UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

NASA to take part in inaugural parade

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says it has been invited to march in President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural parade Jan. 20.

"The crew of NASA's recent STS-126 space shuttle mission and other agency officials will join representatives from across the country and our armed forces in this historic parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington following swearing-in ceremonies on the steps of the Capitol," space agency officials said.

In addition, NASA said its contingent in the 56th Inaugural Parade will include a small pressurized rover. That vehicle is a concept for a new generation of lunar rovers that astronauts will take with them when they return to the moon by 2020.

Single stem cells repair tissue damage

STANFORD, Calif., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they've demonstrated a single adult stem cell can self-renew in a mammal and repair damaged tissue.

Stanford University Professor Helen Blau and researchers Alessandra Sacco and Regis Doyonnas said they transplanted skeletal adult muscle stem cells into special immune-suppressed mice whose muscle satellite cells and been destroyed in a hind limb by irradiation.

The scientists also genetically engineered the transplanted stem cells to express Pax7 and luciferase proteins. As a result, every transplanted cell glowed under ultraviolet light and was easy to trace.

"To be able to detect the presence of the cells by bioluminescence was really a breakthrough," said Blau. "It taught us so much more. We could see how the cells were responding, and really monitor their dynamics."

Sacco said the researchers were thrilled with the results. "It's been known that these satellite cells are crucial for the regeneration of muscle tissue, but this is the first demonstration of self-renewal of a single cell."

The scientists said the ability to isolate and then transplant skeletal adult muscle stem cells could have a wide impact in treating not only a variety of muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy, but also severe muscle injuries or loss of function from aging and disuse.

The research was presented last week in San Francisco during the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology.

Canada mandates relabeling of kids' drugs

OTTAWA, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Health Canada says it will require relabeling of all over-the-counter cough and cold medicines sold in Canada for use in children under the age of 12.

Officials said the new labels must indicate the medications should not be used in children under 6 years old. The products affected are those containing any active ingredients that are given orally:

--Antihistamines: brompheniramine maleate, chlorpheniramine maleate, clemastine hydrogen fumerate, dexbrompheniramine maleate, diphenhydramine hydrochloride, doxylamine succinate, pheniramine maleate, phenyltoloxamine citrate, promethazine hydrochloride, pyrilamine maleate and triprolidine hydrochloride.

--Antitussives: dextromethorphan, dextromethorphan hydrobromide or diphenhydramine hydrochloride.

--Expectorants: guaifenesin (glyceryl guaiacolate).

--Decongestants: ephedrine hydrochloride/sulphate, phenylephrine hydrochloride/sulphate or pseudoephedrine hydrochloride/sulphate.

Health Canada said the relabeling of the medications will be completed by next fall.

NASA finds clues to Mars mysteries

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. space agency scientists say they've discovered a mineral on the surface of Mars that indicates the Red Planet supported water many billions of years ago.

Researchers using a powerful instrument aboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found the long sought-after mineral -- carbonate -- that indicates Mars had neutral to alkaline water when the minerals formed more than 3.6 billion years ago.

Carbonates, which on Earth include limestone and chalk, dissolve quickly in acid, scientists said, so their survival challenges suggestions that an exclusively acidic environment later dominated the Mars. Instead, the researchers said, it indicates different types of watery environments existed. And the greater the variety of wet environments, the greater the chances one or more of them might have supported life, they said.

"We're excited to have finally found carbonate minerals because they provide more detail about conditions during specific periods of Mars' history," said Scott Murchie, principal investigator for the instrument at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

The findings appear in Science magazine and were announced Thursday in San Francisco during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.