Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
THOMAS CARANNANTE, - Science World Report
Stephan: This is another breakthrough in the emerging new medicine, and it is very good news. Pharmaceutical medicine like carbon energy is fading as a new medical paradigm is being birthed, and the rise of superbugs is rendering antibiotics ineffective.
Earlier this month, scientists used skin cells to clone embryonic stem cells in the first experiment to do so. Now for the second time this month, another group of scientists used cloning technology to make human embryonic stem cells.
The work was published today in the journal Nature and was conducted by researchers at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF). Led by Dieter Egli, the researchers were able to clone embryonic stem cells that used DNA from a 32-year-old woman with Type-1 Diabetes, which is a major breakthrough in terms of being able to fight disease.
The first successful study of this nature cloned embryonic stem cells using skin cells from two men aged 35 and 75 years. Robert Lanza, one of the scientists involved in that study, believed that the age difference in the cell cloning was crucial in dealing with various diseases that become more common as one’s age progresses. Their finding was a precursor to the New York Stem Cell Foundation’s finding.
Dr. Egli and his team used the technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus is removed from a normal cell as well as a human egg cell, and then the nucleus from the skin […]
No Comments
Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
ROY L HALES, - The Eco Report
Stephan: Who thinks about grid loss? Probably not many of us but, in fact, this consequence of a centralized power distribution system is one of the major contributors to the human mediated dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere -- which has huge climate change implications.
To me this is just another reason to decentralize power as part of the conversion from carbon to non-polluting energy.
The world’s transmission lines are believed to have dropped approximately 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity last year. That’s around 1.2 trillion metric tons of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere. Though it is unlikely these loses can be eliminated in the near future, there are ways to reduce them.
Losses of 5-7% or so are the norm today in the United States, BC and Ontario.
Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology, outsourcing services & local professional services in over 40 countries – Photo Courtesy Capgemini
Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost consulting firms, has been working with Ontario Power Generation since 2001.
Larry Rousse, Director of Utilities at Capgemini, said, ‘The approximate amount of Transmission line losses in the Ontario system is 6.5%. Transmission losses do vary pending the demand on the system. Losses occur as a natural phenomenon when electricity is transmitted between two points. The physics of electricity means that losses rise exponentially as the current on a circuit increases. For the electricity grid, this means basically that losses are highest when power consumption or when the demand is the highest. On an Ontario system with ~29,000 km’s of transmission line losses can be over […]
No Comments
Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
TINA CASEY, - Clean Technica/The Raw Story
Stephan: Battery technology may not seem like a very glamorous sector of science but is critical to developments in a hundred areas from mobile phones to cars and buses. Here is some interesting new research.
Just when you thought you knew everything about the theoretical maximum capacity of batteries, along comes the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to throw you for a loop. A team of researchers at ORNL has developed a pathway for ‘unprecedented energy density” in a battery that has already demonstrated a 26 percent increase over its theoretical maximum.
The ORNL team tested its concept on a lithium-carbon fluoride battery, which is considered ‘one of the best” batteries in the single-use (non-rechargeable) class for its high energy density.
Next generation battery concept courtesy of ORNL.
Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s pause and underscore that the finding involves single use batteries, so the implications for rechargeable EV batteries are remote at best.
However, according to ORNL the discovery could stretch single use battery life by ‘years or even decades.” That has significant implications for medical devices, remote sensors and keyless systems, and other applications where recharging is not an ideal solution.
In terms of our clean tech focus here at CleanTechnica, the improvement in lifecycle translates into significant resource conservation opportunities, including the potential for eliminating battery replacement surgery for medical devices.
Now think about how the medical device field is set to explode and you […]
No Comments
Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
REBECCA SMITH, Medical Editor - The Telegraph (U.K.)
Stephan: This report addresses my comments about superbugs made in the editor's notes on the previous story.
Cases of a superbug that can break down antibiotics and could ‘change the face of healthcare as we know it’ have risen exponentially in the last five years, Government experts warn.
Only one drug, from the 1950s, remains effective against infections carrying New Delhi metallo, and it will soon become resistant to that as well, researchers said.
Government scientists revealed samples of NDM in the UK have increased from 6 in 2008 to 148 in 2013.
They warned the bug has the potential to change the face of healthcare as we know it, by making many routine operations and cancer treatments too dangerous and mean everyday infections become life-threatening.
The bug was imported into the UK by patients having surgery and other medical treatments in India.
A study by Public Health England found that most bacteria carrying the NDM enzyme were resistent to the ‘last resort’ antibiotics called carbapenems and three quarters of samples were resistant to another group of powerful antibiotics.
Related Articles
Transplants and cancer treatment ‘under threat’ from superbug rise
17 Nov 2012
Why antibiotics are losing the war against bacteria
14 Jul 2012
[…]
No Comments
DOUG HORN, - Design & Trend
Stephan: Beginning in late 1994 I started a biotechnology company to do exactly this, for exactly the same reasons. The technology never came together, perhaps we were too far ahead of the curve, but reading this story today made me feel very good; the goal has been achieved. Untold thousands of rabbits and other creatures will no longer have to die to justify a new mascara formula.
Scientists from King’s College London and San Francisco Veteran Affairs Medical Center have successfully grown an epidermis in a lab, a breakthrough that could save millions of animals from testing. (Photo : Commons/Helena Paffen)
Scientists from King’s College London and San Francisco Veteran Affairs Medical Center have successfully grown an epidermis in a lab. The research was not easy, and the scientists faced many hurdles in accomplishing this impressive feat.
According to The Westside Story, “the epidermis is highly complex as it protects the human body from the dehydration and the harmful microbes and the bacteria. It acts as a shield between the body and the environment and stops the harmful bodies from entering into the skin. The lab generated epidermis was grown in a low humidity environment and was capable of stopping the water to come inside or the bodily fluids to drain out.”
Like Us on Facebook
With this method, the cells of the epidermis that ended up being generated were identical to the sample.
“Our new method can be used to grow much greater quantities of lab-grown human epidermal equivalents, and thus could be scaled up for commercial testing of drugs and cosmetics. We can use this model to study how the […]
No Comments
