Scientific American has an interesting article on the possibility of limb regeneration in humans, and how the human body reacts during an amputation compared with a salamander, which will regenerate the lost body part.

The gold standard for limb regeneration is the salamander, which can grow perfect replacements for lost body parts throughout its lifetime. Understanding how can provide a road map for human limb regeneration.

The early responses of tissues at an amputation site are not that different in salamanders and in humans, but eventually human tissues form a scar, whereas the salamander’s reactivate an embryonic development program to build a new limb.

Learning to control the human wound environment to trigger salamanderlike healing could make it possible to regenerate large body parts.

One of the most encouraging signs that human limb regeneration is a feasible goal is the fact that our fingertips already have an intrinsic ability to regenerate. This observation was made first in young children more than 30 years ago, but since then similar findings have been reported in teenagers and even adults. Fostering regeneration in a fingertip amputation injury is apparently as simple as cleaning the wound and covering it with a simple dressing.

Read the rest of this 6 page article

According to scientists, very large ice deposits have been found on Mars, below the surface and far away from the polar ice caps.

The Sharad (SHAllow RADar) can look up to 1 km below the surface to find water, by sending pulse waves and analyzing the time delay when they return and their strength.

The Sharad radar experiment, on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft made the discovery in Mars’ mid-northern latitudes.

The ice is found in distinctive geological structures on Mars’ surface that are hundreds of metres thick.

The radar data suggest that some of these features consist mostly of ice.

Read more here

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch has a very interesting post on the DNA results he got from the Google backed start-up, 23andMe. For $1000 you can get yourself tested and find out where did your ancestors come from and what diseases you have a higher risk of getting. Another thing that you can find out is whether you have the gene that gives resistance to HIV.

Pretty cool overall, though the question remains for the future, if people will start using DNA tests to decide if they get together with someone or not, or if companies will take these tests. The nasty part would be if medical insurance rates would be decided based on someone’s genetic traits and predisposition to certain diseases.

Read More at TechCrunch

A team of scientists from the University of Alberta announced that they discovered an inactive gene that when turned on will block HIV, preventing that person from getting the disease.

While current medication fails to address the HIV mutations, so they can’t cure it, a better solution is to use this gene to prevent HIV from spreading.

"When we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus," said Barr, a postdoctoral fellow. "This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus."

………

"This means that TRIM22 is an essential part of our body’s ability to fight off HIV. The results are very exciting because they show that our bodies have a gene that is capable of stopping the spread of HIV."

Read More

Update: some facts about the human genome if you’re curious.