Tuesday, June 18 2013 1:17 PM EDT2013-06-18 17:17:07 GMT
A Spokane, Washington hairstylist decided to shave her head after her sister was diagnosed with cancer. But she never imagined that decision would force her to quit a job she loved.
A Spokane, Washington hairstylist decided to shave her head after her sister was diagnosed with cancer. But she never imagined that decision would force her to quit a job she loved.
Monday, June 17 2013 11:45 PM EDT2013-06-18 03:45:41 GMT
A video showing a collision between a cyclist and a cabbie right in the heart of D.C. is going viral. However, what makes this footage different is the cyclist and his buddies are riding in the middle of an event designed to promote biking and safety.
A video showing a collision between a cyclist and a cabbie right in the heart of D.C. is going viral. However, what makes this footage different is the cyclist and his buddies are riding in the middle of an event designed to promote biking and safety.
Monday, June 17 2013 12:24 PM EDT2013-06-17 16:24:23 GMT
The father of the former NSA contractor who leaked details of the government's massive Internet- and phone-tracking programs made an impassioned plea to his son to stop leaking, telling Fox News that "I hope, I pray" he does not do anything considered treasonous.
The father of the former NSA contractor who leaked details of the government's massive Internet- and phone-tracking programs made an impassioned plea to his son to stop leaking, telling Fox News that "I hope, I pray" he does not do anything considered treasonous.
Friday, June 14 2013 12:29 PM EDT2013-06-14 16:29:16 GMT
D.C. police have been warning bicyclists since March not to ride the Metropolitan Branch Trail alone. And they stepped up patrols on the trail then too. But it didn't stop a group of teenagers from knocking a 37-year-old Silver Spring man off his bike Tuesday and savagely beating him.
D.C. police have been warning bicyclists since March not to ride the Metropolitan Branch Trail alone. And they stepped up patrols on the trail then too. But it didn't stop a group of teenagers from knocking a 37-year-old Silver Spring man off his bike Tuesday and savagely beating him.
Thursday, June 13 2013 12:32 PM EDT2013-06-13 16:32:12 GMT
Homo sapiens have slowly evolved over thousands of millennia, but what happens when modern technology comes into play? Visual artist, Nickolay Lamm of Pittsburgh, Pa., tried to answer that question.
Homo sapiens have slowly evolved over thousands of millennia, but what happens when modern technology comes into play? Visual artist, Nickolay Lamm of Pittsburgh, Pa., tried to answer that question.
Wednesday, June 12 2013 11:23 AM EDT2013-06-12 15:23:57 GMT
Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday that the government's years-long collection of phone records and Internet usage is necessary for protecting Americans -- and does not trample on their privacy rights.But the country's main civil liberties organization wasn't buying it, filing the most significant lawsuit against the massive phone record collection program so far. The American Civil...
Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday that the government's years-long collection of phone records and Internet usage is necessary for protecting Americans -- and does not trample on their privacy rights.But the country's main civil liberties organization wasn't buying it, filing the most significant lawsuit against the massive phone record collection program so far. The American Civil...
By Charles Choi / LiveScience -- Death will come for us all one day, but life will not fade from our bodies all at once. After our lungs stop breathing, our hearts stop beating, our minds stop racing, our bodies cool, and long after our vital signs cease, little pockets of cells can live for days, even weeks. Now scientists have harvested such cells from the scalps and brain linings of human corpses and reprogrammed them into stem cells.
As such, this work could help lead to novel stem cell therapies and shed light on a variety of mental disorders, such asschizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder, which may stem from problems with development, researchers say.
Making stem cells
Mature cells can be made or induced to become immature cells, known as pluripotent stem cells, which have the ability to become any tissue in the body and potentially can replace cells destroyed by disease or injury. This discovery was honored last week with the Nobel Prize.
Past research showed this same process could be carried out with so-called fibroblasts taken from the skin of human cadavers. Fibroblasts are the most common cells of connective tissue in animals, and they synthesize the extracellular matrix, the complex scaffolding between cells. [Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt]
Cadaver-collected fibroblasts can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells using chemicals known as growth factors that are linked with stem cell activity. Reprogrammed cells could then develop into a multitude of cell types, including the neurons found in the brain and spinal cord. However, bacteria and fungi on the skin can wreak havoc on the culturing processes used to grow cells in labs, making the process tricky to successfully carry out.
Now scientists have taken fibroblasts from the scalps and the brain linings of 146 human brain donors and grown induced pluripotent stem cells from them as well.
"We were able to culture living cells from deceased individuals on a larger scale than ever done before," researcher Thomas Hyde, a neuroscientist, neurologist and chief operating officer at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in Baltimore, told LiveScience. Previous studies had only grown fibroblasts from a total of about a half-dozen cadavers.
The bodies had been dead up to nearly two days before scientists collected tissues from them. The corpses had been kept cool in the morgue, but not frozen.
The researchers found fibroblasts taken from the brain lining, or dura mater, were 16 times more likely to grow successfully than those from the scalp. This was expected, since the scalp is prone to fungal and bacterial contamination just like any other part of the skin. These contaminants can ruin any attempt to grow fibroblasts in lab dishes.
Surprisingly, scalp cells did proliferate more and grew more rapidly than dura mater cells. "This makes sense — the skin is constantly renewing, while the turnover in dura mater is much slower," Hyde said.
Future therapies
Cells from corpses might play a key role in developing future stem cell therapies. Successfully reprogramming induced pluripotent stem cells so they behave like the cells they are meant to replace means that samples of the mimicked cells must be present for comparison. Cadavers can provide brain, heart and other tissues for study that researchers cannot safely obtain from living people.
"For instance, we can compare neurons derived from fibroblasts with actual neurons from the same individual," Hyde said. "It tells us about how reliable a given method for deriving neurons from fibroblasts is. That can be crucial if, for example, you want to create dopamine-making neurons to treat someone with Parkinson's disease."
Studying how induced pluripotent stem cells develop into various tissues could also shed light on disorders that are due to malfunctions in development.
"We're very interested in major neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disease, autism and mental retardation," Hyde said. "By understanding what goes wrong with the brain cells in these individuals, we could perhaps help fix that."
The scientists detailed their findings online Sept. 27 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The 17-year periodical cicadas are predicted to emerge this spring and bring their "melodious" sounds with them. We have what you need to learn about and share the invasion experience.
The 17-year periodical cicadas are predicted to emerge this spring and bring their "melodious" sounds with them. We have what you need to learn about and share the invasion experience.
Guilty or not, give our May mug shots a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
Guilty or not, give our May mug shots a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
It is a catch that these two men won't forget. Caleb Newton and Phil Wilcox say they caught a snakehead in Stafford County, Va., that weighed 17 pounds, 6 ounces, which if certified, is believed to be a world record.
It is a catch that these two men won't forget. Caleb Newton and Phil Wilcox say they caught a snakehead at Aquia Creek in Stafford County, Va., that weighed 17 pounds, 6 ounces, which if certified, is believed to be a world record.
Robert Griffin III, Gary Sinise, Taylor Hicks, J.R. Martinez, and Trace Adkins were just a few of the 3,000 participants that honored those who served and sacrificed for our country at the National Memorial Day Parade.
Robert Griffin III, Gary Sinise, Taylor Hicks, J.R. Martinez, and Trace Adkins were just a few of the 3,000 participants that honored those who served and sacrificed for our country at the National Memorial Day Parade.
Guilty or not, give our April mug shots a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
Guilty or not, give our April mug shots a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
Guilty or not, these strange mug shots are worth a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
Guilty or not, these strange mug shots are worth a look. This information was supplied by law enforcement and describes recent arrests and charges. All defendants are presumed innocent.
