Science needs entrepreneurs, Google founder says

San Francisco, Feb 19: Scientists need more entrepreneurial drive and could benefit by doing more to promote solutions to big human problems, Google co-founder Larry Page told a meeting of academic researchers.

"There are lots of people who specialize in marketing, but as far as I can tell, none of them work for you," Page told researchers at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science late on Friday.

"Let`s talk about solving some worldwide problems. Let`s get people really motivated," he said.

Larry Page, a 33-year-old billionaire who remains co-president of Mountain View, California-based Google, said he took inspiration from the history of Silicon Valley, with its frequent cycles of innovation.

As a computer science graduate student 11 years ago at Stanford University, Page said he came up the with idea of "page rank" - weighing the relative importance of hyperlinks to improve the relevancy of Web searches - completely randomly.

Page rank remains at the heart of the world`s most popular search system.

"It is not hard to do this," Page told hundreds of scientists, meeting in San Francisco. "You need to think that business and entrepreneurship is a good thing."

"If no one really pays attention to you, then you have a serious marketing problem," said the Internet boy wonder, who recently transformed his appearance, adopting a modish haircut and light stubble.

Page offered a variety of proposals to raise the profile of scientists in society.

Among the ideas he says deserve further attention:

# Noting how 40,000 people die annually in U.S. auto accidents, Page proposed giving computers control over cars. While many people fear the loss of control, he said, "I am pretty sure if computers guided cars, a lot fewer people would die."
# Build fewer roads in underdeveloped parts of Africa. Instead, he suggested ultralight planes capable of traveling at up to 145 kmh and which would consume less gasoline than ground vehicles.
# Solar energy installations in the Nevada desert were capable of producing 800 megawatts per square mile (2.5 square km), somewhat less than half the 2000 megawatts of a nuclear power plant, he said. (A midsized natural gas-powered plant generates around 400 or 500 megawatts).
# A major limitation to wind power is the need for a distribution grid to move power from regions where wind blows to where populations are centered. He said 80 per cent of the electrical grid of Europe and North Africa could be served by an ambitious wind distribution grid cross-connecting the two regions. "Are we going to build that grid? I don`t think so. But I think it would be a good idea."

Page said the reason many scientific undertakings did not succeed was due to a lack of human effort rather than technical hurdles.

Source:ZeeNews

Science finding ways to regrow fingers

New York, Feb 19: Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers — and someday, even limbs — with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel.

There's the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back, after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves.

This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans.

The implications for regrowing fingers go beyond the cosmetic. People who are missing all or most of their fingers, as from an explosion or a fire, often can't pick things up, brush their teeth or button a button. If they could grow even a small stub, it could make a huge difference in their lives.

And the lessons learned from studying regrowth of fingers and limbs could aid the larger field of regenerative medicine, perhaps someday helping people replace damaged parts of their hearts and spinal cords, and heal wounds and burns with new skin instead of scar.

But that's in the future. For now, consider the situation of Lee Spievack, a hobby-store salesman in Cincinnati, as he regarded his severed right middle finger one evening in August 2005.

He had been helping a customer with an engine on a model airplane behind the shop. He knew the motor was risky because it required somebody to turn the prop backwards to make it run the right way.

He'd misjudged the distance to the spinning plastic prop. It sliced off his fingertip, leaving just a bit of the nail bed. The missing piece, three-eighths of an inch long, was never found.

An emergency room doctor wrapped up the rest of his finger and sent him to a hand surgeon, who recommended a skin graft to cover what was left of his finger. What was gone, it appeared, was gone forever.

If Spievack, now 68, had been a toddler, things might have been different. Up to about age 2, people can consistently regrow fingertips, says Dr. Stephen Badylak, a regeneration expert at the University of Pittsburgh. But that's rare in adults, he said.

Spievack, however, did have a major advantage — a brother, Alan, a former Harvard surgeon who'd founded a company called ACell Inc., that makes an extract of pig bladder for promoting healing and tissue regeneration.

It helps horses regrow ligaments, for example, and the federal government has given clearance to market it for use in people. Similar formulations have been used in many people to do things like treat ulcers and other wounds and help make cartilage.

The summer before Lee Spievack's accident, Dr. Alan Spievack had used it on a neighbor who'd cut his fingertip off on a tablesaw. The man's fingertip grew back over four to six weeks, Alan Spievack said.

Lee Spievack took his brother's advice to forget about a skin graft and try the pig powder.

Soon a shipment of the stuff arrived and Lee Spievack started applying it every two days. Within four weeks his finger had regained its original length, he says, and in four months "it looked like my normal finger."

Spievack said it's a little hard, as if calloused, and there's a slight scar on the end. The nail continues to grow at twice the speed of his other nails.

None of this proves the powder was responsible. But those outcomes have helped inspire an effort to try the powder this summer at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, on soldiers who have far more disabling finger loss because of burns.

Fingers are particularly vulnerable to burns because they are small and their skin is thin, says David Baer, a wound specialist at the base who's working on the federally funded project. The five to 10 patients in the project will be chosen because they have major losses in all their fingers and thumbs, preventing them from performing the pinching motion they need to hold a toothbrush, for example.

The soldiers will have the end of a finger stub re-opened surgically, with the powder applied three times a week.

Nobody is talking about regrowing an entire finger. The hope is to grow enough of a finger, maybe even less than an inch, to do pinching.

And it is just a hope.

Source:ZeeNews

Wrinkle-filler regenerates collagen

Washington, Feb 20: Restylane, a popular cosmetic treatment for temporarily plumping out wrinkles, actually makes the skin produce more collagen, the natural stuff that makes skin look young, researchers said on Monday.

That means the product, which millions of people have had injected around their lips, cheeks and foreheads, has effects beyond even what its manufacturers claim, the team at the University of Michigan Health System reported.

The researchers tested Restylane, marketed by Q-Med AB of Uppsala, Sweden and Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. It and rival products use hyaluronic acid, which holds onto water in the skin.

"Everybody had thought that the whole story with this stuff is that you inject it and because of its volume-filling nature that ... it would go in and fill up whatever defect is there and that is why it made people look better," dermatologist Dr. John Voorhees, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"What we are saying here is ... that in addition to the space-filling concept, is it forcing your body to make its own collagen."

That could mean regular injections could have long-lasting effects, Voorhees said. "The half-life of collagen is 15 years. It is going to last a whole lot longer than what a whole lot of people are thinking."

In the February issue of Archives of Dermatology, Voorhees and colleagues wrote that Restylane`s plumping action stretches the fibroblasts, the cells in the skin that make collagen, and prompts them to make more of it.

It also may interfere with the breakdown of existing collagen.

The company did not pay for the experiment and does not know what the report says, the researchers said.

Source:Zeenews

Viagra to save premature baby

British doctors give Viagra to save premature baby

English doctors used the anti-impotence drug Viagra to save the life of a severely premature baby, media reports have said.

Medics in the northeast city of Newcastle upon Tyne gave the drug to Lewis Goodfellow -- who was born at 24 weeks, weighing just one pound, eight ounces (780 grammes) -- as one of his lungs failed and not enough oxygen was getting into his bloodstream.

The drug opened up tiny blood vessels in his lungs, allowing oxygen to be captured and flow around the body. Lewis, who was born in August last year, was eventually allowed home last month.

Alan Fenton, consultant neonatologist at the city's Royal Victoria Infirmary, said although oxygen can be pumped into the lungs of premature babies with breathing difficulties, there was not enough blood supply to carry it elsewhere.

"What Sildenafil (Viagra) does is open up the blood vessels so they can capture the oxygen and take it around the body," he was quoted as saying by BBC News Online.

Lewis's mother, Jade Goodfellow, and father, John Barclay, were so concerned their son was going to die that they began planning his funeral until doctors told them Sildenafil might work.

"I don't think you could put into words how we feel," his mother said. "The doctors are worth their weight in gold. We admire each and every one of them for what they have done."

Source: Yahoo

TV Remote co-inventor dies

TV Remote co-inventor dies aged 93



Eugene Polley and Robert Adler were two of a dozen engineers at Zenith Electronics Corporation tasked with creating a wireless remote control for the television. In 1955, Polley invented the ‘Flashmatic’, using photocells to transmit information to a television screen, somewhat reminiscent of the infrared technology used in many of today’s lounge room remote controls.

In 1956, Robert Adler invented what he called the Zenith Space Command remote control which used ultrasonics, or high-frequency sound. This made the remote control more efficient, and in turn is mimicked today by some remote controls that use wireless technology to avoid the problem of needing to transmit and receive infrared signals.

In 1997, both Adler and Polley were honored with an Emmy Award for their work on creating the wireless remote control. Adler was an astounding inventor, with more than 180 US patents to his name – with the last issued as recently as February 1.

Since the mid 1950s, today’s remote controls have evolved into multi-buttoned affairs, with notable examples of a successful remote control including Apple’s simple remote control included with all current Macintosh computers, desktop and laptop, and the easy-to-use TiVO remote control.

Advanced universal remote controls with various button arrangements, and some using a touch screen to offer advanced or self-created layouts continue pushing forward the boundaries of remote control design, although most remote controls still end up seriously over-buttoned and prone to easy loss under one of the couch cushions.

Arguably the most advanced consumer remote control is the Wii-mote, or the wireless control wand that comes with the Nintendo Wii console, allowing more realistic physical game play than previously possible without actually going outside and playing the real game itself. So far, the Wii has proven an enormously popular games console, and truly indicating how far the humble remote control has come.

Source:itwire.com.au

Pig cells hope for diabetes cure

Pig cells hope for diabetes cure

Many believe pig islet cells have the potential to transform the lives of patients with Type 1 diabetes. A trial about to start in Russia will help determine if this is true. Go back 10 years, and a similar trial took place in Auckland, New Zealand, where Professor Elliott is medical director of the biotech company Living Cell Technologies.

Professor Bob Elliott said the trial was running without problems, but they felt compelled to stop. "It was a purely precautionary measure because of limited research suggesting pig retroviruses could infect patients," he said. "Now we are confident this isn't the case. After more animal studies and carefully following patients for nearly a decade, the scare has gone."

Simple procedure

It means the research is back on. It involves transplanting millions of pig islet cells into each patient.For the study, the cells are poured through a funnel into the abdomen after checking the condition of the intestines with a laparoscope. In the future, it may only require a simple needle puncture. Either way, it will take just a few minutes.

The islet cells should start to produce insulin in response to the body's demands.This control is lacking in patients with Type 1 diabetes.It means they need insulin injections to keep blood sugar levels constant.Otherwise they face serious health consequences - falling unconscious, or in the long term, blindness or organ damage.

Advantages

Islet cell transplantation is already being tried with human cells, but there are big differences.
Human cells are in limited supply, but pig herds could be expanded to meet demand.
There is also the issue of immunosuppression. Anti-rejection drugs are needed with human cell transplants, but Professor Elliott said that is not the case with pig cells.
The clusters of cells are protected by encapsulation in a seaweed-based gel.
The company believes it is leading the world with this technology.
Professor Elliott said: "If you need anti-rejection drugs the treatment isn't worthwhile - the side effects can be unpleasant, it would be getting rid of one problem and introducing another."

Less need for insulin
The study's aim is at least a 25% reduction in need for insulin to maintain blood sugar control. Measurements will be taken at six months and one year, with patients then observed for the rest of their lives. The researchers hope the reduction will be much greater in some, but even a 25% drop could reduce the dangerous fluctuations in blood sugars to a significant extent. This is what patients like 51-year-old Michael Helyer really want. He took part in the first New Zealand trial. He received only a third of the dose now thought to be necessary, but experienced a 30% reduction in insulin requirement. Ten years later, some of the pig cells are still producing insulin. Mr Helyer leads a busy life running his own music store and is certain the treatment has helped. "It's not about having fewer injections, it's about getting more control. You can't live a normal life if you're in fear of (blood sugar) levels getting too high or low all the time."

Failed attempts
The use of pig islet cells has been tried before, but with different methods. In Sweden, pig foetal cells were injected into a vein with immunosuppressants, but there was little success. In Mexico, cells were transplanted into tubes under the skin, along with Sertoli cells from piglet testes, which are thought to offer a form of immunoprotection. A trial of 12 patients showed some improvement, but the results of further patients have not yet been documented. The procedure has since been stopped.

Cautious welcome
With this chequered past, it is not surprising there is some scepticism. Jo Brodie, Islet Project Co-ordinator at Diabetes UK, agrees the research has potential, but also has reservations.
"A great deal more work is needed. Also, there are still ethical and safety issues that need addressing." Living Cell Technology is going to great lengths to address these. Not least in its source of pig cells. They come from a herd isolated on a remote subantarctic island. They were abandoned by a sealing ship 200 years ago. Some of the descendants of this pure breed were transported to New Zealand to live in "pig palaces".

These are bio secure facilities to ensure the pigs are totally disease-free. But the company is limited in where it can conduct its research. There is a moratorium on the use of animal tissue in humans (xenotransplantation) in countries like Canada and Australia. Others, such as New Zealand, are currently deciding whether further trials can take place.But Professor Elliott is comfortable with Russia for the trial. Surgeons there are experienced in xenotransplantation, and a growing clinical research industry means international regulatory standards are in place.He believes the study will provide data other countries won't be able to ignore.He just wants to get started. This is his life work. "This is what all my diabetes patients want. If the trial is a success, we will be inundated."

Story from BBC NEWS

Pregnant moms who eat fish may have smarter kids

Pregnant moms who eat fish may have smarter kids



Women who eat seafood while pregnant may be boosting their children's IQ, says new research -- contradicting current recommendations that pregnant women limit seafood to avoid mercury.

The study concluded that women who ate more than 340 grams a week of fish or seafood -- the equivalent of two or three servings a week -- had smarter children with better developmental skills.

Children whose mothers ate no seafood were 48 per cent more likely to have a low verbal IQ score, compared with children whose mothers ate high amounts of seafood, the researchers found.

The study, led by Dr. Joseph Hibbeln of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, tracked the eating habits of 11,875 pregnant women in Bristol, Britain.

At 32 weeks into their pregnancy, the women were asked to fill out a seafood consumption questionnaire. They were sent questionnaires four more times during their pregnancy, and then up to eight years after the birth of their child.

Researchers examined the children's social and communication skills, their hand-eye co-ordination, and their IQ levels. They concluded that fish in a mother's diet did affect their children's development.

But since the study was based on self-reporting methods, the results cannot be considered entirely definitive.

Seafood for pregnant women has remained controversial, because the food contains both nutrients and toxins.

Fish is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, essential to brain development, is low in saturated fat and contains high-quality protein. But it can also contain mercury, which can cross the placenta and build up in a fetus' nervous system.

Large saltwater fish are of particular concern. Health Canada recommends that pregnant women, women of child-bearing age, and small children not consumer more than one meal per month of swordfish, shark and fresh tuna.

Other Canadians should restrict consumption to one meal per week.

(Canned tuna is considered safer, because the species used tend to be smaller and shorter lived than those used in the fresh and frozen market, and therefore, the level of mercury found in canned tuna tends to be lower.)

While experts believe further research is necessary to confirm these conclusions, the study's failure to find evidence of increased harm from eating fish is significant.

Because seafood contains both nutrients and toxins, it remains a dilemma for regulatory authorities what kinds of recommendations should exist for pregnant women.

Hibbeln suggests that eating even more than three portions of fish or seafood a week could be beneficial to developing babies.

"we found that when you look at fish as a whole, the entire nutritional benefits of fish far outweigh the typical trace contaminants of neurotoxins found in fish," he told CTV Newsnet from Washington, adding that even fish oil capsules are beneficial.

The study was primarily funded by Britain's Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the University of Bristol, and the British government.

The study is published in The Lancet.

Source:CTV.ca News

Is a vasectomy bad for your brain?

Getting a vasectomy might increase a man's risk of a baffling brain disease, a study has found.

The disease, primary progressive aphasia, gradually destroys patients' ability to talk, read and write. PPA often begins when patients are in their 40s and 50s.

Northwestern University medical school researchers compared 47 men with PPA with 57 men of similar age and education who had normal mental abilities.

Forty percent of the PPA patients had had vasectomies, compared with 16 percent of those in the control group.

In the PPA group, men who had vasectomies developed the disease on average four years earlier than those who didn't have vasectomies.

The study is published in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology.

Researchers cautioned that results are preliminary.

'Don't want to scare anyone'
"I don't want to scare anyone away from getting a vasectomy," said lead researcher Sandra Weintraub.

Weintraub hopes to do a follow-up study with a larger sample size.

In a vasectomy, the doctor snips tubes that carry sperm from the testicles to the penis. This allows sperm to leak into the bloodstream. Previous studies found that in many men, the immune system produces antibodies that attack sperm in the bloodstream. Weintraub said it's possible these sperm-fighting antibodies also might attack brain cells.

Vasectomies might be linked to a similar disease called frontotemporal dementia. FTD is the second-leading cause of dementia illness after Alzheimer's disease. Of the 30 men in Northwestern's FTD registry, 37 percent had had vasectomies.

Jeff Hawkinson of Peoria had a vasectomy at age 40 and developed FTD at age 53. His wife, Cathi, was "totally shocked" after learning about the possible vasectomy link.

"He did it for me," she said.

Source:Suntimes