Medical Breakthrough

(Credit: Shutterstock) Well, that’s it. Pack it in, boys. Show’s over for us as a species: We’ve peaked. At least, we might have, according to a paper in Frontiers in Physiology. If anything, it looks like we might be going downhill, with climate change and other environmental effects taking our bodies away from...

What fecal transplant pills could look like in the future. (Credit: Marc Bruxelle/Shutterstock) Swallowing poop is ok. That’s the conclusion of a recent study assessing the effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) delivered in pill form, versus given by colonoscopy. It sounds a bit off-putting, but validating the safety and efficacy...

Researchers demonstrate a process known as tissue nanotransfection at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. In laboratory tests, this process was able to heal the badly injured legs of mice in just three weeks with a single touch of this chip. The technology works by converting normal skin cells into vascular cells, which helped heal the wounds. The technology, known as Tissue Nanotransfection, has the potential to save the lives of car crash victims and even deployed soldiers injured on site. It's a dime-sized silicone chip that "Injects genetic code into skin cells, turning those skin cells into other types of cells required for treating diseased conditions," according to a release. In lab tests, one touch of TNT completely repaired injured legs of mice over three weeks by turning skin cells into vascular cells. It not only works on skin cells, it can restore any type of tissue, Chandan Sen, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies, said. The technology restored brain function in a mouse who suffered a stroke by growing brain cells on its skin. This is a breakthrough technology, because it's the first time cells have been reprogrammed in a live body. Current cell therapy methods are high risk, like those that introduce a virus, and include multiple steps, a new study published in Nature Nanotechnology points out. There are no known side effects to TNT and treatment is less than a second, Sen said. "We are proposing the use of skin as an agricultural land where you can essentially grow any cell of interest," Sen said.

Thought-controlled prosthetic arm is about to change everything For the current crop of state of the art prosthetic arms, you have to control the finger and finger movements with your feet. It takes a lot of getting used to and is completely unlike using a normal arm. But now a...

(Credit: ElRoi/Shutterstock) CBD, or cannabidiol, has exploded onto the market in recent years. Sometime in the past decade, this purportedly medicinal marijuana extract went from being an obscure stoner oil to the wellness product du jour, flooding from holistic markets to the mainstream. Analysts at the investment bank Cowen Inc. predict...

Despite the fact that viruses are extremely pervasive on Earth, few studies have attempted to search for them in space. But that may soon change. (Credit: NIAID) Considering viruses are thought to be the most prevalent biological entities on Earth, you would expect that plenty of research has focused on...

Back in the day, if a person were to lose a limb or one of their senses then they were considered useless and there was no hope for them; but now, technology has brought the world so far forward with prosthetics and hearing aids. We've taken another huge step...

The scientists transplanted their lab-made blood vessels (yellow) into this patient with end-stage renal failure. (Credit: R.D. Kirkton et al. Science Translational Medicine (2019) Heart disease is the leading cause of death around the world. Many cardiovascular disorders damage blood vessels, the network of ducts the heart pumps blood through to...

Holding in your poop because you don’t like pooping in public? Well, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. (Credit: Shutterstock) You know the feeling when you have to poop, but there’s no toilet in reach or you’re too scared to stink up the stall at work? Then, instead of listening...

Here be drugs. (Credit: Wanna Thongpao/Shutterstock) Obtaining information about illegal drug use isn’t a simple task. The illicit nature of the subject makes gathering information on the who and the what of drug consumption problematic. Self-reported surveys, a common tool, aren’t always accurate because people aren’t always honest about their...