Powerful Antioxidant of Olive Oil Able to Kill Cancer Cells in Hours

""The major antioxidant compound found in olive oil is capable of killing cancer cells in less than an hour while leaving healthy cells unharmed, according to a study conducted by researchers from Rutgers University and Hunter College and published in the journal Molecular & Cellular Oncology.

The researchers hope that this may lead to a targeted cancer therapy based on this molecule.

"The Mediterranean diet is known to be associated with a reduced risk of many different kinds of cancer," researcher Paul Breslin said. "Whereas the entire diet likely has many benefits, this study points directly to the olive oil phenolic, oleocanthal, as playing an especially important role in these observations. As more people turn to the Mediterranean diet as a healthy life option, oleocanthal is growing in its significance as a key active component of this diet."

Makes "all hell break loose" for cancer

Many healthful plant compounds are known to induce apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in cancer cells by targeting a specific protein that controls the process. Yet apoptosis typically takes between 16 and 24 hours to complete, and prior studies had shown that cancer cells exposed to oleocanthal died within 30 to 60 minutes of exposure. The oleocanthal was acting much too fast, suggesting some mechanism other than apoptosis.

"We needed to determine if oleocanthal was targeting that protein and causing the cells to die," Breslin said.

In the new study, the researchers discovered that oleocanthal was indeed killing cancer cells by a different mechanism. Rather than targeting the apoptosis protein, oleocanthal was breaking apart the lysosomes of cancer cells. These organelles are responsible for processing cellular waste, and are much larger and more fragile in cancer cells than in healthy cells.

"Once you open one of those things, all hell breaks loose," Breslin said.

The study showed that once the lysosomes burst apart, critical life-sustaining functions in the cancer cells began to break down.

Significantly, oleocanthal did not harm nearby healthy cells. Instead, it put them into a kind of stasis or hibernation for about a day. After that time, the cells resumed normal, healthy functioning with no apparent lasting effects.

"The mechanism of killing cancer cells and sparing healthy cells, lysosomal membrane permeabilization, has been hypothesized as a possible mechanism of effectively killing cancer cells and sparing healthy tissues but has never been realized before," Breslin said. "Our realization of this makes this paper of particular therapeutic interest for cancer treatment."It will still be many years, however, before an oleocanthal treatment could become available. That's because complete organisms are much more complex than cell cultures, and the olive oil compound may act differently in the human body.""

http://www.naturalnews.com/049132_olive_oil_cancer_antioxidant.html

Ultrasonic Frequency Therapy Shown to Reduce Alzheimer's and Other Brain Cancer Diseases

High-energy ultrasound has previously been combined with injected microbubbles, which vibrate in response to sound waves, to pass drugs across the so-called blood brain barrier.

However, researchers who took part in the new study published in the journal 'Science Translational Medicine' have demonstrated for the first time that ultrasound alone could improve the debilitating condition.

“Our research was very exploratory and we really didn't expect to see such a massive effect,” Juergen Goetz of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, one of study authors, told Reuters. “I'm really excited by this.”

To make their findings researchers treated mice that had been genetically altered to produce amyloid plaques with ultrasound, and found the plaque was almost completely cleared in 75 percent of the animals.

Debate surrounds whether plaques are a cause or symptomatic of Alzheimer's, however the experiment found that treated mice had improved memory after completing three different tests in a maze.

The technique works by stimulating microglial cells, which form part of the brain's immune system, to engulf and absorb the plaques.

Goetz stressed that his research was at the very early stages and that human trials are still several years away, as further tests into long-term side effects are needed.

Continued Finding Here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/ultrasound-beams-could-help-combat-alzheimers-scientists-believe-10105236.html

DNA of Youth Coaxed by Telomere-extending Proteins on Chromosomes Maintaining Natural RNA Sequence Cell Preservation

Turning Back the Internal Clock

""To do it, a research team led by Helen Blau delivered a bioengineered version of messenger RNA that encodes a telomere-extending protein to cultured human cells. In this case, the RNA contained a coding sequence called TERT, which is the active component of telomerase.

After this treatment, the cells performed as if they were much younger than the untreated cells; they happily multiplied away instead of degrading or dying as per usual. Overall, the treated cells were able to divide up to 40 more times than untreated cells.

"Now we have found a way to lengthen human telomeres by as much as 1,000 nucleotides, turning back the internal clock in these cells by the equivalent of many years of human life," noted Blau in a release. "This greatly increases the number of cells available for studies such as drug testing or disease modeling."

The 1,000 nucleotide addition represents a 10% increase in the length of the telomeres.

The new technique has been applied to such cell types as fibroblasts (common cells of connective tissue) and myoblasts (cells that give rise to muscle cells), and is currently being tested on stem cells.

A Temporary Effect By Design

Importantly, the treatment is temporary, lasting about 48 hours. The modified RNA reduces the cell's immune response to the treatment to allow the TERT-encoding message to hang around longer than an unmodified message. This means the cells were not immortalized; after a couple of days, the modified telomeres revert back to normal. As noted in the release, this transient effect is akin to:

...tapping the gas pedal in one of a fleet of cars coasting slowly to a stop. The car with the extra surge of energy will go farther than its peers, but it will still come to an eventual halt when its forward momentum is spent. On a biological level, this means the treated cells don't go on to divide indefinitely, which would make them too dangerous to use as a potential therapy in humans because of the risk of cancer.

Indeed, increased telomerase activity in humans has been linked to cancer. Clearly, there will be limits to how this new biotechnology can be used to combat various aging-related diseases.""

The Revitalizing Report:

http://io9.com/new-technique-reverses-aging-by-decades-in-cultured-hum-1682754539

Bioscientists Create Tumor Extracting NanoVelcro Chip to Purify Diseased Blood Cells

""An international group led by scientists at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute has developed a new method for effectively extracting and analyzing cancer cells circulating in patients’ blood.

Circulating tumor cells are cancer cells that break away from tumors and travel in the blood, looking for places in the body to start growing new tumors called metastases. Capturing these rare cells would allow doctors to detect and analyze the cancer so they could tailor treatment for individual patients.

In his laboratory at the UCLA California NanoSystems Institute, Hsian-Rong Tseng, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, used a device he invented to capture circulating tumor cells from blood samples.

The device, called the NanoVelcro Chip, is a postage-stamp–sized chip with nanowires that are 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and are coated with antibodies that recognize circulating tumor cells. When 2 milliliters of blood are run through the chip, the tumor cells stick to the nanowires like Velcro.

Capturing the tumor cells was just part of the battle, though. To analyze them, Tseng’s team needed to be able to separate the cells from the chip without damaging them.""

Read Second Half Here:

http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/01/scientists-create-device-extracting-tumor-cells-blood

So Imaginative - So Sentient - So Aware - So Intelligent: The Plants of Earth

Locating Intelligence

""As reported in a recent article in the magazine New Scientist,2 the apparent magic of consciousness in plants seems to depend on several physiological features, particularly those of their root systems. Plant roots include various “zones,” including a “transition zone,” which is electrically active and seems analogous to the animal brain—it contains a mechanism similar to neurotransmitters. Another part of the root, the root cap, can sense various physical properties “such as gravity, humidity, light, oxygen, and nutrients.”3 Most cells in plants can make and transmit neuron-like activity. In roots every cell can do so.

Mancuso says, “If we need to find an integrative processing part of the plant, we need to look at the roots.”4

Plants also produce serotonin, GABA, and melatonin, which act as hormones and neurotransmitters in animal brains, though it’s not yet known what they do in plants. Intriguingly, drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin, and methamphetamines can disrupt these “neurotransmitters” in plants.

Vital Capacities

Plants sense light, but they also communicate with one another using chemicals. They “know” when they’re being touched. They integrate all of this information without the kind of neural system that animals have.

And they have memory—the ability to store and recall an event at a later time. A Venus flytrap, for instance, doesn’t chomp down when it receives its first sensation of a fly; it only closes if the hairs in its trap sense another contact within a half minute or so. It “remembers” the first touch.

More surprising is the result of an experiment that Mancuso carried out with Mimosa pudica, the “touch-me-not” plant. He and colleagues dropped potted mimosas repeatedly onto foam from 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) above. The plants closed their leaves in response to the fall initially, but stopped doing so after four to six drops. It seems that they “learned” that there was no danger. It’s not that they were no longer able to close their leaves—they still would do so in response to touch. They retained this ability to discriminate between the harmless fall and the potentially harmful (about to be eaten) touch after a month.

Consciousness?

Frantisek Baluska at the University of Bonn, Germany, has pushed further into the question of consciousness by suggesting that plants may even experience pain. They release the chemical ethylene when stressed—when being eaten, attacked, or cut. Nearby plants can sense the ethylene. One researcher equated this release of ethylene with a scream. Since plants also produce the chemical in large quantities when their fruit are ready to be eaten, there’s conjecture that they’re using ethylene as an anesthetic (animals can also be knocked out with ethylene, an anesthetic).

Psychologists and philosophers will likely debate the precise definition of intelligence until the end of time. It may in truth blend into the whole continuum of biological capacities—faculties of various kinds, particularly sensation and memory, that seem to exist throughout the animal world. But as we realize that plants have significant abilities in sensation, awareness, integration of information, long-term memory, and adaptive learning, we must at least leave open the possibility that intelligence is certainly not unique to humans and probably not even to animals.""

Complete Informative Article Continues Here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-mind/201412/are-plants-entering-the-realm-the-sentient