Science and Space - New Discoveries, Research, Studies And Breakthroughs

For many of the 13 million Americans currently at risk for non-melanoma skin cancers, the VivoSight® Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scanner will be a blessing in their dermatologists' tool closet.  The device, just approved for clinical use by the FDA, offers real-time laser imaging of a patient's skin, enabling better, and sometimes immediate, treatment of basal or squamous cell cancers.

Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine just achieved a scientific breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize the design of neurological drugs: they captured the first high resolution images of the acetylcholine receptor (AChR), the α7 molecule responsible for transmitting signals between neurons, particularly those associated with learning and memory.

For the third year in a row, the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit organication that promotes the study and imitation of designs found in nature, is sponsoring the Biomimicry Student Design Challenge.  This year the Challenge, which is open to college students world-wide, is to use biomimicry to design a solution that results in more efficient use of energy and ultimately reduces greenhouse gases.  No small feat, but the Institute provides students with plenty of resources on biomimicry....

Experiments with acne-piercing lasers have been conducted before, but this time, the laser electron is not "the size of an entire hospital," but the size of a DVD player.  The unique laser system, the Raman Fiber Laser, has the potential to permanently alter sebaceous glands, those that give rise to pimples and acne, the bane of adolescence.

Historically, surgical removal or oral and throat cancers have not allowed patients to go back to living their normal daily lives.  Oral cancer removals caused severe pain, particularly ugly scarring, and an inability to eat, speak, or swallow normally.  Even breathing problems might result.  But now along comes TORS, the robot with the right stuff.

Canadian researchers have made cancer treatment history with the success of an intravenous infusion of a virus, JX-594.  The virus was injected into 23 patients with advanced and metastasized cancers who had not responded to traditional therapies.  Not only was this the first test of viral therapy on human cancer patients, but the first trial to introduce a targeted virus intravenously.