Asthma Jab

A life changing asthma drug will soon be available after it was approved but it costs £250 - with the most severe patients needing two jabs a month at a cost of £6000 a year.

Skin cell ends embryo cloning

A study shows the end of stem cells to be cloned from human embryos to help cure diseases.  Ordinary human skin cells have been reprogrammed by researchers to mimic embryonic stem cells.  Now skin is used, human embryos and the fertilisation of human eggs are not required.

Professor Ian Wilmut, the one who cloned the Dolly the Sheep, has already announced his intention to adopt the technique and abandon work on therapeutic human cloning.

The research was carried out by teams at the University of Wisconsin and Kyoto University and published in the journals Science and Cell.

Brain Wave

New Scientist reported that a kind of electronic telepathy is letting a mute person literally speak his mind.  An electrode was planted in the brain region that controls speech and the patient then simply thought of a range of sounds.  The pattern of activity picked up by the electrode for each 'sound' is helping create a library   to interrupt the signals and allow conversation to be held.  The technology may  even help humans develop extra memory or thinking capacity one day, said US researchers.

8 - Limb child

A child of two, after being born with four arms and four legs, is doing well after operation to amputate her extra limbs.  Lakshmi Tatama was being Kept sedated in the intensive care unit at a hospital in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

She was born joined with at the pelvis to a parasitic twin that stopped developing in her mother's womb.  The girl was named after a four armed Hindu goddess - some in her village thought she was her reincarnation.

Cancer risk to fat women

Overweight women are more likely to develop various forms of cancer.  In a study of 6000 cases of womb cancer more than half were accounted for overweight women.  Being fat or obese also accounted for half of the 277 cases of oesophageal cancer and increases the risk of kidney and pancreatic cancer and leukaemia, according to the British Medical Journal.

Sea life at risk

Climate change could wipe out some species of shellfish within 100 years as seas become too acidic for them to live in.  A build-up of CO2  in the atmosphere will affect the sea since some of the gas is absorbed by the oceans

Big Find

A dramatic new insight into how the universe evolved after the big Bang may have been discovered.  A cosmic defect - a remnant from the creation of the universe - called a texture may have been found.  It can be seen by the hot and cold spots it creates in the cosmic microwave background.  Prof Neil Turok, of Cambridge University, said it could revolutionise what we know about the scientific theory.

Cat Map

It has taken more than £2.4 million and a lot of patience but the entire genetic code of the domestic cat has at last mapped out.  Exactly 20285 genes were found with a little help from  a four-year-old cat called Cinnamon.  The genetic composition of of Cinnamon now joins a small group of six mammals for whom an entire genome has been recorded.  The achievement could lead to medical advances for humans because cats are excellent models for our diseases.  The research was carried out at the National Cancer Institute in Meryland, in the US, and was published in the journal Genome Research.

New Planets

Scientists in Keele University said that three new planets about the size of Jupiter have been discovered  They have been named WASP-3, WASP-4 and WASP-5, were spotted after powerful telescopes captured them passing in front of their host star.  They are located in our Galaxy and are so close to the stars they they orbit their 'year' in less than two days.

Green Shield

Sun-cream is the normal protection against damaging rays, but it appears that broccoli could also be useful in the fight against skin cancer.  Skin redness caused by UV rays was markedly reduced when sulforaphane, an extract from broccoli sprouts, was applied beforehand.  The extract does not absorb UV rays like a sun block but it boosts the production of enzymes that defend cells against UV ray damage.  One application could work for several days, US researchers said.

 KARL MARX

Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at University of East Anglia believes that Karl Marx suffered from a painful skin disease which may have influenced his writings.  The revolutionary thinker who died in 1883 could have had hidradenitis suppurative  in which the sweat glands found mainly in the armpits and groin become blocked and inflamed.  Shuster based his findings on letters to friends in which he wrote about his health and described his skin lesions as 'curs' and 'swine'.  Prof Shuster, whose study is published in the British Joutnal of Dermatology, said: In addition to reducing his ability to work, which led to poverty, hidradenitis also lowered his self esteem.