Biotechnology company Quantec Ltd has presented the results of its US clinical trial of its patented complex of bioactive milk proteins product - called IDP - which was conducted at clinical research facility in California and completed in February of 2013.

IDP was the active ingredient in a specially formulated skin cream that went head-to-head in a double blind study against a premium, US-based clinical brand of acne treatment cream (containing 2% salicylic acid plus retinal). Results were presented at the New Zealand Dermatological Society Annual Meeting in Coolum, Australia last week.  

RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation, an RNA-targeted technologies company, today announced positive results from their second placebo-controlled Phase 1 study with RXI‑109, an sd-rxRNA compound that targets Connective Tissue Growth Factor (CTGF), and is being developed for the treatment of abnormal dermal scars such as hypertrophic scars and keloids in conjunction with scar revision surgery.

In this study, subjects received small skin incisions in their abdomen and were treated with 3 intradermal doses of RXI‑109 over a 2-week period. This dose escalating study consisted of 3 cohorts of 3 healthy volunteers each. Subjects received RXI‑109 on one side of the abdomen, and placebo on the other side.

A new paper has been published regarding the significance of 2D:4D (the length ratios of the 2nd (index finger) and 4th (ring finger).

A joint research team from the Kochi Branch of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University and the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Japan, measured the finger lengths of 142 Japanese professional sumo wrestlers :

"Sharknado" Is Pure Liberal Propaganda. But Is It Also Scientifically Possible?" went the title of a Mother Jones article before a sensible editor considered the possibility that there might be 5 people in the world who aren't aware that Mother Jones loves liberal propaganda and changed it to the more sensible "Can a "Sharknado" Really Happen?"

Generex Biotechnology has announced the results of a Phase 3 clinical trial of Generex Oral-lyn, their buccal insulin spray product, in preparation for the approval for marketing and commercial distribution of the product in India, to be trademarked there as Oral Recosulin.

The International Diabetes Federation currently estimates there are over 50 million people with diabetes in India.

Perfect Rebuttal

  Wouldn't it be nice if you could find a perfect rebuttal, a perfect test of truth, a piece of evidence which perfectly, completely and utterly negates what a witness has said in court.  I have found such a rebuttal.  It is a litmus test for perjury.

  I have recently discovered a most peculiar fact of law which has been staring me in the face for very many years.  The reason, perhaps, that I did not notice it before is that my focus was more on the forensic scientific methods, rather than the lawyerly methods of proving that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

Researchers have created a virtual model of the brain based on the dynamics of brain cells and the many connections those cells make with their neighbors and with cells in other brain regions - and it daydreams like humans do.

The group hope the model will help them understand why certain portions of the brain work together when a person daydreams or is mentally idle. This, in turn, may one day help doctors better diagnose and treat brain injuries.

Big data is the current trendy phrase that covers many different areas.  Big data describes equally well having a huge volume of data generated in a short period of time (like molecular simulations of DNA), having a huge volume of data that needs to be indexed and archived (like PubMed or Web of Science), or wanting to analyze different types of data that wasn’t collected for a given purpose (the CI-BER project uses a variety of data types collected over the years to study a neighborhood in Asheville, NC).

At some point it would be ideal for animal-to-human transplants of insulin-producing cells for people with type 1 diabetes, such as from pigs, but first there must be baby steps.

Or in this case, mouse steps.

Scientists have successfully transplanted islets, the cells that produce insulin, from a rat to a mouse. Using their new method of xenotransplantation, the islets survived without immunosuppressive drugs.

A recent article "These fish are evidence that humans aren't the only evil animals" began from the presumption that these fish were intentionally injuring others to avoid predation against themselves.

One problem with this article was the initial silly use of terms like "evil" or "selfish" when clearly that is not what this behavior involved.  As mentioned in the paper, there is nothing cognitively intentional about this behavior so to assign these terms is just more sensationalist nonsense.