There are always interesting things going on in the world of
science. Some border on the downright silly, while others speak of a future man
has only dreamed. Man's curiosity of the world around him has lead to the most
amazing discoveries. That same curiosity has also lead to some dismal failures.
But one thing is certain, man will continue to pry, prod, and dig for the
answers to every question that arise from his creative mind. Here are some news
items that give one cause to ponder the future.
After genetically altering mice so they stopped producing a
certain enzyme, Salih Wakil, a biochemist at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston, found the mutant mice weighed up to 15 per cent less than normal mice
and carried up to 50 per cent less fat. And that, adds Wakil, was after the
altered mice had eaten "to their hearts' content" up to 40 per cent
more. "This could be good news for the couch potato guys," says Wakil.
"They can sit on the couch and eat fries and not worry about putting on a
paunch." Sound too good to be true? Scientists say caution is in order
since the experiment was performed only once and only in mice. "There seems
to be a lot of interest in finding a quick cure to obesity," says Neil
Ruderman, a physiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who
reviewed the study. "But whether this can lead to a safe and effective
drugs we can't yet know." Wakil's team is now researching compounds that
could be placed in a pill to block the expression or secretion of ACC2. The pill
would first be tried in mice, then in Primates such as monkeys. Wakil expects
such a pill could be available to people within five years if the research goes
according to plan. (ABC News).
A groundbreaking new surgical procedure is showing remarkable
promise in relieving severe bone disease and the pain associated with it. By
applying a new genetically engineered puttylike protein to the diseased area,
surgeons are succeeding in getting the patient's body to grow new bone — right
where it's needed. The procedure is still in the early stages of testing but has
proven safe and effective in 19 patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis, a
painful back and leg problem caused when a vertebra in the spine degenerates and
slips over another vertebra. The new bone spackling procedure fuses the diseased
vertebrae, thereby helping to alleviate intense pain and other symptoms of the
condition. The procedure should also work well for people with fractures and
spine deformities and can potentially be used anywhere surgeons need to
stabilize a body segment that moves. "Bone genetic protein is one of the
great hopes of modern orthopedic surgery and spinal surgery," says Edward
N. Hanley, MD, chair of the department of orthopedic surgery at Carolinas
Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C. "People have been waiting with bated
breath for this. If the right protein and the right dose can be arrived at —
and if it works as well as it did in other models — this will greatly
transform how we do spinal surgery," he tells WebMD. "It means no more
bone grafts, improved healing rates — it will revolutionize spine surgery as
we know it." "This is likely to be one of the most actively accepted
procedures ever — by surgeons and patients," says Alexander R. Vaccaro,
MD, the first surgeon to conduct the special surgery. "It will dramatically
improve a person's chance of healing." (webmd.com).
An anticancer extract derived from the spine of the dogfish
shark appears to double the survival time for patients suffering from deadly
kidney cancer giving patients who have exhausted all other options an extra 8
months of life. "This new data is also very encouraging," said Dr.
Ronald Bukowski, director of experimental therapeutics program at the Cleveland
Clinic Cancer Center and one of the principal investigators who studied the
drug, Neovastat, produced by Aeterna Laboratories Inc., Quebec City, Canada. In
the study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for
Cancer Research in New Orleans, La., researchers said that patients who received
a higher dose of Neovastat survived for an average of 16.3 months, compared to
7.1 months for patients who received a lower dose of the drug. "The average
life expectancy for a person with renal cell cancer who is progressing after
exhausting all options is about eight months," said Dr. William Li, MD,
president of the Angiogenisis Foundation and a faculty member at both Harvard
and Tufts universities, Boston. "The Neovastat study is among the first
anti-angiogenesis reports where scientists have shown a statistically
significant survival benefit," Li said. "Survival benefit is the Holy
Grail of cancer treatment." (Environmental News Network Inc).
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are
developing a device that will allow people to "see" the world with
their tongues. They say the tongue is an effective portal to the brain because
of its sensitivity, and electrical impulses created by a camera and a computer
can allow users to sense objects in space, as impulses from working eyes do
naturally. "Initially, when you first start training on it, you feel
everything on the skin [or the tongue]," says Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a
professor of rehabilitation medicine and biomedical engineering at the
University of Wisconsin. "But after about 10 hours, you forget about the
skin and feel everything in space." After being trained with the device,
subjects are able to sense their surroundings and react to them automatically,
Bach-y-Rita says. New users tell him the array of electric stimulators on the
tongue feels "like bubbly water, or champagne bubbles," though the
sensation fades into the subconscious as users become accustomed to it. (ABC
News).
