Popular Mechanics writes: In a new study, researchers found the traditional psychoactive drug ayahuasca stimulates the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampi of research mice. The hippocampus is responsible for many memory functions, and the mice dosed with ayahuasca also performed better in a battery of memory tests. While ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic and often purgative tea brewed from leaves…
Tag: stem cells
Lab-grown sperm could let infertile men have gene-edited children
The first reliable way of isolating and growing sperm stem cells could lead to new fertility treatments, including correcting mutations that block sperm production Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248668-lab-grown-sperm-could-let-infertile-men-have-gene-edited-children/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Three people with inherited diseases successfully treated with CRISPR
Two people with beta thalassaemia and one with sickle cell disease no longer need blood transfusions after their blood stem cells were gene edited and put back in their bodies Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2246020-three-people-with-inherited-diseases-successfully-treated-with-crispr/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Mouse embryos that are 4 per cent human are step towards spare organs
Mouse embryos injected with human stem cells grew for 17 days created chimeras with up to 4 per cent human cells, a step towards growing human organs for transplant Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2243336-mouse-embryos-that-are-4-per-cent-human-are-step-towards-spare-organs/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Growing stem cells for deep space exploration
Earth’s magnetosphere protects us from the most harmful cosmic rays that bombard our planet but beyond this natural shield, astronauts are subjected to radiation that is a hundred times more than at sea level. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-stem-cells-deep-space-exploration.html…
Lab-Grown Heart Muscles Have Been Transplanted Into a Human For the First Time
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: On Monday, researchers from Japan’s Osaka University announced the successful completion of a first-of-its-kind heart transplant. Rather than replacing their patient’s entire heart with a new organ, these researchers placed degradable sheets containing heart muscle cells onto the heart’s damaged areas — and if the procedure has the desired effect, it could eventually…
Scientists Discover ‘Why Stress Turns Hair White’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Scientists say they may have discovered why stress makes hair turn white, and a potential way of stopping it happening without reaching for the dye. Researchers behind the study, published in Nature, from the Universities of Sao Paulo and Harvard, believed the effects were linked to melanocyte stem cells, which produce melanin…
Scientists Use Stems Cells From Frogs To Build First Living Robots
Cy Guy writes: Having not learned the lessons of Jurassic Park and the Terminator, scientists from the University of Vermont and Tufts have created “reconfigurable organisms” using stem cells from frogs. But don’t worry, the research was funded by the Department of Defense, so I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong this time. “The robots, which are less than 1mm long,…
Early Humans Domesticated Themselves, New Genetic Evidence Suggests
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: A new study — citing genetic evidence from a disorder that in some ways mirrors elements of domestication — suggests modern humans domesticated themselves after they split from their extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, approximately 600,000 years ago. Domestication encompasses a whole suite of genetic changes that arise as a species is…
Wild Silkworms Produce Proteins Primed for Bioprinting
A mix of silkworms’ proteins acts as a scaffold for 3-D-printed tissues and organs. From a report: Many research groups are testing “ink” made from silk proteins to print human tissues, implants and perhaps even organs. The process is a less costly alternative to conventional 3-D printing with collagen, a key protein in the body’s natural scaffolding. Researchers in Assam, a…