Nerves Into Stem Cells Nerve cells are remarkably reprogrammable. The proof? Leprosy bacteria can take Schwann cells – the stuff that wraps nerve cells axon in white, fatty sheaths so they transmit faster – convert them into stem cells, then use them to flummox the immune system and infect the whole body. Which is rather […]
Dining Out For 100 Trillion (1/2/13)
An Important Six Pounds of You They don’t vote, but they sure make their voices heard. They are legion, but small. They change most aspects of your daily life. But you hardly notice them, rarely show respect, and virtually never give them deserved credit. As a minority group that lives within your extraordinarily diverse ecosystem, […]
Regeneration Medicine – Preventing Colds (7/31/12)
Informing Immunity See the body as machine and you miss a lot. Most of your body is new in three to four weeks. The body continuously processes information, providing input for the regenerative process we use to survive. This is almost opposite to the mechanical degeneration of cars or computers. Life is renewal, and life […]
Infectious cancers – what you can do (5/21/12)
Infectious Cancers and How to Prevent Them People are living longer than they did a hundred years ago. One major reason – far more effective control of infectious disease. In the early part of the last century, TB killed about one in seven people. The great decreases in death were wrought by public health measures […]
Time rules life (2/27/12)
Time Rules Life The Romans knew it two thousand years ago – everything in life is timed. Your body is a hive of interlinked clocks. Some operate over less than a second, others work over seasons or years. Yet the most studied internal clocks are those that control our 24 hour day. Called circadian – […]