America, 59...

WELLINGTON (AFP) - They say you are what you eat, and growing numbers of vegans are shunning sex with meat-eaters because they see them as "a graveyard for animals", a New Zealand researcher says. These vegans not only refuse to eat meat or animal products but refuse to have sexual contact with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of dead animals, the researcher was reported saying in The Press newspaper on Tuesday. Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at New Zealand's Canterbury University, said she coined the term vegansexuals during her research....

SCIENTISTS have created the world’s first schizophrenic mice in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the illness. It is believed to be the first time an animal has been genetically engineered to have a mental illness... Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering.

The Humane Society of the United States applauded a move by the U.S. House of Representatives late last night to strengthen the federal protections for pets and laboratory animals. The House accepted an amendment to the Farm Bill by Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) that prevents stolen pets from being sold into research, bars the use of live animals in medical device sales demonstrations and increases fines for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. One provision of the legislation is a response to a recent high-profile incident earlier this year at the Cleveland Clinic, in...