Root canals are potentially painful, take days to get over and they can cost a pretty penny, especially if you don't have dental insurance. But now a new technique called regenerative tooth fillings might save you from all of it.
Researchers at the University of University of Nottingham and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have crafted a therapeutic synthetic, light-curable, biomaterial that uses your own stem cells inside your teeth to repair and regenerate the inner part of your tooth, the dentin layer. According to Engadget, the fix might not turn your smile into that Hollywood look, but it would heal your root canal and even help prevent further problems from developing underneath fillings.
Like modern fillings and fixes, the substance cures using a special light and wouldn't require a cap or a crown covering the tooth. Many of those can cost as much as the root canal itself, doubling the dental bill.
“Existing dental fillings are toxic to cells and are therefore incompatible with pulp tissue inside the tooth. In cases of dental pulp disease and injury, a root canal is typically performed to remove the infected tissues," said Dr. Adam Celiz, Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham.
China on Sunday hoisted the final piece into position on what will be the world's largest radio telescope, which it will use to explore space and help in the hunt for extraterrestrial life, state media said.
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, is the size of 30 football fields and has been hewed out of a mountain in the poor southwestern province of Guizhou.
Scientists will now start debugging and trials of the telescope, Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built the telescope, told the official Xinhua news agency.
"The project has the potential to search for more strange objects to better understand the origin of the universe and boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life," the report paraphrased Zheng as saying.
The 1.2-billion yuan ($180 million) radio telescope would be a global leader for the next one to two decades, Zheng added.
The telescope, which has taken about five years to build, is expected to begin operations in September.
Advancing China's space program is a priority for Beijing, with President Xi Jinping calling for the country to establish itself as a space power.
China's ambitions include putting a man on the moon by 2036 and building a space station, work on which has already begun.
China insists its program is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China's increasing space capabilities, saying it is pursuing activities aimed to prevent adversaries from using space-based assets in a crisis.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
The bangs and fizzes of fireworks are rapidly replacing the chimes of Big Ben as the defining sound of New Year’s Eve celebrations in London, while around the world, city landmarks are becoming stages for increasingly spectacular pyrotechnic displays. Since the millennium, the popularity of fireworks has even extended into back gardens, where smaller fireworks or sparklers are lit up at the stroke of midnight.
Fireworks are great fun. We all enjoy guessing the colours of the rockets before they ignite in the sky, hearing the explosions echo off nearby buildings, or writing our names in light with hand sparklers.
But there is an environmental price to pay. Firework smoke is rich in tiny metal particles. These metals make firework colours, in much the same way as Victorian scientists identified chemicals by burning them in a Bunsen flame; blue from copper, red from strontium or lithium, and bright green or white from barium compounds.
There is more smoke from potassium and aluminium compounds, which are used to propel fireworks into the air. Perchlorates are also used as firework propellants; these are a family of very reactive chlorine and oxygen compounds, which were also used by NASA to boost space shuttles off the launch pad.
Terrific, but toxic
Fireworks can lead to substantial air pollution problems. There are well documented examples from cites around the world. In Spain, metal particle pollution from Girona’s Sant Joan fireworks fiesta can linger in the city for days. Across India’s cities, the annual Diwali fireworks cause pollution that is far worse than Beijing on a bad day.
Guy Fawkes is regularly the most polluted day of the year in the UK, although scientists from King’s College London have found that pollution from bonfires – the traditional way of marking Guy Fawkes – is also a part of this mixture. Fireworks can have significant effects on air pollution in enclosed spaces, too. In Germany, tests have shown how goal and match celebrations with flares, smoke bombs and other pyrotechnics can fill football stadiums with high concentrations of airborne particles.
And of course, what goes up has to come down. Fireworks that fall to the ground contain residues of unburnt propellants and colourants, while particle pollution in the air eventually deposits on the ground or gets washed out by rain. Some of this finds its way into lakes and rivers , where percolate has been linked to thyroid problems, causing limits to be set for drinking water in some US states. This is a major concern for lakeside resorts and attractions that have frequent firework displays.
Researchers in London have collected airborne particles from Diwali and Guy Fawkes. These were found to deplete lung defences far more than pollution from traffic sources, suggesting a greater toxicity. Across India, Diwali fireworks have been linked to a 30% to 40% increase in recorded breathing problems. Like New Year’s Eve, fireworks are a relatively new phenomenon at Diwali.
Traditionally, Diwali was celebrated with the lighting of ghee burning lamps – but this changed with the opening of India’s first firework factory in 1940. An Indian court petition is demanding better public safety information and restrictions on the sale and use of fireworks – but this came too late to limit the smog caused by this year’s celebrations.
Playing it safe
Some simple steps can be taken to reduce our exposure to firework pollution. For one thing, setting them off in enclosed spaces is a very bad idea, as are hand-held sparklers. Positioning crowds upwind of fireworks displays is another obvious way of reducing their negative health impacts.
Yet fireworks are already the largest manufactured source of some types of metal particles in the UK atmosphere. And the proportion of pollution from fireworks will only increase, as huge investments are made to reduce other sources of urban pollution. Particle filters are present on nearly all modern diesel vehicles and factory emissions across the developed world are continually being tightened – but firework pollution remains unchecked.
Perhaps the best way to tackle the pollution caused by fireworks is not to have them at all. But this seems rather extreme (not to mention a lot less fun). The high-precision, controlled displays that we see at international landmarks on New Year’s Eve demonstrate the great innovation of the fireworks industry. It’s time for this innovative approach to be applied to reduce the environmental impact of fireworks, so that we can continue to enjoy the excitement of displays for years to come.
For the first time, scientists have determined that there are bacteria in the human gut which depend on chemicals from our brain for survival. The discovery of this relationship between the gut biome and brain chemistry could lead the way to new treatments for depression and a host of other disorders.
New Scientist said Friday that scientists at Boston's Northeastern University have isolated a group of bacteria that depend upon the brain chemical gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA -- a molecule that the brain uses to calm itself -- to survive.
Researcher Philip Strandwitz explained that the fact that the newly discovered bacteria -- named KLE1738 -- appear to eat GABA to live could explain the newly emerging link between gut microbiome health and mental health.
A biome is any system that contains living organisms like a stretch of wetlands or a terrarium in a science class. The microbiome is the teeming mass of 100 trillion bacteria that live inside each person.
The Northwestern group isolated KLE1738 and tried to ascertain what its role was among the hundreds of species of bacteria that make up the microbiome.
In a presentation last month at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston, Strandwitz said, "Nothing made it grow, except GABA."
New Scientist said, "GABA acts by inhibiting signals from nerve cells, calming down the activity of the brain, so it’s surprising to learn that a gut bacterium needs it to grow and reproduce. Having abnormally low levels of GABA is linked to depression and mood disorders, and this finding adds to growing evidence that our gut bacteria may affect our brains."
A separate study found in 2011 that the bacteria Lactobacillus rhamnosus dramatically altered brain activity in laboratory mice, particularly levels of GABA. Mice with high amounts of Lactobacillus rhamnosus handled stress more effectively. When researchers surgically removed the mice's vagus nerve -- which connects the gut to the brain -- the effect vanished, leading researchers to conclude that the nerve plays a role in mood regulation and conveying signals between neurons in the brain and the gut.
Strandwitz hopes to expand the team's research to find bacteria that consume or even produce GABA, as well as to study the chemical's effects on behavior and emotional wellbeing.
Other scientists, like Domenico Simone of George Washington University in Ashburn, Virginia, agree that the line of study could be a boon to the treatment of depression and anxiety.
“Although research on microbial communities related to psychiatric disorders may never lead to a cure, it could have astonishing relevance to improving patients’ quality of life,” said Simone.
About a third of living Nobel laureates -- 108 at last count -- have signed an open letter Thursday which attacks Greenpeace for campaigning against genetically modified crops, especially one called Golden Rice.
Addressed to the global environmental group, the United Nations and governments, the letter says Greenpeace has "misrepresented the risks, benefits and impacts" of genetically altered food plants.
"There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption," wrote the top scientists.
The group included 41 Nobel medicine laureates among them James Watson, honoured in 1962 for co-discovering the basic structure of DNA.
The letter called on Greenpeace to "cease and desist" in its efforts to block GMO crops, and on governments to embrace "seeds improved through biotechnology."
"Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped."
The Nobel winners singled out Golden Rice as a genetically modified crop with huge potential to improve health and save lives in the developing world.
A patented strain developed in the 1990s, Golden Rice contains an artificially inserted gene which boosts the level of vitamin A-rich beta-carotene.
The World Health Organization estimates that a quarter of a billion people in developing nations suffer from vitamin A deficiency, causing up to two million preventable deaths per year and half-a-million cases of childhood blindness.
Golden Rice's developers say a single serving provides about 60 percent of daily vitamin A requirements. It is currently distributed royalty-free to indigent farmers on a humanitarian basis.
Greenpeace however hit back at the Nobel laureates.
"Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered 'Golden' rice are false," Wilhelmina Pelegrina of Greenpeace Southeast Asia wrote in a statement.
Corporations are using the strain "to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops," she said.
Greenpeace's longstanding position is to oppose all patents on plants or animals, or their genes, and that "life is not an industrial commodity".
Previously, the environmental NGO has said Golden Rice was "environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and could compromise food, nutrition and financial security."
The NGO also maintains that genetically modified organisms should be held back "since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health."
Archaeologists in China believe that they have found a portion of the skull of Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, contained in a stone chest beneath a Buddhist temple in Nanjing, reports LiveScience.
In an article published in the Chinese Cultural Relics journal, researchers say they discovered a parietal (skull) bone with an inscription indicating it belonged to Buddha, written by a man named Deming about 1,000 years ago.
According to the inscription, Deming claimed to be "the Master of Perfect Enlightenment, Abbot of Chengtian Monastery [and] the Holder of the Purple Robe," who came into possession of the bone after Buddha "entered parinirvana" -- the final death that breaks the cycle of death and rebirth.
Deming wrote that Buddha was "cremated near the Hirannavati River, and that India's ruler at the time, King Ashoka, chose to preserve the Buddha's remains, which he then "divided into a total of 84,000 shares."
"Our land of China received 19 of them," Deming wrote adding that the parietal bone had resided in a temple that was destroyed about 1,400 years ago during a series of wars, writing: "In this time of turbulence, did no one care for Buddhist affairs?"
The bone was recovered beneath the Grand Bao'en Temple, inside of a stupa model (a Buddhist shrine used for meditation) made of sandalwood, silver and gold, which was stored in an iron box, which, in turn, was stored within a stone chest.
Researchers note that the stupa (shown below) is decorated with images of lotus patterns, phoenix birds and gods guarding the caskets with swords.
The bone was recovered by the Nanjing Municipal Institute of Archaeology after excavation the crypt between 2007 and 2010
The excavations received little coverage outside of China., with Chinese media saying that the bone has been interred by Buddhist monks, along with the remains of the other Buddhist saints in Qixia Temple, a Buddhist temple still used today.
[caption id="attachment_833627" align="aligncenter" width="260"] Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics[/caption]
NASA's Juno spacecraft hurtled closer toward Jupiter on Friday headed for a July 4 leap into polar orbit around the solar system's largest planet to analyze how it formed and helped set the stage for life on Earth.
During a 20-month study, Juno is expected to circle the gas giant in 37 egg-shaped orbits to measure microwaves radiating from inside the planet's thick atmosphere, map its massive magnetic field and conduct other experiments.
Scientists are particularly keen to learn how much water Jupiter contains, a key to unlocking the origins of the largest celestial body in the solar system after the sun.
Jupiter currently orbits the sun at a distance about five times farther away than Earth, but it may have formed in a different location and migrated, gravitationally elbowing aside other planets along the way.
"Something happens that allows a star to be born and then afterwards the planets ... That eventually leads to us," said the mission's lead scientist, Scott Bolton, a space physicist with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
More than half of the material left over from the formation of the sun 4.6 billion years ago ended up in Jupiter, which has a circumference nearly 11 times bigger than Earth's and is itself orbited by 67 known moons.
Jupiter is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the two simplest and most abundant elements in the universe, but the planet's enormous mass generates such high pressure that the materials behave in unexpected and unknown ways.
"We're working in a new environment," said Frances Bagenal, a planetary scientist with the University of Colorado in Boulder. "We don't know the physics of how things work at these high pressures.”
The Juno probe is named for the ancient Roman goddess, who was the wife and sister of Jupiter, the mythological king of gods, and had the power to see through clouds.
From vantage points as close as 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from the planet's cloud tops, the spacecraft is to not only search for water but assess whether Jupiter possesses a dense core beneath its atmosphere.
"We're about to embark on an incredible journey," Bolton said during a news conference from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Juno, careening toward Jupiter at more than 160,000 miles per hour (25,750 kph), over 200 times the speed of sound, has been programmed to fire its braking rocket at 11:18 p.m. EDT on Monday in order to slow its course.
The rocket must be precisely positioned and burn for 35 minutes to reduce its speed enough to allow it to be captured by Jupiter's gravity and swing into orbit.
"If that doesn't all go just right, we fly past Jupiter," Bolton said.
Only one other spacecraft, NASA's Galileo space probe, has orbited Jupiter, circling the planet for eight years before colliding with the gas giant in 2003. The first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter was NASA's Pioneer 10 in 1973.
Juno, which will arrive at Jupiter after a journey of five years and nearly 2 billion miles (3.2 billion km), is expected to end its mission as the Galileo probe did, crashing itself into the planet to avoid possible contamination of Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon, Europa, with any microbes carried by the spacecraft.
The vast majority of psychologists and scientists out there will tell you that it isn't. Nonetheless, The Washington Post has published an article by a Catholic psychiatrist named Richard Gallagher who says that there really are demonic possessions in the world, even though he concedes that most reported "possessions" are people suffering from more earthly mental illness.
So what separates your garden variety case of schizophrenia from full-blown demonic possession? Here are four key symptoms that Gallagher says are common in possession cases he's encountered that can't be explained by science:
1.) A person can suddenly speak in foreign languages they've never learned. Gallagher says he's encountered possessed people who can all of a sudden speak in perfect Latin, despite the fact that they've never taken a class in their lives.
2.) A person develops superior strength and, in rare cases, might have powers of levitation. Gallagher admits that he hasn't seen levitation personally, but he does say that "half a dozen people I work with vow that they’ve seen it in the course of their exorcisms."
3.) A person starts saying unusually venomous things about religion. Sure, lots of people dislike religion -- but the sort of thing we're talking about here is like that scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair stabbed herself repeatedly in the crotch with a crucifix. Even the most diehard atheists usually aren't that antagonistic toward religion.
4.) A person has detailed knowledge about strangers' histories and their most shameful secrets. Gallagher says that, among other things, possessed people may know "how a stranger’s loved ones died, what secret sins she has committed, even where people are at a given moment." Speaking personally, Gallagher says that a possessed girl once somehow knew about his "mother and her fatal case of ovarian cancer."
Whether this convinces you that demonic possession is a real thing is entirely up to you. That said, if your child starts speaking in ancient Aramaic and mentally tormenting your friends by revealing their most shameful secrets to the world, calling a priest about it might not be the worst idea.
You have forgotten where you put your car keys, or you can’t seem to remember the name of your colleague you saw in the grocery store the other day. You fear the worst, that maybe these are signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
You’re not alone: a recent study asking Americans age 60 or older the condition they were most afraid of getting indicated the number one fear was Alzheimer’s or dementia (35 percent), followed by cancer (23 percent), and stroke (15 percent).
And when we hear of someone like legendary basketball Coach Pat Summitt dying on June 28 from early-onset Alzheimer’s at age 64, fears are heightened.
Losing your keys every once in a while does not mean you have Alzheimer’s Disease.
Alzheimer’s is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, leading to cognitive impairment that severely affects daily living. Often the terms Alzheimer’s and dementia are used interchangeably and although the two are related, they are not the same. Dementia is a general term for the loss of memory or other mental abilities that affect daily life. Alzheimer’s is a cause of dementia, with over 70 percent of all dementia cases occurring as a result of Alzheimer’s.
The majority of Alzheimer’s cases occur in people aged 65 years or older.
Slight memory loss is a normal consequence of aging, and people therefore should not be overly concerned if they lose their keys or forget the name of a neighbor at the grocery store. If these things happen infrequently, there is scant reason to worry. You most likely do not have Alzheimer’s if you simply forgot one time where you parked upon leaving Disneyland or the local mall during the holidays.
How do you know when forgetfulness is part of the normal aging process and when it could be a symptom of Alzheimer’s? Here are 10 early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
A key point to consider is whether these symptoms significantly affect daily living. If so, then Alzheimer’s disease might be the cause.
For every one of these 10 symptoms of Alzheimer’s, there is also a typical age-related change that is not indicative of Alzheimer’s disease. For example, an early symptom of Alzheimer’s is memory loss including forgetting important dates or events and asking for the same information numerous times over. A typical age-related change may be sometimes forgetting names and appointments, but remembering them later.
People frequently ask if they might be afflicted with the disease if a grandparent had Alzheimer’s. The majority of Alzheimer’s cases occur in people aged 65 years or older. These individuals are classified as having what is known as late-onset Alzheimer’s. In late-onset Alzheimer’s, the cause of the disease is unknown (e.g. sporadic), although advancing age and inheriting certain genes may play an important role. Importantly, although there are several known genetic risk factors associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s, inheriting any one of these genes does not assure a prognosis of Alzheimer’s as one advances in age.
Early-onset is rare – but heredity does play an important role
In fact less than 5 percent of the 5 million cases are a direct result of hereditary mutations (e.g. familial form of Alzheimer’s). Inheriting these rare, genetic mutations leads to what is known as early-onset Alzheimer’s, which is characterized by an earlier age of onset, often in the 40s and 50s, and is a more aggressive form of the disease that leads to a more rapid decline in memory impairment and cognition.
In general, most neurologists agree that early-onset and late-onset Alzheimer’s are essentially the same disease, apart from the differences in genetic cause and age of onset. The one exception is the prevalence of a condition called myoclonus (muscle twitching and spasm) that is more commonly observed in early-onset Alzheimer’s disease than in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
In addition, some studies suggest that people with early-onset Alzheimer’s decline at a faster rate than those with late-onset. Even though generally speaking the two forms of Alzheimer’s are medically equivalent, the large burden early-onset poses on the family is quite evident. Often these patients are still in the most productive phases of their life and yet the onset of the disease robs them of brain function at such a young age. These individuals may still be physically fit and active when diagnosed and more often than not still have family and career responsibilities. Therefore, a diagnosis of early-onset may have a greater negative, ripple effect on the patient as well as family members.
Although the genes giving rise to early-onset Alzheimer’s are extremely rare, these inherited mutations do run in families worldwide and the study of these mutations has provided critical knowledge to the molecular underpinnings of the disease. These familial forms of Alzheimer’s result from mutations in genes that are typically defined as being autosomal dominant, meaning that you only need to have one parent pass on the gene to their child. If this happens, there is no escape from an eventual Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
What scientists have learned from these rare mutations that cause early-onset Alzheimer’s is that in every case the gene mutation leads to the overproduction of a rogue, toxic, protein called beta-amyloid. The build up of beta-amyloid in the brain produces plaques that are one of the hallmarks of the disease. Just as plaques in arteries can harm the heart, plaques on the “brain” can have dire consequences for brain function.
By studying families with early-onset Alzheimer’s, scientists now realize that the build up of beta-amyloid can happen decades before the first symptoms of the disease manifest. This gives scientists tremendous hope in terms of a large therapeutic window to intervene and stop the beta-amyloid cascade.
Hope is high for large trial underway of 5,000
Indeed, one of the most anticipated clinical trials under way at this moment involves a large Colombian family of over 5,000 members who may carry an early-onset Alzheimer’s gene. Three hundred family members will participate in this trial in which half of those people who are young and years away from symptoms but who have the Alzheimer’s gene will receive a drug that has been shown to decrease the production of beta-amyloid. The other half will take a placebo and will comprise the control group.
Neither patient nor doctor will know whether they will be receiving the active drug, which helps eliminate any potential biases. The trial will last 5 years and although it will involve a small percentage of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s, the information from the trial could be applied to millions of people worldwide who will develop the more conventional, late-onset form of Alzheimer’s disease.
Currently there are no effective treatments or cure for Alzheimer’s and the only medications available are palliative in nature. What is critically needed are disease-modifying drugs: those drugs that actually stop the beta-amyloid in its tracks. Devastating as early-onset Alzheimer’s is, there is hope that prevention trials as described above could ultimately lead to effective treatments in the near future for this insidious disease.
The hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic has begun to shrink, signaling good news for the environment decades after an international accord to phase out certain pollutants, researchers said Thursday.
The study found that the ozone hole had shrunk by 1.5 million square miles (four million square kilometers) -- an area about the size of India -- since 2000.
"It's a big surprise," said lead author Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview with Science magazine.
"I didn't think it would be this early."
The study attributed the ozone's recovery to the "continuing decline of atmospheric chlorine originating from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)," or chemicals that were once emitted by dry cleaning, refrigerators, hairspray and other aerosols.
Most of the world signed on to the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which banned the use of CFCs.
"We can now be confident that the things we've done have put the planet on a path to heal," said Solomon.
Co-author Anja Schmidt, an academic research fellow in volcanic impacts at the University of Leeds, agreed, describing the Montreal Protocol as "a true success story that provided a solution to a global environmental issue."
- Volcanic activity -
The ozone hole was first discovered in the 1950s.
It reached record size in October 2015, but Solomon and colleagues determined that this was due to the eruption of the Chilean volcano Calbuco that same year.
The volcano slightly delayed the recovery of the ozone, which is sensitive to chlorine, temperature and sunlight.
"Volcanic injections of particles cause greater than usual ozone depletion," said Schmidt.
"Such eruptions are a sporadic source of tiny airborne particles that provide the necessary chemical conditions for the chlorine from CFCs introduced to the atmosphere to react efficiently with ozone in the atmosphere above Antarctica."
The ozone goes through a regular cycle each year, with depletion of ozone starting in late August at the end of Antarctica's dark winter.
The hole typically peaks in size in October.
The overall trend toward recovery became apparent when scientists studied measurements from satellites, ground-based instruments and weather balloons in the month of September, not October.
"I think people, myself included, had been too focused on October, because that's when the ozone hole is enormous," said Solomon.
"But October is also subject to the slings and arrows of other things that vary, like slight changes in meteorology."
Co-author Ryan Neely, a lecturer in observational atmospheric science at Leeds, said the scope of the study allowed the team to "quantify the separate impacts of man-made pollutants, changes in temperature and winds, and volcanoes, on the size and magnitude of the Antarctic ozone hole.
"Observations and computer models agree," he added.
Hundreds of companies across the United States are selling unapproved stem cell treatments directly to patients, raising concerns about safety and scams in a fast-growing industry, researchers said Thursday.
At least 351 companies across the United States are marketing unapproved stem cell procedures at 570 individual clinics, their report in the journal Cell Stem Cell found.
The clinics claimed to offer "stem cell interventions" for muscle and bone disorders, heart disease, problems with the immune system, injured spinal cords, cosmetic reasons and more.
Sixty-one percent of the stem cell procedures marketed involved fat-derived stem cell interventions, and 48 percent offered bone-marrow-based treatments.
Only one company was found advertising embryonic stem cells.
Researchers compiled the list by searching online, saying their results "should serve as a baseline for future studies of US businesses engaged in direct-to-consumer advertising of purported stem cell interventions," the report said.
"In almost every state now, people can go locally to get stem cell 'treatments,'" said co-author Paul Knoepfler of the University of California, Davis, and Shriners Hospital For Children.
Clinics advertising stem cell treatments are most common in California (113 clinics), Florida (104), and Texas (71).
"This is a marketplace that is dramatically expanding before our eyes," said co-author Leigh Turner, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota.
Such businesses have entered the marketplace routinely since 2009, he said.
"Does that mean that people are getting access to safe and efficacious interventions or is there basically unapproved human experimentation taking place?" he added.
"Brakes ought to exist in a marketplace like this, but where are the brakes? Where are the regulatory bodies? And how did this entire industry come into being in a country where stem cell-based interventions and the medical devices that produce them are supposed to be regulated by the FDA?"
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of stem cells for leukemia treatment -- commonly known as bone marrow transplants -- and some bone, skin and corneal diseases or injuries, according to the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
"Other stem cell treatments, while promising, are still at very early experimental stages," the society's website says.
The FDA will hold two meetings on the topic later this year, and "is concerned that the hope patients have for treatments not yet proven to be safe and effective may leave them vulnerable to unscrupulous providers of stem cell treatments that are illegal and potentially harmful," the agency said in a statement.
It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) also urged consumers to "to learn all they can about the regulations covering any stem cell-based product they are considering" and has published a consumer update titled "FDA Warns About Stem Cell Claims."
"Individuals considering stem cell therapy are urged to ask questions to ensure that the necessary FDA approval has been obtained," the FDA said.
Thursday's study did not delve into potential harms caused by unapproved stem cell treatments.
In January, a patient sued a stem cell clinic alleging damage to her eyes from fat stem cell injections in what Knoepfler said may be the first such lawsuit of its kind.
The European spacecraft Rosetta will crash-land on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and end its 12-year space odyssey on Sept. 30, France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) said on Thursday.
Rosetta has helped scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets are formed. The space craft detected key organic compounds in a comet, bolstering the notion that comets delivered the chemical building blocks for life long ago to Earth and throughout the solar system.
The spacecraft will join Philae, a lander that touched down on the same comet in July 2015 and has not responded to technicians since.
"What better end to Rosetta than to give a final kiss to her comet?" said Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the CNES.
(Reporting by Julie Rimbert; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Dominic Evans)
A British author who angered Christians when he compared their religion to a virus has found an even more virulent analogy to explain how the faith spread throughout Europe.
Science writer Matt Ridley explained that Christianity spread across Europe and established a "monopoly religion" in much the same way that Starbucks -- perhaps the only thing more contagious than infectious disease -- has conquered the global coffee market, reported the Daily Mail.
"Religions are a good example of things that have taken a very specific form but have a sort of inevitability," explained Ridley, a Conservative member of the House of Lords.
He examined his theory, which he explores in his most recent book, The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge, that history's most successful trends came from the "bottom up" during this week's Chalke Valley History Festival.
"We give far too much importance to individuals in history – that is my claim and that is a pretty big claim," said Ridley, who believes humans share a sort of "collective brain."
Ridley argued that any of the "many little cults" that existed in the Roman Empire might have become Europe's dominant belief system, but only Christianity thrived in that way.
"The notion that the Roman Empire was ripe for a monopoly religion to take it over at around the time of Christ is probably an inevitable one," he said. "There were a huge number of different religions in the empire, and the chances were that one of them would 'do a Starbucks,' and become ubiquitous, monopolistic and eventually intolerant and kick the other ones out."
He explained that a mystic from Cappadocia was far better known and more widely followed than Christ in the first century A.D., but Christianity was ultimately more successful.
"It’s a bit like Google," he said. "Maybe other companies were just as good at inventing search engines, but Google just happened to scoop the pool."
