The tooth fairy has nothing on Jim Curtis. As head of BioEden, Curtis runs the only company in the UK to extract and store stem cells from children’s milk teeth. Instead of putting them under the pillow, parents like Ian Kidd send their kids’ baby teeth off to BioEden’s Cheshire labs to provide an ‘insurance policy’ against their family’s future ill-health. With a registration fee of £950 plus an annual £90 service charge, the supposed repair kit for the body doesn’t come cheap, admits Kidd. ‘But stem cell research is becoming so advanced so quickly that it looks as though the stem cells extracted from our two boys’ milk teeth could save their lives one day. We feel we can’t afford to miss out on such potential,’ says Kidd, who – like all BioEden’s customers – sent each tooth off within 24 hours of it falling out. On paper, the benefits appear promising. The stem cells extracted from baby teeth – which appear from the age of about six months and fall out when children are between six and 13 years old – contain mesenchymal stem cells, which multiply rapidly and differentiate into many different cell types. These […]
Solar cells soon could be painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops with nanoparticle inks, according to one chemical engineer. The new nano-ink process could replace the standard method of manufacturing solar cells, which requires high temperatures and is relatively expensive, said Brian Korgel of the University of Texas at Austin. ‘The sun provides a nearly unlimited energy resource, but existing solar energy harvesting technologies are prohibitively expensive and cannot compete with fossil fuels,’ Korgel said. Also called photovoltaic cells, solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity and are typically made from silicon, although other materials that are flexible are gaining steam. Solar panels used to power homes and businesses each consist of 40 or so of these cells, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Rather than silicon, the inks developed by Korgel’s team are made up of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) - sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles that are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair. ‘We make a solution of these nanocrystals, and we spray paint them onto a substrate,’ said Matthew Panthani, a doctoral student and graduate research assistant in Korgel’s lab. The team envisions printing such inks in a […]
Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private. Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 45.7 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered. The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars. Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 […]
Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87% Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428% Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10 -Harper’s Index, September 2009 Capitalists, as my friend Father Michael Doyle says, should never be allowed near a health care system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used car or a new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health. And any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that hires doctors and analysts to deny care to patients in order to increase profits. It is an industry that causes half of all bankruptcies. And the 20,000 Americans who died last year because they did not receive […]
Low-carbohydrate diets may damage arteries and increase the risk of heart attacks, research suggests. Scientists believe cutting carbs on Atkins-style diets impairs the regrowth and repair of blood vessels. The discovery was made by a team whose leader was on a low-carb diet until he saw the results. Researchers used mice to test three diets. One group of mice was fed a basic mouse diet. A second was fed a ‘Western’ diet of 43 per cent carbohydrate, 42 per cent fat, 15 per cent protein and 0.15 per cent cholesterol. A third was fed only 12 per cent carbohydrate and 43 per cent fat, 45 per cent protein and 0.15 per cent cholesterol. Mice on the low-carb diet gained 28 per cent less weight than those on the Western diet but they suffered more atherosclerosis – the build-up of deposits that narrow arteries. Levels of cholesterol, triglyceride blood fats and inflammation markers linked to atherosclerosis could not account for the findings, but the production of endothelial progenitor cells in mice on the low-carb diet was found to have dropped by 40 per cent after two weeks. These cells help repair and grow blood vessels. The findings suggest […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
