From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Mon Aug 30 1999 - 17:30:55 MDT
*Princeton head leads bioethics debate. So did the workload of Princeton
University President Harold T. Shapiro.
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/prince30199908304.htm
*Starvation may be the key to living longer (Sydney Morning Herald)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9908/30/text/pageone12.html
*Today is the deadline for the discount of the Foresight Conference
Tutorial. http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT7/Tutorial.html
*7th Foresight Conference on Molecular NanotechnologyOctober 15-17, 1999
Tutorial October 14Silicon Valley, California
http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT7
*The force of gravity is the same for atoms and baseballs. Stanford
physicists have put a modern twist on Galileo's classic 16thcentury
experiment of dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/99/atomgravity990825.html
*Solar cells forever
One of the biggest problems with solar cells is they tend to wear out with
time. Now David Cahen of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot,
Israel, may have found a way to make them so they last forever. Cahen and
his colleagues used copper indium gallium diselenide, a novel material in
which it seems that copper atoms can diffuse to damaged areas and
effectively heal damage caused by long exposure to light. The solar cells
are as efficient as the best ones that are commercially available and may
turn out to be cheaper.
ref: Advanced Materials, August 1999.
*Worm aids medical research
An Irish scientist working in Paris is using a microscopic worm in research
that could in time lead to cures for neurological diseases such as
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's. (The Irish Times)
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/science/1999/0830/sci1.htm
*A Workout For Your Brain- Forget About Kickboxing: How About Neurobics?
Through Mental Exercises, Keep Your Brain Young.
http://www.cbs.com/flat/story_180254.html
*Diagnostic Imaging-Getting the inside view. (Mayo Clinic)
Remember how neat and tidy medical practice was in the original Star Trek
television series? Dr. McCoy ("Bones") could instantaneously diagnose a crew
member's malady simply by waving a hand-held tricorder over whatever hurt.
Real-life diagnostic imaging has not quite progressed to the Star Trek
level. But the growth of technology has allowed for astounding changes in
how the human body can be viewed.
http://www.mayohealth.org/mayo/9908/htm/imaging.htm
(Or see Purdue news) New sensing device reads chemical make up in real time.
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/9909.Ben.Amotz.sensor.html
*Mozart Sonata's IQ Impact. Can music improve your metal capabilities? (A
study)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/30/089l-083099-idx.html
*Researchers at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory are creating durable membranes that can be
specially tailored to separate different chemicals from water. Fred Stewart,
a chemist at the INEEL, will be present his group's work at the 218th
National Meeting of the American Chemical Society on Aug. 24 in New Orleans,
La.
http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?a=106&t=template.html
*Extraterrestrial Water Found Trapped in Meteorite (NASA)
http://www.nasa.gov/today/meteor.html
*Head transplants not just the realm of science fiction.
A leading U.S. brain surgeon has unveiled plans to perform the first human
head transplant -- a procedure that has already been carried out
successfully on dogs and monkeys. It will be offered initially to mortally
ill tycoons, who can afford its $2-million Cdn price tag.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/stories/990829/2789568.html
*Cornell Physicists Report A Breakthrough In Writing Data To Magnetic Chips
That Could Store "Terabits" Of Information Cornell University researchers
have demonstrated a new way to write information to magnetic material that
could lead to new computer memory chips that will have a very high storage
capacity and will be non-volatile, meaning they would not require a constant
electric current flowing to maintain stored information.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug99/magnetic_memory.ws.html
*Researchers studying three families with the same unusual sleep pattern
have uncovered the first hereditary sleep disorder in humans caused by a
single gene. Neurologist Christopher Jones and Howard Hughes Medical
Institute investigator Louis Ptácek, both at the University of Utah, are now
searching for the gene that causes the disorder known as familial advanced
sleep phase syndrome (FASPS). http://www.hhmi.org/news/ptacek.htm
*Scientists provide first detailed maps of wiring circuitry in the living
human brain
St. Louis, Aug. 31, 1999 -- Researchers have developed a way to visualize
nerve fiber bundles that transmit information between different areas of the
living human brain. Their study provides new information on the orderly
pattern of these fiber connections and may one day lead to improvements in
brain surgery, diagnosis of brain ailments, and understanding of
neurological diseases.
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/wusm-spf083099.html
*Making Mice Live Longer
Researchers Examine Aging’s Effects on Genes in Mice
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/aging_genes990826.html
*Researchers overcome hurdle of transporting large amounts of DNA to the
nucleus using nonviral vectors. University of Pennsylvania bioengineers
increased the expression of marker DNA in cardiovascular cells by 60 times
over previous attempts with nonviral vectors. They combined a short genetic
tag from a nuclear protein with the standard marker gene, which provided the
molecular key to the nucleus.
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/upam-roh082599.html
* Gene clue to the way people learn and memorise (The Irish Times)
Researchers are using advanced genetic techniques to explain how memory and
learning take place in the human mind and in time might be able to define
how genes affect behaviour.
The difficulty is being able to make definitive associations between how an
organism behaves and the substances being expressed by its genes, explained
Prof Tim Tully of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a private, non-profit
research institute on Long Island, New York. Prof Tully delivered a keynote
address last night on the molecular basis of learning and memory to the
Neuroscience Symposium underway at Trinity College Dublin. He described key
work done at his laboratory on the role of the protein, CREB, in memory.He
described as a "big leap" any attempt to connect a single gene and its
related protein to an aspect of behaviour. Such a leap had to be made in two
steps. The first involved associating biochemical function to cell function
and the second involved deciding how a change in cell function changed a
behavioural function. The problem was that most researchers were only
looking at the initial step. Scientists were not looking at the second and
"were not comfortable" with it because it involved something as difficult to
define as behaviour. Central to these behavioural studies is the fruit fly,
drosophila. It has only about 15,000 to 20,000 genes, a fifth the number in
a human. Various genes can be switched on or off using genetic technologies
and subsequent changes in fly behaviour can be studied. Findings using fruit
flies can in turn be compared to what happens in humans because many of the
genes and proteins in the two species are the same. Many of the genes which
evolved in lower organisms were retained by higher organisms as they in turn
evolved so there is a surprising degree of commonality even across species.
He studies the connections between genes and behaviour using "vertical
integration" and "horizontal integration". The former involves making a
change to a drosophila gene and then studying each of the knock-on effects
that arise, from inside the cell through to behavioural change. The latter
involves looking for parallels across species, for example, looking for a
common gene and related protein in a fruit fly, mouse and human. If all
three have the gene then there is a probability that it will have a common
function in each, despite the radical differences between species. In this
way CREB's ability to improve memory was discovered. Fruit flies with
enhanced levels of CREB were able to learn faster compared with control
flies. Further research showed that in fact CREB's action was to allow the
flies to imprint memory faster after fewer exposures to a stimulus.
(Copyright 1999) _____via IntellX_____
*Gene chip to aid in research on aging (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Biologists have gained a deep insight into the nature of aging by means of
a new device known as a gene expression chip. The chip has shown both that a
specific pattern of genetic changes occurs in aging, and that these changes
can be largely prevented by caloric restriction: putting mice on a diet with
only 75 percent of normal calories. The research supports the long-standing
idea that a semistarvation diet prolongs life in mice, and maybe people, but
its wider significance is that the chip offers for the first time a way to
measure aging at the cellular level. The gene chip, about the size of a
business card but roughly one- quarter of an inch thick, is made of glass
and contains DNA. When read by a laser, the device quickly reveals activity
levels for thousands of individual genes in tissue placed in it. Similar
chips should help to test whether present anti-aging remedies do any good
and to screen for better drugs, including perhaps ones that might give the
same effect as low calorie diets but without the pain. "If we understood how
caloric restriction works we might be able someday to elicit its benefits
without having to undergo the dietary restriction, so in that sense this is
a very important study," said Dr. Leonard Guarente, an expert on aging at
the [ Massachusetts Institute of Technology ] . The new research, reported
in today's issue of Science, builds on the view held by many biologists that
aging is not an inexorable process but rather the outcome of a genetic
program that could be manipulated. It also gives comfort to those who argue
that a manageably small number of genes are involved. The study, by Dr.
Richard Weindruch, Dr. Tomas Prolla and colleagues at the University of
Wisconsin, depends on injecting mouse muscle samples into the special chip.
Made by Affymetrix of Santa Clara, the chip was programmed to recognize the
activity of some 6,000 mouse genes. Mice probably have about 100,000
different genes, and the 6,000 were those whose DNA sequence had already
been decoded and filed in public data banks. Weindruch is known for his
studies of caloric restriction in mice and he has in progress a long term
study with rhesus monkeys to see if their life span can be extended by a low
calorie diet. In the new study, Weindruch and Prolla looked first at the
muscles of elderly mice fed a normal mouse diet and then at mice of the same
age who had been on a diet restricted in calories. They examined the
animals' calf muscles because muscle, along with the brain and heart, is one
of the tissues not renewed during life and often is the first to show signs
of aging. Providing the first broad snapshot of how gene activity changes in
the aging cell, the Affymetrix chip shows that in elderly mice fed a normal
diet, most of the cell's genes continue as usual. But 1 percent of the
genes -- those involved in responding to stress and to nerve damage --
become very much more active. Another 1 percent, genes involved in
generating energy from glucose, become very much less active. In elderly
mice of the same age fed a diet restricted in calories, the researchers
report, most of these changes were prevented, giving the cells a profile
similar to those of much younger cells. But cells from the mice on
restricted diets had their own pattern of changes, notably decreased
activity by genes that repair damaged DNA and proteins. Weindruch and Prolla
believe most of these changes can be explained in terms of the chemical
damage caused by glucose metabolism. The process of combining glucose with
oxygen creates harmful chemicals known as free radicals that damage many
structures in the cell, particularly the energy-generating units known as
mitochondria. The gene expression chip, they believe, will allow them to
pinpoint the genetic changes that underlie aging in human tissues. "The
technique allows us to measure the aging process at the molecular level. Now
for the first time we have molecular biomarkers of aging," Prolla said,
referring to the characteristic patterns of gene expression revealed by the
Affymetrix chip. "It's our goal to test a patient's biological age from a
drop of blood," Weindruch said. Affymetrix has already produced chips
programmed to detect the activity of human genes. (Copyright 1999) _____via
IntellX_____
*Organogenesis' Conditioned Medium Stimulates Generation of Vital New Skin
Cells (Bus. Wire)
CANTON, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 30, 1999--[ Organogenesis Inc. ]
(AMEX:ORG) today announced the presentation of data on its conditioned
medium at the European Tissue Repair Society/Wound Healing Society
multinational meeting in Bordeaux, France. In this presentation, the
conditioned medium was shown to stimulate the generation of new skin cells.
This conditioned medium is being evaluated for potential cosmetic and skin
care applications. About Conditioned Medium -Organogenesis manufactures the
only FDA-approved medical product containing living human skin cells.
Conditioned medium is produced during this manufacturing process by the
interaction of the healthy young skin cells, which are producing cytokines
and other growth factors, with the Company's proprietary cell culture
medium. Study Design and Findings -The presentation, entitled "Effect of
Growth Factors Secreted from Bioengineered Living Tissue on the Migration of
Human Keratinocytes", discussed the effects of conditioned medium on the
generation of new human skin cells in vitro. The effects of conditioned
medium were compared with those of Organogenesis' proprietary cell culture
medium prior to cell exposure, which served as a control. The data show that
the conditioned medium stimulates the generation of the key cell types found
in healthy human skin. Exposure to conditioned medium was shown to stimulate
growth of new keratinocytes (epidermal cells), fibroblasts (dermal cells)
and endothelial cells (blood vessel cells) more than the baseline cell
culture medium. The effect was also concentration dependent, with higher
concentrations producing a greater effect than lower concentrations. About
Organogenesis -Organogenesis Inc. designs, develops and manufactures medical
products containing living cells and/or natural connective tissue. The
Company's product development focus includes living tissue replacements,
cell-based organ assist devices and other tissue- engineered products. Lead
product Apligraf living skin construct is marketed in the US and Canada. The
research pipeline also includes VITRIX(TM) living soft tissue replacement, a
bioartificial liver and a vascular graft. Statements in this press release
which are not historical fact are forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve
risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that Organogenesis
Conditioned medium will be used in cosmetic or skin care products or of the
commercial acceptance of these products when and if marketed. (Copyright
1999) _____via IntellX_____
*DALLAS, August 31-- In the largest study of its kind, researchers have
found that consuming two to six alcoholic drinks per week was associated
with a reduced risk of sudden cardiac death in men, according to a report in
today's Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
"This is the largest prospective study to look at alcohol consumption and
sudden cardiac death in men and the first prospective study to find a
reduction in sudden cardiac death from light drinking," says Christine M.
Albert, M.D., associate physician in the division of preventive medicine at
Brigham and Women's Hospital and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical
School in Boston. Albert is also a cardiac electrophysiologist at
Massachusetts General Hospital.
*August 30: North by Northwest to Catch A Neutrino in the Act - A
century-old radiation detection tool may be pressed into service to see if
neutrinos change flavor. The answer may change our models of subatomic
particles and the universe.
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast30aug99_1.htm
*3-D, virtual man simulates radiation's effect on the body
Xie George Xu, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and engineering
physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has created a 3-D virtual man
called "Visible Photographic Man" (VIP-Man) that is so sophisticated it can
model the effects of radiation on the skin, lens of the eye, optic nerve,
GI- tract mucous membranes, and bone marrow--areas previously too minute to
accurately model, but which are highly susceptible to radiation.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/
*Could physicists accidentally make killer black holes or lethal strange
matter that would swallow the Earth? (New Scientist Planet Science article)
http://www.newscientist.co.uk/ns/19990828/ablackhole.html
*Scientists have looked inside the cells of Dolly the cloned sheep to
determine the origin of her genetic material. What they found surprised
them and may provide useful information to researchers who study inherited
diseases like neuromuscular and kidney problems, which are passed down on
the mother_s side only.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_433000/433786.stm
*Researchers Wonder How to Make
Robots Work With People
1.00 p.m. ET (1700 GMT) August 30, 1999 By Tim Molloy
PITTSBURGH — Scientists are learning to make robots that do what they're
supposed to do when they're supposed to do it. Now if only human beings
would play along. A Carnegie Mellon research assistant makes an adjustment
to a robot designed to search for landmines. Researchers from all over the
world gathered Sunday at Carnegie Mellon University to show each other the
latest in robots made to help their human masters. One common problem:
making the programmed machines work alongside unpredictable human nature.
For example, a team of scientists at Carnegie Mellon is working on robots
that serve as museum guides. The technology could eventually be used to
build robot nurses. But kids at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
D.C., had other ideas when a robot named Minerva debuted there last summer —
they jumped on Minerva and tried to take it for a ride. To make sure people
respected Minerva's space, designers gave it a voice and moving mouth and
eyebrows. "I need to get through," the robot said, frowning at Smithsonian
guests who dawdled in front of it. Minerva smiled at those who moved. People
responded, said Sebastian Thrun, a Carnegie Mellon assistant computer
science professor working on the museum robots. Thrun's conclusion: People
like it when machines interact with them. Now he's using that theory when
building other robots. Most of the technology spotlighted Sunday is not yet
available commercially, but researchers are hopeful. Among those looking for
corporate sponsorship was Gerard Lacey, a designer from Ireland's Trinity
College. His team tested robots to help blind and elderly people who don't
have the strength to walk with canes or guide dogs. The robot, which
resembles a lawn mower, allows blind people to walk holding its handles for
support. They point the robot in the direction they want to go, and its
built-in sensors slow it down and stop it from hitting walls. The robot
became popular quickly at a nursing home where it was tested. "Life in a
nursing home is very regimented," Lacey said. "There's a time for bingo,
there's a time for tea. There's a time for whatever. Now there was a time to
walk around. They guarded it very jealously." Meeting older people's needs
called for some adjustments, Lacey said. At one point the robot had a
joystick like those used in arcade games, which had to change. "Elderly
people have never used a joystick in their life," he said. "It's probably
not going to be a successful interface for them." Other robots unveiled
Sunday included a wheelchair that automatically finds its way through
shifting crowds. Once the chair is programmed to move in a given direction,
the person sitting in it can ride with hands folded as the chair charts the
movements of people nearby, chooses a path around them and moves at normal
walking speed. Another robot tracked people's eye movements. One of the
designers, Alex Zalinski of Australian National University, said it could be
used in cars to make sure drivers are keeping their eyes open and on the
road, even if they move their heads or change the lighting in the car. (Fox)
*LONDON — Computer software that evolves like a human brain is set to try to
pick winners on the stock market. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/
*SMART DUSTClean freaks have a new rationale for their pathological hatred
of dust - it could soon be spying on them. Packed full of
sensors, particles of "smart dust" are being designed to
communicate with one another. The tiny dust particles, called
"motes" are being developed at the University of California as
part of a program to produce the smallest possible devices that
can communicate with each other. The latest motes not only have a
battery powering them but also a solar cell to recharge the
battery. Today each of these motes is five millimetres long, but
researchers say in the future they could be small enough to
remain suspended in mid-air, buoyed by air currents, sensing and
communicating for hours. And why, you ask? Researchers say in
the future, we could send smart dust in the air to detect
chemical weapons, conducting space research, or monitoringweather patters.
*WEARABLE COMPUTERS GO ACEDEMIC
When "wearable computers" are discussed, many people in the
computer science industry think of Steve Mann. Mr. Mann has had a
computer and wireless video camera strapped to him for nearly 20
years now. He transmits what his camera sees 24 hours a day on
his web site at http://www.wearcam.org . And now, what seemed
like an oddity has gone acedemic: Mann is now a professor at the
University of Toronto where he is teaching post-graduate studies
in, well, walking around with a camera on your head. (Of course,
the U of T calls it "computer mediated interaction.") :-) When
he started in 1980, you could barely pick out a person from
behind all the gear; now, all you see is a guy wearing
sunglasses. The glasses are actually computer monitors, and all
the high-tech gadgetry is under his shirt.
*DNA FOR THE DEADWe've seen cremation jewelry and designer caskets with
themes
that included even golf - a ``Fairway to Heaven'' motif. Now
funeral homes are beginning to collect DNA samples from the
dead - for a fee - to preserve a genetic record that could
provide medical information. While experts are divided on the
usefulness of the data, some think the service will be a strong
seller - and that in the future, nearly every funeral home might
offer the service. For $350, the service retains a bit of hair,
some blood, and body fluids. The samples are sent to a lab where
molecular biologists extract the DNA and sends the family a
confidential genetic fingerprint of the deceased. But not
everyone thinks this is a great idea - ethicists question taking
DNA from people before getting their approval before they die.
The DNA samples also could be used to determine paternity, which
might reveal a few unexpected and unwanted surprises. making some
secrets taken to the grave a thing of the past.
*BONE-GROWING PROTEIN
12-year-old Emily Lang is no stranger to surgeries. She's already
had 121 of them correct bone deformities she was born with. But
the one she underwent a couple of weeks ago was different.
Physicians applied bone protein to holes in Emily's skull. The
protein is a new synthetically created product that kickstarts
molecular activity that causes the body to grow new bone-forming
cells called osteoblasts. These osteoblasts then develop into
healthy new bone structures. Emily was the first child to ever
have the protein applied to existing bone and have it
successfully grow. Until now, it's only been used to grow bone in
lab animals. In the future, the development could help heal
athletic injuries faster and possibly correct birth defects
before the child is born.
*PACEMAKERS FOR THE BRAINYou've heard of pacemakers, the electric devices
helping
thousands of heart patients. Well now comes word of a pacemaker
for the brain - one that in the future could help people with
epilepsy. It works like this: surgeons make a pocket in the chest
to hold a small transmitter. When the patient feels a seizure
coming on, they simply place a magnet across their chest. That
gives the episode a shorter duration and makes it seem less
intense. The nerve stimulator has a generator similar to those
used in heart pacemakers - and it's powered by a battery that can
last up to five years. Researchers are taking what they've
learned from this device and trying to find other
neuro-conditions that may be helped by this implant.
(Last 5 from Tod Maffin)
I'm back from vacation and ready to repair my computer withdrawl symptoms.
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web:http://www.nanoindustries.com
Get the Nanotechnology Industries newsletter (includes James Lewis-foresight
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E-mail:nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: solutions for the future."
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