Let Johns Hopkins Take You to the Next Level of Body Mods

Why Have a Face Like This?:

When You Can Have a Face Like This?:

Keeping up with the Cardassians
Johns Hopkins bio-scientists have developed new biomaterials that will let you shape your face however you want. Here's more:

A new biomaterial may help surgeons rebuild the delicate soft structures of the human face, like the cheeks, after a disease or injury has caused disfigurement. The material, which is half synthetic and half biological, can be injected under the skin as a liquid, massaged into shape, and then permanently "locked" by exposure to light.

...It's a blend of hyaluronic acid—a biological material already used as a soft-tissue implant—and polyethylene glycol, a synthetic material. The blend is a liquid polymer that can be injected—thus avoiding the need for surgery. Once injected, the material can be sculpted into the necessary shape. When exposed to light of specific wavelengths, the messy tangle of polymer chains in the liquid implant rearrange into a stable, crosshatched form, stiffening the implant.... _TechnologyReview

Get the picture? Just mix the material, inject it under the skin, mould it into the shape you want, then shine a light on your work to hold its shape permanently -- or until you want to move on to something new.

The treatment was developed to help repair deformities from facial injuries and congenital conditions. But use your imagination for just a moment, and you will see that a lot more is possible.

This means big changes for patients suffering from facial disfiguration, a highly visible injury that can have social consequences. But that's just the most obvious use. If the material becomes a commercial product, we could see a wealth of potential customers among the extreme body-modification set. After all, the idea of reliably adding semi-permanent Klingon-like bumps to your face with a simple injection (a far less risky and expensive process, perhaps, than full-on plastic surgery) will definitely interest some people. _FastCompany

The Johns Hopkins approach will be used to alter the shape of the face. If you need to permanently change the texture or shade of your surface skin layer, you will need to take a different approach. But for under-the-skin shape changes -- should you wish to keep up with the Cardassians, for example -- the Johns Hopkins approach may be your ticket.

If you are thinking just a bit further out, you might imagine an injectible material made of intelligent gel material -- such as was discussed in yesterday's posting. Facial (or other) implants that can change their shape on the fly, while also acting as brain augments. Breasts, tummies, buttocks, or muscles that can grow larger or smaller, for example. Use your futuristic imagination. Or, if you prefer, you can have a face like the person pictured up top, today.

In Chernobyl, 60 Year Old Men Appear "Not a Day Over 30"

18March2011 Brian Wang has more on this story

"Radiation is good for you," one of them tells me. "Every year I get younger," says another. And another: "I work here so when I come home glowing my wife will think I'm a god."

A particularly hearty-looking man who works as a janitor asks me, "How old do you think I am?"

"Sixty," he answers himself....he looks not a day past 30. _Outside

As of January of this year, Chernobyl is now open to tourism. Over most of what is now the Chernobyl wildlife haven, radiation levels have returned near normal. The wild animal population is thriving, and the people there do not seem to be doing so badly themselves. Particularly so long as they have an ample supply of homemade vodka.

Residents of Chernobyl are not the only ones who claim health benefits from low dose exposure to ionizing radiation. Skim through the research regarding "radiation hormesis" referenced here and here, and you may begin to develop a bit of healthy skepticism toward the "zero tolerance policy" of modern environmental protection law toward low level radiation.

More on hormesis:

Hormesis is the term used to describe biological phenomena that are often adverse or detrimental but become beneficial when applied at low levels. The concept of biological hormesis is as important as that of homeostasis for the survival of the organism. The basic biological trait is the organism�s ability to resist and adapt appropriately to both internal and external stresses, and the hallmark of aging is the organism�s inability to withstand stress. The hormetic phenomenon in aging is characterized as beneficial responses to stress through the physiological adaptations, as exemplified in lifespan extension by irradiation and calorie restriction. Thus, hormesis in aging is the biological adaptive function to resist or blunt the age-related deleteriousness. Such a remarkable biological hormetic effect was shown experimentally by exposing mice to a low dose of gamma irradiation, which extended the lifespan of mice rather than shortening by turmorigenesis. The plausible explanation on this interesting radiation hormesis is that the irradiated mice were able to resist better, because the mild radiation itself is the most effective factor in conditioning for the activation of adaptation. In response to stress, an organism is expected to go through three distinct phases: alarm reaction, resistance phase, and exhaustion phase. According this schema, the adaptability can be developed during the resistance period. This notion is in line with the evolutionary view on the survival for the fittest theory, for which the only possible way to attain the survivability is through the organism�s metabolic and defensive adaptation to deleterious stress. _InnoVita

More on hormesis and ageing from an abstract in Ageing Research Reviews:

Hormesis in aging is represented by mild stress-induced stimulation of protective mechanisms in cells and organisms resulting in biologically beneficial effects. Single or multiple exposure to low doses of otherwise harmful agents, such as irradiation, food limitation, heat stress, hypergravity, reactive oxygen species and other free radicals have a variety of anti-aging and longevity-extending hormetic effects. Detailed molecular mechanisms that bring about the hormetic effects are being increasingly understood, and comprise a cascade of stress response and other pathways of maintenance and repair. Although the extent of immediate hormetic effects after exposure to a particular stress may only be moderate, the chain of events following initial hormesis leads to biologically amplified effects that are much larger, synergistic and pleiotropic. A consequence of hormetic amplification is an increase in the homeodynamic space of a living system in terms of increased defence capacity and reduced load of damaged macromolecules. Hormetic strengthening of the homeodynamic space provides wider margins for metabolic fluctuation, stress tolerance, adaptation and survival. Hormesis thus counter-balances the progressive shrinkage of the homeodynamic space, which is the ultimate cause of aging, diseases and death. Healthy aging may be achieved by hormesis through mild and periodic, but not severe or chronic, physical and mental challenges, and by the use of nutritional hormesis incorporating mild stress-inducing molecules called hormetins. The established scientific foundations of hormesis are ready to pave the way for new and effective approaches in aging research and intervention. _ARR

How much is too much, when it comes to radiation? That is difficult to say, at lower doses. Certainly if it is possible to build resistance against radiation and other sources of normal wear and tear, wouldn't most people want to do so?

A dangerous dose is hard to pin down. Worldwide, for most people, those daily microrems add up to about 360 millirems per year. Scientists agree that humans can safely handle 1,000 a year. Astronauts on the International Space Station receive 18,000 millirems of cosmic radiation over six months—but it's once in a lifetime, so it's seen as an acceptable, voluntary risk. But edge that up to 30,000 millirems and you're looking at what caused increased cancer rates among the blast survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet animals can handle even more than this: large mammals and birds are generally safe with 36,000 per year, small ones with even higher doses, and reptiles with higher still. The more complex the animal, the more sensitive it is. _Outside

Of course, animals spend more time outside under the ionizing radiation of the sun, than most modern humans. Perhaps the natural radiation protection exhibited by animals is a manifestation of hormesis?

As long as government-sanctioned science shies away from the topic of "safe levels of low level radiation," we may find it difficult to learn about this topic. With government becoming the largest financier of scientific research, human science is falling into something of a rut. Government bureaucracies are by nature conservative and self-serving. Naturally the science which such bureaucracies are willing to finance and publish, will be the kind of science which justifies the existence and mission of such bureaucracies. They're the government. They're here to help you. Or else.

How will we all survive after the house of cards crashes down? If there is life after a Chernobyl apocalypse, perhaps there could even be life after mega-government breakdown? It may be time for individuals to begin planning for interesting times ahead.

See you in Chernobyl?

Poor, Bare, Forked Animals Begin to Decipher Epigenome

NIH
The epigenome is the system of genome modifiers that guide gene expression. Epigenetics determines whether a cell will be a brain cell or a liver cell, even though both cells possess the same genome. Some preliminary results are beginning to come in from the US NIH's modENCODE program.

Sarah C.R. Elgin, PhD, the Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, who led the Washington University lab that is part of one of the modENCODE teams offers an explanation.

“We learned many things from the Human Genome Project,” Elgin says, “but of course it didn’t answer every question we had!

“Including one of the oldest: We all start life as a single cell. That cell divides into many cells, each of which carries the same DNA. So why are we poor, bare, forked creatures, as Shakespeare [Al Fin: Lear ActIII SceneIV] put it, instead of ever-expanding balls of identical cells?

“This work,” says Elgin, “will help us learn the answer to this question and to many others. It will help us to put meat on the bones of the DNA sequences.” _WUNewsroom

Wikipedia

The epigenetic code that determines whether genes are silenced or expressed consists of chemical modifications to the DNA, to “tails” that hang off the histones, or other packaging proteins.

“ENCODE and modENCODE are much more complicated projects than the Human Genome Project,” Elgin says, “because the DNA sequence is pretty much the same in every cell type, whereas the chromatin structure is different in every cell type. In fact we believe it is the chromatin structure that differentiates one cell type from another.

“That means we can’t just do one genome for the organism. We have to do every different cell type to get a complete picture of the organism, and that’s a daunting prospect.” _WU

The research relies upon the most advanced bio-research and computing technologies. The amount of data generated is staggering, and far beyond what an unaided human could organise and comprehend.

But this is the beginning of the true meat of genetics. Sure, they are looking at worms and fruit flies now. But humans and all human symbionts and parasites are on the list to be comprehensively studied. The knowledge to be gained will provide unimaginable benefits.

Boys Should be Breast-Fed Until at Least Age 6

Startling new research from Australia demonstrates that boys -- but not girls -- should be breast-fed until at least age 6, to achieve optimal academic performance.

Breast feeding improves later academic performance in boys but appears to have no such effect in girls.

Wendy Oddy at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Subiaco, Western Australia, and colleagues, examined whether having been breastfed affected the test scores of over 1000 10-year-olds.

Studies have suggested that children who were breastfed have higher IQs than those who were not, but few separated out boys and girls. Mothers who breastfeed are on average wealthier and more educated, so Oddy's team accounted for these factors.

Boys who were mainly breastfed for at least six months [years ... per Al Fin Nutritional Institute] scored 9 per cent higher in mathematics and writing tests, 7 per cent higher in spelling and 6 per cent higher in reading, compared with boys fed with formula milk or breastfed for shorter periods. There were no significant differences in results for girls.

"We know that breast milk contains the optimal nutrients for development of the brain and central nervous system," says Oddy, but the gender differences were surprising.
Hormone link

Oddy points out that other studies have suggested boys are more vulnerable to stress and adversity during critical periods of brain development. She speculates this could be because girls seem to be protected by higher levels of oestrogen during childhood. She says the improved academic performance of boys could be explained by oestrogen in breast milk having similar neuro-protective effects.

Some studies have suggested that fatty acids uniquely present in breast milk explain research showing that it can help babies become more intelligent. Whether or not these fatty acids help in boosting IQ may be linked to the presence of certain gene variants involved in their processing.

A large randomised trial conducted by Michael Kramer at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, concluded that prolonged breastfeeding was linked to higher IQ and academic ratings by teachers in Belarussian children at age 6... _NS

Al Fin specialists in childhood nutrition recommend that boys be breast-fed until at least age 26, if not longer. You can never be too safe when it comes to childhood nutrition. Girls, as noted, are protected by high estrogen levels. Boys -- even boys in adulthood -- are left to fend for themselves.

Research at the prestigious Al Fin Institute suggests that even simulated breastfeeding -- sucking well developed female breasts that are not lactating -- exerts a strong protective effect on the male brain, at any age.  This was a fortuitous finding, since it is much easier to find non-lactating volunteers.

More research is needed. Here at the Institute we have need of volunteers possessing nice, firm, well-developed breasts, so as to refine our earlier studies. No more males are needed, however, since we filled our quota for males within the first five minutes after announcing the study.

Enjoy a Long Day of Sin By Slowing Circadian Clock

The compound, dubbed 'longdaysin,' "massively slows down the body clock, it turns to 24 hour body clock into a 36 hour one," says Steve Kay, chair of biology at the University of California San Diego and an author on the paper published in this week's edition of the online journal PLoS Biology. _USAToday

Have you ever wished to have more hours in the day? With better modulators of the body's built-in biological clock for daily circadian rhythms, you can! Of course the annoying day-night sun cycle will attempt to disrupt your plans, but if you are serious you can simply move underground away from the sunshine and night sky. Why should you be confined by a 24 hour cycle that is only an evolutionary residue left over from man's early origins? We will be leaving this planet for distant horizons sooner or later. May as well get used to adjusting our body clocks to suit our needs, and stop being chained to a the same cycle that regulated the cave men.

Most organisms show daily rhythms in physiology, behavior, and metabolism, which may be advantageous because they anticipate environmental changes thus optimize energy metabolism. These rhythms are controlled by the circadian clock, which produces cyclic expression of thousands of output genes. More than a dozen components of the circadian clock are called clock genes, and the proteins they encode form a transcription factor network that generates rhythmic gene expression. In this study, we set out to control the function of the circadian clock and to identify new clock proteins by means of chemical tools. We tested the effects on the clock in human cells of around 120,000 uncharacterized compounds. Here we describe identification of a novel compound “longdaysin” that markedly slows the circadian clock both in cultured mammalian cells and in living zebrafish. _PLOS

Robots in Cardiovascular Surgery: Guest Article by Susan White

Robots in Cardiovascular Surgery

They’re man’s inventions modeled on himself, and needless to say, they’ve made great strides in almost every field that uses technology. First introduced in factory production lines where automation held the key to improving productivity and efficiency, today, robots have moved on to doing tasks that require brainwork as well thanks to artificial intelligence. However, it was not until a few decades ago that these mechanical wonders were allowed to be used in the field of surgery. And because cardiac surgery is one of the most complicated medical procedures there is, it was only in the 1990s that robots were built and tested for use in the OR.

The benefits of using robots to perform cardiovascular surgeries are many, not just for the patient but for the surgical team too:

The surgery is minimally invasive – there are smaller cuts and openings which in turn translate into less pain, less scarring and a faster recovery period for the patient. Instead of a surgical cut, a small incision is made and an endoscope provides a magnified view of the surgical area using a video camera, using which surgeons perform the operation.

Robots remove the tendency for human errors by eliminating tremor which could cause surgeons to make mistakes when they are overworked or tired.

They provide easy access to body parts that are hard to get to and they allow surgeons to work from various angles and easily manipulate tissue.

They magnify the surgical area so that tiny body parts can be worked on easily and also provide a three-dimensional view which in turn eases the task of the surgical team.

The smaller instruments make it easy to work with children whose body parts are tiny and more fragile.

Robots allow what is called as motion scaling, a technique which allows surgeons to move their hands a certain distance and have it translated into a much smaller distance at the actual surgical site – it’s virtual reduction of movement and it helps when the surgery requires great precision and accuracy.

The camera is voice-activated so surgeons don’t have to free their hands to turn them to the right angle.

The first robot to find a place in the cardiac surgery room was Computer Motion’s AESOP in 1995. It allowed surgeons to repair and replace narrowing or leaking cardiac valves using tiny incisions. It is also being used for work deep within the heart like closing fistulas between coronary arteries and the cardiac chambers.

The da Vinci system and ZEUS were both introduced in 2000 to perform complete robotic heart surgery; both reduce the recovery time for patients by eliminating the need for surgeons to open up the chest through the sternum, a practice that was followed for open heart surgery. Clinical trials have established the safety of these robots in the OR, and it is safe to say that we can expect more complicated machines to assist surgeons in performing cardiac surgeries in the years to come.

By-line:
This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of surgical technician schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com.