Hear, Hear to the 3-D Printer!

If you liked the 3D printer than made the wrench, you'll love this.  You must respond with to this video.  What impacts would you see this printer having on today's society?  What do you think the next step of 3-D printing should be?

Would you want one?  They look like the image below.

Bio-Ethics

A major part of Science is the topic of Bioethics!  Bioethics is ultimately whether a scientific discovery, method, or procedure is morally acceptable.  Read the article below and comment whether or not this practice is acceptable.  Please respond to one other person.  It is okay to debate, but not okay to make personal attacks, use inappropriate language, or talk about inappropriate topics on this blog.

3D printer spits out human embryonic stem cells

By

Published February 06, 2013

| LiveScience

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Imagine if you could take living cells, load them into a printer, and squirt out a 3D tissue that could develop into a kidney or a heart. Scientists are one step closer to that reality, now that they have developed the first printer for embryonic human stem cells.

In a new study, researchers from the University of Edinburgh have created a cell printer that spits out living embryonic stem cells. The printer was capable of printing uniform-size droplets of cells gently enough to keep the cells alive and maintain their ability to develop into different cell types. The new printing method could be used to make 3D human tissues for testing new drugs, grow organs, or ultimately print cells directly inside the body.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are obtained from human embryos and can develop into any cell type in an adult person, from brain tissue to muscle to bone. This attribute makes them ideal for use in regenerative medicine — repairing, replacing and regenerating damaged cells, tissues or organs. [Stem Cells: 5 Fascinating Findings]

In a lab dish, hESCs can be placed in a solution that contains the biological cues that tell the cells to develop into specific tissue types, a process called differentiation. The process starts with the cells forming what are called "embryoid bodies." 

Cell printers offer a means of producing embryoid bodies of a defined size and shape.

In the new study, the cell printer was made from a modified CNC machine (a computer-controlled machining tool) outfitted with two "bio-ink" dispensers: one containing stem cells in a nutrient-rich soup called cell medium and another containing just the medium. These embryonic stem cells were dispensed through computer-operated valves, while a microscope mounted to the printer provided a close-up view of what was being printed.

The two inks were dispensed in layers, one on top of the other to create cell droplets of varying concentration. The smallest droplets were only two nanoliters, containing roughly five cells.

The cells were printed onto a dish containing many small wells. The dish was then flipped over so the droplets now hung from them, allowing the stem cells to form clumps inside each well. (The printer lays down the cells in precisely sized droplets and in a certain pattern that is optimal for differentiation.)

Tests revealed that more than 95 percent of the cells were still alive 24 hours after being printed, suggesting they had not been killed by the printing process. More than 89 percent of the cells were still alive three days later, and also tested positive for a marker of their pluripotency — their potential to develop into different cell types.

Biomedical engineer Utkan Demirci, of Harvard University Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, has done pioneering work in printing cells, and thinks the new study is taking it in an exciting direction. "This technology could be really good for high-throughput drug testing," Demirci told LiveScience. One can build mini-tissues from the bottom up, using a repeatable, reliable method, he said. Building whole organs is the long-term goal, Demirci said, though he cautioned that it "may be quite far from where we are today."

Others have created printers for other types of cells. Demirci and colleagues made one that printed embryonic stem cells from mice. Others have printed a kind of human stem cells from connective tissues, which aren't able to develop into as many cell types as embryonic stem cells. The current study is the first to print embryonic stem cells from humans, researchers report in the Feb. 5 issue of the journal Biofabrication.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/06/3d-printed-human-embryonic-stem-cells/print#ixzz2K81nHpY5

Read and Respond

Read the article below and respond.  What do you like/ dislike about the article (good points, fears, untruths, helpful info, etc. . . )?

Dirtying Up Our Diets

By JEFF D. LEACH

Published: June 20, 2012

OVER 7,000 strong and growing, community farmers’ markets are being heralded as a panacea for what ails our sick nation. The smell of fresh, earthy goodness is the reason environmentalists approve of them, locavores can’t live without them, and the first lady has hitched her vegetable cart crusade to them. As health-giving as those bundles of mouthwatering leafy greens and crates of plump tomatoes are, the greatest social contribution of the farmers’ market may be its role as a delivery vehicle for putting dirt back into the American diet and in the process, reacquainting the human immune system with some “old friends.”

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Lauren Nassef

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Increasing evidence suggests that the alarming rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders during the past few decades is at least partly attributable to our lack of exposure to microorganisms that once covered our food and us. As nature’s blanket, the potentially pathogenic and benign microorganisms associated with the dirt that once covered every aspect of our preindustrial day guaranteed a time-honored co-evolutionary process that established “normal” background levels and kept our bodies from overreacting to foreign bodies. This research suggests that reintroducing some of the organisms from the mud and water of our natural world would help avoid an overreaction of an otherwise healthy immune response that results in such chronic diseases as Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and a host of allergic disorders.

In a world of hand sanitizer and wet wipes (not to mention double tall skinny soy vanilla lattes), we can scarcely imagine the preindustrial lifestyle that resulted in the daily intake of trillions of helpful organisms. For nearly all of human history, this began with maternal transmission of beneficial microbes during passage through the birth canal — mother to child. However, the alarming increase in the rate of Caesarean section births means a potential loss of microbiota from one generation to the next. And for most of us in the industrialized world, the microbial cleansing continues throughout life. Nature’s dirt floor has been replaced by tile; our once soiled and sooted bodies and clothes are cleaned almost daily; our muddy water is filtered and treated; our rotting and fermenting food has been chilled; and the cowshed has been neatly tucked out of sight. While these improvements in hygiene and sanitation deserve applause, they have inadvertently given rise to a set of truly human-made diseases.

While comforting to the germ-phobic public, the too-shiny produce and triple-washed and bagged leafy greens in our local grocery aisle are hardly recognized by our immune system as food. The immune system is essentially a sensory mechanism for recognizing microbial challenges from the environment. Just as your tongue and nose are used to sense suitability for consumption, your immune system has receptors for sampling the environment, rigorous mechanisms for dealing with friend or foe, and a memory. Your immune system even has the capacity to learn.

For all of human history, this learning was driven by our near-continuous exposure from birth and throughout life to organisms as diverse as mycobacteria from soil and food; helminth, or worm parasites, from just about everywhere you turned; and daily recognition and challenges from our very own bacteria. Our ability to regulate our allergic and inflammatory responses to these co-evolved companions is further compromised by imbalances in the gut microbiota from overzealous use of antibiotics (especially in early childhood) and modern dietary choices.

The suggestion that we embrace some “old friends” does not immediately imply that we are inviting more food-borne illness — quite the contrary. Setting aside for the moment the fact that we have the safest food supply in human history, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and food processing plants and farmers continue to take the blame for the tainted food that makes us ill, while our own all-American sick gut may deserve some blame as well.

While the news media and litigators have our attention focused on farm-to-table food safety and disease surveillance, the biological question of why we got sick is all but ignored. And by asking why an individual’s natural defenses failed, we insert personal responsibility into our national food safety strategy and draw attention to the much larger public health crisis, of which illness from food-borne pathogens is but a symptom of our minimally challenged and thus overreactive immune system.

As humans have evolved, so, too, have our diseases. Autoimmune disease affects an estimated 50 million people at an annual cost of more than $100 billion. And the suffering and monetary costs are sure to grow. Maybe it’s time we talk more about human ecology when we speak of the broader environmental and ecological concerns of the day. The destruction of our inner ecosystem surely deserves more attention as global populations run gut-first into the buzz saw of globalization and its microbial scrubbing diet. But more important, we should seriously consider making evolutionary biology a basic science for medicine, or making its core principles compulsory in secondary education. Currently they are not.

As we move deeper into a “postmodern” era of squeaky-clean food and hand sanitizers at every turn, we should probably hug our local farmers’ markets a little tighter. They may represent our only connection with some “old friends” we cannot afford to ignore.

Jeff D. Leach is a science and archaeology writer and founder of the Human Food Project.

The possibilities of Chemistry!

Watch the video below, then explain what impact this could have on the daily lives of the every day person if this went mainstream. No Repeats. REPEAT WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHnMj6dxj4

Chem Article Review #1

Read the following Article and respond to one of questions below (repeat answers will not receive credit).

In what way is this chemistry related?

What will be accomplished scientifically by breaking this record?

Leap of faith: 5 ways skydiving 120,000 feet can kill you

By Stephanie Pappas

Published October 07, 2012

| LiveScience

On Tuesday (Oct. 9), Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner will ascend more than 120,000 feet into the atmosphere inside a capsule attached to a helium balloon. Then, with nothing but a pressurized suit and a parachute, Baumgartner will jump out of the capsule and plummet toward Earth, breaking the sound barrier on the way down.

What could go wrong?

Quite a few things, it turns out — though Baumgartner and his Red Bull-sponsored team say they have considered and prepared for the risks. Here are five of the dangers that Baumgartner faces as he attempts a record-breaking leap.

1. Flat Spin

The problem: In low air pressure, high-altitude skydivers risk going into something called "flat spin." In this position, the body rotates horizontally — imagine a record spinning on a record player. An uncontrolled flat spin could render Baumgartner unconscious, his blood rushing to his extremities, including his head. There, blood could pool in his eyes, causing temporary blindness. Worse, the force of the spin and the rush of blood to the head could cause massive brain bleeding and clotting, which could easily be fatal.

The prevention: If Baumgartner's spin gets out of a control, a special elongated parachute will deploy to help stabilize his descent.

2. Boiling Blood

The problem: At the edge of space, from which Baumgartner will make his leap, the air pressure is less than 1 percent of that on Earth's surface. Above 63,000 feet (19,200 meters), the lack of pressure can cause air bubbles to form in the blood, a condition referred to as blood boiling. A bubble large enough to stop the blood from flowing in a major artery could be fatal, and sudden decompression can expand and then collapse the lungs. Depressurization can also cause the body to swell in seconds, as occurred in 1960 when Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. jumped from 102,800 feet (31,133 m). When Kittinger's glove failed to pressurize properly, his hand swelled to twice its size on descent. [8 Craziest Skydives Ever]

The prevention: Baumgartner's full-pressure suit and helmet are designed to protect the skydiver as he falls. The team has emergency medical protocols in place should Baumgartner arrive on the ground in crisis.

3. Freezing

The problem: The upper atmosphere is a very cold place. The Red Bull Stratos team estimates Baumgartner will step out of his capsule into temperatures of minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius). As he plummets, he could experience minus 70 degrees F (minus 56 degrees C) or lower. In such cold air, Baumgartner's body would be unable to maintain a core temperature of 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C) for long. When body temperature drops to 82 degrees F (28 degrees C), unconsciousness can occur. Death is likely when the body dips below 70 degrees F (21 degrees C).

The prevention: Baumgartner's suit should protect him from temperatures as low as minus 90 F (minus 68 C).

4. Shock Waves

The problem: As Baumgartner's body approaches the speed of sound, he'll be playing with some serious forces. Shock-shock interaction occurs when shock waves, also known as sonic booms, in the air collide, in this case the stratosphere that Baumgartner is descending through. Such forces could buffet Baumgartner and possibly endanger him or his pressurized suit. "[Baumgartner will] be colliding with the gas so fast that it can't flow out of his way because it effectively doesn't know that he's coming," physicist Louis Bloomfield of the University of Virginia, told LiveScience's sister site Life's Little Mysteries.

The prevention: According to the Red Bull Stratos team, the thin air is an advantage in this case. Shock waves are less powerful when the air is less dense.

5. Hitting the ground

The problem: Hitting the ground without slowing down enough from a 120,000-foot fall is a very bad idea.

The prevention: Should Baumgartner fall unconscious during his skydive, his emergency parachute will deploy automatically. Unfortunately, he may not be out of the woods in that scenario, as he will be unable to steer his landing or adjust his speed in the final moments of the fall. That could make for a difficult return to Earth.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Welcome to the 2012-2013 School Year

Another school year has begun.  Some of you are preparing to close out your high school career, and some of you are hoping to have an enjoyable sophomore or junior year.  With a large freshmen class and a lot of students new to Kville how can we increase the amount pride our student body shows for this school?  Please list and explain at least 2 things you'd like to see done at KHS to increase and show our school pride!

How long would you want to live?

Chemistry is always contributing to different areas of science.  Based on the article below, explain whether you would want to take part in a human version of this experiment or if you this is an area "we" should stay out of as scientists.  In other words, is it ethical for us to try to achieve eternal life?

15pts for your in depth answers w/ reasoning.

HAS THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH BEEN DISCOVERED?

Analysis by Nic Halverson 

The fountain of youth has long been a common trope of pop culture. Over the years, literature, film and eventourist attractions have all been built on the foundation that taking a sip from the fountain will provide rejuvenation if not eternal life.

DNEWS VIDEO: MODERN MEDICINE AND TECH

For all the fiction and false promise the fountain has given us, new research has shown the reservoir of youth might be less fantastical than we think.

It all has to do with Buckminsterfullerene, a molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms, bonded together in the shape of a geodesic sphere. The substance has potential medical applications in the treatment of cancer and HIV, and even in the creation of body armor.

But could Buckminsterfullerene -- also known as buckyballs -- be used make us live longer? Some new research out of the Université Paris-Sud suggests so. 

In a clinical trial, three groups of rats were fed different substances. The first was given a control, the second was fed olive oil and the third was fed a combination of olive oil and Buckminsterfullerene. The control group had a lifespan of only 22 months while the strictly olive oil group lived an average of 26 months.

However, researchers got quite a surprise with the olive oil/buckeyball group. Rats that ingested that mixture lived an astounding 42 months.

No research has been done on humans yet, but as the crow's feet start to carve their way into the corners of my eyes, a man can dream can't he?

The researchers published their findings in the April 10 edition of Biomaterials. According to thier findings, Buckminsterfullerene works by reducing the oxidative stress that causes aging.

"These results of importance in the fields of medicine and toxicology should open the way for the many possible applications of fullerene, including cancer therapy, neurodegenerative disorders and ageing," the article explains.

Whatever cup you use to drink from the fountain of youth, above all, make sure you choose wisely.