This post originally appeared at Care2.com.

***

Using human stem cells to reproduce highly specialized cells such as blood, nerve or muscle cells has been the source of much controversy because of the moral and ethical issues involved.

But what about using non-human stem cells to save endangered species?

For the first time ever, cells from the highly endangered white rhino (pictured above) and drill (an African primate) were transformed into stem cells that could hold the key to the future of their respective species. 

The procedure, detailed in a recently published edition of Nature Methods, theorizes that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) may eventually facilitate reintroduction of genetic material into breeding populations.

In endangered populations, there are too few reproductively capable animals to maintain adequate genetic diversity. Even when these species are kept in protective environments, there’s no guarantee that males and females will mate, or that the offspring will survive.

Because of this, the researchers could not use stem cells from fertilized embryos. Instead, stem cells were created by “re-programming” frozen skin cells (ARKive).

That’s why the success of this experiment is so significant.

In addition to medicinal applications, the stem cells could also potentially be used to make eggs and sperm, which could be used to create “test-tube” offspring of white rhinos, drills and other endangered species. If appropriate cells are preserved now, even species that go extinct in the next few years might not be lost forever.

But the technique is far from perfected, and quite expensive. Many experts say that it should only be thought of as a complement to conservation, not an alternative

“The prospects for using these techniques for continuing the genetic lineages of the last few individuals of a species will be a last-ditch effort, after we have failed to protect the species in earlier, simpler, cheaper, and more effective ways,” said Robert Lacy, a conservation scientist at the Chicago Zoological Society.

Source: Care2 

Image by SarahDepper , licensed under Creative Commons .  

Quick, draw a picture of a scientist. Just a quick sketch on a piece of scrap paper.

What does your scientist look like? Frizzy-haired or long, shiny tresses? Happy or hangdog? Male or female? Working in the lab or out in the field?

If you drew an older white man in a white lab coat holding a test tube amidst a lab disaster, you’ve got the old stereotype of a scientist in your mind—and you’re not alone. “No wonder we have a problem recruiting scientists,” says science journalist Quentin Cooper in a New Scientist interview. Too many people, young and old, still have this old-fashioned image unshakably embedded in their head, when in truth the exciting field of exploration and investigation into the natural world is open to everyone. Scientists aren't just harried old men working away in a lab. They dive in oceans and ski on glaciers. They can be young, female, and ethnically diverse. They study soil in crop fields and help in the cleanup of oil spills. One way to combat the old image, explains Cooper, is to supplant the stereotype with the reality:

[S]omeone had the idea of introducing children to a real scientist after they had drawn one, and then asking them to have another go at drawing. One of my favourite examples is of the schoolgirl who initially drew a man with frizzy hair and a white coat, but afterwards depicted a smiling young woman holding a test tube. Above it is the word “me”. I still find myself choking up when I show it.

Source: New Scientist 

Images by NOAA’s National Ocean Service and NOAA’s National Ocean Service, licensed under Creative Commons. 

If your writing is sprinkled liberally with first-person pronouns (I, me, myself), you’re probably a pretty honest person. If, on the other hand, you eschew what The Secret Life of Pronouns author James W. Pennebaker calls “I-words” and use lots of articles (the, a, an) and prepositions (up, with), you might be hiding something. That is Pennebaker’s conclusion after 20 years of language research from a psychosocial perspective, he reports in New Scientist:

Hidden inside language are small, stealthy words that can reveal a great deal about your personality, thinking style, emotional state and connections with others. These words account for less than 0.1 per cent of your vocabulary but make up more than half of the words commonly used. Your brain is not wired to notice them but if you pay close attention, you will start to see their subtle power.

Pennebaker began his pronoun studies in the 1980s after discovering that people who had kept secret a traumatic event in their life experienced more health problems than those who experienced similar trauma but didn’t cover it up. When he prompted patients to write about their secrets, he found that their health improved—and their pronoun use changed remarkably:

[O]ur most striking discovery was not about the content of [traumatized] people's writing but the style. In particular, we found that the use of pronouns—I, me, we, she, they—mattered enormously. The more people changed from using first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my) to using other pronouns (we, you, she, they) from one piece of writing to the next, the better their health became. Their word use reflected their psychological state.

To read more about Pennebaker’s findings—and get a sense of where you stack up on the scales of honesty, health, and other personal characteristics—read his article in New Scientist.

Source: New Scientist 

Image by wheat_in_your_hair, licensed under Creative Commons. 

It’s always disconcerting, in hospital shows, to see the cooler containing a human heart being unloaded from the helicopter. The cooler is the same brightly colored, insulated style we cram with ice and Miller Lite for family camping weekend. But, hey, it works. Pack that kind organ donor’s heart on ice and head for the hospital to save a life.

It’s disconcerting in a wholly different way to see the new organ-transfer method, profiled by The Inquisitr (Aug 30, 2011) and devised by a company called TransMedics—a method that keeps the heart beating. Yes. A live beating heart in a box. Check out the video below.

Right now, matching donor organs with recipients is a game of speed and geography. The short lifespan of an organ on ice is “the biggest problem facing heart transplants,” explains The Inquisitr. The beating-heart transfer method will allow the harvested organ to travel long distances, still warm, in a “near-normal physiologic state,” says transplant surgeon Abbas Ardehali.

The beating-in-a-box method is currently under clinical trial for FDA approval at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “I feel like I am in the first Apollo mission to the moon,” says UCLA heart transplant medical director Ann Hickey. “This is really the start of something that’s going to be an incredible revolution.”

Source: The Inquisitr

Image by MT Silverstar , licensed under Creative Commons.