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Scientists make simulated lunar soil

Life is tough for a humble grain of dirt on the surface of the Moon. It’s peppered with cosmic rays, exposed to solar flares, and battered by micrometeorites–shattered, vaporized and re-condensed countless times over the billions of years. Adding insult to injury, Earthlings want to strip it down to oxygen and other elements for “in situ resource utilization,” or ISRU, the process of living off the land when NASA returns to the Moon in the not-so-distant future.

FDA Says Cloned Meat A-OK

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today issued three documents on the safety of animal cloning — a draft risk assessment; a proposed risk management plan; and a draft guidance for industry. The draft risk assessment finds that meat and milk from clones of adult cattle, pigs and goats, and their offspring, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals. The assessment was peer-reviewed by a group of independent scientific experts in cloning and animal health. They agreed with the methods FDA used to evaluate the data and the conclusions set out in the document.

Ancient text leads to potential new anti-bacterial

A unique Mayo Clinic collaboration has revived the healing wisdom of Pacific Island cultures by testing a therapeutic plant extract described in a 17th century Dutch herbal text for its anti-bacterial properties. Early results show that extracts from the Atun tree effectively control bacteria that can cause diarrhea, as claimed by naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf, circa 1650. He documented his traditional healing methods in the book Ambonese Herbal.

How to really be the biggest loser

I am the statistic – me and the rest of the emergency medicine side show freaks that get bounced on the LAST TEST after passing every other hurdle in a medical career (MCAT, medical school, USMLE 1, 2, 3 and the written board exam).

Device Prevents or Reduces Brain Damage in Infants

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved a first-of-a-kind medical device for the treatment of babies born with moderate to severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), a potentially fatal injury to the brain caused by low levels of oxygen. The Olympic Cool-Cap system is designed to prevent or reduce damage to the brains of these patients by keeping the head cool while the body is maintained at a slightly below-normal temperature. The Cool-Cap is manufactured by Olympic Medical Corporation, a subsidiary of Natus Medical Incorporated of San Carlos, Calif.

3-D scaffold for growing stem cells

Stem cells grew, multiplied and differentiated into brain cells on a new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to be more like a living body than any other cell culture system. An MIT engineer and Italian colleagues will report the invention-which may one day replace the ubiquitous Petri dish for growing cells-in the Dec. 27th issue of the PLoS ONE. Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT’s Center for Biomedical Engineering, is a pioneer in coaxing tiny fragments of amino acids called self-assembling peptides to organize themselves into useful structures.

Pet owners are sick more often, exercise less than other working-aged people

A common perception is that pet owner is a young person who is full of action, exercises a lot, and actively plays with a pet, particularly with a dog. The reality is different, however. The association of pet ownership and health of working aged Finns (20-54 years of age) was studied at the University of Turku as part of a large research project entitled Health and Social Support (HeSSup). The findings were published in PLoS ONE, the new international online publication of the Public Library of Science.