The Horse Doctor

Horse serum has been used for years as a souce of "gamma globulins" (anti-bodies) for many species including man. Now a group of scientists in China are using antibody fragments from horses to fight the H5N1 virus. "The researchers included Jiahai Lu, PhD, of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. They're among experts worldwide working on bird flu treatments." The article is in MedicineNet.com and was written by Miranda Hitti from WebMD. "First, the scientists prepared H5N1 virus in hen's eggs. Next, they immunized horses to make antibodies to H5N1. Lu and colleagues took fragments of those antibodies, mixed them with H5N1 virus, and then spread the mixture on plates holding dog cells. Dog cells were only exposed to H5N1 or the horse antibody fragments. For comparison, other dog cells were left alone, without either H5N1 or the horse antibodies' fragments. The researchers checked on the dog cells every day for the next five...

As I've posted recently, the writers for Star trek seem to have incredible vision. There is a new post at " TCSDaily " by Glenn Reynolds (Technology, Commerce,Society) that discusses the use of optical implants to restore vision. " Daniel Palanker, a physicist at Stanford University in California, had the idea to bypass the dead rods and cones and to stimulate the cells of the inner retina with electrical signals directly. Previous research had shown this method allowed perception of light, and Dr Palanker built a way to exploit it. His bionic eye system is made up of a 3mm chip implanted into the retina and a pair of virtual-reality-style goggles containing a video camera. The goggles convert the video pictures into an infrared image. "The image is projected on to the retina and the retinal implant has photosensitive pixels that convert infrared light into pulses of electrical current, stimulating the cells in the retina," said Dr Palanker. So far, he h...

( angelfire cartoons ) Just to set the record straight....this is a SYNDROME. That means it is a condition with multiple potential causes that has a unique set of symptoms. In this case the symptom is head shaking, this is either horizontal, vertical or rotary and frequently resembles a nervous twitch. Sometimes this is so uncontrollable that the behavior becomes almost manic and dangerous. Over the years many different causes have been attibuted to causing head shaking syndrome, including (1) ear mites (2) allergic rhinitis (3) ocular disease (4) Trigeminal neuritis (5) dental disease and (6) photic headshaking. One, from the fever swamps of the internet , links it to vaccines ( see my previous post about my thoughts on holistics) One older study noted that these horses were frequently over 8 years of age, Throughbred or Warm Blood, owned by 40+ year old women used for hunter/jumper or dressage. Additional studies have linked this to the time of year (seasonal) and most recently, to b...

Three prostate cancer cells have taken up fluorescently labeled nanoparticles (shown in red). The cells' nuclei and cytoskeletons are stained blue and green, respectively. Similarly designed targeted nanoparticles containing a chemotherapeutic drug are capable of getting inside cancer cells and releasing a lethal dose of the drug and eradicating tumors. It's funny how so many things that have been used by the writers of Star Trek had come to be common place....the communicator (cell phone), Tricorders ( Palm pilots/Blackberrys) and the ever present computer. Now we are seeing another one....nanotechnology. These are small(microscopic) particles and appliances that can be injected into a patient to treat a specific disease. I read a great site, Technology Review from MIT that is definately on the cutting edge and has a report on Nano's being used in the treatment of Prostate cancer. "To make the nanoparticles, the researchers mix together a prostate c...

For years I have been fighting a never ending battle against ignorance.....and I think I'm losing. I don't practice third world medicine and yet I have several clients that sometimes give in to the dark side and use roots and herbs on their horses ( fortunately not many). On the surface Homeopathy sounds so appealing....it's natural, safe and best of all "effective" . Unfortunately there is very little science involved and more and more "fear". I was recently confronted with a quasi new one... the noxious field. ..danger. This one has some old in it , such as the "high tension power line" fears of the past, and some I haven't heard before. The dreaded "Geopathic noxious energy" - " What are geopathic noxious energies? These are noxious earth rays that come where underground water vein s cross; locations of earthquake fracture faults, underground voids (caverns or hollows) in the rock structure...