A couple of weeks ago, a dental crown fell off while I was eating a Tootsie Roll. I have not eaten one of these for many years and I guess I was never really supposed to . I went to a General Dentist who tried to reshape the original tooth to try to get a new crown to stay on better. I received the original crown in CA and now live in CO. After about two hours, the dentist told me that I had two options:

1. Get a root canal so he could better shape the tooth.
2. Get a crown, but it may fall off again within five years.

I’ve never had a root canal and didn’t really want one, but it seemed like the better option so I was referred to an endodontist.

I talked to some people who had root canals and most of them who had recent experiences had good experiences so I was looking forward to a pain free experience. Unfortunately, my tooth refused to get numb, even after two shots of “the good stuff.” The endodontist didn’t call it “the good stuff,” but that’s what it was and I forget the real name. Once again I was given two options:

1. Cope with the pain for about 20 seconds until he could drill through the tooth and put a shot directly into the nerve.
2. Reschedule for another time where I could be put out via IV sedation.

This was a tough decision. I, like most people, hate the feeling of dental drilling, even when numb. 20 seconds without being numb was not something I wanted to experience, but I began to think of it from a purely logistical standpoint. 20 seconds of pain versus:

1. Rescheduling and taking more time off from work.
2. Finding someone to drive me which is either:
• My wife, which would involve bringing our two children or getting a babysitter.
• A friend, who happens to not be working on a weekday.
3. Making the hour long drive to the endodontist again.
4. Spending a day (or so) recovering from being sedated.

With all of that taken into consideration, 20 seconds didn’t seem like that much of a hassle so I chose the pain.

The interesting thing about the story is that I shared my experience with a number of people and noticed that those who said they would take one option over the other tended to have one thing in common: either having or not having children. Those with children (at an age still under their care) tended to pick the pain while those without children tended to pick the rescheduled appointment and comfort. Children certainly do modify our priorities and help us to pick the choice that maximizes our time with them or our inconvenience to them (e.g., babysitter or sitting in a dentist’s office).

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Source: Reuters.

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Two separate teams of researchers announced on Tuesday they had transformed ordinary skin cells into batches of cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells — but without using cloning technology and without making embryos.

Their breakthroughs could make possible the long-sought goal of tailor-made medicine, but without the political, scientific and ethical roadblock of using human embryos.

Both teams call the new cells induced pluripotent stem cells and say they look and act like embryonic stem cells — the master cells that give rise to every cell and tissue in the body.

“We can now envisage a time when a simple approach can be used to produce stem cells that are able to form any tissue from a small sample taken from any of us,” Ian Wilmut of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement.

“This will have enormous implications for research and perhaps one day for therapy,” added Wilmut, who helped clone the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997.

James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison and colleagues reported their finding in the journal Science while Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues reported theirs in the journal Cell.

Both teams used just four genes to transform ordinary skin cells called fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells — iPS cells for short.

“We are now in a position to be able to generate patient- and disease- specific stem cells, without using human eggs or embryos,” Yamanaka said in a statement.

FOUR GENES

“These cells should be useful in understanding disease mechanisms, searching for effective and safe drugs, and treating patients with cell therapy,” he added.

“By introducing four genes (OCT4, NANOG, SOX2 and LIN28), into human fibroblasts, stem cells sharing essentially all features of human ES cells were obtained,” Thomson’s team wrote in their report in Science.

“Similar to human embryonic cells, human iPS cells should prove useful for studying the development and function of human tissues, for discovering and testing new drugs, and for transplantation medicine,” added Thomson, whose team first discovered human embryonic stem cells in 1998.

Yamanaka’s team used a slightly different cocktail of genes — OCT3/4, SOX2, C-MYC, and KLF4 — to get their iPS cells.

Both teams said the new cells are not ready to use in people yet because they used a type of virus called a retrovirus to carry the new genes into the skin cells. It is not clear whether this virus might cause genetic mutations that could cause cancer or other side effects.

“More research is necessary to determine how closely related these cells are to embryonic stem cells, but these methods should be useful for developing disease models and for drug development,” Thomson’s team wrote.

Yamanaka said the new technology might still raise some red flags for some people.

“Our technology, however, create a new ethical concerns. It might be possible to generate sperm and eggs from skin cells, via iPS cells. This might help people with infertility problem, but it will be essential to have a proper regulation regarding the generation and usage of human iPS cells to avoid misusages of this technology,” he said.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

It’s time for another post about me.

Seriously, though, there are many regular readers of this blog and I think that it is entirely appropriate for them to get to know me a bit, especially since I have yet to post my testimony. I am taking an Evangelism course next and I think that writing a testimony is an assignment so I’ll have one to post soon.

My Myers Briggs personality type is Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging (INTJ). If you have never taken a Myers Briggs test, many can be found online.

So, what does this personality type say about me?

One website says this:

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of “definiteness”, of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise — and INTJs can have several — they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don’t know.

Another one says this:

The INTJ’s interest in dealing with the world is to make decisions, express judgments, and put everything that they encounter into an understandable and rational system. Consequently, they are quick to express judgments. Often they have very evolved intuitions, and are convinced that they are right about things.

The same site says I’d be a good professor, manager, or computer specialist. I guess that’s why I administer and teach in a computer degree program.

Yet another site says this:

INTJs are among the most independent of the sixteen types. Their theme song may be “My Way.” As with other NTs, this independence often gives them an aura of arrogance that makes in-depth relationships develop slowly. At both work and play they can often seem aloof and sometimes argumentative. For INTJs, such behavior is simply the result of their attempt to stimulate the world around them. They can be stunned, even appearing hurt, when others accuse them of being distant and seemingly uncaring, but it is, ironically, the INTJ’s caring that has been the source of the provocation. They may even seem surprised at others taking offense when their motivation was fostering improvement. Again, as with other NTs, INTJs learn by arguing, part of their continuing quest to understand the universe. The problem is that an INTJ’s “friendly discussion” may be seen by others as hostile, even obnoxious behavior.

Hmmm. I guess this explains a lot of things…