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NASA is just about ready to test-launch its so-called flying saucer into the edge of space. The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator is literally a flying saucer. The original launch date of June 3 was scrubbed because of weather. The next potential launch date is Thursday, June 5, NASA said. "The agency is moving forward and getting ready for Mars as part of NASA's Evolvable Mars campaign," said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters, in a news release. "We fly, we learn, we fly again. We have two more vehicles in the works for next year."

I just found out that my sister has metastatic breast cancer that has spread to her spine. She had no problems with her mammogram last year so this makes me worry that it is aggressive. She is 62. Any prayers for her would be very much appreciated.

MRI images from a neurotypical control (left) and an adult with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum (right). The corpus callosum is indicated in red, fading as the fibers enter the hemispheres in order to suggest that they continue on. The anterior commissure is indicated by light aqua. The image illustrates the dramatic lack of inter hemispheric connections in callosal agenesis. Credit: Lynn Paul/Caltech (Medical Xpress)—Building on their prior work, a team of neuroscientists at Caltech now report that rare patients who are missing connections between the left and right sides of their brain—a condition known as agenesis of...

Scientists are scrambling to make sense of a sharp increase in reported infections with the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus. In April alone, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have reported over 200 new cases—more than all MERS-affected countries combined in the preceding 2 years. That has sparked fresh fears that the virus may be about to go on a global rampage. The World Health Organization expressed alarm at the new numbers, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published an updated risk assessment on 25 April warning European countries to expect more imported...

Scientists led by Dr David Fairlie from the University of Queensland, Australia, have found abnormal amounts of an inflammatory protein called PAR2 in the fat tissues of overweight and obese rats and humans. PAR2 is also increased on the surfaces of human immune cells by common fatty acids in the diet. When obese rats on a diet high in sugar and fat were given a new oral drug that binds to PAR2, the inflammation-causing properties of this protein were blocked, as were other effects of the high-fat and high-sugar diet, including obesity itself.Zucker Rat, a pet rat that has developed...

According to new research published this week in the journal Nature, an acyldepsipeptide antibiotic called ADEP in combination with the bactericidal antibiotic drug rifampicin eliminates the methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus.This scanning electron micrograph shows the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Image credit: NIAID. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium that is resistant to many antibiotics. It is responsible for several chronic infections such as osteomyelitis, endocarditis, or infections of implanted medical devices. These infections are often incurable, even when appropriate antibiotics are used.Senior author of the study, Prof Kim Lewis of Northeastern University, suspected that a different adaptive function of bacteria...

Low-carb, high-fat diets outperformed low-fat diets for managing and even reversing type 2 diabetes, Diabetes.co.uk reported. According to an eight-year study conducted by the Second University of Naples, men and women who followed the low-carb, higher-fat Mediterranean diet were able to come off their diabetes drugs and reverse their diabetes symptoms more readily than people who followed a low-fat diet.In the study, two groups of diabetic men and women were instructed to either follow a low-fat diet or a low-carb, high-fat Mediterranean diet that was comprised of at least 30% fat.The results showed that the higher-fat, low-carb dieters were able...

HARI SREENIVASAN: Another medical story that caught our attention this week. Word of what’s described as a pioneering clinical trial for patients with advanced lung cancer. What’s novel is not necessarily the drugs being used, but how many and how they’re being targeted. Dr. Mark Kris, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joins us. So what are they doing in the U.K. with this clinical trial? What’s so interesting about it? DR. MARK KRIS: They are taking a discovery that was made here almost ten years ago now where specific genes are damaged in lung tumors. And the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy is planning sea trials for a weapon that can fire a low-cost, 23-pound (10-kg) projectile at seven times the speed of sound using electromagnetic energy, a "Star Wars" technology that will make enemies think twice, the Navy's research chief said. Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, the chief of Naval Research, told a round table group recently the futuristic electromagnetic rail gun had already undergone extensive testing on land and would be mounted on the USNS Millinocket, a high-speed vessel, for sea trials beginning in 2016. "It's now reality and it's not science fiction. It's actually...

The roots of inheritance may extend beyond the genome, but the mechanisms remain a puzzle. When Brian Dias became a father last October, he was, like any new parent, mindful of the enormous responsibility that lay before him. From that moment on, every choice he made could affect his newborn son's physical and psychological development. But, unlike most new parents, Dias was also aware of the influence of his past experiences — not to mention those of his parents, his grandparents and beyond. Where one's ancestors lived, or how much they valued education, can clearly have effects that pass down...

The simple blood test could give early warning within three years The test could speed the search for new drugs that delay or prevent disease Experts are pleased, but it could bring health concerns if no cure is found A simple blood test has been developed that gives healthy elderly people precious early warning they may get Alzheimer’s within the next three years. It is hoped the test, the first to predict accurately who will become ill, could speed the search for new drugs that can delay or even prevent the devastating brain disease. It could eventually lead to widespread...

Over a one-year period, five children in California developed a polio-like illness that caused severe weakness or paralysis in their arms and legs, a new case study reports. In two of the children, their symptoms have now been linked with an extremely rare virus called enterovirus-68. Like the poliovirus, which has been eradicated in the U.S. since 1979 thanks to the polio vaccine, strains of enterovirus in rare cases can invade and injure the spine. These are the first reported cases of polio-like symptoms being caused by enterovirus in the United States. During the last decade, outbreaks of polio-like symptoms...

It's called Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, after the region where almost all the patients have been reported. But the name may turn out to be a misnomer. A new study has found the virus in camels from Sudan and Ethiopia, suggesting that Africa, too, harbors the pathogen. That means MERS may sicken more humans than previously thought—and perhaps be more likely to trigger a pandemic. MERS has sickened 183 people and killed 80, most of them in Saudi Arabia. A couple of cases have occurred in countries outside the region, such as France and the United Kingdom, but...

Forty years ago, a beloved neighbor was bedridden for weeks at a time with a mysterious ailment. She knew only that it involved her liver and that she must never drink alcohol, which would make things worse. It was decades before the cause of these debilitating flare-ups was discovered: a viral infection at first called non-A, non-B hepatitis, then properly identified in 1989 as hepatitis C... --snip-- But with two newly approved drugs and a few more in the pipeline, a new era in treatment of hepatitis C is at hand. These regimens are more effective at curing patients and...

Since they arrived in the Great Lakes in the 1980s, two species of mussels the size of pistachios have spread to hundreds of lakes and rivers in 34 states and have done vast economic and ecological damage. These silent invaders, the quagga and zebra mussels, have disrupted ecosystems by devouring phytoplankton, the foundation of the aquatic food web, and have clogged the water intakes and pipes of cities and towns, power plants, factories and even irrigated golf courses. Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany...

Molecules can now be designed to target specific small RNAs, opening up a new way to investigate and treat disease © ShutterstockChemists in the US have found a way to predict small molecules that can target short pieces of RNA involved in some diseases, such as cancer. The team’s approach has already met with some success, throwing up a molecule that interferes with a microRNA involved in cancer. This opens up the possibility of treating diseases via a target traditionally seen as ‘undruggable’.MicroRNAs are non-coding lengths of RNA, around 20 nucleotides long, that act as dimmer switches in cells, turning...

The elusive progenitor cells that give rise to innate lymphoid cells—a recently discovered group of infection-fighting white blood cells—have been identified in fetal liver and adult bone marrow of mice, researchers from the University of Chicago report early online in the journal Nature. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are among the first components of the immune system to confront certain pathogens. They have a critical function at mucosal barriers—locations such as the bowel or the lung—where the body comes in direct contact with the environment. Yet they went undetected by researchers studying the immune system for a century. "Scientists tend to...

ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – According to a new study, alcohol can boost your immune system. Researchers vaccinated animals and then gave them access to alcohol. Researchers found that the animals that had consumed alcohol also had faster responses to the vaccines.According to Medical News Today, the researchers hope this study leads to a better understanding of how the immune system works, and how to improve its ability to respond to vaccines and infections.Researchers were able to show other data to back their findings. According to UCR Today, moderate alcohol consumption has long been associated with a lower mortality rate.Moderate alcohol...

SCIENTISTS have hailed a historic "turning point" in the search for a medicine that could beat Alzheimer's disease, after a drug-like compound was used to halt brain cell death in mice for the first time. Although the prospect of a pill for Alzheimer's remains a long way off, the landmark British study provides a major new pathway for future drug treatments. The compound works by blocking a faulty signal in brains affected by neurodegenerative diseases. The signal shuts down the production of essential proteins, leading to brain cells being unprotected and dying off. The compound was tested in mice with...

S. Cassagnaud et al., Science Translational Medicine (2013)Big step. A mouse that has the equivalent of achondroplasia (top) doesn’t measure up to an animal that received injections of FGFR3 (bottom). It may sound counterintuitive, but the most common type of human dwarfism results when cells in a child’s bones are overstimulated by growth factors. A mouse study, however, suggests that injecting such children with a molecular decoy that sponges up these factors could treat the condition.People with the form of dwarfism called achondroplasia rarely stand more than 1.5 meters tall. The mutation responsible for the condition ends up stunting the...