Science Behind Things

Peering Inside Molecules with Greater Precision

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are collaborating with scientists across the United States, Germany and Sweden to utilize high-energy X-ray beams and complex algorithms to obtain detailed, high-resolution images of the atomic structure of cellular molecules.  Using high-energy, extremely short-pulses (less than 1/1,000,000,000,000,000th of a second, or 100 femtoseconds) X-ray beams to examine nanoscale objects.  Having a known reference object makes it easier to reassemble an image, and so the scientists are using a very special reference object called a uniformly redundant array (URA), where a combination of complex formulas known as a Fourier Transform and a Hadamard Transformare utilized to convert the data into an image that represents the object being examined.

Such technology will enable doctors to examine patients’ molecules with greater precision than ever before, helping them diagnose diseases and other conditions faster and more efficiently.  Praise God.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080916144006.htm

Science Behind Dealing with Heart Failures

Here are some disturbing facts about heart transplants in America:

• About 5.3 million Americans have heart failure
• 284,000 Americans will die of heart failure this year
• 2,000 to 4,000 Americans are on transplant waiting lists at any time
• Only 2,100 heart transplants take place in the United States each year, and hundreds of people die while waiting for a heart

Now here’s some good news.  A new implantable device, called a HeartMate II (much smaller than its predecessor, the HeartMate LVAD), about the size of a D cell battery (compared with the size of a car’s water pump), can fit inside patients, including many women who obviously couldn’t have handled an automobile water pump sized heart assistance device inside their bodies.  (By the way, LVAD stands for left-ventricular assist devices or LVADs.  The human heart’s left ventricle does the majority of work pumping blood throughout the body of a human being.)

Later this year a clinical trial of a third-generation device called the DuraHeart may begin.  The DuraHeart uses magnetically levitated pump components to reduce friction and wear.

Praise God for such medical breakthroughs!

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080602231622.htm

Hope for the Blind

It’s no surprise that man and animals have similarities.  Now a United Kingdom team of scientists believe they may be able to take advantage of those similarities in regenerating damaged retina in the human eye, by working with Müller glial cells found in the eye.  Three quarters of registered blindness in the UK is related to retinal damage.  In addition to growing the cells in the lab and transplanting them back into the eye, the UK researchers are looking at ways to stimulate growth and persuading the eye to repair itself using its own cells.  To do that, the researchers need to identify which factor is responsible for blocking the regeneration of the cells, and get them to grow when there is an eye injury.  It looks very promising.

Source: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/fish-eyes-could-hold-clue-repairing-damaged-retinas-humans-13830.html

Robot Arm To Do Intricate Surgery in UK

Doctors at St Mary’s Hospital in London are excited about a new robotic arm, one of only four in the world, being controlled from a computer console, being able to carry out intricate life-saving heart operations, such as guiding thin wires through blood vessels in the heart to treat a fast or irregular heartbeat. More than 20 patients have been operated on with the robot, which has the extreme precision that is required to track down and deal with bad cells without damaging healthy tissue.