Daily Rounds: Fat-Melting Drug For Chubby Monkeys; Toward A Cultured Burger; Bad Doc Database Restored; Researching Perry's Brain Freeze

Experimental Drug Melts The Fat Off Chunky Monkeys : Shots - Health Blog : NPR "This drug, called adipotide, seeks out the particular blood vessels that fatty tissue needs for nourishment, then causes cells in those vessels to die. Deprived of a blood supply, the fatty deposits shrivel up. Ten monkeys treated in the latest study, whose results were just published in Science Translational Medicine, lost an average of 11 percent of their body weight over a month of treatment. The most weight lost by any of the five monkeys in the placebo group was 1 percent." (npr.org)

FEATURE-Petri dish to dinner plate, in-vitro meat coming soon "It may sound and look like some kind of imitation, but in-vitro or cultured meat is a real animal flesh product, just one that has never been part of a complete, living animal — quite different from imitation meat or meat substitutes aimed at vegetarians and made from vegetable proteins like soy. Using stem cells harvested from leftover animal material from slaughterhouses, Post nurtures them with a feed concocted of sugars, amino acids, lipids, minerals and all other nutrients they need to grow in the right way." (Reuters)

Doctor discipline data restored online but with conditions attached - Boston Medical News - White Coat Notes - Boston.com "The US Health Resources and Services Administration has restored an online database of disciplinary actions taken against physicians and other health care professionals after journalism groups protested a decision in September to pull the file.
The data, which does not identify providers by name or address, was yanked after a Kansas City Star reporter used it in reporting on doctors with long malpractice histories who remained in good standing with the medical board." (boston.com)

Rick Perry's Brain Freeze - NYTimes.com "Another possibility is that Mr. Perry has had other cost-cutting conversations with his campaign strategists, and those memories were interfering with his ability to recall the details of his current plan. Such interference from past memories occurs, for example, when we leave a grocery store and stare at a sea of cars in the parking lot, realizing we have forgotten where we parked." (well.blogs.nytimes.com)