http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/26/regrowing.body.parts/index.html

Salamander-inspired therapy may aid injured vets

• Story Highlights
• "Regenerative medicine" pursued by the Pentagon, top U.S. and medical facilities
  
• Key to regeneration is powder nicknamed "pixie dust"
  
• Powder forms a microscopic "scaffold" that helps cells grow into desired tissue
  

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN) -- Last week in an operating room in Texas, a wounded American soldier underwent a history-making procedure that could help him regrow the finger that was lost to a bomb attack in Baghdad last year.

Army Sgt. Shiloh Harris' doctors applied specially formulated powder to what's left of the finger in an effort to do for wounded soldiers what salamanders can do naturally: replace missing body parts.

If it sounds like science fiction, the lead surgeon agreed.

"It is. But science fiction eventually becomes true, doesn't it?" said Dr. Steven Wolf of Brooke Army Medical Center.

Harris' surgery is part of a major new medical study of "regenerative medicine" being pursued by the Pentagon and several of the nation's top medical facilities, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. So far nearly $250 million has been dedicated to the research.

Air Force Technical Sgt. Israel Del Toro is one of the wounded vets who might one day benefit from this research. He was injured by a bomb in Afghanistan. Both his hands were badly burned. On his left hand, what was left of his fingers fused together. "You know in the beginning when I first got hurt, I told them just cut it off. So I can get some function," Del Toro said. His doctors did not cut off his injured left arm. And since that injury, advancements in burn and amputation treatment mean he may one day be able to use his fingers again. Watch more on regenerative medicine »

A key to the research dedicated to regrowing fingers and other body parts is a powder, nicknamed "pixie dust" by some of the people at Brooke. It's made from tissue extracted from pigs.

The pixie dust powder itself doesn't regrow the missing tissue, it tricks the patient's body into doing that itself. All bodies have stem cells. As we are developing in our mothers' wombs, those stem cells grow our fingers, toes, organs -- essentially our whole body. The stem cells stop doing that around birth, but they don't go away. The researchers believe the "pixie dust" can put those stem cells back to work growing new body parts.

The powder forms a microscopic "scaffold" that attracts stem cells and convinces them to grow into the tissue that used to be there. "If it is next to the skin, it will start making skin. If it's next to a tendon, it will start making a tendon, and so that's the hope, at least in this particular project, that we can grow a finger," Wolf said.

It has worked in earlier experiments. "They have taken a uterus out of a dog, made one in the lab, put it back in, and had puppies," said Wolf. Researchers have also regrown a human bladder, implanted it in a person and it is working as nature intended.

While the technique has incredible promise, doctors will be watching for unexpected side effects as they follow Harris' recovery. "It could grow a cancer," Wolf said. "We will be closely monitoring for that to make sure that doesn't happen."

If the military's most badly wounded start benefiting, so will civilians. "If we can pull this off in missing parts the next step is, 'OK, can we grow a pancreas? Can we grow and replace that in a diabetic?' And can we do the same thing with a kidney and can we do the same thing with a heart?"

One day, he hopes, people with heart trouble will be told, "That's OK. We will just grow you another one.

"That is something that is real science fiction."

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

    I have been infuriated by our broken government for a good long while.  When Barack made his speech at the convention I was impressed with his dignity and his determination to turn this country back in the right direction.  I bought his book, (never ever bought a politicians book before in my life) The Audacity of Hope, and after I helped Claire McCaskill in her Senate Campaign (because of her intelligent, thoughtful, moral, informed, and righteous stance on Stem Cell Research) I went to celebrate her Swearing In Ceremony in D.C.  I'd never been to D.C., nor had I ever been invited to attend a Senatorial party, but I felt like I had a voice in Claire, so I looked into the cost of going, and found an inexpensive flight, and room and board at my sister's apartment in Alexandria to be the best rate in town.  So I went determined to celebrate with Claire and to tell her myself that it was those same qualities that Barack displayed, dignity, determination to right for this country, that got me to vote for her.  I was so out of place, rough bearded, gangly, under-dressed, that when I got into an elevator in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, a Republican's secretary plainly and rudely said to me and her pal, "You can certainly tell the Democrats are back in town."  After getting nervous and giving up on meeting Claire, I went out into the hallway for a breath of fresh air.  A photographer who felt likewise was standing next to me and I started up a conversation.  The guy turned out to be Claire's Uncle.  He was such a down to earth guy and he got to know me and why I was there and offered to introduce me and to photograph it, and then to email me the pictures.  I was blown away.  Here I was 1,000,000 miles away from home in the U.S. Senate Office Building among the writers of the highest law in the land, and I was made to feel right at home.  Soon after Claire's uncle introduced us for the photograph, Barack came to the room where Claire was received. I decided that I had to shake his hand.  I finally felt, like Michelle Obama, proud of my country, that somehow democracy was functioning in a very big way, when someone as politically, financially, and contanct-wise, insignificant as myself could find himself among such people, such a powerful brand of new leaders, he begins to feel that his vote and his voice had really mattered.  It was a very powerful feeling. 

    Nobody is reporting it yet, but YouTube has been hacked or infiltrated by drug users/dealers/lords.

The proof is in the pudding...

YouTube has featured several really crappy drug related videos.  Namely:


Why isn't this in the news?  Suddenly YouTube (Owned by Google) promotes rampant drug use?  Something really bad is going on here.  Columbia is about to invade or something.

Parents charged in death of diabetic daughter

WESTON, Wisconsin (AP) -- Two parents who prayed as their 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes were charged Monday with second-degree reckless homicide.

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Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said.

"It is very surprising, shocking that she wasn't allowed medical intervention," Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad said. "Her death could have been prevented."

Madeline Neumann died March 23 -- Easter Sunday -- at her family's rural Weston home. Her parents were told the body would be taken to Madison for an autopsy the next day.

"They responded, 'You won't need to do that. She will be alive by then,"' the medical examiner wrote in a report.

An autopsy determined that Madeline died from undiagnosed diabetic ketoacidosis, which left her with too little insulin in her body. Court records said she likely had some symptoms of the disease for months. Watch prosecutors announce charges »

The Neumanns each face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. The couple and their attorney did not immediately return messages left Monday by The Associated Press.

Falstad said the Neumanns have cooperated with investigators and are not under arrest. They have agreed to make an initial court appearance Wednesday, she said.

Randall Wormgoor, a friend of the Neumanns, told police that Dale Neumann led Bible studies at his business, Monkey Mo Coffee Shop, and believed physical illness was due to sin, curable by prayer and by asking for forgiveness from God, the complaint said.

Wormgoor said he and his wife, Althea, were at the Neumann home when Madeline -- -- called Kara by her parents -- died. Wormgoor said he had urged the father to seek medical help and was told the illness "was a test of faith for the Neumann family and asked the Wormgoors to join them in praying for Kara to get well," the complaint said.

Althea Wormgoor said she "implored" the parents to seek medical help for the girl, the complaint said.

Leilani Neumann, 40, told the AP previously she never expected her daughter to die. The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, but they have nothing against doctors, she said.

Dale Neumann, 46, a former police officer, has said he has friends who are doctors and started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.

According to court documents, Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor.

"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

The father told investigators he noticed his daughter was weak and slower for about two weeks but he attributed it to symptoms of the girl reaching puberty, the complaint said.

A day before Madeline died, according to the criminal complaint, the father wrote an e-mail with the headline, "Help our daughter needs emergency prayer!!!!." It said his daughter was "very weak and pale at the moment with hardly any strength."

The girl's grandmother, Evalani Gordon, told police that she learned her granddaughter could not walk or talk on March 22 and advised Leilani Neumann to take the girl to a doctor.

Gordon eventually contacted a daughter-in-law in California who called police on a non-emergency line to report the girl was in a coma and needed medical help. An ambulance was dispatched shortly before some friends in the home called 911 to report the girl had stopped breathing, authorities said.

One relative told police that the girl's mother believed she "died because the devil is trying to stop Leilani from starting her own ministry," the complaint said.

The Neumanns said they moved to Weston, a suburb of Wausau in central Wisconsin, from California about two years ago to open the coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. The couple has three other children, ages 13 to 16; they are living with relatives.

The family does not belong to an organized religion or faith, Leilani Neumann has said.

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Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said the parents once belonged to the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church but later became what he called religious "isolationists" involved in a prayer group of five people... --> CALLOUT|http://ads.cnn.com/html.ng/site=cnn&cnn_pagetype=intg_story&cnn_position=180x150_lft&cnn_rollup=crime&page.allowcompete=yes¶ms.styles=fs|CALLOUT --> "They have gone out on their own," he said. "... They have a very narrow view of Scripture and I would say not many people hold to that narrow of view."

In March, an Oregon couple who belong to a church that preaches against medical care and believes in treating illness with prayer were charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month-old daughter. The toddler died March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been treated with antibiotics, the state medical examiner's office said.

    It is the singular most powerful movie I've seen in over 10 years.  It will move you, regardless of what you think of Michael Moore.

SUPPORT THE OUR TROOPS! WAIT NO I MEANT SUPPORT THE CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS!

My little brother Tom arrived in Baghdad Airport the other day. He was geared up by the company he works for in full body armor for the convoy to the green zone, where he now sleeps and works.  He is making over $100,000.00 a year as a recent college graduate with absoluetely no construction experience, as a construction supervisor in training. Take note my recent college graduate buddies, there is money to be made in the desert, no matter what your experience level is! He's there helping Hill International (an international construction company) supervise construction for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers USACOE aka Halliburton, aka KBR et all.  He has ulterior motives, like seeing what it is really like for himself, telling the true story of what is going on, and fixing what he thinks is broken from the inside.  I don't think he is doing evil, but he sure is making a hell of a lot more money than any recent college graduate I know.  Hell he's probably making more money than most of your congressmen and women are making!  Yay for 'lil brother.  Help rebuild Iraq!  We owe that country a rebuilding, but I think my little brother and his company are starting far too soon, given that there is still a war going on every day there.  I hope very sincerely that my little brother can help right what has surely gone far off the straight and narrow.

Hey peoples who can be considered friendly to the one and only SERGIO MOMARSH,

This means you rock stars, talent agents, soccer stars, political activists, charity workers, old pals, new friends, out-of-towners, MySpace buddies, and all you other who hows!

SERGIO MOMARSH IS TURNING 29 ON FRIDAY MAY 4^TH! 

 That means one more year of awesome fun youngness, and then the party is over.

 
So COME ON DOWN to celebrate the youth, self-proclaimed coolness, and fun-ness, on Friday MAY 4^th for the big SERGIO MOMARSH birthday bash!!!!  (NO GIFTS PLEASE)

 Live Music!! SOME GREAT BBQ/food and a couple of kegs of beer, and of course… here's the coolest part:

 a SWEET 32" LCD HDTV DOOR PRIZE to one lucky guest.

(2 if over 100 people come) 

 $10.00 at the door

 Party starts at 8 PM!!!! 

 Bring some friends!  The more the merrier, and heck if your buddy wins, you can go over and watch HD at their house!  Don't forget, if over 100 people come, two tv's will be given away!  Yay!  If you are really lucky that means a 32" LCD HDTV for the bedroom and for the living room! 

 See you this FRIDAY!!!

They'll hire me because I'm awesome like Strong Bad!