http://www.futureport.dk/news - 2003-01-14 (14 articles)

From: Max M (maxmcorp@worldonline.dk)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 05:50:53 MST


http://www.futureport.dk/news - 2003-01-14 (14 articles)

[Health]
BBC - Anthrax as a cancer treatment
===================================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2643223.stm

Scientists have used a version of the anthrax toxin to kill tumours in
mice. The toxin was so effective that after just one treatment, tumours
were reduced in size by up to 92%. It works by targeting a protein
called urokinase which is produced in high levels by cancerous cells.

[Health]
EurekAlert - UT Southwestern researchers develop new model for
understanding obesity, diabetes
==============================================================================================
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/uots-usr011303.php

To understand the genetic processes regulating fat biology, UT
Southwestern researchers generated nematode worms (Caenorhabditis
elegans) lacking two genes crucial for fat in mammals. Worms deficient
in either gene displayed a lipid-depleted phenotype – pale, skinny,
larval-arrested and lacking fat stores, said Graff. "Our hypothesis was
that the same or related genes would control fat storage in worms and
mammals," Graff said. "We took a couple of the genes thought to be among
the most important ones that control fat formation in mammals and
eliminated their function in the worms. Notably, the worms did not
accumulate fat; therefore, the worms appear to be a good model for fat
biology, which opens the possibility that they can be exploited to
improve human health." Using this phenotype, a genetic screen then
identified many additional genes that are necessary for fat accumulation
in worms, Graff said.

[Health]
Miami Herald - Study says modified anthrax might fight cancer
=============================================================
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/4938615.htm

Anthrax, the bioterrorism agent that killed five people in 2001 and has
frightened millions more, may be an effective cancer killer, according
to new research from the National Institutes of Health. Genetically
engineered anthrax protein - designed to activate only on contact with a
chemical on the surface of malignant tumors - dramatically reduced and
even eradicated cancers in tests on hundreds of mice, according to a
study published Monday in the Proceedings of National Academy of
Sciences. Thanks to the genetic engineering, the anthrax did not poison
the mice...

[Health]
NY Times - New Ideas Energize Alzheimer's Battle
=====================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/health/14DEME.html

...it may be possible to stop Alzheimer's, and reverse the memory loss,
if treatments begin before brain cells die. The new idea is that the
disease starts when small clumps of a protein, amyloid, start
interrupting signals between nerve cells in the brain. The synapses,
where one cell signals another in the brain's intricate circuitry, no
longer function...

[Nanotech]
ABC News - Mega-Data Stored in Mini-Spaces
==========================================
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/FutureTech/futuretech030110.html

Cell phones already can capture and send digital photos wirelessly. And
soon consumers will see wristwatches that can display news and
information from the Internet as well as palm-sized boxes that will
contain dozens of full-length, DVD-quality digital movies. But to cram
all of that data into ever-smaller devices, companies are developing
novel — and tiny — storage devices.

[Science]
EurekAlert - Expanding the genetic code: the world?s first truly
unnatural organism
===================================================================================
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/acs-etg011303.php

  From time immemorial, every living thing has shared the same basic set
of building blocks
      20 amino acids from which all proteins are made. That is, until
now: A group of scientists say they have, for the first time, created an
organism that can produce a 21st amino acid and incorporate it into
proteins completely on its own. The research should help probe some of
the central questions of evolutionary theory.

[Science]
EurekAlert - Human heart tissue generated from embryonic stem cells
===================================================================
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/asft-hht011303.php

Human heart tissue has for the first time been created in the
laboratory. Generated from embryonic stem cells at the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology, the tissue could be used for testing and
creating new drugs, for genetic studies, for tissue engineering and for
studying the effects of various stresses on the heart.

[Science]
MSNBC - Ending germs? chatter key to treating illness
=====================================================
http://www.msnbc.com/news/858649.asp

NOW SCIENTISTS have discovered that bacteria talk to one another
constantly, often cooperating in the construction of intricate
communities, known as biofilms, that allow them to thrive in ways they
never could as single-celled individuals. Unfortunately, these bustling
bacterial cities often create debilitating or life-threatening
infections inside the human body. But scientists hope that disrupting
bacterial communications might offer a new way of treating these infections.

[Science]
Miami Herald - Cloned pig step closer to using pig organs for
transplants in humans
===================================================================================
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/4938807.htm

Professor Randall Prather of the University of Missouri-Columbia told a
conference in Auckland on Monday he has cloned a miniature pig in which
two copies of a critical gene that triggers human organ rejection have
been blocked out...

[Science]
Scientific Americal - Reverse-Engineering Clinical Biology
==========================================================
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=6&articleID=000C4F01-FABE-1E19-8B3B809EC588EEDF

A peacetime dividend yields drug trials on virtual patients - A virtual
patient pops a pill by "swallowing" a detailed technical description of
a drug candidate, which then gets "metabolized" in digital organs
ranging from the pancreas to the liver to the brain...

[Self transformation]
Gulf News - Genome studies will transform medicine future
=========================================================
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=73903

A revolution is underway in the fields of genomics and molecular biology
to bring herculean changes in medicines, said a biotechnology expert in
Abu Dhabi yesterday. Dr Gregory Stock from the University of California
discussed various aspects of medicine and health services in the age of
biotechnology at a conference. He also elaborated on the ethical side of
future innovations and inventions in the medical field, as well as an
era when people will be able to modify themselves by changing their genes...

[Skeptiscism]
TCS - Denmark's Ministry of Truth
======================================
http://www.techcentralstation.be/2051/wrapper.jsp?PID=2051-100&CID=2051-011003N

For the past year, the Danish Recdep has investigated three complaints
against a countryman, a statistician named Bjorn Lomborg, who had the
temerity to write a book challenging the conventional Danish wisdom -
that the world's environment is going to hell. The result, which found
its way into the New York Times and Washington Post this week [ed: 1/8],
was predictable. Lomborg was smeared in a vindictive and amateurish
fashion by a group that did not even have the grace to lay out coherent
charges or conduct its own investigation.

[Space]
NY Times - In Galaxies Near and Far, New Views of Universe Emerge
=================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/science/space/14ASTR.html?ex=1043125200&en=bfb28700eb46f183&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERB

Some astronomers came and exulted over glimpses of objects so far away
and thus so long ago, about 13 billion light-years, that they opened
eyes and minds to the universe as it was soon after stars and galaxies
first began popping up everywhere...

[Technology]
EurekAlert - First U.S. application of new simulation standard
==============================================================
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/jhu-fua011303.php

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
in Laurel, Md., have announced the first successful application in the
United States of a new commercial standard for developing and exercising
interacting federations of simulations. The new standard
      IEEE 1516 -- represents the commercialization of a technology known
as the High Level Architecture (HLA) that was developed by the Defense
Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) for use in a wide range of
military simulation systems. The HLA defines a common framework for
organizing independent, distributed simulations into a larger, single
simulation known as a federation. The IEEE 1516 specification extends
and enhances this framework...

Made in corporation with Transhumanity at:
http://transhumanism.com/news.shtml

-- 
hilsen/regards Max M
http://www.futureport.dk/
Fremtiden, videnskab, skeptiscisme og transhumanisme


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