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Surprise! Your Skin Can Hear Jeanna Bryner Senior Writer LiveScience.com Wed Nov 25, 1:06 pm ET We not only hear with our ears, but also through our skin, according to a new study. The finding, based on experiments in which participants listened to certain syllables while puffs of air hit their skin, suggests our brains take in and integrate information from various senses to build a picture of our surroundings. Along with other recent work, the research flips the traditional view of how we perceive the world on its head. "[That's] very different from the more traditional ideas, based on...

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby. Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

Skin from a factory – this has long been the dream of pharmacologists, chemists and doctors.

Despite medicine's inestimable progress over the past century, surgery can still leave scars that look more appropriate to Frankenstein's monster than to the beneficiary of a precise, modern operation. But in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Irene Kochevar and Robert Redmond have developed a method that has the potential to replace the surgeon's needle and thread. Using surgical lasers and a light-activated dye, the researchers are prompting tissue to heal itself. Laser-bonded healing is not a new idea. For years, scientists have been trying to find ways to use the heat generated by lasers to weld...

Teams of university scientists backed by US government funds hope to grow new skin, ears, muscles and other body tissue for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $US250 million effort aims to address the Pentagon's unprecedented challenge of caring for troops returning from the war zones with multiple traumatic injuries, many of which would have been fatal years ago. "We've had just over 900 people, men, some women with amputations of some kind or another since the start of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Many have also suffered...

Cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Edmond Cabbabe, uses a laser during Fadi Mouhanna's first treatment to remove a tattoo from his arm at Cabbabe's office near St. Anthony's Hospital. Nothing says "I love you" quite like permanent ink injected into the skin. But as tattoo artists and divorce rates show, love doesn't always last. A tattoo, on the other hand, is everlasting. ... Once the name goes into the skin, the relationship often goes south. And when that happens, tattoo regret can set in. Laser tattoo removal, in fact, is a growing business, and doctors say it will continue to expand...

Skin test shows if you're late or early riser By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 10:01pm GMT 28/01/2008 A simple skin test could reveal if someone who hates getting up is lazy, or whether their body clock is badly out of step with that of other people. In recent years, scientists have found that genes can influence a person's preference for rising extremely early, when they are known as "a lark", or late in the day, "an owl". Now a simple skin test to diagnose people with these genes has been devised which, in the longer term, could help...

A new surgical technique pioneered at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy in Leipzig may allow for patients to receive grafted ‘artificial’ skin grown using their own cells. The procedure, called the EpiDex® technique, has been developed with euroderm GmbH, and could replace traditional treatments which involve taking skin from another part of the patient’s body. If successful, the new process would eliminate the additional scarring, with which patients suffer at the donor area (usually the thigh), but would still have the same chances of success for the graft taking. “If we produce this skin using the recently approved EpiDex®...

Skin Color Evolution In Fish And Humans Determined By Same Genetic MachineryOcean sticklebacks are dark colored fish that often migrate into new environments. Multiple stickleback populations have evolved lighter gill and skin colors following colonization of new lakes and streams at the end of the last ice age. Ocean (upper) compared to freshwater creek (lower) sticklebacks, both collected near Vancouver, British Columbia. Scientists have identified a genetic change controlling rapid evolution of skin color in fish, and shown that the same mechanism also contributes to recent evolution of skin color in humans. (Credit: Frank Chan, Craig Miller, and David Kingsley;...

Coffee 'reduces the risk of skin cancer' By Nic Fleming Science Correspondent Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/11/2007 Drinking coffee can cut the risk of skin cancer by more than a third, scientists say. A good healthy dose: scientists believe caffeine could stop skin cancers spreading Researchers found that people who drank more than six cups of caffeinated coffee a day reduced their chances of developing the most common form of skin cancer by 35 per cent, while those who drank two or three cups were 12 per cent less likely to have the disease. Scientists believe caffeine could stop skin...

LONDON: Karl Marx, who complained of excruciating boils, actually suffered from a chronic skin disease with known psychological effects that may well have influenced his writings, a British expert said on Tuesday. Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands — found mainly in the armpits and groin — become blocked and inflamed. "In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Shuster, who published his findings in the 'British Journal of...

India's hue and cry over paler skin By Amrit Dhillon in Delhi, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 11:48pm BST 30/06/2007 As both an A-list Bollywood actor and the host of India's answer to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Shah Rukh Khan sets hearts aflutter for all manner of reasons. Now, however, he has been accused of peddling a dream too far - in an advertisement for skin cream. Shah Rukh Khan has agreed to be the face of a skin lightening cream Khan, 41, a heart-throb star likened to an Indian Tom Cruise, has agreed to promote Fair and Handsome,...

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS MEETING: European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests Ann Gibbons PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA--At the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting, held here from 28 to 31 March, a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago

Canadian scientists have produced neurons from human skin stem cells in a breakthrough that might revolutionize neurodegenerative disease treatments. The Laval University researchers succeeded in producing neurons in vitro using stem cells extracted from adult human skin. That marks the first time such an advanced state of nerve cell differentiation has been achieved from human skin, according to lead researcher professor Francois Berthod. The scientists say the breakthrough could eventually lead to revolutionary advances in the treatment of neurodegenerative illnesses such as Parkinson's disease. Berthod and his team described the method used to produce the neurons in a recent issue...

Western-style fashions are big business in China A visit to any chemist in China gives an insight into Chinese attitudes to beauty. The brightly-lit aisles are full of the big-named brands which dominate the world's beauty market, but the products here are different from those in the West. The shelves are loaded with creams and lotions which whiten the skin. "Making skin look paler is very deeply rooted in Chinese tradition," said Jan Hodok, marketing manager for the skincare company Nivea in China. "Traditionally, the first objective of a woman is to have pale white skin because whitening can...

The Color of His Skin Imagine him white. Barack Obama, that is. Amidst all the glowing talk about the possibility of his becoming America's first black president in 2008, it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine whether Mr. Obama would elicit this swooning buzz if he were white. That is, let's imagine a white guy with all of Mr. Obama's pluses: crinkly smile, sincere concern for the little man, fine speech a couple of years ago about bringing the nation together, a certain charisma, wrote a touching autobiography. Let's call him Barrett O'Leary. I do not think Mr. O'Leary would...

The human body may seem to change little over the years, but beneath this deceptive calm, cells are in constant flux as old ones are discarded and new ones appear. How do the new recruits know where they are meant to go? Biologists at Stanford University say they have discovered a coordinate system in human cells that defines their position in the body. This seems to be the first time a cell-based positioning system has been reported for the adult body of any animal, though positioning systems that guide cells in embryogenesis are well known. The coordinate system, if confirmed,...

Before Steve Nickerson, a photographer at The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, began his treatments for systemic scleroderma, the illness had already sabotaged his body on multiple fronts. His skin and fingers were so severely stiffened — “tough as rhino hide,” he recalled one doctor saying — that he could not tie his shoes and could barely hold his Nikon. His lungs became scarred. He became so weak that he could not climb a single step without gasping for breath. Even eating became arduous: his mouth would not open sufficiently for a normal bite. “I can tear an apple apart,...

As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, mostly from malignant skin cancer, the World Health Organization reported...As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, mostly from malignant skin cancer, the World Health Organization reported on Wednesday. It found that 48,000 deaths every year are caused by malignant melanomas, and 12,000 by other kinds of skin cancer. About 90 percent of such cancers are caused by ultraviolet light from the sun. Radiation from the sun also causes often serious sunburn, skin aging, eye cataracts, pterygium -- a fleshy growth on the surface...

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...

Black minister, Nagin critic enters mayor's raceBy CHEVEL JOHNSON Associated Press Writer February 17. 2006 4:50PM The Rev. Tom Watson III, an influential black pastor and frequent critic of Mayor Ray Nagin, declared his candidacy for mayor Friday, saying Hurricane Katrina exposed the weaknesses of Nagin's administration. "We have put up with the political foolishness for a long time and the impact from poor leadership was not shown until the storm showed it," Watson said to about 50 supporters on hand for the formal announcement. Watson is the first black challenger to Nagin, who also is black. Nine others, all...

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife. The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Leaders...

Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses - in our pillows. Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults. The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow. Fungal contamination of bedding...

Police: Suspect Tries To Chew Skin Off Fingers To Foil ID Robert Anwar Nicks. LOWER PAXTON, Pa. -- Robert Anwar Nicks. A fugitive wanted on robbery and weapons charges went to great lengths to conceal his identity, including trying to chew off the skin of his own fingers so he couldn't be fingerprinted, Lower Paxton Township police say.Robert Anwar Nicks, 24, ran across an interstate and ditched two handguns, a 9-mm and a .45, and tried to hijack two cars, assaulting one owner, before bystanders and police restrained him Wednesday, police said.Officers spotted Nicks in the 200 block of North...

USMC_Vet from The Blue State Conservatives has exposed China in what can only be described as an amoral act of barbarism. He begins... The debate is endless. Is China an economic partner or a strategic adversary with regards to America? Countless hours are dedicated to determining the nature of the relationship. Yet, at the end of the day, it should boil down to basic principle amidst all of the nuanced and persuasive arguments. China, or more accurately it's Chinese Communist Party dictatorship and the environment it cultivates, is a Moral Adversary. Exhibit 'A': Skin of Executed Prisoners Harvested for Cosmetics...

International Herald Tribune Using human fetal cells, Swiss scientists have developed a new type of "biological bandage" for severe burns, a treatment that speeds and improves the healing process and may prove effective for other serious skin wounds, according to a preliminary study being published today. But because the bandages are derived from the skin cells of aborted fetuses, the novel therapy is likely to generate controversy in countries like the United States and Italy, which restrict the use of human embryos in scientific research. The research team, led by Dr. Patrick Hohlfeld at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland,...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The activity of male hormones, androgens, can give rise to acne during adolescence, but may also protect against coronary heart disease in adulthood, UK researchers report. However, androgens also appear to be associated with an increased risk of dying from prostate cancer, the study in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggests. "Androgen level or androgen activity is implicated in several health outcomes, but its independent role remains controversial." Dr. Bruna Galobardes, from the University of Bristol, and colleagues note. The investigators examined the association between history of acne in young men and cause-specific mortality in...

An experimental vaccine can reduce both the incidence and the severity of shingles by more than half, doctors reported yesterday, in a development that could spare hundreds of thousands of elderly Americans from an extremely painful disease. The effectiveness of the vaccine was determined in an unusually large clinical trial involving more than 38,500 people over the age of 60, the group most prone to shingles, a skin and nerve infection. "I think the results are quite clinically significant," said Dr. Michael N. Oxman, the leader of the study, which is being published today in The New England Journal of...

A TREATMENT for balding men, women with stretchmarks and anyone who has gum disease may have been discovered by scientists. As cure-alls go, an injection of fibroblasts may be the ultimate. The new technology is being developing by Isolagen, a Texas-based biotech company, and 50 patients are to undergo clincial trials in London. Fibroblasts are tiny cells that control levels of the proteins collagen and elastin, which are found in skin, bones and other tissue. To treat burns, the scientists take cells from an undamaged area, extract the fibroblasts and multiply them in the laboratory before injecting them back into...

Restaurant Sued Over Claim Of Skin In Sandwich Health Department Said Employee Cut Finger POSTED: 10:21 am EDT April 23, 2005 DAYTON, Ohio -- A man is suing a fast-food restaurant operator for more than $50,000, claiming he found a slice of skin on his chicken sandwich. David Scheiding filed the lawsuit in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court on April 1 after rejecting a settlement offer from GZK Inc., his lawyer said. GZK owns the Arby's restaurant in Tipp City where he bought the sandwich. Scheiding, of Troy, said he realized something wasn't right when he bit into the sandwich...

A researcher has discovered unexpectedly large amounts of dandruff and other flaking skin, fur, pollen and similar materials in air pollutants known as aerosols. Aerosols, tiny particles in the air, are widely studied because they are an important factor in regulating climate, variously absorbing heat to warm the air and reflecting sunlight to cool it. They are also important in forming rain and snow. But the amount of cellular material — bacteria, plant fragments, spores, fungi and so forth — had been thought to be only a small proportion compared with mineral dusts, clay and sea salt. Now, Ruprecht Jaenicke...

PHILADELPHIA – Nano-sized particles embedded with bright, light-emitting molecules have enabled researchers to visualize a tumor more than one centimeter below the skin surface using only infrared light. A team of chemists, bioengineers and medical researchers based at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota has lodged fluorescent materials called porphyrins within the surface of a polymersome, a cell-like vesicle, to image a tumor within a living rodent. Their findings, which represent a proof of principle for the use of emissive polymersomes to target and visualize tumors, appear in the Feb. 7 online early edition of the Proceedings...

Space Future - http://www.spacefuture.com/pr/archive/on_the_practical_and_sporting_aspects_of_football_in_zero_gravity.shtml O Thornton & P Collins, 19 September 2001, "On the Practical and Sporting Aspects of Football in Zero-Gravity", Presented at Symposium on The Popular Commercialisation of Space, British Interplanetary Society, 19 September 2001. Also downloadable from http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/on_the_practical_and_sporting_aspects_of_football_in_zero_gravity.shtml Presented at Symposium on The Popular Commercialisation of Space, British Interplanetary Society , 19 September 2001 On the Practical and Sporting Aspects of Football in Zero-Gravity Oliver Thornton & Patrick Collins Introduction: Association Football, or 'soccer', is the major spectator sport in the world, as well the most widely-played. When space becomes a practical living space for the...

Your Old Inkjet Printer Could Aid Burn Victims Susannah Patton, CIO Dec. 2, 2004 Looking for a place to toss your old inkjet printers? A team of scientists working to create human tissue may have a good use for them. Inkjets that are ten years old, they say, are perfectly suited to create sheets of human skin and other tissue that one day may help burn victims and even manufacture organs. Vladimir Mironov, director of the Shared Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina, is one of the scientists who has rigged Hewlett-Packard and Canon inkjet printers...

The lovely Queen (May She Live Forever) and I are now administering the children's ministry at our church. As we were gathering supplies for last week's classes, we discovered a new product by Crayola which I had never seen before: I fondly remember coloring in my early years. My favorite color was always brick red, although I have no idea why. (Possibly because it was one of the few cool colors that came in the 24 pack, which is all my family could ever afford. My choice might have been different if the assortment of 64 had fit within the...

At what point will all be satisfied that the price of justice has been paid in full?

Howie Carr Show Poll (top of the page) John Kerry is doing debate prep up in Wisconsin and for some reason he has turned bright orange. Is this tan in a bottle or a chemical peel gone awry? What do you think caused the Senator's complexion to vacation in Oompa Loompah Ville? SKIN TONE John Kerry's complexion has suddenly taken on a very unnatural tone. Which of the following nicknames best describes him? Which of the following nicknames best describes him? Tan Man Agent Orange International House of Pancake http://www.wrko.com/howiecarrpoll.asp

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...

Electronic skin could give machines a sophisticated sense of touch. A flexible friend: rubber polymers form the basis of an electronic skin.© Takao Someya Group Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan."Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision...

Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan. "Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision and voice recognition for robots, touch sensitivity is still fairly rudimentary. Our own skin contains a battery of touch receptors that produce nerve signals...

WASHINGTON : Presidential hopeful and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry today announced he has offered Johnny Depp first refusal of the coveted VP spot in his Democratic bid for the White House. I first saw Johnny in that scissors movie, Kerry told reporters, and I’ve wanted to run with him ever since. A source close to the Kerry campaign stated that Kerry believes Depp’s charm, charisma and intense global popularity is just the thing needed to sway voter support of post-teen females, twenty-something housewives, every woman in middle-aged America and that ‘certain section of guys’ towards the Democratic ticket in November....

<p>A Florida company has announced plans to develop a service that would allow consumers to pay for merchandise using microchips implanted under their skin.</p> <p>Applied Digital Solutions CEO Scott Silverman said he believes the company's VeriChip -- a subdermal microchip that uses radio frequency signals to broadcast an identification number to a scanner -- could someday replace credit cards. Under Silverman's plan, rather than swiping a bank card to make purchases, micro-chipped customers would scan themselves using special readers.</p>

A young Ocean Beach woman survived a severe allergic reaction that had University of California, San Diego Regional Burn Center staff scrambling to save her life, 10News reported. By all accounts, Sarah Yeargain, (pictured, left), shouldn't be alive. But she is and some are calling it a medical miracle. Three weeks ago, the skin on Yeargain's body began sloughing off. Dr. Daniel Lozano, from the UCSD Regional Burn Center, said, "She lost skin in her entire body. It's rather dramatic to really see this coming off in sheets." Even the membrane covering her internal organs -- her eyes, mouth, and...

<p>Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin disease, and hundreds more could unknowingly be infected, doctors will report Friday. Doctors fear that soldiers returning from the front might consult doctors in the USA who have never seen the disease. Complicating matters: It has an incubation period of six months, on average, so a person infected in September may not show symptoms until March. Also, the best drug to treat it is not licensed in the USA.</p>

Robert Reich

Forget the Pyramids: That stately, sand-dusted figure on the National Geographic cover is a babe - and she's wearing nothing but three strategically placed shells. Margaret Mead never looked like this. Then again, neither did the Geographic, whose first swimsuit issue hits the stands Saturday, 18 days ahead of Sports Illustrated's annual bikini blowout. Showing all that skin may be a stretch for a magazine whose usual cover lines run to "Indus: Clues to an Ancient Civilization" and "The Magic of Snowy Owls." Nevertheless, the editors of the venerable Geographic believe they've remained true to their mission.

c="http://a799.ms.akamai.net/3/799/388/242d09bcd616f7/www.msnbc.com/news/1657534.jpg" border=1>The duckbill fossil, named Leonardo, is laid out for display at the Phillips County Museum in Montana. The numbers are keyed to information about areas of the 23-foot-long fossil. A separate portion of the tail can be seen in the background of the photo. Dinosaur Mummy shows some skin! Fossilized duckbill dinosaur provides rare clues about diet and appearance By Alan Boyle MSNBC Oct. 14 — A mummified dinosaur from Montana has revealed how the creature looked and how it lived 77 million years ago — down to the texture of its skin and the contents of its stomach,...

Winamp Skin of President Bush

Megan Cutter, who is 10, likes tight Capri pants, high-heeled flip-flops, T-shirts that say "Princess" or "Brat," and clothes with glitter, plenty of glitter. "I think it's really pretty, and it gets you attention," she says. "I like attention." This may be what Megan likes to wear. It is not, however, what she is allowed to wear. "My mom and I have worked out some compromises," she says: one pair of blue pants that have some glitter on them; a T-shirt her dad bought that says "Smart, Cute" on the front and "Athlete. Who says you can't have it all?"...