Medical Miracles - Science fiction is now science fact

What amazing times we live in. Just imagine what the next 100 years may bring.

Here is an article from SkyNews in England July 2009

A blinded man has seen his wife for the first time after surgeons gave him back his sight using one of his teeth.

Martin Jones can see for the first time in 12 years. Pic: Ross Parry Syndication

Martin Jones' canine was pulled out so a tiny optical lens could be fitted to it.

Then, amazingly, the tooth was inserted in his eye socket.

The 42-year-old lost his left eye and was totally blinded in the right 12 years ago when a tub of molten aluminium exploded in his face at the scrapyard where he worked.

He had all but given up hope of ever seeing again until hearing about operations performed by surgeon Christopher Lui and his team in Brighton, East Sussex.

Martin Jones

Mr Jones had his tooth was implanted in his cheek for three months to grow blood vessels and new tissue.

Once it was moved into his eye it was around two weeks until he could see.

He said when the bandages came off the first person he wanted to see was his 50-year-old wife Gill.

The pair had married four years ago and settled down in Rotherham, South Yorkshire - but Jones had never seen his bride.

"The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water," he explained to the Sun newspaper.

"Then I saw this figure and it was her, it was unbelieveable."

He added: "When I tell friends I see through my tooth they don't believe me."

"But then I take off my glasses - and my eye looks like something from a sci-fi movie."

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Growing your own

Whoever is afraid of stem cell research, come on buddy, grow a pair.
Can you imagine a time when we will be able to "grow" new eyes, a heart, limbs, organs.
Bye bye Alzheimer's, so long diabetes, toodle-loo dialysis...




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Today's technology is promising...
But then again, sometimes you just get lucky.

Paraplegic Man Suffers Spider Bite, Walks Again

Reporting
Mike Dello Stritto

MANTECA, Calif. (CBS13) ―

Brown Recluse Spider

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Brown Recluse Spider

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He has been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. Now a paraplegic man is walking again, and his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him back on his feet.

"I closed my eyes and then I was spinning like a flying saucer," explains David Blancarte.

A motorcycle accident almost killed David 21 years ago. At the time he might have wished he was dead.

"I asked my doctor, 'Sir what happened? I can't feel my legs'," said David.

Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get around. Then the spider bite. A Brown Recluse sent him to the hospital, then to rehab for eight months.

"I'm here for a spider bite. I didn't know I would end up walking," says David.

A nurse noticed David's leg spasm and ran a test on him.

"When they zapped my legs, I felt the current, I was like 'whoa' and I yelled," he says.

He felt the current and the rush of a renewed sense of hope.

"She says,'your nerves are alive. They're just asleep'," explained David.

Five days later David was walking.

"I was walking on the bar back and forth," he said.

Now David is out of the hospital and on his feet and walking.

David basks in his glory and gives a ray of hope to other hoping to walk again. The 48-year-old former boxer and dancer is taking it in stride, knowing his best days are still ahead.

David's dream is to see his 14-year-old twin daughters grow up and get married so he can walk them down the aisle and have that first dance.

Blancarte's dreams may have to wait. He was arrested Friday (3/13) on an outstanding warrant stemming from a domestic abuse case.

Dollars and Nonsense

Now, I've never attended university to study economics, and I've never operated a retail business, but I do know how to add and I have a bit of dollar sense.
Case in point: I wanted to buy a cordless drill and an extra battery (because we all know how frustrating it is to have to stop your work because the battery just died). So I went to a local big name retail outlet and shopped around a bit. I noticed a brand name cordless drill with a carrying case, a battery, a battery charger and a fine assortment of attachments such as extra drill bits, sockets, screw driver ends and a hand operated ratchet.
Now the regular suggested retail price for this little kit was $99, but it was on sale at 1/2 price ($49.50). The extra battery that I had hoped to purchase was on sale for $59. So using the last half dozen or so active brain cells that I still have, I did some quick mental math.
If I buy the drill kit along with a spare battery, I would be paying $109.
But if I buy 2 drill kits (so that's two sets of carrying cases, batteries, battery chargers and fine assortments of attachments such as extra drill bits, sockets, screw driver ends and two hand operated ratchets.), I would be paying $99.
Hmmmm... what should I do?
Yup. I bought two.



How do these people stay in business?
(Of course I know that they most likely bought these drill sets from China for $10 a piece. That's how they stay in business)

Bio-Fuels a Novel Idea. Or is it?

At the turn of the last century, the petroleum industry, namely the Rockerfellers of Standard Oil set the world on a path of petroleum addiction. Today, we could not imagine what modern society would be like without oil. (I shudder to think). All this talk of alternative energy. Perhaps in the future. Perhaps someday we will find some way to get off of this petroleum dependency. Until then, we will have to continue to drill and shovel the oil from beneath the ground, send it by pipeline, truck and ship around the world. Secure the areas where oil is present so that the life-line to oil is not broken. Could you imagine a world without oil? (I again shudder to think about it). No more tailing ponds, toxic spills on land and sea. No more refineries pumping gases from million year old hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. No more bombing of brown people. Oh what a world. (I shudder to think). But someday, some way, some time, we will find a way. We are a pretty smart animal and we will use science to figure this out....someday.
But wait a minute, before 1905 there were more electric cars on the road than gasoline powered cars. Every major city had an electric trolley transportation system. What happened? Enter Standard Oil along with General Motors. In the early 20th century they began a campaign to dominate the transportation market with their cars with internal combustion engines that ran on gasoline that came from, you guessed it, Standard Oil. They bought out virtually all of the trolley rail systems in all of the major US cities and systematically disassembled them all. And everone got a car. Or two. (or more)
But now they are leading the way to bring us a "New" technology that will save us and the planet. "Alternative fuels" Yay! Our heroes!
But how "New" is this technology?
Watch this video and see what old Henry Ford and company were up to back in the 1930s-40s.




Benefits of using hemp:
Grows virtually everywhere in places that can support grasses.
In more arid climates, it holds the soil together, retaining the moisture in the ground, reducing drastic weather fluctuations and desertification.
Removes toxins from the soil.
You can use the entire plant. Seeds pressed for oil, seeds dried for flour, leaves for compost, stalk for fibers to make paper, building material, plastics, clothing, rope, twine and thread.
The CO2 that is released by burning the oil will be consumed by next years crop (closed loop system).
Reduces global warming/climate change.
Puts Al Gore out of work.


Oh, and by the way. an accidental spill of hemp oil is called "Fertilization"
And if you accidentally spilled hemp oil on a body of fresh water, you most likely would have killed the mosquito population for that year. (Again... shudder)