DailyDirt: With Super Healing Powers

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Time can heal some wounds, and technology can sometimes speed things up a bit. But regenerative medicine could really help to improve our health if we can re-grow body parts on demand. Here are just a few links on getting our bodies to heal themselves.

• Scientists have found lingering olfactory receptors in unexpected places -- such as the skin -- where these receptors may play a role in healing processes. Sandalwood oil which is often used in aromatherapy can bind to skin receptors and trigger skin cells to divide (and possibly help repair damage as part of a healing mechanism). [url]
• Several years ago, a man accidentally cut off the tip of his finger and discovered that cells from the lining of a pig's bladder encouraged his fingertip to grow back within a few weeks. Regenerative medicine researchers have been studying the extra cellular matrix as a way to stimulate the re-growth of organ tissues and limbs. [url]
• Children under two years old have a natural ability to re-grow their fingertips without any special treatment at all. It only works if a little bit of the fingernail remains, and people lose this regenerative ability as they mature. There is some optimism that studying this phenomenon (which also happens in mice paws) will lead to an advance in medicine to re-grow arbitrary organs and help people recover from intractable diseases. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: extra cellular matrix, finger tip, healing, health, olfactory receptors, regenerative medicine, skin, wounds

DailyDirt: Alternatives To Time For Healing All Wounds...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The days of barbers applying leeches as a healthy regime for bloodletting is long gone (thankfully). But there are still a lot of medical practices that haven't changed that much over time. The history of bandages stretches back thousands of years, so it's not too surprising that some improvements could be added to them. Here are just a few somewhat recent inventions for helping wounds heal.

• Negative-pressure devices speed up the healing process for bandaged wounds by up to 300%. How it works isn't exactly known, but cheap and portable versions are being created and have been used on earthquake victims. [url]
• 3M has created a silicone-based adhesive for bandages that could hopefully eliminate the question of whether to rip bandages off quickly or to pull them off slowly. And in some 3M employee's 15% dream time, post-it notes for skin are being developed to replace tattoos. [url]
• A fluffy cottonball-like material made of glass fibers could help heal wounds faster. The glassy fibers actually dissolve into open wounds and provide medicines to stimulate healing, but this stuff has only been tried on a dozen people so far. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: bandages, healing, leeches, treatments, wounds
Companies: 3m