Obesity Cured with our Good Friends Mice

 Obesity Cured with our Good Friends Mice

Scientists are doing a whole lot of experiments with mice lately; it's a norm for medical researchers. I'm pretty sure an obese mouse that has been experimented on with super hormone drugs that make them healthier and lose weight isn't animal cruelty, but who knows what they do with them. I have to say they really do a lot of good work with mice though, researchers from Indiana University and the German Research Center for Environmental Health have practically cured obesity, onset diabetes and lipid abnormalities associated to those health problems. I hope you know your chemistry and health because this will get a tiny bit complicated. By using three different gastrointestinal hormones and combining them into one peptide molecule which they call a triple agonist they were able to make a new molecule that super activates basically natural dieting from your body. It consists of two endocrine hormones GLP-1 which increases insulin action and curbs appetite, GIP which reduces blood glucose and finally glucagon which increases the long term rate calories burn and improves liver function. They will do human trials soon and most likely it will work and could possibly be used by physicians and doctors as new alternative treatment for different glucose and obesity related medical illnesses. The peptide is also the first rationally designed, fully potent and balanced triple agonist ever achieved in the treatment of any disease says DiMarchi one of the men who co-led the study. That has to come with a Guinness world record in genetic science or chemistry. Before they only used two hormones to make more commonly a co-agonist molecule from just GLP-1 and GIP.

 I find this breakthrough really good news because it controls metabolism at an efficient rate and well makes them super powerful. It reminds me of when Captain America can’t get drunk because his metabolism is too fast, and how his liver will probably never fail because of it too. I think this peptide could possibly give you similar effects if it was incredibly powerful and maybe it can prevent alcoholics and obese people from dying from liver failure. I also think this will be greatly effective for diabetes and patients wouldn’t have to take a lot of insulin. This also gives people with genes that naturally make their metabolism slow a chance to have a faster metabolism and eat more without worrying about weight. I wonder what competitive eater wouldn’t use it to keep their weight under control to fit more food in their stretched out stomachs. Then again the fastest hot dog eaters are already not that overweight and one of the most famous is a pretty skinny Japanese guy. The thing is they work to increase the size of their stomachs and must have a killer metabolism and digestive system that can handle all that fast food, but that’s just plain rare for a lot of people like me. I wish I had a high metabolism and I bet a lot of other people do so I wouldn’t mind trying this out in the distant future when I want to try splurging and eating competitions. I think this also might help Hepatitis B patients from liver failure because the disease attacks the liver, but will probably be a little bit effective if the disease is stronger.

By the way I hope they didn't have a lot of dead obese mice and rats though to make this possible. It would kind of make me sad for mice because how unhappy would mice feel while being so chubby they can't move, being tested on with drugs, being forced to eat more food and being dead. They kind of look like water balloons.

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141208144404.htm

others (PETA) http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animals-laboratories/mice-rats-laboratories/

3D Touch Hologram Tech is here at Last

3D Touch Hologram Tech is here at Last

 Holograms, a favorite futuristic feature in sci-fi genres are usually different from holograms that we really have in today’s age. From the holograms in films such as Star Wars, I-Robot, AI, to Paycheck and more, holograms are in 3D and colorful. A 3D virtual image in real time, untouchable but visible is the fantasy we made up for the future, but today computer scientists made something far more better and useful than normal light or laser based holograms. Haptics known as touch feedback technology has been used for entertainment, rehabilitation and surgical training. It’s a widely useful kind of technology and it just got upgraded when Dr Ben Long and his colleagues from the University of Bristol’s Department of Computer Science figured out a way to produce 3-D shapes that can be seen and felt in midair, using ultrasound. This new technology can be useful for surgeons to explore a CT scan by letting them feel where a disease like a tumor can be to artefacts in museums. A focused complex pattern of ultrasound creates air disturbances that can be seen as floating 3D shapes. They tested it out by making depressions with the 3D shape on oil. It makes invisible 3D shapes that can be added to 3D displays allowing the shapes to be seen and used in real time.

 With this technology we would have touchable holograms very soon, and I can’t wait because it would mean virtual reality video games can be touchable in the future. We wouldn't have to rely on the Oculus to see and play video games in a 3D landscape. If 3D haptic holograms can be up-scaled then the hologram fighting simulator for my favorite sci-fi super hero comic or movies, X-Men can be a reality. Sports simulators can be made too like in the sci-fi movie The Island, so most definitely this could mean gaming could get a lot more fun and active. Imagine watching movies with 3D holograms too or having crime scenes be in a room at a crime lab without having to go there in person. It all makes me wish scientists could figure out how to stop aging so I could live longer to see this technology grow and so many other things to come. I always wondered or wanted the holograms in movies to be touchable because they looked like they could be and you’d feel or think “I wanna reach out and touch it”. It’s beautiful that it’s possible for us to touch something physically not there as if it had an actual mass and it’s incredibly that we can program it at will.

http://phys.org/news/2014-12-team-invisible-d-haptic-video.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141202123846.htm

Make Super Healing Synthesized Platelet-like Nanoparticles ✓

Fast Healing Blood Clotting 

  Synthetic Platelets

   Is the new milestone of many breakthroughs scientists, inventors and researchers have checked off the list for "The Future!"

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 I imagine there really is a list around inside a lab coat pocket somewhere I swear, but if there isn't, these super platelets are checked off my list with hover-boards and telekinesis machines. After watching so many sci-fi movies and video games show super healing in little potion like bottles, syringes to sprays, pulse guns, nano-robots and you name it, healing has only been a small little dream I’ve had for maybe 2050. Man has never gotten as far as now to practically, accelerated healing.

 The human body has its own coagulation process in which blood platelets accumulate at the site of a wound to form a plug and stop blood flow.  It’s a primary concern for patients and medical personnel to control blood flow in many situations such as trauma injuries to surgeries and illnesses. Researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Center for Bioengineering (CBE) at UC Santa Barbara have created nanoparticales that were inspired by the human body’s own coagulation. The nanoparticles mimic the shape, flexibility and surface biology of the body’s own platelets but they’re different because the physics of their shape and their response to chemical stimuli let them reach an injury and call other platelets immediately to the site of the injury quicker. For severe injuries anti-coagulation medication and people who have an impaired ability to make clots the nanoparticles can be pretty useful. They add to a patient’s own natural platelet supply, stem the flow of blood, initiate the healing process quicker, and heal injuries quicker, call on other platelets, and dissolve into the blood after they’re use has run out. They were able to decrease bleeding time by 65% compared to the average time an injury without treatment would heal. The synthetic particles can also be used to let researchers customize the particles with other therapeutic substances and other medical substances for patients with specific conditions, and well they can make them do other things besides help coagulation. The synthetic platelets also cost less and have a longer shelf life than human platelets, that’s going to be useful for emergencies, and well will make the researchers pretty rich.

 It's all pretty amazing, it might not be instant healing but, is it faster, and will help out doctors a lot. The only thing I'm worried about is that this kind of technology could get out to bad people and maybe can be used as a poison, weapon, disease, and other things, but I bet it's pretty protected. These synthetic particles also really remind me of the movie Transcendence, though the ones in transcendence act like mind controlling robots that can clone any particle. These particles are entirely inspired by the human body, and should act naturally so I'm not as worried. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141113140046.htm

The United States has been hacked up, by Mr.Love!

British man Lauri Love was arrested in Suffolk for hacking into U.S. government servers.

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 Hacking is getting harder to control, if the US Army, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, NASA, the U.S. federal reserve, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US Sentencing Commission, the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and the US Department of Energy gets hacked by one guy and a couple of accomplices. Lauri Love who is 28 years old, hacked into Federal Reserve computers, stole personal information, and put it all online for others to use. The information included personal identification information of people authorized to use the network, names, email addresses, and phone numbers. After putting all this sensitive information on a website Love controlled, it was believed a faction of the hacking group Anonymous hacked into the website and posted around the same time the information was put on the site this.  

Yes we posted over 4000 U.S. bank executive credentials http://t.co/kDmgH8dN

— OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) February 4, 2013

The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation into the hack that same week. 

Nothing of significance was shown by the hackers however said some bank officials, no passwords or accounts were compromised, like you would think. 

"The information that was on the contact system was the same thing that was on my business card, so it wasn't like it was anything that could do any harm to me or the bank." Illinois' Community First Bank President and CEO Jo David Cummins told Reuters.

  Still the hack ordeal collectively still cost millions of dollars of damages to government victims and dozens of computer servers' functions were substantially impaired. Love isn't charged in the U.K. yet, and is on bail at the moment but he was ordered to hand over his personal encryption keys to the local government under Britain’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by Feb. 7 or face repercussions, including possible jail time. If he is tried in the U.S. and found guilty Love faces a maximum of 12 years in prison. Prosecutors in New York, New Jersey and Virginia have all accused Love,  of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act like Aaron Swartz a hacker and computer prodigy, committed suicide while waiting to stand trial for his hacking charges.  The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the same hacking law that OpLastResort rallied to reform last year.

 Though hacking may be a crime, I agree with OpLastResort and Lauri Love's parents in that Lauri love shouldn't be prosecuted in the U.S. under the act, because he isn't a serious criminal that should be put in the same prison with other United States criminals. I assume that the United Kingdom is more forgiving for hackers and that's why BBC would rather he be convicted in the U.K.'s justice system, and I agree. The U.S. is tough on criminals, and for Lauri Love who may have hacked into several government websites just didn't do a lot of serious harm on the United States government the sentence may just be harsh. I think hackers shouldn't face a similar sentence as other serious criminals such as bank robbers, rapists, and violent criminals , because they are pretty much computer geeks and wouldn't survive in a prison setting like that. Depending on the hack, I think hackers should just work for the government under a period of time in a better facility than prison, some hackers are spared from harsher punishments because of their skills already. They should be closely watched on computers, and limited to what they can do that can lead to hacking on computers for a long period of time. I think hackers, graffiti artists, and other minor criminals that pose little harm to people should be allowed more freedoms if they get imprisoned. I also think there should be programs that could help them learn new ways to use their skilled to do good, many graffiti artists do commissioned mural art or learn to use their art in new ways, hackers are the same, they have a skill that they can do something else with. 

http://rt.com/usa/lauri-love-federal-reserve-245/

Man recovers from paralysis by a cell transplant

He can walk!

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  It took long enough for 38 year old Darek Fidyka, a Polish man, to walk again. It’s been two years since he had the cell transplant surgery in 2012 and now he can walk. Darek was paralyzed from the chest down after a knife attack in 2010, caused by an 8mm gap in his spinal cord. In about two years of rehabilitation and programs to help him regain some ability in his legs, it was obvious they didn’t work and his condition just didn’t improve. The cell surgery that was successful on him was developed by scientists at University College London, UCL. Surgeons at Wroclaw University led by Dr. Pawel Tabakow performed the treatment. The idea was developed by Geof Raisman, surgeons took olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) from Fidyka’s nose and transplanted them to the ends of the spinal cord gap and then used nerve tissue from his ankle to act as a bridge for spinal nerves to grow on. OECs were used because the cells regrew nerve cells in the nose when they become damaged, letting people to regain their sense of smell.

 Now they say they only have one patient, and a lot more work needs to be done for the procedure to be further developed, but they have a working start, and it’s very much a breakthrough in medical science that will be looked closely at by thousands of paralyzed spinal cord injury patients. I think the research will be very successful in the future, the patient described regaining his ability to move his legs to being reborn again, it worked and I know it will work again on other patients. I find it wonderful science has gone so far and when medical science help people rather the opposite, it brings hope to those who’ve really given up.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/health/paralysis-cell-transplant/

Water on Saturn's Moon

Mimas Our Icy Friend

         

     On Thursday October 16th, scientists at CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. (Reuters) said "Saturn's battered moon Mimas may have a thin global ocean buried miles beneath its icy surface, raising the prospect of another "life-friendly" habitat in the solar system" 

  There are two possible explanations for why the Icy 400-mile diameter moon Mimas wobbles as it orbits Saturn. One reason could be that Mimas has an underground ocean, and the other is that Mimas's core is shaped like a rugby-ball. 

 According to the journal of Science, researchers wrote “The ocean hypothesis sounds unlikely because … Mimas’ heavily cratered surface has shown no evidence of liquid water, thermal heating or geological activities.”   It can be likely however because when Mimas moves closer and farther from Saturn as it orbits, can cause enough friction from it's gravitation pull to heat ice on the moon and form an ocean. Mimas then can sustain the ocean by continual eccentric orbiting, and eventually create a suitable habitat for life on it. 

 The other theory is that Mimas and the rest Saturn's moon Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea, formed from a collection of rocks circling close to Saturn. Gravitational forces from Saturn then would sculpt Mimas's core into an oblong rugby-ball shape, that then was covered in ice.

  I've always fantasized about living on Saturn; but now that I think of it, living near it might be better. Saturn isn't exactly fully solid like it's moon Mimas, and there would be a better view of Saturn and it's beautiful rings. It would be great if in the future when we figure out how to space travel faster and better, Mimas has it's own ecosystem safe enough for us to live on. I think Mimas does have an underground ocean, because I don't think it's uncommon. Mars has been reported to have water on it's surface before, and even clouds. As time passes the Sun gets warmer and the planets closer to the Sun get warmer, eventually a lot of planets and moons will warm. I know seeing it happen wouldn't be possible in our lifetime, and neither Mars of Mimas would be habitable but it can be a possibility for future generations. They could to live on Mars and near Saturn on Mimas or visit them as vacation spots. The two choices Douglas Quaid in Total Recall had for a vacation were Saturn and Mars, I love how the movie isn't too far off.  

http://newsdaily.com/2014/10/saturn-moon-may-have-life-friendly-underground-ocean-scientists/#ciEQvK6flkrZ5ZCT.99

Nobel Prizes in Sciences

2014's Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine

 Well lets just talk about my favorite in detail, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry:

Press release from nobelprize.org; on October 8th, 2014 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy". 

 Now what does super-resolved fluorescence microscopy mean?, well it's a microscope gone nano, but it isn't a regular optical light microscope which we use to see samples to only as little at 200 nanometers as a big blurry blob, it's a kind of electron microscope called the STED microscope and it can see closer than 0.2 nanometers, micrometers or 0.2 millionths of a meter however you call the unit, in really nice high resolution. The difference between normal electron microscopes and the STED microscope is that the STED can see living cells and organisms by making molecules fluoresce under a laser beam.

 (Overall how it works from nobelprize.org) 1.In a STED microscope, an annular laser beam quenches all fluorescence except that in a nanometre-sized volume. 2.The laser beams scan over the sample. Since scientists know exactly where the beam hits the sample, they can use that information to render the image at a much higher resolution. 3.The final image gets a resolution that is much better than 0.2 micrometre.

 Now scientists can have a greater understanding of how diseases develop and can now monitor the interplay between individual molecules inside cells.

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     "They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain; they can track proteins involved in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilized eggs as these divide into embryos." 

 I think this microscope will one day help cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease, it doesn't seem impossible if they made this beauty. Maybe IBM's brain-inspired microchip can use information gathered from it by looking at how a human brain's neuron cells at work. I think real worthy artificial intelligence with self consciousness truly isn't far along, I even think we can create artificial human life since it's possible to make working artificial brain tissue.  I think we can play god, and reach for beyond the stars one day, mankind is getting there, the future is definitely happening. 

 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was divided, one half awarded to John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".

Mice and Man

Planet of the Mice

  So to those who don't get this reference ^ watch Planet of the Apes first, and read on. 

  Scientists have figured out how to use "humanized" versions of genes on mice, to make them learn quicker. This gene is called Foxp2, known to control the activity of other genes, and has also been linked to the development of human speech and language. They changed two key amino acids in mice DNA to equivalent to changing two "letters" of it's genetic code, in order to make the gene more similar to human Foxp2. The gene alters the striatum in the brain which is responsible for speech and language, but also two forms of learning; by consciousness called declarative learning, and non-consciousness called procedural learning. In the series of maze experiments the scientists did, mice with the humanized gene learned stimulus-response associations more rapidly than regular mice undergoing the same learning tests. Parts of the striatum were also found to respond differently with the mice by testing the levels of messenger chemicals in the brain (dopamine), gene activity patterns and the synaptic plasticity, the changes of strength in brain connections. This study shows "how genetic changes might have adapted the nervous system" to language and speech, said scientists Ann Graybiel and her colleagues in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  

Of course there were some issues raised like in the classic sci-fi movie Planet of the Apes did. Scientists asked ethical questions posed by mixing human and animal genes like Foxp2, because they might come across the issue of confronting whether an animal with some human genes deserves human rights. So it's official, I think it's possible apes can have "humanized" genes and talk and think like humans, in Planet of the Apes. It can happen one day, I already know a couple of trained chimpanzees can talk, and understand commands, but if they get altered genes, then our species have close cousins. If we also give them cooked food and teach them how to cook, that will also apparently give them bigger brains, because 200 million years ago we learned how to cook food and so gained more nutrition from it. I'd love a future with an intelligent inter-species community, where real lizard woman, and Chubacas can roam the streets. Maybe mice will one day take over the galaxy like in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

(Week 1:10/3/14)

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/140915_foxp2.htm

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/121022_cooking.htm

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140829053006/villains/images/c/ca/Mice-s1xicp.jpg