The Medical Thread

It's "teratoma", with just one 'r', and it's Latin Greek for "monster tumour". Pretty accurate.

Charles Darwin had a similar crisis of faith when he discovered parasitic wasps.

edited 26th Jul '15 7:37:56 PM by majoraoftime

Yep, "teras" stands for "monstrous". "oma" is the suffix that is used to describe any kind of tumour.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Us Muslims see it as partially a test of faith by Allah (if a pious person is afflicted with them and endures, then he gets a proportional amount of "favor" with Allah that will be paid back, either in this life or in the afterlife), and partially as a visible warning to anyone who thinks of doing something that would draw Allah's ire (i.e. a severe punishment for any appropiately severe crime).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It's clearly supposed to be spelled, "terror-toma".

(And since we're on the subject: for the Christian response to "the problem of suffering", there are way too many, and yet not enough, discourses on the subject if you look it up.)

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

On another note: Albinism. How does a typical albino's skin color look different compared to a non-albinic person from a light-skinned ethnic phenotype (e.g. the typical "White American")?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Much whiter. Even light skinned ethnicities have large amounts of colour in the skin.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Really? How come? I thought "white" ethnicities were pretty much practically lacking in melanin pigmentations, hence the pinkish white color of their skin (i.e. a hint of the color of the blood-filled flesh under the skin).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Light-skinned people produce less melanin. They're not completely deficient in it.

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

Yup, light skinned people have melanin, which is why they can tan. Even people with the red hair/light skin phenotype, who have some of the palest skin you can get outside of albinism (it refuses to tan)^note  that's me :( , will often acquire freckles, which are concentrated patches of melanin, when exposed to sunlight.

edited 27th Jul '15 1:50:10 PM by majoraoftime

That's interesting to know. So... How would it be appropiate to depict the difference in animated or comic form? From what I see, some artists seem to think that depicting an albino with either normal light skin is sufficient, while others go the extra mile and portray their albinos with noticeably paler than normal skin... and some others can't seem to make up their mind about it (e.g. Rei Ayanami). Of course, almost never do the characters in question are actually described as being albinos, be it by other characters or by the creators themselves; we can only assume they are because of the markedly common use of the combination of white hair, light/pale skin, and either blue-colored or red-colored eyes (often the latter, just to dial up the sinisterness) as a visual shorthand for "this guys is evil/unnatural, just look at how he looks!"

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Red or blue colours still exist in albinos. It's just the brown-like ones that don't.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

What about the skin and hair colors?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

For hair it's either white or blonde.

Link between intelligence and longevity is mostly genetic: "The tendency of more intelligent people to live longer has been shown, for the first time, to be mainly down to their genes."

Neural efficiency hypothesis confirmed: "One of the big questions intelligence researchers grapple with is just how differences in intelligence are reflected in the human brain. Researchers have succeeded in studying further details relating to suspected functional differences in the brains of intelligent people. Among their findings: the authors suggest that it is impossible to "exercise" working memory. This has been a controversial issue among scientists in recent years because of contradictory findings in different studies."

Mum’s the word: Maternal language has strong effect on children's social skills: "Psychologists have revealed new evidence showing how specific language used by parents to talk to their babies can help their child to understand the thoughts of others when they get older."

Babies' brains show that social skills linked to second language learning: "Babies learn language best by interacting with people rather than passively through a video or audio recording. But it's been unclear what aspects of social interactions make them so important for learning. New findings demonstrate for the first time that an early social behavior called gaze shifting is linked to infants' ability to learn new language sounds."

Non-genetic cancer mechanism found: "Cancer can be caused solely by protein imbalances within cells, a study of ovarian cancer has found. The discovery is a major breakthrough because, until now, genetic aberrations have been seen as the main cause of almost all cancer."

Sorry, you don’t look the way you think you do, study reveals: "Hate the way you look in all your photos? Sorry, but that might actually be your face, new research suggests. In fact, the study shows that we're so terrible at recognising what we really look like in images, we'd be better off letting a stranger choose our next profile pic or passport photo.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have found that people are 7 percent worse than a stranger at ranking which of their photos look the most like them. The research was intended to provide insight into the challenges of photo identification in situations such as border control, but it might also shed some light on why it's so hard to find a picture we like of ourselves - apparently, we're just deluded about how the rest of the world sees us."

edited 27th Jul '15 4:09:09 PM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Sleep makes our memories more accessible, study shows: "Sleeping not only protects memories from being forgotten, it also makes them easier to access, according to new research. A new study tracked memories for novel, made-up words learnt either prior to a night's sleep, or an equivalent period of wakefulness. Subjects were asked to recall words immediately after exposure, and then again after the period of sleep or wakefulness."

In CRISPR advance, scientists successfully edit human T cells: "Scientists have devised a new strategy to precisely modify human T cells using the genome-editing system known as CRISPR/Cas9. Because these immune-system cells play important roles in a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to AIDS to cancer, the achievement provides a versatile new tool for research on T cell function, as well as a path toward CRISPR/Cas9-based therapies for many serious health problems."

Marine toxin puts mice to sleep

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Practice doesn't always make perfect (depending on your brain): "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? New research on the brain's capacity to learn suggests there's more to it than the adage that 'practice makes perfect.' A music-training study has found evidence to distinguish the parts of the brain that account for individual talent from the parts that are activated through training."

Early evidence suggests hybrid cochlear implants may benefit millions with common form of hearing loss: "People with a common form of hearing loss not helped by hearing aids achieved significant and sometimes profound improvements in their hearing and understanding of speech with hybrid cochlear implant devices, according to a new multicenter study."

Pygmies show growth plasticity is key to human evolution: "While the stature of pygmies is well-suited to tropical rainforests, the mechanisms underlying their growth remain poorly understood. In order to decipher these mechanisms, a team of scientists studied a group of Baka pygmies in Cameroon. Their findings revealed that their growth rate differed completely from that of another pygmy cluster, despite a similar adult height, which implies that small stature appeared independently in the two clusters."

Driving myelination by actin disassembly: "If a metallurgist wanted to determine how a blade was made they might cut a small cross section, mount, polish, and etch it, and then look at it under a microscope. They could probably tell right away whether it was forged, cast, or perhaps even 3D printed. If the blade was of a particularly high quality, like a Samurai sword, they could see the multiple layers that were created the through laborious cycles of heating, hammering and refolding that are typically used to optimize the grain structure for both toughness, hardness, and grain orientation. The point here is that the structure evident in the Samurai sword cross section didn't just passively polymerize out of thin air like a snowflake, or get made by some other passive thermochemical series of events, it took a more directed driving force.

One of the most enduring puzzles in neurobiology is what is the physical force that drives myelin around an axon. When looked at in cross section with an EM microscope, up to 150 or even more tightly wound turns can be seen. At the inner leading edge there is a slightly expanded tip containing a bit of cytoplasm which is called the inner mesaxon or 'tongue'. There is also an outer cytoplasm-containing tongue in compacted myelin sheaths that curiously enough is almost always observed to line up in roughly the same 'clock' position as the inner tongue, but more on that in a bit."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Brain surgery saved Russian general who helped defeat Napoleon: Scientists 'rewrite' history books: "After more than two-years of international investigation, scientists have concluded that Napoleon likely would have conquered Russia in 1812 if not for the life-saving brain surgery performed on Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov by the French surgeon Jean Massot, who operated on Kutuzov after bullets twice passed through his head."

Research grasps how brain plans gripping motion: "A new study significantly advances neuroscientists' understanding of how a region of the brain formulates plans for the hand to grip an object. The findings could lead to direct application to improving brain-computer interface control over robotic arms and hands."

World's first bilateral hand transplant on child: "Surgeons recently completed the world's first bilateral hand transplant on a child. Earlier this month, the surgical team successfully transplanted donor hands and forearms onto 8-year-old Zion Harvey who, several years earlier, had undergone amputation of his hands and feet and a kidney transplant following a serious infection."

Link between intestinal bacteria, depression found: "The complex mechanisms of interaction and dynamics between the gut microbiota and its host have been illuminated by recent research. Data show that relatively minor changes in microbiota profiles or its metabolic activity induced by neonatal stress can have profound effects on host behavior in adulthood."

Not exactly new, but the difference is that this time they used mice that had already been introduced to stress back in their childhood.

Researchers design first artificial ribosome: "Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component, or organelle, that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. The engineered ribosome may enable the production of new drugs and next-generation biomaterials and lead to a better understanding of how ribosomes function."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Evolutionary link between diet, stomach acidity: "An analysis of data on stomach acidity and diet in birds and mammals suggests that high levels of stomach acidity developed not to help animals break down food, but to defend animals against food poisoning. The work raises interesting questions about the evolution of stomach acidity in humans, and how modern life may be affecting both our stomach acidity and the microbial communities that live in our guts."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Can we restart the heart?: "What if you could use the proliferative and survival properties of cancer-prone cells to rejuvenate cardiac progenitor cells and get them dividing again, without forming tumors? Researchers are exploring the results of taking an enzyme, Pim, known to be associated with growth and survival of certain types of cancer cells, and causing it to be overexpressed in cardiac progenitor cells in mice."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

I thought the Motley Crue had already thaught us it was very possible to restart one's heart

I do not feel like bumping a 2014 Ebola thread. Here. Have news about a vaccine that was tested in New Guinea and proved to be "100% effective"

edited 31st Jul '15 8:16:13 AM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Guinea, man. Not New Guinea, not Papua New Guinea, just plain Guinea.

And the original article's here, for what it's worth.

Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.

How dare you correct me are you suggesting I have not slept well for the last three days I WILL KILL YOU

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

The body and the brain: Impact of mental, physical exertion on fatigue development: "Do you ever notice how stress and mental frustration can affect your physical abilities? When you are worried about something at work, do you find yourself more exhausted at the end of the day? This phenomenon is a result of the activation of a specific area of the brain when we attempt to participate in both physical and mental tasks simultaneously."

Paralyzed men move legs with new non-invasive spinal cord stimulation: "Five men with complete motor paralysis were able to voluntarily generate step-like movements thanks to a new strategy that non-invasively delivers electrical stimulation to their spinal cords. The strategy, called transcutaneous stimulation, delivers electrical current to the spinal cord by way of electrodes strategically placed on the skin of the lower back. This expands to nine the number of completely paralyzed individuals who have achieved voluntary movement while receiving spinal stimulation."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Brain-controlled prosthesis nearly as good as one-finger typing: "Brain-controlled prostheses sample a few hundred neurons to estimate motor commands that involve millions of neurons. Sampling errors can reduce the precision and speed of thought-controlled keypads. A new technique can analyze this sample and make dozens of corrective adjustments in the blink of an eye to make thought-controlled cursors more precise."

Parents inclined to misjudge child happiness based on personal feelings: "Parents' estimations of their children's happiness differ significantly from the child's own assessment of their feelings, according to a new study. Research showed parents of 10 and 11-year-olds consistently overestimated their child's happiness, while those with 15 and 16-year-olds were inclined to underestimate."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Even moderate picky eating can have negative effects on children's health: "Picky eating among children is a common but burdensome problem that can result in poor nutrition for kids, family conflict, and frustrated parents. Although many families see picky eating as a phase, a new study finds moderate and severe picky eating often coincides with serious childhood issues such as depression and anxiety that may need intervention."

Our elegant brain: Motor learning in the fast lane: "To learn new motor skills, neurons within the cerebellum engage in elegant, virtually mathematical, computations to quickly compare expected and actual sensory feedback. They then quickly readjust, changing the strength of connections between other neurons to form new patterns in the brain in order to accomplish the task at hand, researchers report."

What would the world look like to someone with a bionic eye?: "Various sight recovery therapies are being developed by companies around the world, offering new hope for people who are blind. But little is known about what the world will look like to patients who undergo those procedures.

A new University of Washington study seeks to answer that question and offers visual simulations of what someone with restored vision might see. The study concludes that while important advancements have been made in the field, the vision provided by sight recovery technologies may be very different from what scientists and patients had previously assumed."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Waiting for pleasure: "Researchers have clearly identified, for the first time, the specific parts of the brain involved in decisions that call for delayed gratification. They demonstrated that the hippocampus (associated with memory) and the nucleus accumbens (associated with pleasure) work together in making critical decisions of this type, where time plays a role."

Scientists identify that memories can be lost and found: "A team of scientists believe they have shown that memories are more robust than we thought and have identified the process in the brain, which could help rescue lost memories or bury bad memories, and pave the way for new drugs and treatment for people with memory problems."

The FDA has approved the first drug made by a 3D printer: "3D printing, a technology still in search of a market, may have just found a home in the world of medicine. The US Food and Drug Administration approved an epilepsy medicine called Spritam that is made by 3D printers, making it the first 3D-printed product that the FDA has approved for use inside the human body."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.