Forget the Cockroaches, it'll be Ferrets

In this week's issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases the Elena Govorkova group at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee reported that lab-engineered bird flu vaccine protects ferrets against several strains of H5N1 avian influenza.

It's good to know that after Avian Flu kills off enough people so that our civilization collapses there'll be something left to pick up the pieces. Ferrets. Well, that's better than the cockroaches that would survive a nuclear holocaust, I guess. At least ferrets are fellow mammals. Pretty small boobs though.

Public Service announcement:

H5N1 avian flu outbreaks have been confirmed in more than 48 countries and territories, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.

The virus almost exclusively infects birds but it has killed 128 people in nine countries and has infected at least 225.

Experts say a pandemic of some kind of influenza is inevitable and that H5N1 looks closer than any other virus to causing such a global wave of disease.

A vaccine would provide the best protection. But flu vaccine technology is slow and unwieldy and a new vaccine has to be formulated every year to match the current circulating strains.

Vaccine experts fear that they would have to wait until H5N1 changes into a human pandemic strain before they can make a vaccine against it. By then it could have infected millions.


More Science!

Moving on to human longevity--assuming we're not all wiped out by rampant viruses--Dr Jose Silva of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, a member of a lab team that reported findings in the current issue of the science journal Nature stated "The effect of Nanog is remarkable. All the hybrid cells became fully converted to embryonic stem cells."

So, what the Hell is Nanog? Good question!

Nanog is a gene named after the mythical Celtic land of the ever young (named after the mythological Celtic land Tir nan Og) and the gene could help explain how to reprogram adult cells into embryonic stem cells to treat diseases.

Professor Austin Smith, who headed the team at University of Edinburgh, discovered that the gene called Nanog helped to transform adult mouse cells into embryonic stem cells after cell fusion -- when two cells are combined to form a hybrid. Dr. Dmith said Nanog is not the only gene involved in reprogramming. There could be several that are important for the process.

The reason this is important is that stem cells are the master cells in the body. Scientists believe they could act as type of human repair system to provide new therapies for illnesses ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's.

Embryonic stem cells found in early embryos have the potential to make any type of cell or tissue. Adult stem cells have a more limited range. Converting adult stem cells into an embryonic state would eliminate the use of early embryos, which is a scientific and ethical stumbling block for researchers.