STEM

3D printing with stem cells could lead to printable organs

Some day in the future, when you need a kidney transplant, you may get a 3D-printed organ created just for you. If scientists are able to achieve that milestone, they may look back fondly at a breakthrough printing process pioneered by researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland in collaboration with Roslin Cellab, a stem cell technology company.

The printer creates 3D spheroids using delicate embryonic cell cultures floating in a "bio ink" medium. They end up looking like little bubbles. Each droplet can contain as few as five stem cells. Basically, this comes down to the printer "ink" being stem cells rather than plastic or another material. … Read more

Obama opposes Silicon Valley firms on immigration reform

President Obama opposes an immigration reform bill backed by companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe that would let U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers remain in the country, the White House said today.

The surprise announcement comes in advance of a House of Representatives vote scheduled for Friday on the Republican-backed STEM Jobs Act of 2012, which would make up to 55,000 visas available to foreigners who earned a master's or doctoral degree in certain science or technology area from a U.S. university. Those visas would only be available if immigration authorities certify that no American … Read more

Silicon Alley needs workers, Schumer says

New York City and Silicon Alley are becoming bigger players in the tech world, but that could change if they can't get the employees they need -- at least according to Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The legislator, a Democrat from New York, hopes to increase the number of qualified tech workers by reforming U.S. immigration policy, something many have attempted in the past.

Schumer plans to introduce a bill Wednesday called the Benefits to Research and American Innovation through Nationality Statutes Act -- the BRAINS Act, for short. It will start a two-year, nationwide pilot program to designate 55,… Read more

Hot nanotubes blast chemo-resistant cancer cells into oblivion

When it comes to cancer cells, a particularly confounding breed called cancer stem cells have proven difficult to kill. Because they divide so slowly, chemo drugs do them little harm, and they appear resistant to heat therapies that are generally good at killing most cells. Some cancer drugs even appear to promote the growth of cancer stem cells.

Now, three years after they found that the heat from 30-second laser blasts can kill kidney cancer stem cells, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center say the same treatment works to kill breast cancer stem cells as well.

Torti's team … Read more

Nifty stem-cell engineering sheds light on Parkinson's disease

Researchers at the University at Buffalo may have taken a significant step toward unraveling the way Parkinson's disease assails the human nervous system--thanks in part to a nifty bit of stem-cell engineering.

Scientists led by physiologist Jian Feng took skin cells from healthy control subjects and people with a particular type of Parkinson's disease and transformed them into a type of primordial cell--technically, an "induced pluripotent stem cell." Such iPS cells, as they're known, can be coaxed into developing as almost any type of cell in the body.

Here, they turned into brain cells. … Read more

Writer stalks own home with iZON spy kit

We covered the launch news of the iZON Remote Room Monitor from Stem Innovation on Monday. Now, I have my hands on an actual unit. We'll see if it's as easy to use as promised.

Here's a quick refresher. The iZON combines a camera with an iOS app to keep video and audio tabs on a room.

I set the iZON up in my living room where an unidentified feline suspect has been clawing the couch. Dealing with the hardware is simple and the power cord was long enough to reach to the top of the bookcase where I placed the camera.

The next step involved downloading the free Stem:Connect app to my iPad and following the setup instructions to hook the iZON up with my home wireless network. Easy-peasy.

From there, I was up and running. My DSL connection in this old neighborhood is extremely pokey, so there was a slight delay in the video showing up on my iPad. Users with faster Internet connections shouldn't have this problem.

Stem Innovation recommends at least a 2Mbps upload speed. I wish mine was that fast.… Read more

iZON Remote Room Monitor puts 'eye' in iPhone

Maybe you have a new puppy. You wonder if sweet, innocent Spike is destroying your leather couch and everything else you hold dear while you're at work. Maybe you want to know which roommate is stealing your leftovers from the fridge.

Pair the iZON Remote Room Monitor from Stem Innovation with your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, and wonder no more. Remote cameras aren't a new concept, but the iZON comes in at $129.95 and has some enticing bells and whistles that should appeal to Apple fans.

Set up the compact camera somewhere convenient, point it at the object of your interest, and hook it up to your Wi-Fi network. It works with the free Stem:Connect iOS app to give you a real-time audio and video peek into the room. … Read more

Stem cells used to create sperm in infertile mice

Welcome to mating 2.0: the sexual act itself might not change, but when the parts don't work, we'll simply build new ones.

So say scientists in Japan who, using stem-cell techniques, are the first to engineer sperm in infertile male mice that successfully fertilized eggs and produced offspring.

The team, led by Mitinori Saitou at Kyoto University, report in the journal Cell that it used stem cells to create primordial germ cells, the precursor to sperm cells, and injected those germ cells into the testicles of infertile mice. The cells eventually produced normal-looking sperm, which went on … Read more

Survey: People can't live without high-speed Internet

High-speed Internet is the technology that's had the greatest impact on society and the one that people say they can't live without, according to survey results from Zogby Interactive.

Released this week, Zogby's study found that 28 percent of those polled tagged broadband Internet as the one technology they can't live without; e-mail came in second at 18 percent. Facebook was lower on the overall list at only 3 percent, but among the younger crowd (18-24), 15 percent said they can't live without Facebook.

Looking at technologies that have had the greatest impact on society … Read more