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Engineers long have known that great ideas can be lifted from Mother Nature, but a new paper* by researchers at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) takes it to a cellular level. Applying modern engineering design tools to one of the basic units of life, they argue that artificial cells could be built that not only replicate the electrical behavior of electric eel cells but in fact improve on them. Artificial versions of the eel’s electricity generating cells could be developed as a power source for medical implants and other tiny devices, they say. The...

Japanese scientists said Friday they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth, opening another way to study deadly diseases without the ethical controversy of using embryos... (AFP articles cannot be republished)Click here for the article.

Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says. Published in today's online edition of Nature Medicine, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger. The researchers, led by Associate Professor Ana Maria Cuervo, blocked the ageing process in mice livers by stopping the build-up of harmful proteins inside the organ's cells. As people age their cells become less efficient at getting rid of damaged protein...

Intelligence agencies in the United States and Canada are warning of mounting signs that Hezbollah, backed by Iran, is poised to mount a terror attack against "Jewish targets" somewhere outside the Middle East. Intelligence officials tell ABC News the group has activated suspected "sleeper cells" in Canada and key operatives have been tracked moving outside the group's Lebanon base to Canada, Europe and Africa. Officials say Hezbollah is seeking revenge for the February assassination of Hezbollah's military commander, Imad Mugniyah, killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria. The group's leaders blamed Israel, an allegation denied by Israeli officials. There...

Mothers And Offspring Can Share Cells Throughout Life ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) — Cutting the umbilical cord doesn’t necessarily sever the physical link between mother and child. Many cells pass back and forth between the mother and fetus during pregnancy and can be detected in the tissues and organs of both even decades later. This mixing of cells from two genetically distinct individuals is called microchimerism. The phenomenon is the focus of an increasing number of scientists who wonder what role these cells play in the body. A potentially significant one, it turns out. Research implicates that maternal and fetal...

The Embryology Bill has provoked a bitter split between religion and science THE cries of a baby were the only other sounds to be heard as Cardinal Keith O'Brien delivered his Easter Sunday sermon to a packed St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh yesterday. It was perhaps a fitting interruption as Scotland's most senior Catholic clergyman delivered his much-trailed blast at the government's controversial embryo research legislation. Accusing Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "an unprecedented attack on the sanctity and dignity of human life", he warned that the research could lead to the creation of hybrid babies and experiments of "Frankenstein...

Devices made of heart tissue could screen drug candidates and be used to power implantable robots. In a fourth-floor lab at Harvard University, Adam Feinberg is peering through a low-magnification microscope and using a scalpel to cut out triangles and rectangles from a thin polymer. What's impossible to see with the naked eye is a one-cell-thick layer of heart tissue coating each shape. When Feinberg connects the petri dish holding the triangles and rectangles to a pacemaker, the tissue begins to rhythmically contract, and the shapes come alive--twisting, pinching, and even swimming through a solution. The pieces of "muscular thin...

BAGHDAD — Coalition forces detained (24) suspects Sunday during operations targeting al-Qaida networks in central and northern Iraq. Coalition forces captured a wanted individual during operations north of Samarra. The wanted individual is believed to be involved in al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) media networks and was involved in attacks against Coalition forces. In addition to the wanted individual, Coalition forces detained three suspects without incident. During other operations in Samarra, Coalition force detained (11) suspects during operations targeting al-Qaida’s courier and media networks, as well as weapons facilitators and associates of senior terrorist leaders. During operations in Baghdad, Coalition forces...

A horror movie come to lifeThree Fircrest families receive death threats via cell phone. Even when the phones are off. Even when they get new phones. SEAN ROBINSON; The News Tribune Published: June 20th, 2007 06:15 AM Enlarge image Alison Yin/The News TribuneHeather Kuykendall and her daughter, Courtney, 16, display the cell phones they’ve abandoned in an attempt to cut off a stream of threatening messages from mysterious harassers. Courtney started receiving the calls in February. Other families have gotten them, too. Investigators suspect it’s an elaborate hoax. Maybe it’s just a long-running prank, but the reign of terror endured...

Hopes have been raised of a new treatment to free thousands of diabetes sufferers from the burden of daily insulin injections. Scientists revealed findings of a study which shows that 15 young patients with type one diabetes overcame their dependence on insulin after being treated with their own stem cells

WASHINGTON, April 4, 2007 – Brittany and Robbie Bergquist, respectively 16 and 15, got a pleasant surprise recently when telecommunications giant AT&T responded to their request for help and agreed to support Cell Phones for Soldiers, their troop-support organization. “I actually e-mailed AT&T directly and explained our need for phone cards and what Robbie and I have been doing to support the troops, and I received a response,” Brittany said. “AT&T/Cingular has recognized what Robbie and I have started and have offered to help, which is amazing because they are such a big corporation.” The company is providing the...

In a feat once as unlikely as the miller's daughter of fairytale fame spinning straw into gold, scientists in the United Kingdom have spun fine threads of biocompatible silicone that contain living human brain cells. The cells remained alive and capable of growth afterward, they say. "This has far-reaching implications and will enable significant advances to be made in technologies ranging from tissue engineering to regenerative medicine," Suwan N. Jayasinghe and Andrea Townsend-Nicholson state in their report. It appeared Nov. 13 in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a bimonthly journal. "The ability to electrospin biologically active threads and scaffolds of living organisms will...

Scottish mineral water 'kills cancer cells' By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent (Filed: 13/09/2006) The water of life – or “uisge beatha” in Gaelic - is a euphemism for whisky, but another Highland drink has been shown to have a more valid claim to the title. The water, sourced from near Balmoral Castle, has been said to possess healing qualities since 1760 A mineral water taken from wells near the Queen’s Balmoral Castle can help to slow the spread of cancer, according to scientists. Tests on Deeside Mineral Water suggest that it inhibits the growth of certain cancerous cells and kills...

This is a compilation reference thread with links to all stories and topics posted on FRee Republic since Wednesday night, 8/9/2006, through today, Saturday, 8/12/2006 concerning the failed bomb plot discovered and quashed by authorities in London, directed towards airline flights from the UK to the US.

Police hunt 'two dozen' terror cells in Britain · Direct link to 7 July atrocity, says Pakistan· BA chief attacks airport chaos Jamie Doward, Ned Temko, Mark Townsend, Urmee Khan and Antony Barnett Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer (UK) The full extent of the terror threat facing Britain became apparent last night as security sources revealed that 'up to two dozen' terror investigations were operating across the country and that a number of suspects associated with last week's plot to bring down 10 airliners remained at large. Pakistani intelligence sources alleged that one of the men arrested in connection...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has put its diplomatic missions abroad on high alert for possible attacks by Hizbollah or local Muslims angered by Israel's offensive against the Lebanese guerrilla group, security sources said on Monday. Several other countries including Brazil -- home to the largest overseas Lebanese community -- the United States and Canada said they had tight security checks in place to reduce the threat of Hizbollah agents slipping in amid an exodus of evacuees pouring out of Lebanon to escape the fighting. A senior source from a Western nation taking in refugees confirmed that such "sleeper agents" were...

Sky News said they had spoken to Syrian cabinet minister Amr Salem. "Syria has real hard knowledge," the channel quoted him as saying. A Sky News correspondent said the Syrians were offering to tell the US where many fundamentalists were. He said the channel was told specifically there were cells of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network in Lebanon, and Syria knew of their whereabouts. Since Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon last year, the cells have grown, he said. "We know where they are and we can tell you," the correspondent said Sky News was told Syria was...

Researchers work to shrink technology that harnesses sun's energy to both heat and coolEvery day, the sun bathes the planet in energy--free of charge--yet few systems can take advantage of that source for both heating and cooling. Now, researchers are making progress on a thin-film technology that adheres both solar cells and heat pumps onto surfaces, ultimately turning walls, windows, and maybe even soda bottles into climate control systems. On July 12, 2006, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) researcher Steven Van Dessel and his colleagues will announce their most recent progress--including a computer model to help them simulate the climate within...

Mark Bedau ’76 and Norman Packard ’77 used to stay up late nights at Reed pondering the nature of life. What makes organisms alive? Is there a knowable organizing principle behind living cells? Can life be broken down into its constituent parts? Thirty years later, Bedau and Packard are on a quest for answers. Surrounded by powerful computers and sophisticated equipment in a high-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Venice, Italy—and bankrolled with millions of euros—they are trying to produce actual cells. The two Reedies are part of a long-shot entry in the race to create artificial life. Bedau,...

A computer system that automatically tracks the movements of proteins within a living cell has been developed by a team of biologists and computer vision experts. It could save researchers the hours often spent analysing microscope images by hand, to determine the way a cell works. The system, called CellTracker, automatically analyses a series of still digital images captured through a microscope. Doug Kell at Manchester University in UK, the lead biologist involved with the project, believes the system could dramatically speed up studies of cells' function. "Most people just fix cells [in one place], which kills their metabolism," he...

06/14/06 -- Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the University of Calgary have found that stem cells derived from adult skin can create neural cell types that can be transplanted into and function in mouse models of disease. This research is reported in the June 14, 2006 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. SickKids researchers previously discovered what type of cells can be made from these stem cells (called skin-derived precursors, or SKPs) based on the role played by neural-crest stem cells during embryogenesis. In addition to generating the peripheral nervous system, neural crest stem cells generate...

WEDNESDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) -- As medical technologies improve, researchers are rooting out more information about possible causes of common diseases, such as asthma.One new finding, reported in the March 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is that immune system cells long thought to cause asthma may not be the primary culprit behind the disease."We found that asthma is caused not by T-helper 2 cells as has been previously thought, but by a novel class of cells called natural killer T cells," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Dale Umetsu, a professor of pediatrics at...

The NSA Hearings : The Media Misses a HUGE Story ! I ‘ve been reading the news in the papers and on the Net, and I’ve watched the reports on TV; but so far, the Media seem almost clueless. Locked onto the story that “over 5000 Americans’ phone conversations were monitored” , the reporters seem to be missing a huge story: Suspected Terrorists telephoned over 5000 people in the USA ! WHY did terror suspects from Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran,Indonesia,Syria,and other powderkeg countries call people in America ? Were they ordering pizza ? Getting competitive estimates on car insurance ?...

Frederick T. Zugibe, M.S., M.D., Ph.D., FCAP,  FACC,  FAAFS      HOMECONTACT FORENSIC PATHOLOGY & MEDICINE Biography Publications News Public Health Psychotropic  Drugs Study   CRUCIFIXION and SHROUD STUDIES Crucifixion & Shroud Involvement Barbet Revisited Man of the Shroud was Washed Texas Lecture Paris  Lecture Turin 2000 Lecture MISCELLANEOUS: The Code for Human Life                                                          THE CODE FOR HUMAN LIFE  [Reprinted from the Catholic Answer 9: 40-45,1996]     A fertilized human egg at the moment of Conception, is the opinion of the creator that a human life at that instant, must begin.... F. Zugibe    ...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Jan. 26, 2006) – Coalition forces captured 63 suspected insurgents in northern Iraq so far this week, including some thought to be in a ring responsible for local beheadings. Two caches of weapons were also found in the Tikrit area, including artillery shells rigged to propane tanks that officials said could have been used against the local population. Terrorists captured while placing IED Task Force Band of Brothers Soldiers captured three terrorists placing an Improved Explosive Device near Hawijah Wednesday afternoon. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team saw the men drive...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain said on Thursday it had arrested a Moroccan man suspected of heading two al Qaeda-linked cells and helping men involved in the 2004 Madrid bombings flee the country. In an Interior Ministry statement, the man was named as Omar Nakhcha, the alleged ring-leader of two cells believed to have recruited Islamist fighters for Iraq. The units were dismantled by police earlier this week and 20 people were arrested. Nakhcha, 23, was arrested in the northeastern province of Barcelona. Larbi Ben Sellam, a suspected Islamist militant arrested in June last year, told police that Nakhcha helped three...

An Antiques Authority worker climbing out of one of the recently discovered prison cells in Tiberias. (Yaron Kaminsky) Last update - 02:16 28/11/2005 Ancient prison cells unearthed in Tiberias dig By Eli Ashkenazi A bit of what prisoners suffered in ancient times can be seen as of yesterday at the archaeological dig in the old city of Tiberias. Excavations of the basilica compound in the eastern part of the old city recently unearthed two small chambers believed to have served as holding cells for prisoners awaiting trial. If today's custody conditions at police stations elicit complaints from detainees and defense...

Terror cells 'plotted devastating twin attack in Australia' By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 09/11/2005) Chilling details of an alleged plot by Islamist radicals to carry out a "catastrophic" terrorist attack in Australia emerged yesterday. Police arrested 17 suspects during dawn raids involving 450 heavily armed policemen backed by helicopters. Authorities alleged that the suspects were members of a terrorist cell committed to "violent jihad" on Australian soil. A bomb disposal officer had to check a suspect package at the Sydney arrest scene Among those detained was a trainee electrician allegedly impatient to carry out a suicide bombing in retaliation...

Researchers have discovered that certain cells inside the hair follicle are true multipotent stem cells, capable of developing into the many different cell types needed for hair growth and follicle replacement. 6 Oct 2005, 09:42 GMT - Using an animal model scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have demonstrated that these holoclones can be used for long-term follicle renewal. The researchers isolated stem cells from rat whisker follicles, labeled them and grew them in culture for 140 generations. They then implanted progeny cells into the skin of newborn mice whose hair follicles were just being formed. This...

Korean researcher plans cloned stem cell transplants in 2006Opponents of human embryonic stem cell research make much of the fact that,in the words of New Atlantis editor Eric Cohen,"there has not been a single human trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy." That may be about to change. Last night, at its annual gala dinner, the Alliance for Aging Research, a Washington, DC-based biomedical research lobbying group, honored Woo Suk Hwang with its "Indispensable Person in Health Care" award. Woo Suk Hwang is the leader of the Korean research team at Seoul National University that produced the first cloned human...

TRAINING GROUND: This sheep ranch outside Bly, Ore., was reportedly eyed by Islamic extremists as a potential base for operations. A man in Zambia was recently arrested in connection with the planned camp. GARY THAIN/HERALD AND NEWS/AP NEW YORK - New charges that a Maryland paramedic gave "material support" to terrorists raise anew troubling questions for post-9/11 America. Do extremist cells still exist in the United States? If they do, how much progress is being made to route them out? The homegrown nature of the July attacks in London as well as the arrest of a man in Zambia on...

The federal charges lodged this week against Mahmud F. Brent read like a thriller, filled with tales of a clandestine FBI sting operation in a Maryland hotel room, terrorism training camps in the mountains of Pakistan and shadowy connections to al-Qaida. .....According to court papers, Brent, a 30-year-old West Baltimore man who drove a cab in Washington, conspired to help the armed wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based religious organization labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. government. Brent, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Orange, N.J., outside Newark on Thursday afternoon and brought to New York. About the same time,...

With his Friday speech on the Senate floor announcing his support for federal funding of new embryonic stem cell research, Senate majority leader Bill Frist did the wrong thing at the wrong time. For four years, embryo research advocates have claimed that the Bush administration has "banned stem cell research." Not so. The issue in question is federal funding for embryonic stem cell research--research in which new embryos will be destroyed. Such research has been, and is, legal, and while the president has endorsed a ban on human cloning, he has not proposed to outlaw the destruction of embryos created...

Britain is in shock. Not just from the traumatic and grudging realization last Thursday that the country is at war, but from the discovery that the attack on London was the work of four suicide bombers, all of them young British Muslims. Readers of this column will not have been surprised by this realization, but it is only just dawning on the great British public that it has unwittingly harbored a terrorist cell in its midst, and that more "sleepers" may emerge to destroy us at any moment. The uncanny dread that this knowledge engenders cannot be allayed by assurances...

"The Nuclear threat is very real." So warns some from The Aspen Strategy Group. We have lately been treated to interviews on Michael Savage, articles in the nations major news papers and the occasional mention in televised media. What I want to know is this; now that many of you in here have read, seen, ore heard it, what is your critical analysis of it all? As for me I don't put much stock in the story of 20 suitcase nukes just awaiting their order to go off at the same time. If the Bib Ladens of the world had...

LONDON - Scientists reported they have grown new blood vessels with cells from sick older people - the type of patients most likely to need such transplants if the technique is perfected. The approach, outlined in The Lancet medical journal this week, could be used for heart or other bypass surgery in the elderly whose own veins may not be suitable. "The ability to grow new vessels from older cells represents a crucial initial step toward growing blood vessels from a patient's owns cells that can be used to treat that patient's vascular disease," said lead researcher Dr. Laura Niklason,...

International terrorism experts say the situation in Iraq has diverted the attention of Islamic extremists away from the West. But they believe the threat to the West will resume, once violence in Iraq subsides. International terrorism experts say terror networks are focusing on their fight in Iraq, temporarily reducing the dangers faced by Western countries that have been targets in the past. But Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, speaking recently to journalists at Rome's foreign press club, say this will change once the situation in Iraq is resolved. "I think we need to need to concern ourselves with a return...

11:21am 05/20/05 Bush warns veto on stem cell billBy Maggie McNeil WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Bush said Friday he would veto a bill to allow federal funding of research on stem cells if the research could destroy human embryos. Bush made his remarks in a question-and-answer session with reporters after a meeting with the Danish prime minister. Congress is expected to vote as soon as next week on a bipartisan bill to lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.

Fri, Apr. 29, 2005BusinessweekGenetic mingling mixes human, animal cells The Associated Press /RENO, Nev. By PAUL ELIAS AP Biotechnology Writer   RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.

RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago. "It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug. As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly...

An accented, angry voice comes over the intercom system: "Attention, attention teachers. You must move your students to the auditorium immediately." There are screams and confusion in the hallways.... Another teacher, sensing the spreading danger, closes and locks her classroom door, quickly she yells to open the windows and tells the children to climb out and run away. A driver passing by sees a group of children rolling off the school's window ledges and darting across the athletic field.

I don't know about the rest of America, but as a former intelligence analyst, what we don't know right now about nuclear proliferation in the world scares the hell out of me. Let's review just some of the news reports over the last several weeks... Many have probably heard of A.Q. Khan... Osama Bin Laden who has already declared it a Muslim duty to acquire nuclear weapons, recently received a Fatwa, or religious declaration, approving his use of one.... CIA Director Porter Goss... "It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical,...

LOS ANGELES - The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine doesn't have a home, any money, or even a single employee, but the head of the new state agency expects to be awarding its first grants for stem cell research by May. "We have a responsibility to move as quickly as possible," Robert Klein said Thursday. "I admit that I am an optimist." The institute was created by California voters in November when they approved a $3 billion bond to fund stem cell research over the next decade. The 29-member committee appointed to manage the institute met Thursday and began to...

Cell phones may be ruling our lives, but at least they don't have to ruin our dinners and study breaks anymore. With newer, fancier cell phones continually hitting the market and the FCC (search) considering allowing the use of mobiles on airplanes, there is once again an oasis of quiet to be found: restaurants and libraries across the country are installing cell-phone booths (search) to give Americans peace from annoying chatter — and the privacy to make a call. "People think it is a good idea, because it gets people [on cell phones] out of the restaurant so they don't...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Italians love their mobile phones and often carry out love affairs over them -- but they must beware, flirting with text messages can carry a fine. A judge in the northern Italian town of Padua on Monday found a man who sent an unsolicited compliment by SMS guilty of harassment and fined him 300 euros ($391), Italian news agency Ansa reported. "Since you appeared before my eyes I can't do anything but think of you," the man had written to a clerk while on lunch break, Ansa said. She took the offending SMS to the police. Italians own more mobile...

Hydrogen holds fantastic promise as a plentiful, clean-burning fuel and an eventual replacement for gasoline. Environmentalists like it because it might trim the amount of greenhouse gas spewed by the nation's automobiles. (The combustion of hydrogen produces only water.) Engineers like it because it's new technology that will need fueling with lots of ideas and design work. One futuristic idea places wind turbines in the windiest part of the country electrolyzing water and pumping it into a national grid. And cynics like the idea of a hydrogen economy because it lets them snicker while pointing out the hurtles that must...

This piece ran originally in the New York Sun last Friday for their weekend edition. "In the wake of Ron Reagan’s appearance at the Democratic Convention, John Kerry has tried to make stem-cell research a featured policy difference between Kerry and George Bush. His campaign website talks about “ideologically-driven restrictions” from the Bush administration and promises to lift the “ban on stem cell research.” In a recent Wall Street Journal editorial outlining his economic plan, Kerry writes that he will restore America’s competitive edge by working to “end the ban on stem-cell research.” In fact, it may be the most...

According to a new report, complex cells like those in the human body probably resulted from the fusion of genomes from an ancient bacterium and a simpler microbe, Archaea, best known for its ability to withstand extreme temperatures and hostile environments. The finding provides strong evidence that complex cells arose from combinations of simpler organisms in a symbiotic effort to survive. Jim Lake and Maria Rivera, at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), report their finding in the Sept. 9 issue of the journal Nature. Scientists refer to both bacteria and Archaea as "prokaryotes" -- a cell type that has...

A New Use for Old Printers: Treating Burn Victims Researchers in the US are using old inkjet printers to produce sheets of human skin to be used on burn victims. They think that this 'skin-printing' method will minimize rejections by patients and reduce post-operative complications. In this article, the Wall Street Journal (paid registration needed) writes that while the technology is still in its early stages, it could be used clinically within two years. This could be a life-saving technology for the 20% of burn patients who have the most extensive burns. Considering that each year, some 45,000 people...