The ancient Greeks called the thapsia garganica plant “deadly carrot”, because their camels would eat it and quickly die. The Roman emperor Nero mixed it with frankincense to treat bruises. Until the early 20th century, it was used in a plaster to treat rheumatism — the side effects, however, were barely worth the cure. More »
In recent court filings, the US Food and Drug Administration has asserted that stem cells — you know, the ones our bodies produce naturally — are in fact drugs and subject to its regulatory oversight. So does that make me a controlled substance? More »
BoingBoing has a fascinating summary of how fetal cells invade their mother’s host body and get up to all kinds of shenanigans: some good, some bad. More »
A group of crazy and wonderful scientists have organised the World Cell Race. Fifty lab teams from all over the world sent their microscopic pilots to race against each other. The winner: a bone marrow stem cell line from Singapore. More »
Researchers have known for some time that women who experience weakened heart function in the months before and after childbirth (a condition known as peripartum cardiomyopathy) recover more quickly than any other group of heart failure patients. Now, a team of researchers from Mt Sinai School of Medicine thinks it may know why. More »
A biotech company that after much turmoil and huge expense launched the first human embryonic stem cell clinical trial in the United States is getting out of the stem cell business. More »
Human Serum Albumin (HSA) is a protein commonly used in vaccines and often administered for serious burn injuries and liver disease and commonly in short supply due to a lack of donors. That’s why researchers from Wuhan University have figured out how to grow it–not in people, but in rice. More »
Caltech engineers built an ingenious Petri dish from Lego blocks that uses a mobile phone image sensor and a smartphone light to send pictures of what’s happening inside the dish directly to scientists’ laptops. More »
