A new medical device called the i-Snake is set to revolutionize surgical practice. While it won't play your favorite mp3s, the i-Snake has numerous befits to both medical procedures and personal preferences. Well, it's less scary looking than a scalpel for one thing. But what is the i-Snake and what does it do? Details in the full article.

Imperial College London currently has the most powerful microscope commercially available today. Known as TITAN, the transmission electron microscope was created by FEI Company and costs around GBP 2.4 million or roughly US$ 4.8 million.

It is capable of imaging objects just 0.14 nanometers in diameter (one nanometer is one-billionth of one meter). The machine works by firing electrons through "a sample, just microns (one millionth of a metre) thick, and observing the changes to the particles as they pass through and out the other side".

Once TITAN is in use, everyone has to stay quiet as this is one of the operational requirements of the machine. You see, the vibrations caused by talking too loudly are enough to spoil a sample being viewed by TITAN.

According to Imperial College London's Dr. David McComb, TITAN will be used to probe everything from new materials for supercomputers as well as tissue samples that will help the medical community understand certain diseases. McComb explained,

Clearly, if we want to tackle diseases like osteoporosis, we need new drugs and clinical trials. But in order to develop those we also need to understand the process of osteoporosis. We need to understand how bone and tissue interact and why that process changes as we get older.

Aside from this, the doctor also shared that other teams are working to understand the processes behind the dreaded Alzheimer's disease, specifically the role of iron metabolism in its development. McComb added,

We are not quite sure what the state of the iron is or how it interacts with the tissues in the brain. But if we can understand that then potentially we can feed that into research into something that can disrupt or modify that process. We're ramping up, we're starting to get results. I expect over the summer we'll really start rocketing.

American and British researchers are now challenging the long-standing theory about how the HIV virus destroys the body's defense system and are offering some new ideas which could pave the way for new approaches in possible treatments.

Scientists from Enory University in Canada and the Imperial College in London are saying that the old theory is flawed and mathematically incorrect. The old belief was that after the virus enters the body, it infects the killer T cells that seek to destroy it. After the T cells are infected, new ones are activated by the human body and are released to seek the threat. In the process, they also get infected and die off.

While this seems like sound logic, the new study conducted by Enory and Imperial shows that if the case was as the old theory says it is, then the body would fall seriously ill within months, not years. Thus, there has to be something else that's happening inside that would explain the relatively slow pace of progression.

The new study suggests that after the virus enters the body, it goes through several phases of adaption to the environment. Its form and receptors may change to suit the host from time to time, which explains why it takes long for the immune system to totally collapse.

"Scientists have never had a full understanding of the processes by which T helper cells are depleted in HIV, and therefore they've been unable to fully explain why HIV destroys the body's supply of these cells at such a slow rate," says Professor Jaroslav Stark.

"We need more studies in this area before we can draw any clear conclusions," says HIV treatment adviser Terrence Higgins. He adds that HIV is extremely complex and research around the world is done daily to better understand it.

Obesity studies have abound nowadays - there was one study that said obesity is in the genes and Konami has recently revealed Dance Dance Revolution's health results and months back, there were some British scientists who claimed to have invented a anti-obesity chewing gum. But now, a study conducted by researchers from London's Imperial College have found out that there might be a lot of thin people who may be fat inside. See, it really is what's on the inside that counts.

Apparently, some doctors now thing that the internal fat surrounding vital organs like our heart, liver, and pancreas may be as dangerous than its more obvious counterparts. According to the researchers, people who maintain their weight through diet rather than exercising are likely to have major deposits of internal fat even if they have a slim physique.

Dr. Jimmy Bell added that "being thin doesn't automatically mean you're not fat...The whole concept of being fat needs to be redefined". This study was funded by the Britain's Medical Research Council and since 1994, the researchers have scanned 800 people with MRI machines to create "fat maps".

So this means that thin people who are fat inside are also more prone to sicknesses like diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease. And if you think that having normal Body Mass Index scores ought to do the trick, well think again. Dr. Bell mentioned that 45% of their study's women-participants with normal BMI scores have excessive levels of internal fat.

So if you're thinking of paying a visit to your friendly-neighborhood plastic surgeon to suck the internal fat away, step away from the door for now. The good news is that internal fat can be easily burned-off through exercise and diet-improvement.

Steve Carrell in "The 40-Year Old Virgin" was complaining because he was exactly that - a 40-year old virgin. But apparently, that's nothing compared to these bdelloid rotifers, who just happened to remain virginal for -- get this -- 40 million years.

Yep, never been touched, never been kissed. The bdelloid rotifers are actually microscopic aquatic animals that usually dwell in watery or occasionally wet habitats like ponds, rivers, soils, mosses and lichens. What's baffling scientists is the fact that they have managed to evolve into distinct species despite of the fact that there are absolutely no males in their group. Asexual, these animals are, indeed.

So how do they generate offsprings? Well, they are still able to produce eggs that are deemed to be genetic clones of their mothers. To better understand this phenomena, scientists took a close look at bdelloid rotifers from UK, Italy and elsewhere. Evolution for these creatures, as they found, were more adaptive than genetic.

According to Dr. Tim Barraclough of the Imperial College London's Division of Biology posits, "we found evidence that different populations of these creatures have diverged into distinct species, not just because they become isolated in different places, but because of the differing selection pressures in different environments."

What makes this finding highly significant is that it was previously believed that in order for speciation to happen, there ought to be sexual reproduction involved. Adds Dr. Barraclough, These are really amazing creatures, whose very existence calls into question scientific understanding, because it is generally thought that asexual creatures die out quickly, but these have been around for millions of years."

To learn more about this findings, you can catch the published study in today's edition, March 19, 2007, of PLoS Biology.

Okay, chewing the fat sounds... gross. But at least we can call this a knife-less alternative. The Guardian (UK) reports that British scientists are looking to natural hormone-based treatments to curb the body's appetite for pounds. While the most obvious option to deliver the appetite-killer is via injection, other options being looked at include nasal sprays... and chewing gum.

Tests on obese people using pancreatic polypeptide (PP) have shown that the hormone has the potential to curb the hunger pains. Because it is a hormone naturally produced by the body, researchers think there will be little, if any, side effects from its usage - as opposed to drugs which can have somewhat toxic effects. And it sure beats going under the knife to trim off a few inches.

To further develop the idea, Professor Steve Bloom of Imperial College has been awarded £ 2.3 million British by the Wellcome Trust. That's a lot of money to chew over for quite a bit of time, though it's meant to advance the research towards a viable treatment for England's obese. Who knows? This may be one gum that more than 4 out of 5 dentists recommend.