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Friday, March 15, 2024

This Microfluidic Chip Can Remove Risky Cells.

 


Advances in medical science are happening so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep up with the latest developments. Some new treatments are helping patients with spinal cord injuries. Now a small plastic device may be added to a variety of treatments.

A tiny device built by scientists at MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology might be used to improve therapy treatments for patients suffering from spinal cord injuries.

In cell therapy, clinicians create induced pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming some skin or blood cells taken from a patient. To treat a spinal cord injury, these pluripotent stem cells can become progenitor cells, which differentiate into spinal cord cells. These progenitors are then transplanted back into the patient.

These new cells can regenerate part of the injured spinal cord. However, pluripotent stem cells that don’t fully change into progenitors can form tumors. These are the risky cells that need to be removed.

This research team developed a microfluidic cell sorter that can remove about half of the cells that can potentially become tumors without causing any damage to the fully formed progenitor cells.

Read more here.

Friday, February 2, 2024

African American Contributions to Science and Technology

 

Madam C. J. Walker


This short video presents 10 exceptional individuals. They are:

Gerald "Jerry" A. Lawson (1940-2011) is known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console as well as leading the team that pioneered the commercial video game cartridge.

Lewis Latimar (1848-1928) invented a method for producing a more durable carbon filament, making incandescent lighting practical and affordable for consumers.

Otis Boykin (1920-1982) invented electrical resistors used in computing, missile guidance, and artificial pacemakers.

Marc Hannah (1956-) developed the 3-D special effects systems used widely in movies.

Patricia Bath (1942-2019) invented laserphaco, a new device and technique to remove cataracts.

Alexander Miles (1838-1918) was awarded a patent for automatically opening and closing elevator doors.

Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) invented the world's first hair-straightening formula.

Garret Morgan (1877-1963) invented a three-way traffic light, and a protective 'smoke hood' notably used in a 1916 tunnel construction disaster rescue.

G. R. Carruthers (1939-2020) invented the first Moon-based astronomy observatory, which was placed by Apollo 16 astronauts on the lunar surface during his career at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

Charles Richard Drew (1904-1950) developed improved techniques for blood storage and applied his knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II.

Related reading: The Life and Faith of George Washington CarverHenrietta Lacks' Cells Advance Medicine


Friday, January 26, 2024

Science and the Bible: A Relationship Revisited




Bruse Atkinson, PhD

January 20, 2024

This essay is an extended and updated version of an article I wrote for VirtueOnline in 2012, entitled "On the Bible and Science: Preliminary Principles Associated with God's Revelatory Purposes."

It is a horrendously false idea that the Christian faith and empirical science are enemies, that these fields can never come to agreement. While God has directly inspired and authorized the scriptures according to His divine purposes (Isaiah 55:8-11, 2 Timothy 3:14-17), we have to admit that He is also on the side of science. He supports (and has actually established) the real purpose of science among humans, that is, the search for truth. However, we can be sure that God is not for that 'science' which is done without integrity. He is not for research done for political purposes and which bends both the methods of fact-finding and the interpretation of the results so that that they support whatever the researcher wants to publicly promote. As an individual who had my dissertation research published in a scientific journal, I know how easy it is to falsify data. I could have easily done so and no one would have known the difference.

Fortunately, both deliberate manipulation of data and ignorant errors must eventually fall to the wayside, for all misinformation is short term. The truth will show itself again and again, and ultimately it cannot be covered up. This is why I believe that the evidence revealed from our scientific study of nature and scriptural truth (special revelation more directly from God) will eventually come together and be of one piece, a wonderful tapestry without contradiction or interpretive conflict. But yes, we still have a long way to go.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Medical Breakthroughs in 2023

 


Medical science is currently being transformed by scientific discoveries that will dramatically advance the way we diagnose and treat diseases and genetic disorders.


Alzheimers

The Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab (Leqembi) won FDA approval in July. Lecanemab removes the beta amyloid plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Beta amyloids are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s. These proteins clump together to form plaques that destroy neurons, which are the cells that form the brain’s communication system. 

The drug does not stop the disease, but in a clinical trial, lecanemab slowed cognitive decline by about 30 percent over 18 months compared with a placebo. 

Medicare will provide coverage under certain conditions.


Muscular Dystrophy

In June 2023, the FDA approved the first gene therapy for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. People with this muscle-wasting disease don’t make the protein dystrophin, which helps keep muscle cells intact. The therapy helps the body produce a version of the missing protein.

The disease is progressive and most affected individuals require a wheelchair by the teenage years. Serious life-threatening complications may ultimately develop including disease of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy) and respiratory difficulties.


Postpartum Depression (PPD)

Until August, the only medication in the United States specifically targeting postpartum depression required a 60-hour intravenous infusion in a hospital. With FDA approval of zuranolone (Zurzuvae), women suffering postpartum depression can take an oral medication at home and experience improvement in as little as three days. Zurzuvae is a medication belonging to the neuroactive steroid class. It acts on GABA receptors, providing rapid relief for postpartum depression.

Zurzuvae may cause side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, and nausea. It may also cause headaches or sleep disturbances.


Sickle Cell Disease

On December 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Casgevy, the world’s first CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing therapy. The treatment helps patients produce healthy hemoglobin. In people with the disease, hemoglobin is abnormal, causing red blood cells to become hard and crescent shaped, which can block blood flow. By March 2024, the FDA will decide whether the same therapy can be used to treat beta-thalassemia, a disorder that reduces hemoglobin production.




Monday, December 11, 2023

The Vinča Culture

 

The Balkan Peninsula


The Vinča culture is named for the Serbian site southeast of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The site was initially excavated by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas.

There are hundreds of Vinča sites scattered around the Balkans. One of the largest sites was Vinča-Belo Brdo. It covered 72 acres (29 hectares) and had up to 2,500 people.

The Vinča culture occupied a region of Southeastern Europe corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia and Kosovo, but parts of Southernmost Hungary, Western-Central Romania, Western Bulgaria, Eastern Croatia, Eastern Bosnia, Northern Montenegro and North Macedonia.


Vinča Symbols

The oldest scribed symbols found in Central Europe have been found on Neolithic artifacts (7th to 5th millennia BC) of the Vinča culture. Scholars believe that the Vinča signs represent the earliest form of writing, predating ancient Egyptian and Sumerian writing by thousands of years. 

What is known of these signs is limited since all the inscriptions are short and found on burial objects. Ritual burial accompanied by written signs among these Neolithic peoples suggests a priest-scribe caste.

According to an analysis by Shan Winn in 1973 and 1981, there are 210 signs. of that number, 30 are "core signs", with the remainder being variants and combinations.

Here are some of the Vinča signs:







Vinča artifacts include these figurines. Figurines such as these were most commonly buried under houses.



Perhaps the oldest known Vinča figurine (c. 6000 B.C.)




c. 5000 B.C.



c. 3000 B.C.





Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Trilobites Found in Ash Layers






Trilobites are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period (521 million years ago).

Trilobites featured three lobes on their exoskeletons and had half-moon-shaped skulls through which they breathed using their legs. These creatures have been found in layers of petrified ash within sandstone long the coast of Ko Tarutao island in Thailand. The layers were formed by ancient volcanic eruptions that settled on the sea floor, resulting in a green layer known as tuff.

"The tuffs will allow us to not only determine the age of the fossils we found in Thailand, but to better understand parts of the world like China, Australia, and even North America where similar fossils have been found in rocks that cannot be dated," said Shelly Wernette, the first author of the monograph, which details the new fossil findings.

The researchers from the University of California identified 12 types of trilobites which had previously been documented in other parts of the world, but never in Thailand.

Nigel Hughes, monograph co-author and UC Riverside geology professor, said “Because continents shift over time, part of our job has been to work out where this region of Thailand was in relation to the rest of Gondwanaland. It’s a moving, shape-shifting, 3D jigsaw puzzle we’re trying to put together. This discovery will help us do that."

The findings have been described in a monograph published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.


Abstract:

Tuff-bearing upper Cambrian to lowermost Ordovician strata on Ko Tarutao island, Satun province, southernmost peninsular Thailand, contain a rich trilobite fauna relevant to global biostratigraphy, peri-Gondwanan palaeogeography and shifting evolutionary mode. This area of Sibumasu, a lower Palaeozoic marginal Gondwanan terrane, is shown to have been closely associated with Australia, North China (Sino-Korea) and other continental fragments from the supercontinent's northern equatorial sector, including South China at that time. Shared faunas also suggest a Kazakhstani and Laurentian association. Collections from eight sections yielded 10 newly discovered species and one new genus from ancient shoreface and inner shelf siliciclastic deposits. With the new taxa and revision of taxa known previously, we refine the age of the upper two formations of the Tarutao Group to the middle of Cambrian Stage 10, and lower–middle Tremadocian. Two biozones are erected for Sibumasu: the Eosaukia buravasi Zone, encompassing all Cambrian sections from Ko Tarutao, and the Asaphellus charoenmiti Zone, encompassing the Tremadocian fauna discussed herein. The new genus is Tarutaoia and new species are Tsinania sirindhornae, Pseudokoldinioidia maneekuti, Pagodia? uhleini, Asaphellus charoenmiti, Tarutaoia techawani, Jiia talowaois, Caznaia imsamuti, Anderssonella undulata, Lophosaukia nuchanongi and Corbinia perforata. Other taxa reported for the first time from Tarutao are Mansuyia? sp., Parakoldinioidia callosa Qian, Pseudagnostus sp., Homagnostus sp., Haniwa mucronata Shergold, Haniwa sosanensis? Kobayashi, Lichengia simplex Shergold, Pacootasaukia sp., Wuhuia? sp., Plethopeltella sp., Apatokephalus sp., Akoldinioidia sp. 1 and Koldinioidia sp.


Friday, December 1, 2023

The Fish That Landed



Tiktaalik roseae is a 375-million-year fossil fish that was discovered in the Canadian Arctic in 2004. Its discovery is believed to shed light on a point in evolutionary history when the very first fish ventured out onto land. It is sometimes referred to as a "fishapod".

Tiktaalik roseae is a genus of extinct lobe-finned fish from the late Devonian period, when the earliest forests appeared along with land animals such as arthropods (myriapods, arachnids and hexapods). Tiktaalik had some features like those of four-legged animals. It is an example of an ancient sarcopterygian fish which adapted to a swampy oxygen-poor water habitat. The creature is regarded by evolutionists as a transition from fish to tetrapod.

What I find exciting about this discovery is the critical method and logistics of the exploration over four summers in the Alaskan Arctic. Tiktaalik was discovered through a well-conceived methodically launched project to find a predicted specimen and demonstrates the predictive capacity of paleontology. 

The discovery by Daeschler, Shubin, and Jenkins was published in the April 6, 2006, issue of Nature and quickly recognized as a transitional form. Jennifer A. Clack, a Cambridge University expert on tetrapod evolution, said of Tiktaalik, "It's one of those things you can point to and say, 'I told you this would exist,' and there it is."
Neil Shubin, one of the paleontologists who discovered tiktaalik, holding a cast of its skull.

"After five years of digging on Ellesmere Island, in the far north of Nunavut, they hit pay dirt: a collection of several fish so beautifully preserved that their skeletons were still intact. As Shubin's team studied the species they saw to their excitement that it was exactly the missing intermediate they were looking for. 'We found something that really split the difference right down the middle," Daeschler said.

Ahlberg and Clack’s review explains Tiktaalik's importance:

The Nunavut field project had the express aim of finding an intermediate between Panderichthys and tetrapods, by searching in sediments from the most probable environment (rivers) and time (early Late Devonian). Second, Tiktaalik adds enormously to our understanding of the fish-tetrapod transition because of its position on the tree and the combination of characters it displays.

Martin Brazeau, gloats:

"Creationists haven't said a lot about Tiktaalik, and it's no surprise. However, a few responses have trickled out and they more or less run in the same vein. I thought this was a rather telling remark on Tiktaalik posted over on Dembski's blog. We're treated to an excerpt of the pre-transformation version of the DI's original response that goes:

I especially like Crowther’s last sentence which I present in its original form (bold type included): “There’s a problem with the Darwinist position that runs even deeper than this, however: If Darwinian evolution is an undisputed fact, as its chief defenders routinely claim, why is this fossil find being billed as such an crucial piece of evidence?”

Icing on the cake! I love it!!!

What I love even more is all this rhetoric and absolutely no reference to the actual fossil material. So, I'll take that as meaning that these guys have nothing to say about its transitional status. The real icing on the cake is all this puff and no real substance.

Unfortunately, the media's response to the discovery is not quite the same as the palaeontological community's interpretation of it. Therefore, by responding to these articles, creationists and their ilk are just blowing smoke. The importance of Tiktaalik has nothing to do with proving the fish-tetrapod transition. That's pretty much taken care of by a wealth of data from the past 100 years."

One wonders why Brazeau even cares what creationists think. Does he harbor a certain fear that maybe the scheme he presents could point to a Creator?