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Multiple sclerosis responds to stem cell therapy

Still wondering what stem cell therapy might be good for? Wonder no more – a team from the University of Chicago have used stem cells to treat – and in some cases partially reverse – the effects of multiple sclerosis. The doctors…

… recruited 12 women and 11 men in the early relapsing-remitting stage of MS, who had not responded to treatment with the drug, interferon beta, after six months.

They removed stem cells from the patients’ bone marrow, and then used chemicals to destroy all existing immune cells in the body, before re-injecting the stem cells. These then developed into naïve immune cells that do not see myelin as alien, and hence do not attack it.

Three years later, 17 of the patients had improved by at least one point on a standard disability scale, while none of the patients had deteriorated.

Kinda like the biological equivalent of a complete oil change! Those are some pretty impressive results; I think we’re going to see a lot of awesome stuff come out of the stem cell field over the next decade, especially now there’s a US administration that isn’t actively hostile to it on moral grounds.

Looking further ahead, maybe the regenerative power of stem cells will eventually lead to the science fiction staple of rejuvenation treatments?

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Brain surgery, media, and serendipity

brainA North Carolina neurosurgeon had just about given up on the case of Brandon, a 19-year-old tumor patient, till a story on CNN.com led him to a new surgical tool that let him operate successfully.

Dr. Thomas Ellis, a senior neurosurgeon at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, had given the mother the bad news. But:

“As I do every night, I read CNN online and immediately saw on the front page that there was an article in the health section entitled, From military device to life-saving surgical tool. …”

Ellis got in touch with the manufacturer in Massachusetts, and 72 hours later the device was in his hands.

It was originally devised for the U.S. military, and rolled out for surgeries three months before Ellis read about it.

The tool allows surgeons to easily manipulate a CO2 laser and bend it to reach almost any tissue in the body, particularly in cases where scalpels may pose a danger.

Next day (Christmas Eve, no less):

“After only 30 minutes, it was clear this laser device, as simple to use as a scalpel, was successfully debulking the tumor.”

Ellis operated on Brandon for four hours and managed to remove the remaining 80 percent of the tumor by vaporizing it from the inside with the laser and then excising it.

“The boy was then extubated [removing the tube to his airway] after about 30 minutes and that same evening he was eating normally,” Wolf said.

Brandon has recovered his basic functions and is behaving normally.

Ellis says:

“I think it’s an amazing story because it’s yet another demonstration of how interconnected we’ve become in this world.

“You have a CNN reporter in London, who writes a story about a neurosurgeon in Chicago, who’s using a device that was invented in Massachusetts. That story is read by a different neurosurgeon in North Carolina, and all within 72 hours, we have the device in North Carolina.”

[PET scan image from Wikimedia Commons]

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Friday Free Fiction for 30th January

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Wow, it’s the end of January already – where the hell’s this year going to so fast, I ask you?

With another week comes another batch of free science fiction stories on the intertubes, lovingly collected from the RSS quagmire and presented for your edification and enjoyment. Bon appetit!

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Just the one from Manybooks:

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And just the one from Feedbooks:

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Polu Texni presents “Very Truly Yours, Part II” by Seth Gordon

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SpaceWesterns presents “The Reckoning” by John P Wilson

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Via the perpetrators themselves (and pretty much everyone else), here’s an opening sample from “Colliding Branes” by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker.

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Some microfiction news from the Orbit gang:

Jeff Somers — author of The Electric Chruch, The Digital Plague, and the forthcoming The Eternal Prison — is tweeting a short story, a few lines at a time.

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On the subject of Twitter fiction, here’s another example: MidnightStories tweets a 140 character story every night at midnight, Texas time.

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Via EOS Books:

Harper Perennial is celebrating the short story this year, and each Sunday evening during 2009 will be posting a new story from both established authors and début authors. This year they have already published stories from Tony O’Neill, Simon Van Booy, and Mary Gaitskill. Check it out at www.fiftytwostories.com.

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Strange Horizons presents part two of “The Shangri-La Affair” by Lavie Tidhar

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Here’s Memory #32 by Jayme Lynn Blaschke

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In keeping with his manifesto of optimism, Jason Stoddard has decided that a lot of his trunk stories are now obsolete, set as they are in a future that now appears much less likely to actually become real (and let’s all hope he’s right on that point).

As a result, he’s releasing some free fiction to the web; first up on the block is his unpublished novel Eternal Franchise, to be serialised over the coming year, starting with chapter 1.1. The future depicted within may be obsolete, but Jason’s storytelling surely isn’t – so why not follow his RSS feed for a vision of the future that might have been?

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Via Chris Roberson:

BookSpot Central is featuring a preview of the first three chapters of The Dragon’s Nine Sons, if you haven’t read the book and would like to sample it.

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A Continuous Coast update from Kit O’Connell:

The latest fiction from the Creative Commons-licensed Continuous Coast project is available. The first five parts of Reesa Brown’s rescue ride are up as of now.

Those interested in learning more about the extreme sport of Gurge Riding depicted in the stories may also want to read these recent chat transcripts.

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The SF Signal gang, in addition to their traditional linkitude, are hosting some excerpts:

Several weeks back, I read and enjoyed Hater by David Moody, a tense thriller with science fictional leanings.

St Martin’s is allowing us to offer the first four chapters right here on SF Signal. Read Chapter 1 below. The next chapter will appear next week.

Meanwhile, here’s all the other gubbins they caught in their trawler-net of justice:

  • Infinite Canvas presents “The Day The Saucers Came” by Neil Gaiman [Editor’s note: I’ve heard him read this aloud, and it’s a super little story. Pure Gaiman all the way.]
  • Mindflights presents “Marionettes” by Mike Simon
  • The new issue of AntipodeanSF features fiction by Jill Smith, Julie Cohen Wornan, Kirstyn McDermott, Matthew Sanborn Smith, Angie Smibert, Shaun A Saunders, Richard Thorne, Mark Farrugia, Ashley Hibbert, and Felicity Dowker
  • M-BRANE SF is a new genre magazine available in PDF format

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Before we start with Friday Flash Fiction, here’s a message from a new contributor, Sumit Dam:

Thought I would let you know that I’m posting weekly Friday Flash too, over at Sumitsays.com. Last Friday’s offering was “The Unbearable Beings of Lightness“, my contribution to the Altered Film Titles challenge.

Thanks, Sumit! And here’s this week’s collection:

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And that’s all we have for you this week, ladies and gents. Don’t forget to keep us posted about any free sf that you hear of; we’ll link it here and give you a shout as well. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

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The new alchemy: turning sewage into gold

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There’s an old saying in the north of the UK – “where there’s muck, there’s brass”. So here’s a modern Japanese re-spin on it: where there’s sewage, there’s gold.

The sewage in question is from Nagano Prefecture’s Suwa Basin, a region where a lot of machining factories and metal-plating outfits are located, and apparently the resulting sludge has a higher concentration of gold than high-grade ore. Ker-ching!

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