Word of the Day: boondocks(BOON\doks); a remote rural area
Weight: 206 pounds
Goal: lose 100 pounds in one year duration
Pounds to lose: 74 pounds
Waist Size: 43 inches
Rowing Duration: 71 minutes, fourteen (14) seconds
Well, I had some bad luck with producing today's post, I had just about completed my post when my computer went down for no reason and I lost all my work, consequently, I am a little defeated in the fact that I don't really much feel like writing everything all over again and I'll probably forget something, oh well, that's what happens from time to time when you live in this technological age.
I did have a good workout session on CC this morning, I managed to complete alot of spurts during the workout, it's true, that when I do these spurts, they take so much out of me that I don't have the same endurance strength that I used to, but I believe my body is getting a better workout so I'm going to continue doing the spurts, we'll see in time if I'm doing the right thing, I'm pretty sure I am.
Yesterday, Zac and I met our sister-in-law, Louise, and her mother, Dina Spring, for lunch. We met at Louise's workplace, and from there we drove to a quaint little restaurant that was inside a store (I forget the name,) and served special cheeses, soups, teas and sandwiches, we all had a nice time indulging in eating good food and having intelligent conversation, although the time flew by much too quickly, doesn't it always?
After lunch, Zac and I had to fly to "The Talbot Public School" as we were designated to pick up Raphael and Jessie and watch them for two hours. Naturally, I took the kids to the "Toys R Us" store so that I could finish my major Christmas shopping, there was still a gift that I needed to buy for Raphael.
I had Raphael show me all of the toys he hoped he would get for Christmas, and I also had Jessie show me gifts she wanted, but I don't think I fooled either of the children, they're both rather very smart and are not easily fooled, especially by me.
Christmas Day is December 25th, Christmas Day is fast approaching yet I can't get anything up on Zemanta about Christmas, why isn't Zemanta giving me pictures of Christmas, of snow, of Santa Claus, of Santa's reindeer, of Rudolph the red-nose reindeer,
Okay, this news is a little different but it has so much hope involved that I wanted to share it with you. It seems that immature sperm cells called spermatogonial stem cells have been transformed by researchers into insulin-producing pancreatic cells that could potentially be used to treat patients with Type One (1) Diabetes, isn't that something?
When transplanted into mice, these lab-created cells acted like pancreatic beta cells and began producing insulin (from all places, imagine that?) in type one (1) diabetes, the immune system mistakenly destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, meaning that patients must receive injections of insulin for the remainder of their lives. But if researchers can develop effective replacement cells, such injections could become a thing of the past. I think this is the most interesting discovery and I'm hoping that for all Type-One diabetes people this research pans out!
A team at Georgetown University in Washington worked with spermatogonial stem cells, master cells that give rise to sperm in men. Ian Gallicano and colleagues used germ-derived pluripotent stem cells, which are made from the spermatogonial stem cells. They nurtured these cells in the lab with compounds designed to make these cells start acting like pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin.
When transplanted into diabetic mice, these cells produced insulin, acting like the pancreatic beta cells that the body mistakenly destroys in type-1 diabetes, Gallicano's team told a meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Philadelphia.
Currently, children and young adults diagnosed with type-1 diabetes must take insulin for life, as mentioned earlier. A few may be treated with the so-called Edmonton Protocol, in which the missing pancreatic cells are transplanted from cadavers. But there is a shortage of these cells and the patients may suffer from graft-versus-host disease if the cells are not a good match.
Gallicano said men's own cells could be used as a source of their transplants, and he said perhaps the approach may work in women too. "While these cells come from the human testis, the work here is not necessarily male-centric," they wrote. "These fundamental aspects could easily be applied to the female counterpart, oocytes."
Separately, James Wells and colleagues at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio turned two different kinds of stem cell into complex layers of intestinal tissue. They used both human embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, and induced pluripotent stem cells, made from ordinary cells transformed by introducing certain genes. Both types have the power to give rise to all the cell types in the body when cultured in the lab like the Georgetown team did.
Writing in the journal Nature, Wells's team showed they could transform these cells into what they called organoids, batches of intestinal tissue made out of the layers of the various cells that make up intestine, including muscle cells and the cells that line the inside of the gut and that produce several vital compounds. These organoids can be used to study intestinal diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis, inflammatory bowel diseases and short-gut syndromes and perhaps could be used to treat them someday, Wells's team said.
Like I said, I hope that research pays off, we all will benefit.
There are now only nine (9) days left until Christmas Day, it's getting here fast, isn't it? Quick arithmetic will indicate to you that there are now only eight (8), just eight days left for you to complete your Christmas shopping and I only have stocking-stuffers to get, which is more than enough worry for me!
I hope you all have a great day, the weekend is almost here, you can do it!
Topics coming soon:
Art
Politics
Technology
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