In March 2009, the Obama Administration announced new guidelines for stem-cell funding, replacing what was widely considered a much more restrictive set of rules put …
Author: Bruce Goldman
Viruses can cause warts on your DNA
Just when we're getting over our discomfort with the notion that there are ten bacterial cells in your body for every one of your own, …
Two different types of MS, one big step toward personalized medicine
Larry Steinman, MD, is so committed to multiple-sclerosis research that every time he Googles something his laptop mysteriously inserts the term "multiple sclerosis" into the …
Positive results in deep-brain stimulation trial for epilepsy
Deep-brain stimulation - implantation and activation of a device that sends electronic pulses to targeted brain regions - has already proved helpful for Parkinson's Disease. …
Fear of having to switch stem-cell workhorses midstream
An NPR report today points out an oddly ironic result of the embryonic-stem-cell policy shift announced by the Obama Administration last year. On August 9, …
Why our brains may not like surprises
"Still, a man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest." You just know that those words from The Boxer, penned by Paul …
Hit the brakes on health-care bill, say two top Dem pollsters
Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen are pollsters for the last two non-GOP U.S. Presidents - Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively. So it's revealing that …
Old 8th grade algebra sucks new medical information from blood
0.24a + 0.41b + 0.35c + 0.12d + . . . = 1.00 0.21a + 0.29b + 0.20c + 0.08d + . . . = …
Guts and glory: Growing intestinal tissue in a lab dish
The intestine is, in its essence, a tube surrounded by rings of smooth muscle that periodically undergo rhythmic, sequential contractions followed by relaxations. This squeezes …
Ain't no cure for the muscle-cramp blues: The sun slowly sets on quinine
On June 8, 1962 - the ninth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation - Commander Walter Edward Whitehead, the bearded pitchman for Schweppes quinine water, …
Fruit flies fly while scalped, exposing their brain cells for science
Hats off to Caltech researchers, who found that scalping fruit flies allowed them to record the insects' brain activity for the first time while they …
A grain of salt concerning salt-intake reduction
Headlines were made, a month or two ago, by a mathematical-modeling study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that lowering average U.S. …
Freshen up those stem cells with young blood
Vampire fetishists will be heartened by this news release from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which suggests there may be something to the idea of …
Hepatitis C virus's Achilles heel
Stanford's Jeffrey Glenn , MD, PhD, and colleagues, in a just-published study, have discovered a promising class of compounds that could help defeat the hepatitis …
Stem-cell sausage: Is Porky Pig obsolete?
In case you missed this groundbreaking news last week, MSNBC reported that Dutch researchers are on their way to producing "pork in a petri dish." …
Number of H1N1 patients declines, but calls for patience continue
Bad bugs are a bit like those giant mutant insects from sci-fi flicks of yore: Just when you think the world is safe, he-e-ere comes …