Ongoing important Science news thread

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by dammage79

Talking about inertia right? Someone should understand what I am getting at when I ask this: In a zero G environment what is the speed at which you can get to before the inertia gets too strong for the human body to withstand it?

Liquid stasis could solve this issue as well I think.

Same as on earth, with the exception of going up. And the issue isn't speed, it's acceleration. On earth going sideways, inertia is the same as in microgravity going in any direction. That's why astronauts practice/test in those spinning centrifuges. Inertia is the same everywhere regardless of atmosphere or gravity well, except in gravity wells you must add the inertia attributed to gravity.

Going sideways, you know for a fact, that those spinning centrifuges do not make anywhere near a fraction of the speed of light, no matter how you multiply it up.

The big problem with humans riding on rail guns is that all the acceleration occurs within the barrel. The faster you go, the more acceleration needed within that short distance. Liquid stasis, or "inertial dampers" i guess you could call it, are not the most efficient method of accelerating a vessel to fractions of the speed of light. You gotta do it relatively slowly, certainly slower than a rail gun, if you are going to have humans aboard it. You can use them as assisted launchers in space, though not at it's fullest capacity, but the big value in my humble opinion, is for cargo. Launch all the kit you need ahead of you, then follow it with a lot less fuel with humans aboard using other methods.

The only way you could make a rail gun work for humans is to lengthen the barrel. And it would have to be loooong. the distance from the earth to the moon would probably not be long enough.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

A new treatment for MS seems to work rather well.

24 patients were in the trial, and of those 21 have no symptoms, and one of the three has had the progression stop entirely.

Basically the person is given Chemo to destroy their immune system and stem cells are put back to rebuild it.

http://www.healthline.com/health-new...mission-010715

1) No control arm of the immunosuppressive therapy alone.

2) They reinject a cells of a blood cell lineage (CD34+). What tangible evidence is there that such cells would restore myelin on nerve cells and temper the immune response against the nerves?

Sadly, there are many of these single arm "stem cell" trials going on. Many of them are of the "inject stem cells + ? = success!" Not scientifically rigourous, nor very convincing.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

2) They reinject a cells of a blood cell lineage (CD34+). What tangible evidence is there that such cells would restore myelin on nerve cells and temper the immune response against the nerves?

The theory is the CD34+ stem cells then produce and differentiate into CD4+ T cells that no longer are specific for myelin. I think it's far less about the myelin being restored; rather it's the myelin no longer being destroyed by the autoreactive T cells.

This one has promise... I hope. We work on MS in our lab and it's tough to find things that work in mice that work in humans.

ETA: your first point as well - in trials there is no way ethics would ever approve immunosuppression alone in humans.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by billybob123

The theory is the CD34+ stem cells then produce and differentiate into CD4+ T cells that no longer are specific for myelin. I think it's far less about the myelin being restored; rather it's the myelin no longer being destroyed by the autoreactive T cells.

This one has promise... I hope. We work on MS in our lab and it's tough to find things that work in mice that work in humans.

ETA: your first point as well - in trials there is no way ethics would ever approve immunosuppression alone in humans.

Regarding your first point: this is the fantasy basis that a lot of the "stem" or precursor cell labs subscribe to. Biggest question: why would the cells differentiate in this manner? People propose this type of thing in the heart world as well, but never describe the differentiation process (and the requisite cues) that the cells will undergo.

As for the control arm... they're mandatory in some shape or form. Otherwise, how do you know what the activity of the cell treatment is? Even in terminal cancers they'll often run a best supportive care arm, which is effectively nothing better than a placebo.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

Regarding your first point: this is the fantasy basis that a lot of the "stem" or precursor cell labs subscribe to. Biggest question: why would the cells differentiate in this manner? People propose this type of thing in the heart world as well, but never describe the differentiation process (and the requisite cues) that the cells will undergo.

I think you're confusing your stem cells. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC - generally from bone marrow) differentiate into lymphocytes (in addition to erythrocytes and some other cell types). It's well-defined; in fact it's how bone marrow transplants for people suffering from leukemias and lymphomas work. We differentiate these cells every day in our lab. These are not the "embryonic" or "adult" stem cells that you might be thinking -- do you mean stems cells that will differentiate into cardiomyoctes? Or something like that? (I don't know, I'm not a cardiac or muscle person). I share some of your cynicism about these miracle stem cell cures. HSCs are different...

MS is generally due to autoreactive CD4+ T cells that attack myelin. They are conditioned this way by antigen-presenting macrophages and dendritic cells that somehow present myelin proteins to naive T cells. The concept of this research is that ablation of the T cells will kill all the autoreactive T cells (in addition to macrophages and DCs that are presenting myelin as an antigen), then transplantation of the HSC will then allow the patient to generate new T cells that are non-reactive. This is a regularly performed technique in mice.

As for the control arm... they're mandatory in some shape or form. Otherwise, how do you know what the activity of the cell treatment is? Even in terminal cancers they'll often run a best supportive care arm, which is effectively nothing better than a placebo.

Fair enough, I don't know anything about clinical trials. This is also a fairly small patient group as well. We're so far from the clinic in our lab! All I said is that there is no way any ethics board would permit immuosupression without some sort of EFFECTIVE treatment (and best standard of care) to replace their lymphocytes (e.g. antibiotics or something significant). People would die of infections as a control - hardly ethical!

MS sucks. Anything we can do to ameliorate people's lives is positive. Donate to the MS Society - they don't just support research like ours, they also fund life-improvements for people suffering from MS.


ETA: this treatment is actually quite well-studied. THere is a fairly significant review on the topic:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23192675

Properly controlled studies have also been discussed as a key goal of these multi-centre trials:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22383228

[Knut]

^. What are your thoughts on resesrch that Certain viruses (like Epstein-Barr) are the underlying reason the immune system reacts the way it does ? Genetics obviously plays a role in who reacts though.

If so, would vaccination in at risk populations potentially be a treatment ?

[troutman]

What Is Depression? One Theory Proposes Illness Stems From Unidentified Infectious Disease

http://www.medicaldaily.com/what-dep...disease-313462

A researcher from Stony Brook University in New York has proposed a radical theory on what causes depression. According to Dr. Turhan Canli’s recently published paper, the behavioral and emotional changes we view as depression may actually be the side effects of a yet-to-be identified infection. Canli isn’t the first to put forward this suggestion and, if proven true, it could potentially change not only the way we view depression, but also the way we treat it.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by Hesla

^. What are your thoughts on resesrch that Certain viruses (like Epstein-Barr) are the underlying reason the immune system reacts the way it does ? Genetics obviously plays a role in who reacts though.

If so, would vaccination in at risk populations potentially be a treatment ?

Good question.

There are well-established links between virus infections and auto immune diseases - for example, mice injected with a part of one of the proteins of the hepatitis B virus that matches an epitope (something that elicits immune responses in mammals) in myelin develop MS-like disease. It could also be a bystander activation of T cells, or even just a chronic infection that hasn't been identified yet.

The immunogenic basis of MS is pretty well-defined, but it's not clear why exactly people develop autoreactive T cells - a similar effect seen in other autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It could be because of virus infection.

So, the answer is, I don't know. Unless we know which viruses are the ones that cause the diseases, we can't really immunize against all of them.

There's also the issue that not every virus has an effective vaccine; and some may never be generated.

Interesting thing to think about, though. Thanks for making my brain work today!!

[Knut]

Is it Genetics or something environmental behind Southern Alberta having a higher rate of MS than most other places in the world ? What does research point to ?

[Codes]

Originally Posted by billybob123

There are well-established links between virus infections and auto immune diseases.

Not just viruses, either. Bacterial infections have also resulted in various auto-immune diseases.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by Hesla

Is it Genetics or something environmental behind Southern Alberta having a higher rate of MS than most other places in the world ? What does research point to ?

Good question, again. No one knows. Northern countries seem to have higher rates (US, Canada, Norway have higher rates, meanwhile rates are almost zero in Inuits). Alberta has 3x higher incidence in women than men. Why? We don't know yet. Could be any combination of genetics, environment, infection rates, something in the water.

[Ozy_Flame]

Mystery radio signals from space recorded live from 5.5 billion light years away

" . . the source of the radio bursts remain a mystery, the authors said. "We found out what it wasn't. The burst could have hurled out as much energy in a few milliseconds as the Sun does in an entire day," Malesani explained.

"But the fact that we did not see light in other wavelengths eliminates a number of astronomical phenomena that are associated with violent events such as gamma-ray bursts from exploding stars and supernovae, which were otherwise candidates for the burst."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mystery-rad...s-away-1484035

[Muta]

U.S. to start developing a new, post-F-35 'x-plane', which includes a 'next generation' propulsion system.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-military-bud...--finance.html

I, for one, want to believe this is when we start seeing some of that sweet, sweet Area 51 #### dominating the skies soon! Now, someone pass me some tinfoil!

[Ozy_Flame]

84 MPG Car produced by Elio Motors set to be available in 2016, at a price of $6800.

http://www.eliomotors.com/

Didn't see this around before, but it certainly looks like a cool concept. They also have a huge focus on raising the bar for the American auto manufacturing industry, using 90% of North American content for the car build.

[Muta]

That's pretty damn cool... hopefully it takes off in sales. Love this movement towards greener everything, and with new age ideas.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

84 MPG Car produced by Elio Motors set to be available in 2016, at a price of $6800.

http://www.eliomotors.com/

Didn't see this around before, but it certainly looks like a cool concept. They also have a huge focus on raising the bar for the American auto manufacturing industry, using 90% of North American content for the car build.

I cannot think of a purpose for a vehicle like this in my life. I wish they were more practical

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I cannot think of a purpose for a vehicle like this in my life. I wish they were more practical

Maybe this image will change your mind!

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Maybe this image will change your mind!

Would be cool if it came with a ski and snowmobile track conversion.

[Mike F]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson during college wrestling match.

No wonder they listened to him about Pluto.

[Coach]

Holy smokes, what a beast!

Thought that was Will Smith in Ali or something.