Stem Cells Help Repair Cartilage

Scientists have identified stem cells in jaw bone that can make new cartilage and repair damaged joints. The cells reside within the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), which articulates the jaw bone to the skull. When the stem cells were manipulated in animals with TMJ degeneration, the cells repaired cartilage in the joint, according to the researchers. A single cell transplanted in a mouse spontaneously generated cartilage and bone and even began to form a bone marrow niche. This is very exciting for the field because patients who have problems with their jaws and TMJs are very limited in terms of clinical treatments available. Options for treatment currently include either surgery or palliative care, which addresses symptoms but cannot regenerate the damaged tissue. Researchers finding suggest that stem cells already present in the joint could be manipulated to repair it. Cartilage helps to cushion the joints and allows them to move smoothly.

'Game Changer' Drug Boosts Survival Rate For Relapsed Cancer

An immunotherapy drug has been hailed as a potential game changer after scientists found that it could greatly improve survival for patients with relapsed head and neck cancer, which is difficult to treat. III clinical trial for patients I whom chemotherapy had failed – and it did so with fewer side-effects than existing options. At least twice as many patients taking nivolumab were alive after one year as compared to those treated with chemotherapy. There are currently no other treatment options that improve the survival of patients with cisplatin resistant relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer. This group of patients is expected to live less than six months. Nivolumab could be a real game changer for patients with advanced head and neck cancer. This trial found that it can greatly extend life among a group of patients who have no existing treatment options, without worsening the quality of life. Of the 361 patients in the trial, 240 with relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer were allocated to receive nivolumab and 121 one of three different chemotherapies. After one year of the study, 36% of patients treated with nivolumab were still alive compared with 17% for the comparator arm. The median survival for patients on nivolumab was 7.5 months, compared with 5.1 months for chemotherapy. The survival benefit was more pronounced in patients whose tumours had tested positive for human papillomavirus (HPV). Importantly, fewer patients experienced serious side effects from taking nivolumab than with conventional treatment – only 13% compared with 35% of those who received chemotherapy.

Nivolumab became the first treatment to extend survival in a phase

Mars Trip Can Damage Astronauts' Brain

Mars bound astronauts could develop dementia and an uncontrollable sense of dread – dubbed “space brain” – during the journey, scientists have warned. Researchers studied the effects of cosmic rays that would bombard astronauts, and their results pose a significant problem for those wishing to establish a colony on the distant planet. Nasa is actively studying how to send humans to Mars, which is nearly 34 million miles away, and the Netherlands based Mars One group plans to send people there by 2027. Us entrepreneur Elon Musk has also talked about sending people to the planet by 2022. However, an expert in radiation oncology has found that highly charged particles in cosmic rays caused significant long-term brain damage in test rodents, resulting in cognitive impairments and dementia. And the radiation also interfered with the “fear extinction” process, which helps people get over scary or stressful incidents so they can, for example, go swimming again after nearly drowning.

This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two to three year round trip to Mars. The space environment poses unique hazards to astronauts. Exposure to these particles can lead to a range of potential central nervous system complications that can occur during, and persist long after, actual space travel – such as various performance decrements, memory deficits, anxiety, depression and impaired decision making. Many of these adverse consequences to cognition may continue and progress throughout life. Alarmingly, the first Martian explorers could also become paranoid during the flight. Deficits in fear extinction could make your prone to anxiety, which could become problematic over the course of a three year trip to and from Mars. While astronauts have lived on the International Space Station for over a year, they have not faced the same level of cosmic rays because it orbits the Earth inside its protective magnetosphere. For mars, areas of the spacecraft could be fitted with extra shielding but it is currently not possible to fully protect the astronauts in this way.

'Martian Garden' To Suggest Best Veggies To Grow On Red Planet

NASA scientists are using simulated ‘Martian gardens’ to learn which plants astronauts might be able to grow during future manned missions to the red planet. One major challenge for human journey to Mars will be determining how to pack enough food for astronauts so that can survive such extended missions. Simulated “Martian garden,” developed at NASA Kennedy Space Centre and the Florida Tech Buzz Aldrin Space Institute, are helping researchers overcome food production challenges associated with Mars’ barren landscape. Farming on the red planet is much different from growing crops on Earth. Martian soil consists of crushed volcanic rock with no organic material, making it nearly impossible for plant life to survive.

Researchers are using advances in science to learn about increasing plant production to supplement astronauts’ diets. The experiment allows astronauts to garden in space and conduct experiments on plant biology on the International Space Station (ISS). The soil being used in the ‘Martian garden’ was collected from Hawaii and chosen because it simulates the kind of soil found on Mars. The researchers used this Hawaiian soil to test how much soil should be used, and which nutrients should be added to the soil, for the various crops to achieve optimal growth. Their experiment showed that the lettuce grown in the Mars-like soil stimulant with no added nutrients tasted the same but had weaker roots and a slower germination rate.

Kite Driven Power Stations May Be Magic Solution To End Energy Crisis

One of the world’s first commercial scale, kite driven power stations is set to be created near Stranraer in Scotland in what could be a major step towards finding the “magic solution” to humanity’s energy problems. While kites have until now largely been flights of fancy that have entranced generations of children. But those behind the new power station believe their system could cut the price of offshore wind energy in half. It is so cheap, they say, that there will be no need for any government subsidy – something currently required to build any new kind of power generation, renewable or fossil fuel. The firm behind the Stranraer project, Kite Power Systems has already demonstrated a small kite driven power station in Essex. It now plans to build a 500 kilowatt system at the ministry of defense’s West Freugh Range near the southern Scottish town after securing planning permission. This will be the first of a significant scale in the UK and only the second in the world after a research project in Italy. The kites fly to heights of up to 450m in a figure of eight pattern, pulling a tether as they rise which turns a turbine that produces electricity. By having two kites working in tandem, one going up as the other floats back down, electricity can be generated continuously. A full sized kite will be 40 metres wide and be capable of generating two to three megawatts of electricity, about the same as a 100m conventional turbine. A field of just over 1,000 kites would produce as much electricity as the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station if the wind blew constantly.

Billionaires Fund Project To Get Us Out Of 'Matrix'

Some of the world’s richest and most powerful people are convinced that we are living in a computer simulation. And now, two of Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires have secretly engaged scientists to break humans out of the simulation that they believe that it is living in. even Bank of America analysts wrote last month that the chances we are living in a Matrix style fictional world is as high as 50%. Many people in Silicon Valley have become obsessed with the simulation hypothesis, the argument that what we experience as reality is in fact fabricated in a computer. Tesla fonder and CEO had said earlier that he believe that the chance that we are not living in a simulation is “one in billion”. He said he had come to that conclusion after a chat in a hot tub, where it was pointed out that computing technology has advanced so quickly that at some point in the future it will become indistinguishable from real life – and, if it does, there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t done already. If we aren’t living through a simulation then all human life is probably about to come to an end and so we should hope that we are living in one. Altman said he was concerned about the way that the devices that surround us might lead to the extinction of all consciousness in the universe. He spoke about how the best scenario for dealing with that is a “merge” – when our brains and computers become one, perhaps by having our brains uploaded into the cloud.

Bezos' Rocket A Step Closer To Putting Man In Space

Rocket Company Blue Origin pulled off a double success, coming a step closer to launching people into space. The aerospace startup led by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos tested the escape system of its space capsule on 5 October in remote west Texas. Forty five seconds into the flight, the capsule popped off like a champagne cork. Propelled by an escape motor mounted underneath. Not only did the empty capsule land safely under parachutes four minutes after liftoff, the rocket managed to fly back and land upright. This was the first in-flight test of the emergency escape system, designed to save lives if something goes wrong with the rocket during liftoff and the first test of its kind in the US since the 1960s. Blue Origin’s launch commentators called it an “epic flight” from beginning to end. Bezos had warned in advance that the booster rocket probably would end up crashing back to earth, after being jolted by the 70,000 pounds of force exerted by the escape system. Instead, the booster made what looked to be a fine vertical touchdown seven minutes after liftoff, just a couple miles from its launch pad.