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What will 3D printers ultimately evolve into? No one has a functioning crystal ball in front of them I assume, but a good guess would be a machine which can practically build anything its user desire, all on the molecular, and eventually atomic levels. Sure we are likely multiple decades away from widespread molecular manufacturing, but a group of chemists led by medical doctor Martin D. Burke at the University of Illinois may have already taken a major step in that direction. Burke, who joined the Department of Chemistry at the university in 2005, heads up Burke Laboratories where he...

Need an obscure medicinal compound found only in a jungle plant? Just print it.Say you're a medical researcher interested in a rare chemical produced in the roots of a little-known Peruvian flower. It's called ratanhine, and it's valuable because it has some fascinating anti-fungal properties that might make for great medicines. Getting your hands on the rare plant is hard, and no chemical supplier is or has ever sold it. But maybe, thanks to the work of University of Illinois chemist Martin Burke, you could print it right in the lab. In a new study published in the journal Science...

Laura Bosworth wants to 3D print breast nipples on demand. The CEO of the Texas startup TeVido Biodevices is betting on a future in which survivors of breast cancer who have undergone mastectomies will be able to order up new breasts printed from their own living cells. “Everyone,” she says, “knows a woman who has had breast cancer.” Right now their options are limited. Reconstructed nipples using state-of-the-art plastic surgery techniques, she says, “tend to flatten and fade and don’t last very long.” A living nipple built from the patient’s own fat cells, and reconstructed to the precise specification of...

TRONDHEIM, Norway, March 8 (UPI) — A new study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has found there is no connection between psychedelic drugs and mental health issues. The researchers analyzed data from the U.S. National Health Survey (2008-2011). The data includes over 130,000 randomly selected adults, including nearly 20,000 psychedelic drug users. The analysis showed people who use LSD or psilocybin mushrooms do not have an increased risk of mental health problems.

Over the past 15 years, death rates among white women in the United States have mysteriously surged. New research pins blame on an insidious culprit: prescription painkillers. Demographers recently uncovered a startling trend: In 42.8 percent of U.S. counties, mortality rates for women rose between 1992 and 2006. Male rates, meanwhile, increased in a mere 3.4 percent. Between 1999 and 2011, death rates climbed substantially among only white women, ages 15 to 54. A study from the Urban Institute, published Thursday, attributed half the rise to “accidental poisoning,” or drug overdoses. Americans’ life expectancy has steadily increased for decades. So,...

Three-dimensional printing has been used to make everything from pizza to prostheses, and now researchers are working on using the emerging technology to fabricate hearts, kidneys, and other vital human organs. That would be very big news, as the number of people who desperately need an organ transplant far outstrips the number of donor organs available. On average, about 21 Americans die every day because a needed organ was unavailable. What exactly is the promise of 3D printing organs and tissues, or "bioprinting?" How does the technology work, and when might it start saving lives? For answers to these and...

Scientists at Northeastern University have discovered an antibiotic in the soil that looks to be effective at killing deadly pathogens like MRSA and tuberculosis. Even more promising, lead researcher Kim Lewis says those pathogens weren't able to develop a resistance to the antibiotic.

Scientists say 'Enigma machine' has unlocked clues to the way the virus of the common cold assembles - making it possible to stop disease in its tracks A scientific breakthrough could herald an end to the common cold, after researchers found a way to “jam” the genetic code and stop the virus replicating. Experts said the discovery could allow scientists to design molecules which could “stop the virus in its tracks” - fending off colds and winter vomiting disease. Scientists from the Universities of Leeds and York used a computer-based model to identify a code in the viral genome, which...

(Newser) – As many as three million Americans may be allergic to peanuts, the Huffington Post has reported, with one study suggesting that the number of kids with the allergy doubled between 1997 and 2002. But those who are affected may have a reason to smile: A new study could point the way to a cure for the condition, the Australian Associated Press reports via the Guardian. For a year and a half, 30 kids with the allergy were given peanut protein plus a probiotic every day; another 30 received a placebo, researchers at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute report....

It sounds like something from a science fiction plot: so-called three-dimensional printers are being used to fashion prosthetic arms and hands, jaw bones, spinal-cord implants -- and one day perhaps even living human body parts. While the parts printed for humans so far have been fashioned from plastic, metal and other inorganic materials, researchers in California and elsewhere also have begun printing living tissue, with the goal of eventually employing these "bioprinters" to create customized kidneys, livers and other organs for people needing transplants. What's particularly attractive about the technology, according to its proponents, is that 3D printers can produce...

The government is forcing one of Dr. Oz's favorite supplement peddlers to pay out $9 million to consumers after making deceptive and unsubstantiated claims about weight loss products. In December, researchers writing in the British Medical Journal examined the health claims showcased on 40 randomly selected episodes of the two most popular internationally syndicated health talk shows, The Dr Oz Show and The Doctors. What they found was disappointing but not exactly surprising: about half of the health recommendations had either no evidence behind them or they actually contradicted what the best-available science tells us.

MIAMI, - Authorities in Florida said they are investigating the alleged illegal importing of giant African snails for use in a religious healing ritual. A search warrant filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court said state and federal investigators raided the home of Charles Stewart, 48, in January after receiving information that he was keeping a large box full of the snails, which are only allowed in the United States with special permits for scientific research, the Miami Herald reported Thursday. Federal authorities said they began investigating Stewart in November after receiving complaints that he was feeding the juices from the snails...

Acknowledging the public health impact of racism and deep disparities in the quality and accessibility of medical care for patients of color, a national organization, White Coats for Black Lives, says it’s launching a new effort today, in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Dorothy Charles, one of the group’s organizers and a first year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, offers some context in an email: Racism profoundly impacts people of color: the black-white mortality gap in 2002, for example, accounted for 83,570 excess deaths. As future physicians, we are responsible for addressing the...

CHICAGO — “Some folks might think that I’m just a paranoid old guy who feels that the world is coming to an end and we had a great ride…but there are major disruptive changes in health care on the horizon, and unless we understand them and respond, I think, personally, the future of our profession is in jeopardy,” Paul Berger, MD, chairman, Partners in the Imaging Enterprise, and past founder and former chairman of NightHawk Radiology, said at RSNA 2014. The disruption Berger was referring to specifically is the trend of population health. Population health is an idea with varying...

West Palm Beach police busted a juvenile who was posing as a doctor — with a white lab coat and all — for a month at St. Mary's Medical Center. Police said they got a call on Jan. 13 about a juvenile walking around in a white doctor's lab coat and carrying a stethoscope who was telling people he was a doctor

[I really think it is important to highlight all the great advances in technology and medicine, to show what is good in society and what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it! Even if you don’t have diabetes you should appreciate the advances that can be made—if government regulators and Obama don’t destroy the medical industry first.] This Temporary Tattoo Can Monitor Diabetics' Glucose Levels as Accurately as a Finger Prick “A flexible and easy-to-wear temporary tattoo could help diabetics manage their condition without daily finger pricks.” By FIONA MACDONALD January 15, 2015 Engineers from the University...

The recent successes of the Affordable Care Act pose a challenge for the right, at least in theory. The more “Obamacare” works effectively, and the more Republican predictions are discredited, the more difficult it should be for conservatives to deny what is plainly true. And yet, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) doesn’t seem to mind. The Texas Republican delivered some predictable red meat at the Heritage Action Conservative Policy Summit yesterday, taking aim at the health care law he loves to hate. Obamacare, he asserted, has wrought “devastation.” He called it a “train wreck” that has cost millions of Americans their...

My Kingdom Economics are derived through "Thanksgiving"for it was in this manner the waters parted for Moses and the snakebites were of no consequence(I will lift my eyes to the hills) for as The Son Of God is lifted up doors open and miracles begin ! My endowment to Him( Jesus) is you( My children of Light ) and so it is as your love for Us is poured out ," Truly " it is returned flowing down upon your heads pressed down shaken together and flowing over into My very Will. So enter My Courts with Thanksgiving "YES" but...

[For me, these kinds of stories are inspirational and show what human beings are capable of!] Paralysed patients have been given new hope of recovery after rats with severe spinal injuries walked again through a ‘groundbreaking’ new cyborg-style implant. In technology which could have come straight out of a science fiction novel or Hollwood movie, French scientists have created a thin prosthetic ribbon, embedded with electrodes, which lies along the spinal cord and delivers electrical impulses and drugs. The prosthetic, described by British experts as ‘quite remarkable’, is soft enough to bend with tissue surrounding the backbone to avoid discomfort....

Lauren F Friedman and Reuters January 7, 2015Scientists have discovered a new antibiotic, teixobactin, that can kill serious infections in mice without encountering any detectable resistance, offering a potential new way to get ahead of dangerous evolving superbugs. The new antibiotic was discovered in a sample of soil. The research is "ingenious," Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, told The New York Times. Researchers said the antibiotic, which has yet to be tested in humans, could one day be used to treat drug-resistant infections caused by the superbug MSRA, as well as tuberculosis, which normally requires...