When a pregnant mother is very sick, mouse fetuses send up stem cells to help | ZME Science

When a pregnant mother is very sick, mouse fetuses send up stem cells to help | ZME Science

Amidst of all the talks and protest against stem cell treatment and companies shutting down, nature has found its own way of treating diseases with stem cells. When a pregnant mouse mother, for example, has a heart attack, her fetus donates some of its own stem cells to help and cure.

Researchers started working on this experiment with two lines of mice: normal mice and mice genetically engineered to produce green fluorescent protein (or GFP) – which glows when exposed to blue light. They then mated normal female mice with GFP mice, meaning that the resulting fetuses also carried the GFP gene, thus their cells would glow in the dark. Twelve days later, almost two thirds into the pregnancy, scientists let loose their evil selves and gave half the mice heart attacks.

When they then examined their hearts, two weeks after the heart attacks, they found something absolutely stunning: lots of GFP tissue from the fetus was in their hearts; those who had heart attacks had eight times more fetus tissue than those who hadn’t. What is even more fascinating is that the GFP tissue actually differentiated into various types of heart tissue – something researchers are spending countless hours on, just to figure out how it works.

This is probably true for all mammals, including humans. Doctors often report that women with heart problems during pregnancy have better recovery rates than any other group of heart failure patients, and this study seems to explain why and how. Furthermore, this is not only true for heart problems, but other organs as well, including the brain here. When pregnant women have their organs damaged, fetal cells seem to show up wherever they are needed. Isn’t nature wonderful ?

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Black Friday Violence and Pepper Spray

Pepper spray and violence mar Black Friday bargain hunting - CSMonitor.com

In Los Angeles, a woman used pepper spray to gain a "competitive shopping" advantage at a Walmart, inflicting minor injuries on 20 people soon after the store opened on Thanksgiving night. No one was able to catch her before she apparently made her purchases and left the store. Police are reviewing video surveillance to help in trying to identify her, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In San Leandro, Calif., a Walmart shopper was shot and wounded in a suspected robbery early Friday, while walking to his car.

RECOMMENDED: Top 6 weird Black Friday discounts

Although most retailers managed the Black Friday bargain hunters with few problems, similar cases of retail-related violence cropped up in other states as well.

Early Friday in Fayetteville, N.C., gunfire erupted at Cross Creek Mall, and police say they're looking for two suspects. At an upstate New York Walmart, two women were injured and a man charged after a fight broke out, police say. A central Florida man is behind bars after a fight broke out at a jewelry counter in a Walmart in Kissimmee, Fla.

All that occurred while millions of other Americans had yet to eat their morning bagel or bowl of cereal on the day after Thanksgiving.

Is this any way to run a holiday shopping season?

The violence is grist for those who argue that Black Friday has become too big a commercial ritual for America's good. As shoppers elbow for cut-rate goods and retailers vie for their business, the holiday season certainly seems to have lost some of its peace.

But with Black Friday now entrenched as an annual tradition, the violent incidents may serve mainly to amplify a longstanding practical question: How can this day of shopping frenzy be made safer for all who participate?

In recent years, retailers have adopted new crowd-management techniques (to avoid injuries or deaths from trampling). They've also heightened security on  the big shopping day.

It's part of a broader safety and security challenge for retailers. Overall rates of shoplifting, theft by employees, and other crime or fraud at stores cost retailers $37.1 billion in 2010, up from $33.5 billion the year before, the National Retail Federation reported earlier this year.

The incidents of Black Friday violence might prompt some pragmatic thoughts for ordinary shoppers as well as for retailers.

First, remember that the reports of pepper spray and shootings are the retail-store exception, not the rule.

But second, some consumer advisers say, the threats to safety might be one of many reasons to be cautious about shopping on Black Friday.

A blog post on the website Fashionista recently warned, "Black Friday is ... a bad time for people to keep their tempers in check," and it may not offer such great bargains, anyway. The blog allows that some people do well at finding deals (and even enjoy the competitive crush), but many other shoppers buy more than they need, buy the wrong things, or are too late to get the bargains they hope for.

Lots of Americans might do as well shopping by computer, going to the mall some other day in the next couple of weeks, or working harder at finding bargains throughout the year.

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BLACK FRIDAY ! See how retailers gear up for the best shopping day of the year

Rosy Outlook for Black Friday? Retailers Gear Up for Biggest Shopping Day of Year

As Americans get ready to stuff and baste turkey, millions seem equally excited about Black Friday. 

The day after Thanksgiving kicks off the annual holiday shopping season and has become the busiest shopping day of the year, with stores opening before dawn and offering radical discounts. 

The term “Black Friday” seems to have originated in Philadelphia in the mid-‘60s when police were contending with massive downtown traffic jams from the retail rush.  Though many insist that this Friday is called “black” because it’s the point when stores begin to turn a profit or move “into the black." 

If early online sales are any indication, 2011 figures to be a winner. ComScore is projecting a 15 percent increase over the 2010 holiday season.

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