Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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THANK GOD
or Wait! God had nothing to do with it
There have been a host of breakthroughs in basic research surrounding stem cells in the last couple of months. The most startling was announced today. It appears that two researchers, Harvey Lodish and ChengCheng Zhang, have figured out what growth hormones spur the growth rate of adult stem cells in mice.
Remeber, adult stem cells are different than fetal stem cells. It is the fetal type that has created most of the political fire storm. In response to that political controversy, President Bush limited fedral funding for stem cell research. Why? because only fetal cells could be found in large enough quantities to be useable in a labratory.
There is now a promising line of research to allow adult stem cells to be sufficently plentiful for researchers. This should eventually defuse the political debate - assuming all sides can be honest about this issue.
If scientist can figure out how to get human adult stem cells to grow like their mouse counterparts, an extremely significant step towards unimaginable medical advances will be within reach.
If you are interested in some of the other stem cell related research, check these out:
Blood stem cell discovery is announced
Molecule dictates how stem cells travel
Researchers derive animal-free stem cells
Transplanted stem cells repair hearts
Study: How stem cells become brain cells
or Wait! God had nothing to do with it
There have been a host of breakthroughs in basic research surrounding stem cells in the last couple of months. The most startling was announced today. It appears that two researchers, Harvey Lodish and ChengCheng Zhang, have figured out what growth hormones spur the growth rate of adult stem cells in mice.
Remeber, adult stem cells are different than fetal stem cells. It is the fetal type that has created most of the political fire storm. In response to that political controversy, President Bush limited fedral funding for stem cell research. Why? because only fetal cells could be found in large enough quantities to be useable in a labratory.
There is now a promising line of research to allow adult stem cells to be sufficently plentiful for researchers. This should eventually defuse the political debate - assuming all sides can be honest about this issue.
If scientist can figure out how to get human adult stem cells to grow like their mouse counterparts, an extremely significant step towards unimaginable medical advances will be within reach.
If you are interested in some of the other stem cell related research, check these out:
Blood stem cell discovery is announced
Molecule dictates how stem cells travel
Researchers derive animal-free stem cells
Transplanted stem cells repair hearts
Study: How stem cells become brain cells
Friday, January 20, 2006
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ON THE ROAD AGAIN
or Krung Thep here I come!
Work has me traveling to exotic locations again - this time on short notice. I'm off to Thailand on Saturday. I will be there for one week and visit Bangkok (or Krung Thep to the Thais) and Pattaya. It will be a very busy trip, I don't know how much I'll be able to see. But rest assured, dear readers, I'll blog about noteworth events.
It should be interesting.
or Krung Thep here I come!
Work has me traveling to exotic locations again - this time on short notice. I'm off to Thailand on Saturday. I will be there for one week and visit Bangkok (or Krung Thep to the Thais) and Pattaya. It will be a very busy trip, I don't know how much I'll be able to see. But rest assured, dear readers, I'll blog about noteworth events.
It should be interesting.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
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PERCEPTUAL SIMILARITIES
or we all ain't that different
I don't suspect many people have given any thought to what happens in our brain when we look at something. Two researchers at the University of Zurich have, fortunately, put a large amount of effort into this. Specifically, they studied how people categorize other people's faces.
When a I look at someone, their face is identified by my visual cortex. This identification is value neutral. It's just one face of the oodles I've seen in my lifetime. Positive, or negative response to that face is assigned by the amygdala. This process can be thought of as a reward circuitry. The researchers postualted that I would respond my favorably to faces that I found attractive. That seem pretty reasonable to me.
The researchers took it one step further and postuated that a homo-sexual woman values faces in a similar way to me. And that homo-sexual men would be similar to hetro woman. Their findings support this.
I find that very interesting. It suggest that all people identify faces similarly. That is the visual cortex works similarly for all people, straight or not (would that be crooked?). However, our amygdala's response to faces - or the values we place on them - can be classified based on sexual preference. This has interesting implications on the debates about sexuality being a choice.
Is sexuality really a choice when our brains are not the same? I don't know, at least not in any incontroversial way. However, choice seems too simplistic.
or we all ain't that different
I don't suspect many people have given any thought to what happens in our brain when we look at something. Two researchers at the University of Zurich have, fortunately, put a large amount of effort into this. Specifically, they studied how people categorize other people's faces.
When a I look at someone, their face is identified by my visual cortex. This identification is value neutral. It's just one face of the oodles I've seen in my lifetime. Positive, or negative response to that face is assigned by the amygdala. This process can be thought of as a reward circuitry. The researchers postualted that I would respond my favorably to faces that I found attractive. That seem pretty reasonable to me.
The researchers took it one step further and postuated that a homo-sexual woman values faces in a similar way to me. And that homo-sexual men would be similar to hetro woman. Their findings support this.
I find that very interesting. It suggest that all people identify faces similarly. That is the visual cortex works similarly for all people, straight or not (would that be crooked?). However, our amygdala's response to faces - or the values we place on them - can be classified based on sexual preference. This has interesting implications on the debates about sexuality being a choice.
Is sexuality really a choice when our brains are not the same? I don't know, at least not in any incontroversial way. However, choice seems too simplistic.
