It’s a nuisance, but researchers are closing in on it. In fact, they think the tooth will probably be the first complex organ to be completely regenerated from stem cells. In part this is because teeth are easily accessible — say ahhhhh. So are adult stem cells, found abundantly in both wisdom and baby teeth — no embryos required, and your immune system won’t reject your own cells.
Nobody is predicting when the first whole tooth will be grown in a human, although five to 10 years is a common guess.
Only a decade to wait, then. But knowing dentists, they’ll probably still find a reason to assault your dignity, pain threshold and wallet all at once. Not that I’m bitter or anything. [via SlashDot]
All we need right now is a new plague, on top of everything else we have to deal with. But then again, Bird Flu was the new plague a few years ago, and despite all the yammering and media panic nothing really happened at all… [story via MetaFilter]
The research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana and hemp might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Though the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, chronic inflammation in the brain is believed to contribute to memory impairment.
Any new drug’s properties would resemble those of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive substance in the cannabis plant, but would not share its high-producing effects. THC joins nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as agents that, in moderation, have shown some protection against inflammation in the brain that might translate to better memory late in life.
You’d have to have been under a pretty large metaphorical internet rock to have missed all the reports about Google Flu Trends that are floating around the web today like sneezed particles of snot, but just in case:
By tracking searches for terms such as ‘cough’, ‘fever’ and ‘aches and pains’ it claims to be able to accurately estimate where flu is circulating.
Google tested the idea in nine regions of the US and found it could accurately predict flu outbreaks between seven and 14 days earlier than the federal centres for disease control and prevention.
Over here in the UK the current big front-page story is Hannah Jones, a thirteen-year-old girl who has a hole in her heart as a result of childhood leukaemia medication. The actual news is the about-face made by her local healthcare authority, which was planning to force her to have a heart transplant against her own wishes; intervention by a child protection officer encouraged them to drop their court case and let Hannah stay with her family as she wished.
The “right to die” is still a very contentious issue (and will doubtless remain one for some time to come) but Hannah’s case is complicated by her age; I think it’s a safe assumption that had her parents not agreed with her decision, things might have gone very differently. Which brings us to the perennial question – at what age should the law permit you to make life-changing decisions like this for yourself? And to what degree should the religious beliefs of your family be taken into account, if at all?
Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
Another year, another “regrow your own body parts” story, this one coming from the ever popular domain of dentistry (a field which we have covered before on Futurismic). This time out, the Washington Post jovially informs us that wisdom teeth are a source of stem cells that could be used to regrow and replace missing teeth throughout our adult lives. [image by greefus groinks]
It’s almost as if – despite our advancing technologies – all the health risks we considered dead and buried are coming back again. You’ve probably already heard about 
You’d have to have been under a pretty large metaphorical internet rock to have missed all the