Biology and Medicine

[Typhoon]

The Scientist | Drop in Infant Type 1 Diabetes Linked to Rotavirus Vaccination

A recent decrease in the incidence of type 1 diabetes in Australian children may be linked to the introduction of a routine vaccine against rotavirus, according to a study published yesterday (January 22) in JAMA Pediatrics. Using observational data, researchers in Melbourne found that diabetes rates have been declining in infants since the vaccine’s launch in Australia in 2007—a finding that dovetails with previous research hinting that rotavirus infection is a risk factor for the autoimmune disorder.

[kmich]

The burden on emergency centres to provide care for critically ill patients in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

- African Journal of Emergency Medicine, Volume 8, Issue 4, December 2018, Pages 150-154

[Parodite]

A Cure for cancer? Israeli scientists may have found one

A small team of Israeli scientists think they might have found the first complete cure for cancer.

“We believe we will offer in a year’s time a complete cure for cancer,” said Dan Aridor, of a new treatment being developed by his company, Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. (AEBi), which was founded in 2000 in the ITEK incubator. AEBi developed the SoAP platform, which provides functional leads to very difficult targets.

“Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market,” Aridor said. “Our solution will be both generic and personal.”

[...]

To pro-actively (prematurely) celebrate I'll smoke another nicotine stick

[Nonc Hilaire]

I bet they found a way to make cigarettes out of chicken soup!

[noddy]

Whenever I hear "cure for cancer" I immediately think snake oil because afaik breast cancer and blood cancer (for example) are radically different things.

[Doc]

A Cure for cancer? Israeli scientists may have found one

A small team of Israeli scientists think they might have found the first complete cure for cancer.

“We believe we will offer in a year’s time a complete cure for cancer,” said Dan Aridor, of a new treatment being developed by his company, Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. (AEBi), which was founded in 2000 in the ITEK incubator. AEBi developed the SoAP platform, which provides functional leads to very difficult targets.

“Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market,” Aridor said. “Our solution will be both generic and personal.”

[...]

To pro-actively (prematurely) celebrate I'll smoke another nicotine stick

It has not been peer reviewed and another person with the same company says they don't have the money to get it peer reviewed. Most often legitimate science gets peer reviewed BEFORE the announcement.

[Simple Minded]

tragic.

"Most of the news outlets now attacking Heinz and Gome were quintessential products of the internet age, relying for much of their survival on the sowing and harvesting of moral outrage."

kinda like a wolf pack killing one of their pups?
the crabs in the bucket pulling down the crab that tries to climb out?
evolution controlled by mob outrage rather than adaption to environment?

applicability in reality vs idealism in cyberspace.

https://quillette.com/2019/01/30/the-de ... a-dreamer/

[Doc]

Isa5c1p6aC0

[Typhoon]

NPR | Scientists may have Cracked A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.

But something else happened.

Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.

Scientists saw the same phenomenon when the vaccine came to England and parts of Europe. And they see it today when developing countries introduce the vaccine.

[Nonc Hilaire]

NPR | Scientists may have Cracked A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.

But something else happened.

Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.

Scientists saw the same phenomenon when the vaccine came to England and parts of Europe. And they see it today when developing countries introduce the vaccine.

Better to see the whole century. Measles and other diseases stopped being deadly long before vaccines.

[noddy]

thats ignoring alot of medical resource they use up for treating a disease they shouldnt have got in the first place.

[Nonc Hilaire]

thats ignoring alot of medical resource they use up for treating a disease they shouldnt have got in the first place.

It's about not ignoring the way the acceptance of germ theory and sanitation were responsible for much of the improvement of public health.

[noddy]

also true, iodine has saved more people than any other thing as i recall, however the health system isnt in such a state that it has spare resources to burn, it will always promote systems to stop people needing it in the first place.

[Nonc Hilaire]

also true, iodine has saved more people than any other thing as i recall, however the health system isnt in such a state that it has spare resources to burn, it will always promote systems to stop people needing it in the first place.

The health system is a bonfire of resources. The near-infrared tanning bed as modern day panacea. Never cures, though. Just constant treatments and fees.

https://www.novothor.com

[noddy]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ing-blamed

It follows on from reports from the department of health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) which showed that, as of December 2018, there were more than 20,000 reported measles cases in the Philippines, a 500% increase on the year before.

Measles is a highly contagious disease, but population immunity can be achieved if more than 95% of the population is vaccinated. However, in the Philippines, vaccinations are currently only at 55% according to Unicef, down 15% on last year. This has been blamed mainly on fear-mongering over inoculations.

The measles crisis in the Philippines has been mounting since early last year, after a scandal around a dengue vaccination made parents hesitant about vaccinating their children. Dengvaxia, which was given to school children across the country, was accused of making children at risk of contracting a more serious form of the disease. Links were made to the deaths of several children, though nothing was ever proven.

[Typhoon]

NPR | Scientists may have Cracked A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.

But something else happened.

Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.

Scientists saw the same phenomenon when the vaccine came to England and parts of Europe. And they see it today when developing countries introduce the vaccine.

Better to see the whole century. Measles and other diseases stopped being deadly long before vaccines.

Graphical evidence of the effectiveness of vaccinations

Proponents of the anti-vaccine movement will often plot death rates over time as “proof” that vaccines were introduced at a time when they had a negligible effect. However, mortality rates are the incorrect metric when evaluating vaccine effectiveness. Here’s why:

1/ Disease incidence is the correct metric. Since vaccines are designed to prevent the incidence of disease, rates of disease (morbidity) are the correct metric for evaluating vaccine effectiveness. If vaccines were a drug to treat disease, then case-fatality rates would be the correct metric for evaluation. Measuring vaccine effectiveness by looking at mortality rates only is a bit like measuring contraceptive effectiveness by measuring abortion rates only — it only tells a tiny part of the story.

2/ Mortality rates do not reflect the true burden of the disease. Survivors of vaccine preventable disease can be maimed for life — think polio and paralysis, mumps and deafness, measles and mental disability, rubella and birth defects. Looking at mortality rates only misses the true burden of the disease. For example, before the introduction of the measles vaccine in the US in the 1960s, there were “only” 400–700 measles deaths a year. However, there were 4,000 cases of measles encephalitis a year (many of which led to neurological complications such as blindness, deafness and mental disability), 150,000 cases of respiratory complications, and 48,000 measles-related hospitalizations a year (which placed a huge financial and emotional burden on families) [1]. Together, these figures added to the motivation to eradicate the disease.

3/ Numerous factors affect mortality rates. Mortality rates are influenced by socioeconomic status, access to health care, quality of treatment and a wide range of other factors. As these factors change, mortality rates inevitably change. By contrast, as you can see from the graphs below, vaccine preventable disease incidence remained largely constant until the introduction of related vaccines. This may be because airborne diseases (like measles, mumps and rubella) can infect anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status.

4/ Mortality rates are not more accurate than morbidity rates. Those opposed to vaccination often use the “disease diagnoses are inaccurate” argument as a reason to look at mortality data only. However, the mechanism by which a doctor’s diagnosis suddenly becomes accurate when a patient dies, when he or she was not competent at diagnosing the disease in the first place, is not explained. In fact, death certificates will often be based on preceding diagnoses. Furthermore, as other researchers have noted, disease cases are more likely to be accurate as death certificates were only standardized from the 1960s onward [2].

[kmich]

Notes from the Field: Tetanus in an Unvaccinated Child — Oregon, 2017

[Doc]

NPR | Scientists may have Cracked A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.

But something else happened.

Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half.

Scientists saw the same phenomenon when the vaccine came to England and parts of Europe. And they see it today when developing countries introduce the vaccine.

There could be a dark side to this. I wonder if this has anything to do with childhood allergies and asthma etc.. Maybe measles erases for example allergic reactions.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

This headline is misleading but the report is nevertheless intriguing

Woolly Mammoth Cells Brought Back to Life in Shocking Scientific Achievement

Cells from a woolly mammoth that died 28,000 years ago have begun to show "signs of biological [activity]" after they were implanted in mouse cells. However, researchers caution that it's unlikely the extinct creatures will walk the Earth again anytime soon.

The research, published in Scientific Reports, details how a well-preserved woolly mammoth, found in 2011 in the Siberian permafrost, has begun to show some activity.

"This suggests that, despite the years that have passed, cell activity can still happen and parts of it can be recreated," Kei Miyamoto, a member of the team that conducted the work, said in an interview with AFP.

"Until now many studies have focused on analyzing fossil DNA and not whether they still function," Miyamoto added.

The study's abstract reveals "n the reconstructed oocytes, the mammoth nuclei showed the spindle assembly, histone incorporation and partial nuclear formation; however, the full activation of nuclei for cleavage was not confirmed."

However, there were varying levels of DNA damage done, which the researchers said "were comparable to those of frozen-thawed mouse sperm and were reduced in some reconstructed oocytes."

While some evidence of biological processes were seen, the damage the elements had on the cells are not enough for bringing the mammoth back to life, eschewing any kind of "Jurassic Park-style resurrection" that many have hoped for, Miyamoto said.

[Typhoon]

Years ago, saw some massive termite structure in the Northern Territories in Australia
Wondered how they managed to keep from baking in the heat.

PhysOrg | X-rays reveal termites' self-cooling, self-ventilating, self-draining skyscrapers

[Typhoon]

Atlantic | The Worst Disease Ever Recorded

A doomsday fungus known as Bd has condemned more species to extinction than any other pathogen.

[Doc]

Atlantic | The Worst Disease Ever Recorded

A doomsday fungus known as Bd has condemned more species to extinction than any other pathogen.

Pretty scary stuff. The article linked to this one as one of the potential causes

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... st/525285/

[Typhoon]

NIH | NIH begins first-in-human trial of a universal influenza vaccine candidate

The first clinical trial of an innovative universal influenza vaccine candidate is examining the vaccine’s safety and tolerability as well as its ability to induce an immune response in healthy volunteers. Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, developed the experimental vaccine, known as H1ssF_3928.

H1ssF_3928 is designed to teach the body to make protective immune responses against diverse influenza subtypes by focusing the immune system on a portion of the virus that varies relatively little from strain to strain. The vaccine candidate was developed as part of a broader research agenda to create a so-called “universal” influenza vaccine that can provide long-lasting protection for all age groups from multiple influenza subtypes, including those that might cause a pandemic.

[kmich]

Scientists restore some functions in a pig's brain hours after death

Abstract

The brains of humans and other mammals are highly vulnerable to interruptions in blood flow and decreases in oxygen levels. Here we describe the restoration and maintenance of microcirculation and molecular and cellular functions of the intact pig brain under ex vivo normothermic conditions up to four hours post-mortem. We have developed an extracorporeal pulsatile-perfusion system and a haemoglobin-based, acellular, non-coagulative, echogenic, and cytoprotective perfusate that promotes recovery from anoxia, reduces reperfusion injury, prevents oedema, and metabolically supports the energy requirements of the brain. With this system, we observed preservation of cytoarchitecture; attenuation of cell death; and restoration of vascular dilatory and glial inflammatory responses, spontaneous synaptic activity, and active cerebral metabolism in the absence of global electrocorticographic activity. These findings demonstrate that under appropriate conditions the isolated, intact large mammalian brain possesses an underappreciated capacity for restoration of microcirculation and molecular and cellular activity after a prolonged post-mortem interval.

[Typhoon]

Scientists restore some functions in a pig's brain hours after death

Abstract

The brains of humans and other mammals are highly vulnerable to interruptions in blood flow and decreases in oxygen levels. Here we describe the restoration and maintenance of microcirculation and molecular and cellular functions of the intact pig brain under ex vivo normothermic conditions up to four hours post-mortem. We have developed an extracorporeal pulsatile-perfusion system and a haemoglobin-based, acellular, non-coagulative, echogenic, and cytoprotective perfusate that promotes recovery from anoxia, reduces reperfusion injury, prevents oedema, and metabolically supports the energy requirements of the brain. With this system, we observed preservation of cytoarchitecture; attenuation of cell death; and restoration of vascular dilatory and glial inflammatory responses, spontaneous synaptic activity, and active cerebral metabolism in the absence of global electrocorticographic activity. These findings demonstrate that under appropriate conditions the isolated, intact large mammalian brain possesses an underappreciated capacity for restoration of microcirculation and molecular and cellular activity after a prolonged post-mortem interval.

Interesting. The science article I read speculated that this could lead to restoration of brain activity in people who would otherwise be declared brain dead.
The question that immediately came to mind is quality of life after recovery.