Certain creatures are actually able to regrow body parts that they have lost. Can you imagine what a great help this would be to a human? Imagine if you lost a hand, or a leg, or even had a partial loss of a limb and some procedure could be used that would enable you to grow a new one. That is one of the dreams of science in the future, the regrowing of lost limbs. Science has always wanted to be able to do this, but has never figured out how it can be done. It would take quite a bit of the trauma out of having to lose a leg or arm, if you were told before hand that you would be able to grow a new part in a matter of months, or even a year. The salamander, a tiny lizard creature, is able to grow replacement parts throughout it's lifetime. This is the creature that science has consistently been studying. Scientists hope that they can find the key that can unlock the secret that allows this creature to perform this incredible task. It is said that when an amputation occurs on a human, at the time of the amputation the area is about the same as when it occurs on a salamander. Then something strange occurs. The human begins to grow scar tissue, while the salamander begins to grow a new limb. What a lot of people are unaware of, is that there are a lot of mammalian embryos that can replace developing limbs. Tadpoles have this ability, but they lose it when they become frogs.

Scientists have found tiny clues that seem to indicate that humans probably have an ability to regenerate limbs, but that the ability is latent and it will not just happen on it's own, without being set in motion in some way. The way a salamander is able to grow a limb, is that immediately on amputation, the blood vessels constrict to conserve blood and skin cells rapidly cover the site. These cells are transformed into signaling cells. The next thing that happens, is that fibroblasts travel to the center of the wound. They form a blastema and serve as the basis for the new limb. Scientists have now discovered that the salamander somehow gets the same information for the construction of the new limb that was used in the original embryo of the animal. Humans and salamanders both have limbs created at the time they are in the embryo stage, so this info might be stored in humans, in some area that we are not aware of. Scientists are trying to identify the critical signals that begin the regeneration process. What seems to be amazing in this whole regeneration process, is that cells seem to know their locations, for if they didn't the entire regeneration process would fail.

The Chinese are stating that they have developed a new test that can determine the source of some mysterious cancers. Nature Biotechnology Monday, has stated that this should help create a short-cut for finding out how to treat them. MicroRNAs are a sort of genetic type material and have been known to be associated with some cancers. The test uses them as bio markers to find out where the cancer started. Researchers locked into specific chemotherapies, to find and identify tumors that spread in the body from unknown sources. This cancer is known as CUP or cancer of unknown primary. The scientists claim that they were able to identify the source of these tumors in about two thirds of the cases.

The news is starting to come out from many difference sources and it is not good. Do you know how I am always saying that plastic is not good for using as a container for our food, to drink from or as a coating on paper plates and such. Now news is coming out that bears this out. It seems that one of the worst things the human race has done to itself is use plastic in the way that I have just stated. Scientists are saying that those baby plastic sippy cups leach harmful chemicals, when put into boiling water and if you use a dishwasher, you are probably releasing these chemicals into the juice that is then put into them. Baby formula cans are now said to have some sort of lining that is leaching chemicals and even water bottles are said to be dangerous, if they get too warm. Plastic is truly bad for us and it is about time that we do something about this. If we have to go back to glass containers, so be it.

It is bad enough that many of our athletes are using performance enhancing drugs, but Nature, the top science journal in Britain, has stated that over twenty percent of scientists have admitted using them for non-medical reasons. So why would scientists take this stuff, it is not like they had to be able to hit a ball further, or anything like that? Most of them said that they took the drugs, because they enabled them to concentrate better. Do you want to know how often these people take drugs? I will tell you anyway, over sixty percent of them stated that they either took them every day, or at least once a week. Wow, I hope that none of them were nuclear scientists working on things that are so critical that one misstep could cause a nuclear explosion or something like that. The survey interviewed over fourteen hundred scientists and most of them were based right here in the U.S.A. They also discussed giving these drugs to their kids, if they felt that other kinds in school were using them. The three types of drugs that the survey focused on were Ritalin, which is methylphenidate and Modafinil, also know as Provigil. The third type of drug is beta blockers. Now I am sure that most of you already have heard of these drugs and are surprised that they would be used for performance enhancing. I say this because we know that Ritalin is used for attention deficit disorders, Modafiinil is used for sleep disorders and beta blockers are used for heart disorders. It seems that all three types of drugs also have another side to them. Even the beta blockers reduce anxiety.

Scientists are now saying that we have to keep an eye out for the next emerging new disease. They feel that it will come from one of the developing countries along the equator. They are hoping that if we keep a diligent watch, we will be able to contain any outbreak to it's source. In reality this seems like a pipe dream. In this age of jet travel, the world has shrunken to a point where people from everywhere are hopping all over the globe. I think that the truth is, when a new disease hits, it will be a surprise. Someone will have it on a plane and we won't even know and the passengers will then spread it and so on.

I guess we have a lot to be thankful for, as far as medicine is concerned. Even though there has been some really bad press coming out about certain medicines, that has a lot to do with the Food and Drug Administration not doing their job. They are supposed to be our watchdog on potentially dangerous medicine. Medicine has been responsible for a lot of people being alive today that wouldn't be. Where I use the term medicine, I am talking about prescription drugs. Every once in awhile, something will come out that states that certain prescription drugs and even some over-the-counter drugs are harmful, this is a national disgrace. The truly beneficial drugs are irreplaceable and have extended the lives of countless people. Any drug company that knowingly releases harmful drugs should face criminal penalties. The problem is that it is very hard to prove that they knew it was potentially dangerous. I am not talking about drugs that list all the side effects, some of which can be harmful. I am talking about drugs that are harmful to most of us and we don't know it. This may seem like a fine line, but believe me it isn't.