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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.