Month: April 2014

By Misha Hussain GUECKEDOU Guinea (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hiccups, say doctors in this remote corner of Guinea, are the final tell-tale sign of infection by the Ebola virus that has killed more than 100 people since an outbreak began this year. But for Rose Komano, the hiccups never came. On Saturday, the 18-year-old mother of three became the first victim to have beaten the disease in the region of Gueckedou, epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in this impoverished West African nation. In total, 98 people are thought to have died from the disease in Guinea and 10 more in neighbouring Liberia, according to aid workers and governments.

LONDON (AP) — In a north London hospital, scientists are growing noses, ears and blood vessels in the laboratory in a bold attempt to make body parts using stem cells.

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists have for the first time used regenerative medicine to fully restore an organ in a living animal, a discovery they say may pave the way for similar techniques to be used in humans in future. The University of Edinburgh team rebuilt the thymus – an organ central to the immune system and found in front of the heart – of very old mice by reactivating a natural mechanism that gets shut down with age. The regenerated thymus was not only similar in structure and genetic detail to one in a young mouse, the scientists said, but was also able to function again, with the treated mice beginning to make more T-cells – a type of white blood cell key to fighting infections. The regenerated thymus was also more than twice the size of the aged organs in the untreated mice.

If all of the reports turn out to be true, the company's first wearable technology device could well be a wrist-worn virtual doctor rather than just a second screen for the iPhone. In a note to investors seen by Apple Insider, Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis says that the iWatch will be able to monitor the wearer's exposure to potentially harmful UV light and therefore know when it's time to reapply the sunscreen or cover up completely. In February, Silicon Labs, a Texas-based tech company, became the first to successfully build a single-chip digital UV index sensor, and Curtis believes that they could well be integrated into the Apple iWatch. "These chips measure UV exposure to aid those with elevated risk of sunburn or just a general concern about excessive sun exposure, and we believe they may be […] appealing to OEMs looking to differentiate in a crowded market," Curtis wrote.

By Daniel Levine and Edmund Klamann SAN FRANCISCO/TOKYO (Reuters) – Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd said it would contest $6 billion in punitive damages imposed by a U.S. federal jury in a case alleging that Japan’s largest drugmaker had concealed cancer risks associated with its Actos diabetes drug. Eli Lilly and Co, Takeda’s co-defendant in the case, was ordered to pay $3 billion in punitive damages. “We intend to vigorously challenge this outcome through all available legal means, including possible post-trial motions and an appeal,” Kenneth Greisman, general counsel of Takeda Pharmaceutical USA Inc, said in a statement. The massive award was met with “stunned silence” in the packed Lafayette, Louisiana, courtroom, plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Lanier said.

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrians battered by years of war are facing a major drought that could cut wheat production in the country’s northwest breadbasket to a record low of 1.7 million to 2 million metric tonnes, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. If rains fail to fall by the time of the harvest in mid-May, food prices would soar and Syria would need to import more than the estimated 5.1 million tonnes of wheat needed during the previous season, WFP added. “A drought could put the lives of millions more people at risk”, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told a news briefing in Geneva. “WFP is concerned about the impact of a looming drought hitting the northwest of the country – mainly Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama, with rainfall less than half of the long term average (since September) and potentially major impacts on the next cereal harvest,” she said, adding that barley output was also affected.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a family planning law is constitutional, allowing the government to provide reproductive health care services primarily to the country’s poor despite strong opposition to the law from the Roman Catholic Church.

Immune-checkpoint blockade trains body to rally against cancer. Here’s one woman’s story.

The Philippines Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a family planning law but ruled out provisions to punish health workers who do not inform people about contraceptive options. In a country where more than 80 percent of a population of about 97 million is Roman Catholic, the Church had opposed the law, effectively blocking its passage for 13 years, for fear it would lead to a spike in abortions. The Philippines has one of the highest birth rates in Asia, standing at 24.98 per 1,000 of population in 2012. Congress passed the reproductive health law in December 2012, allowing public health centers to hand out contraceptives, such as condoms and pills, and teach sex education in schools.

Yo-yo dieting can be a danger to someone's health and costs money. That is why the doctors designed SlimPlate System for weight loss using real …

By Stephen Jewkes MILAN (Reuters) – The government of Matteo Renzi is looking to wipe the slate clean and seek new names at Italy's main state-controlled groups including oil major Eni as top management comes up for renewal, government, political and industry sources said. New center-left Prime Minister Renzi, nicknamed 'Demolition Man' for his campaigning for generational change in Italy, came to power in February promising to shake up the country's cozy elites and breathe fresh air into an ageing establishment. The 39-year-old Renzi has kept his cards close to his chest on the names that will be proposed as early as this weekend to replace top executives at the likes of Eni, utility Enel and defense group Finmeccanica. One government source told Reuters the positions of Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni and Enel's boss Fulvio Conti, both veterans in the energy sector, looked particularly shaky while political sources said Renzi was looking for new faces.

The success, albeit in a small number of patients, offers hope that a fundamentally new treatment can help many of the 6 million paralyzed Americans, including the 1.3 million with spinal cord injuries. The results also cast doubt on a key assumption about spinal cord injury: that treatment requires damaged neurons to regrow or be replaced with, for instance, stem cells. "The big message here is that people with spinal cord injury of the type these men had no longer need to think they have a lifelong sentence of paralysis," Dr Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in an interview. "They can achieve some level of voluntary function," which he called "a milestone" in spinal cord injury research.