Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

In a disease like ALS — one that’s always fatal and that has a long history of research-resistant biology — finding a proof of principle in animal models is significant.

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Tiny polymer beads embedded with anti-inflammatory drugs can reduce damage to the heart when injected into rats’ hearts after a simulated heart attack. The beads (average size: 1/50 of a millimeter wide) are made of a “polyketal” material that breaks down over a few weeks in the body. Because polyketals are less inherently inflammatory than other biodegradable polymers, they could be used to treat several inflammatory diseases.

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Researchers have, for the first time, found a mechanism for the rapid growth of the benign blood vessel tumor known as infantile hemangiomas, the most common tumor found in children. The findings implicate gene mutations that facilitate the abnormal activity of a hormone called VEGF, and suggest that anti-VEGF therapies — already approved for other conditions — may be an effective treatment.

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More than four in 10 parents with underweight and overweight children mistakenly believe their children are in the average weight range, according to University of Melbourne research.

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Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California have found that complete or partial removal of an enzyme that regulates fatty acid levels improves cognitive deficits in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Simply installing toilets where needed throughout the world and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to an analysis released today by the United Nations University.

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About three times a second, a 10000-year-old stellar corpse sweeps a beam of gamma-rays toward Earth. Discovered by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the object, called a pulsar, is the first one known that only “blinks” in gamma …

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A genetic study of a fish that lives in the icy waters off Antarctica sheds light on the adaptations that enable it to survive in one of the harshest environments on the planet. read more.

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Jesse Bering has an interesting article on why many people have so much difficulty holding a realistic view of death — why they imagine immortal souls wafting off to heaven, and why they can’t imagine their consciousness ceasing to …

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This column in the Australian from Frank Devine is mainly about how the latest Disney cartoon is “pernicious and propagandistic” and threatens our freedom, but he also includes some war-on-science stuff: …

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