WHO raises global alert level on swine flu

This is one of the latest update from the World Health Organisation (WHO) about the swine flu. The pandemic phase has been raised from a level 3 to a level 4

"MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The swine flu epidemic entered a dangerous new phase Monday as the death toll climbed in Mexico and the number of suspected cases there and in the United States nearly doubled. The World Health Organization raised its alert level but stopped short of declaring a global emergency.

The United States advised Americans against most travel to Mexico and ordered stepped up border checks in neighboring states. The European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel both to Mexico and parts of the United States.

The virus poses a potentially grave new threat to the U.S. economy, which was showing tentative early signs of a recovery. A widespread outbreak could batter tourism, food and transportation industries, deepening the recession in the U.S. and possibly worldwide.

The suspected number of deaths rose to 152 in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak with nearly 2,000 people believed to be infected.

The number of U.S. cases rose to 50, the result of further testing at a New York City school, although none was fatal. Other U.S. cases have been reported in Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. Worldwide there were 79 confirmed cases, including six in Canada, one in Spain and two in Scotland.

The World Health Organization reported a slightly lower figure, 73. The WHO said it was still awaiting official reports from the U.K. about the Scottish cases, and it was reporting different numbers in the U.S. (40) and Mexico (26) from what those governments confirmed.

While the total cases were still measured in hundreds, not thousands, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the epidemic was entering an extremely dangerous phase, with the number of people infected mushrooming even as authorities desperately ramped up defenses.

"We are in the most critical moment of the epidemic. The number of cases will keep rising, so we have to reinforce preventative measures," Cordova said at a news conference.

The WHO raised the alert level to Phase 4, meaning there is sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus causing outbreaks in at least one country.

Its alert system was revised after bird flu in Asia began to spread in 2004, and Monday was the first time it was raised above Phase 3.

"At this time, containment is not a feasible option," as the virus has already spread to several other countries, said WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda.

Putting an alert at Phases 4 or 5 signals that the virus is becoming increasingly adept at spreading among humans. That move could lead governments to set trade, travel and other restrictions aimed at limiting its spread.

Phase 6 is for a full-blown pandemic, characterized by outbreaks in at least two regions of the world.

It could take 4-6 months before the first batch of vaccines are available to fight the virus, WHO officials said.

Russia, Hong Kong and Taiwan said they would quarantine visitors showing symptoms of the virus amid global fears of a pandemic, an epidemic spread over a large area, either a region or worldwide.

President Barack Obama said the outbreak was reason for concern, but not yet "a cause for alarm."

Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that so far the virus in the United States seems less severe than in Mexico. Only one person has been hospitalized in the U.S.

"I wouldn't be overly reassured by that," Besser told reporters at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, raising the possibility of more severe cases in the United States.

"We are taking it seriously and acting aggressively," Besser said. "Until the outbreak has progressed, you really don't know what it's going to do."

U.S. customs officials began checking people entering U.S. territory. Millions of doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile were on their way to states, with priority given to the five already affected and to border states. Federal agencies were conferring with state and international governments.

"We want to make sure that we have equipment where it needs to be, people where they need to be and, most important, information shared at all levels," said Janet Napolitano, head of the Homeland Security Department.

"We are proceeding as if we are preparatory to a full pandemic," Napolitano said.
She said travel warnings for trips to Mexico would remain in place as long as swine flu is detected.

Mexico canceled school at all levels nationwide until May 6, and the Mexico City government said it was considering a complete shutdown, including all public transportation, if the death toll keeps rising. Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcon said employers should isolate anyone showing up for work with fever, cough, sore throat or other signs of the flu.

Even some of Mexico's most treasured national holidays were affected by the swine flu alert.
Authorities announced Monday the cancellation of the annual Cinco de Mayo parade, in which people in period costumes celebrate Mexican troops' defeat of a French army on May 5, 1862. The national labor umbrella group announced the cancellation of Mexico City's traditional May 1 parade and the National Institute of Anthropology and History said all of its 116 museums nationwide would be closed until further notice.

Amid the warnings, the Mexican government grappled with increasing criticism of its response. At least two weeks after the first swine flu case, the government has yet to say where and how the outbreak began or give details on the victims.

The health department lacked the staff to visit the homes of all those suspected to have died from the disease, Cordova said.

Cordova said 1,995 people have been hospitalized with serious cases of pneumonia since the first case of swine flu was reported April 13. The government does not yet know how many were swine flu.

He said tests show a 4-year-old boy contracted the virus before April 2 in Veracruz state, where a community has been protesting pollution from a large pig farm.

The farm is run by Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a joint venture half owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc. Spokeswoman Keira Ullrich said the company has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine flu in its herd or its employees working anywhere in Mexico.

Mexico's Agriculture Department said Monday that its inspectors found no sign of swine flu among pigs around the farm in Veracruz, and that no infected pigs have been found yet anywhere in Mexico.

As if the country did not have enough to deal with, Cordova's comments were briefly interrupted by a 5.6-magnitude earthquake in southern Mexico that rattled already jittery nerves and sent mask-wearing office workers into the streets of the capital.

Aside from the confirmed cases, 13 are suspected in New Zealand, and one is suspected in both France and Israel.

European Union Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico and parts of the United States, although Besser said that including the U.S. in the advisory seemed unwarranted at this time.

State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said Vassiliou's remarks were his "personal opinion," not an official EU position, and therefore the department had no comment.

"We don't want people to panic at this point," Wood said.

The U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country by air, land and sea, and the State Department warned U.S. citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico. It said those who live in Mexico should avoid hospitals or clinics there unless they have a medical emergency.

The best way to keep the disease from spreading, Besser said, is by taking everyday precautions such as frequent handwashing, covering up coughs and sneezes, and staying away from work or school if not feeling well. He said authorities are not recommending that people wear masks at work because evidence that it is effective "is not that strong."

Besser said about 11 million doses of flu-fighting drugs from a federal stockpile have been sent to states in case they are needed. That's roughly one quarter of the doses in the stockpile, he said.

There is no vaccine available to prevent the specific strain now being seen, he said, but some antiflu drugs do work once someone is sick.

If a new vaccine eventually is ordered, the CDC already has taken a key preliminary step - creating what's called seed stock of the virus that manufacturers would use.

Many of the cases outside Mexico have been relatively mild. Symptoms include a fever of more than 100, coughing, joint aches, severe headache and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

European and U.S. markets bounced back from early losses as pharmaceutical stocks were lifted by expectations that health authorities will increase stockpiles of anti-viral drugs. Stocks of airlines, hotels and other travel-related companies posted sharper losses.

WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley singled out air travel as an easy way the virus could spread, noting that the WHO estimates that up to 500,000 people are on planes at any time.

Governments in Asia - with potent memories of previous flu outbreaks - were especially cautious. Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used in the 2003 SARS crisis and were checking for signs of fever among passengers from North America. South Korea, India and Indonesia also announced screening.

In Malaysia, health workers in face masks took the temperatures of passengers as they arrived on a flight from Los Angeles.

China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival had to report to authorities.

China, Russia and Ukraine were among countries banning imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three U.S. states that have reported swine flu cases, while other countries, such as Indonesia, banned all pork imports.

The CDC says people cannot get the flu by eating pork or pork products.

Germany's leading vacation tour operators were skipping stops in Mexico City as a precaution. The Hannover-based TUI said trips through May 4 to Mexico City were being suspended, including those operated by TUI itself and through companies 1-2 Fly, Airtours, Berge & Meer, Grebeco and L'tur.

Japan's largest tour agency, JTB Corp., suspended tours to Mexico through June 30. Russian travel agencies said about a third of those planning to travel to Mexico in early May had already canceled.

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO and PAUL HAVEN Associated Press Writers"

I guess what everyone can do now is to protect yourselves by improving and maintaining a good personal hygiene and to take care of your own health and the health of your loved ones around you. If you are sick, seek medical attention immediately and always always cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.

The virus spreads easily via respiratory droplets from a cough/sneeze, and once another person breathes them in, he/she may catch this virus. Not only that, this new virus is contagious a day before clinical symptoms appear and 7 days after the first onset of symptoms, this is different from SARS of which a person becomes contagious a few days after the onset of symptoms. So for this new virus, the person could already be infectious before symptoms appear, and it makes the virus even more dangerous to detect.

Please protect yourselves and everyone around you, and help to prevent a possible pandemic.

The best way to keep the disease from spreading, Besser said, is by taking everyday precautions such as frequent handwashing, covering up coughs and sneezes, and staying away from work or school if not feeling well. He said authorities are not recommending that people wear masks at work because evidence that it is effective "is not that strong."

Mexico swine flu deaths spur global epidemic fears

I'm sure many of you are now aware of the swine flu outbreak that started in mexico:

"MEXICO CITY – A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.

The worrisome new virus — which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before — also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.

"We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human ... It's all hands on deck at the moment."

The outbreak caused alarm in Mexico, where more than 1,000 people have been sickened. Residents of the capital donned surgical masks and authorities ordered the most sweeping shutdown of public gathering places in a quarter century. President Felipe Calderon met with his Cabinet Friday to coordinate Mexico's response.

The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.

It might already be too late to contain the outbreak, a prominent U.S. pandemic flu expert said late Friday.

Given how quickly flu can spread around the globe, if these are the first signs of a pandemic, then there are probably cases incubating around the world already, said Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.

In Mexico City, "literally hundreds and thousands of travelers come in and out every day," Osterholm said. "You'd have to believe there's been more unrecognized transmission that's occurred."

There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.

Authorities in Mexico urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection. They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks. At Mexico City's international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.

Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults.

The eight U.S. victims recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
U.S. health officials announced an outbreak notice to travelers, urging caution and frequent handwashing, but stopping short of telling Americans to avoid Mexico.

Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.

The geographical spread of the outbreaks also concerned the WHO — while 13 of the 20 deaths were in Mexico City, the rest were spread across Mexico — four in central San Luis Potosi, two up near the U.S. border in Baja California, and one in southern Oaxaca state.

Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a worldwide pandemic of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.

Still, flu experts were concerned but not alarmed about the latest outbreak.

"We've seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it's come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.

"I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they proceed."

The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.

Both drugs must be taken early, within a few days of the onset of symptoms, to be most effective.

Cordoba said Mexico has enough Tamiflu to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.

Mexico's government had maintained until late Thursday that there was nothing unusual about the flu cases, although this year's flu season had been worse and longer than past years.
The sudden turnaround by public health officials angered many Mexicans.

"They could have stopped it in time," said Araceli Cruz, 24, a university student who emerged from the subway wearing a surgical mask. "Now they've let it spread to other people."

The city was handing out free surgical masks to passengers on buses and the subway system, which carries 5 million people each day. Government workers were ordered to wear the masks, and authorities urged residents to stay home from work if they felt ill.

Closing schools across Mexico's capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums. Private athletic clubs closed down and soccer leagues were considering canceling weekend games.

The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since millions died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.

Mexico's response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing shuttered schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.

In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half-million students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

"It's great they are taking precautions," said Lillian Molina, a teacher at the Montessori's World preschool in Mexico City, who scrubbed down empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol between fielding calls from worried parents.

U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.

It's unclear how the eight, who became ill between late March and mid-April, contracted the virus because none were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen before in people or pigs. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. It may be completely new, or it may have been around for a while and was only detected now through improved testing and surveillance, CDC officials said.

The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.
____
Associated Press Writers Maria Cheng in London; Traci Carl in Mexico City; Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Georgia; and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report. "

I started worrying when I first heard of this news on the bus on my way home, when it just started. Today, the news reported that in a high school in New York City more than 100 students began suffering a fever, sore throat and aches and pains and some of their relatives have also fallen ill. Some of the students had recently traveled to Mexico but they are still awaiting test results to confirm if the strain matches the same strain that killed people in Mexico. However, preliminary tests of samples taken from sick students' noses and throats confirmed that at least eight had a non-human strain of influenza type A, indicating probable cases of swine flu, city health officials reported.

As mentioned in the report above, a prominent U.S. pandemic flu expert said that it might already be too late to contain the outbreak. I agree with this since the virus may have an incubating period or may be found in asymptomatic people who carry the virus but do not display symptoms and are already spreading it around unknowingly. As of now, the virus is a new combination strain and researchers are still figuring out its mechanism. It has, however, already been confirmed that it is spread via the same way as SARS do, by respiratory droplets through coughing or sneezing.

Anyway I'll be watching news of this new virus as closely as I can. I really hope it won't spark a new global pandemic.

Just when all of us thought the avian flu might be a cause of a global pandemic, now a combination of swine, avian and human strains may cause us to relive the 1918 global nightmare.
At least with our experience with SARS, we should be better prepared to handle another pandemic if it comes as long as we do not get too complacent with ourselves at the same time.

Given how quickly flu can spread around the globe, if these are the first signs of a pandemic, then there are probably cases incubating around the world already, said Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.

Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries

Sorry everyone..for not updating for a long time. I hope that you will still occasionally pop in for some science news or sign up for the alert whenever a new entry is posted.

I was pretty shocked when I read this article. This really proves that authorities should be very alert when inspecting vaccines and luckily they discovered this in time. It's actually quite scary knowing how such things may happen that could have actually spark the next global deadly pandemic.


"Reported by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor


(NaturalNews) There's a popular medical thriller novel in which a global pandemic is intentionally set off by an evil plot designed to reduce the human population. In the book, a nefarious drug company inserts live avian flu viruses into vaccine materials that are distributed to countries around the world to be injected into patients as "flu shots." Those patients then become carriers for these highly-virulent strains of avian flu which go on to infect the world population and cause widespread death.



There's only one problem with this story: It's not fiction. Or, at least, the part about live avian flu viruses being inserted into vaccine materials isn't fiction. It's happening right now.



Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened?



As published on LifeGen.de (http://www.lifegen.de/newsip/shownews.php4?getnews=2009-02-26-5323&pc=s01), serious questions like this are being raised:



"Baxter International Inc. in Austria 'unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in 3 neighbouring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease'. Austria, Germany, Slowenia and the Czech Republic - these are the countries in which labs were hit with dangerous viruses. Not by bioterrorist commandos, but by Baxter. In other words: One of the major global pharmaceutical players seems to have lost control over a virus which is considered by many virologists to be one of the components leading some day to a new pandemic."



Or, put another way, Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter -- which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world -- getting away with saying, essentially, "Oops?"



But there's a bigger question in all this: How could this company have accidentally mixed LIVE avian flu viruses (both H5N1 and H3N2, the human form) in this vaccine material?


Was the viral contamination intentional?

The shocking answer is that this couldn't have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.



As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf):

"Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features."



Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.



This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:

Possibility #1: Baxter isn't following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that's the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter's materials?



Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.



It just so happens that a global bird flu pandemic would sell a LOT of bird flu vaccines. Although some naive people have a hard time believing that corporations would endanger human beings to make money, this is precisely the way corporations now behave in America's ethically-challenged free-market environment. (Remember Enron? Exxon? Merck? DuPont? Monsanto? Need I go on?)



Make no mistake: Spreading bird flu is a clever way to create demand for bird flu vaccines, and we've all seen very clearly how drug companies first market the problem and then "leap to the rescue" by selling the solution. (Disease mongering of ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc.)


Why it all suddenly makes sense

Until today, I would not have personally believed such a story. I personally thought talk of bird flu vaccines being "weaponized" was just alarmist hype. But now, in light of the fact that LIVE bird flu viruses are being openly found in vaccine materials that are distributed around the world, I must admit the evidence is increasingly compelling that something extremely dangerous is afoot.



Baxter, through either its mistakes or its evil intentions, just put the safety of the entire human race at risk. Given all the laboratory protocols put in place to prevent this kind of thing, it is difficult to believe this was just a mistake.



There is some speculation, in fact, that the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_en-USUS294US304&q=1918%20influenza&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi), was intentionally started by injecting servicemen with "experimental" flu vaccines that actually contained live, "weaponized" flu material just like the material being distributed by Baxter today.



Examine the historical record. You'll find that the 1918 flu originated with servicemen. Even more interestingly, it began in multiple cities, simultaneously! There is no single point of origin with the 1918 flu. It appears to have "spontaneously" sprung up across multiple cities all at once, including a military base in Kansas. (Kansas? Yep. So how did it get to Kansas in an era when air traffic was virtually non-existent? Vaccines, of course!)



All those cities and servicemen have one thing in common: Flu shot vaccinations given to them by the military.



If you put the pieces together on this, it's not too difficult to suspect that influenza could potentially be used as a tool of control by governments or drug companies to catalyze outrageous profit-taking or power grabbing agendas. A desperate, infected population will gladly give up anything or pay anything for the promise of being cured.


Or was it just an innocent mistake?

Oops!But for the skeptics who dismiss any such talk of conspiracy theories, let's examine the other possibility: That a global avian flu pandemic was nearly unleashed unintentionally due to the outrageous incompetence of the companies handling these viral strains.



As we just saw, this is a very real possibility. Had this live bird flu virus not been detected, it could have very easily found its way into vaccines that were injected into human beings. And this, in turn, could have unleashed a global avian flu pandemic.



If the drug companies making and handling these materials are so careless, then it seems like it's only a matter of time before something slips through the safety precautions again and gets unleashed into the wild. And that leads to essentially the same scenario: A global pandemic, widespread death, health care failures and a desperate population begging for vaccines.



So either way -- whether it's intentional or not -- you essentially get the same result.


Why a global pandemic is only a matter of time

I am on the record stating that a global pandemic is only a matter of time. The living conditions under which humans have placed themselves (crowded cities, suppressed immune systems, etc.) are ideal for the spread of infectious disease. But I never dreamed drug companies could actually be accelerating the pandemic timeline by contaminating vaccine materials with live avian flu viruses known to be highly infectious to humans. This, it seems, is a whole new cause for concern.



You can believe what you will. Maybe you agree with the nefarious plot theory and you agree that corporations are capable of great evils in their quest for profits. Or perhaps you can't accept that, so you go with the "accidental contamination" theory, in which your beliefs describe a very dangerous world where biohazard safety protocols are insufficient to protect us from all the crazy viral strains being toyed with at drug companies and government labs all across the world.



In either case, the world is not a very safe place when deadly viral strains are placed in the hands of the inept.



We are like children playing God with Mother Nature, rolling the dice in a global game of Viral Roulette where the odds are not in our favor. With companies like Baxter engaged in behaviors that are just begging to see the human race devastated by a global pandemic wipeout, it might be a good time to question the sanity of using viral strains in vaccines in the first place.



Vaccine-pushing scientists are so proud of their vaccines. They think they've conquered Mother Nature. Imagine their surprise when one day they learn they have actually killed 100 million human beings by unleashing a global pandemic.



We came close to it this week. A global pandemic may have just been averted by the thinnest of margins. Yet people go on with their lives, oblivious to what nearly happened.



What's inescapable at this point is the fact that the threat of a pandemic that looms for all of human civilization, and that drug companies may, themselves, be the source of that threat. "



[Acknowledgement: http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html]

We came close to it this week. A global pandemic may have just been averted by the thinnest of margins. Yet people go on with their lives, oblivious to what nearly happened.

Exercise, sleep cuts cancer risk: study

Just saw this article:

"WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Regular physical activity can significantly lower a woman's risk of developing cancer, but skimping on sleep can eliminate those gains, a new study has found.

In a long-term study of nearly 6,000 US women, researchers found that those who exercised the most had a 25 percent lower chance of developing cancer than those who were the least active.

But among younger, physically active women, those who slept less than seven hours a night had a 47 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer than those who regularly got a good night's rest.

"Greater participation in physical activity has consistently been associated with reduced risk of cancer incidence at several sites, including breast and colon cancers," James McClain, a cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study, said Monday.

"Short duration sleep appears to have opposing effects of physical activity on several key hormonal and metabolic parameters, which is why we looked at how it affected the exercise/cancer risk relationship."

It is not yet known exactly why exercise reduces cancer risks but researchers believe it could be due to the lower body weight, improved immune function and hormone levels associated with regular physical activity.

Insufficient sleep has been linked to high risks of developing a number of conditions including heart disease, obesity and diabetes but, again, researchers have not determined exactly how sleep prevents disease.

The study was presented at a conference in Washington sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research."

[Acknowledgement: AFP]

So I guess it really gives me another reason to sleep early and exercise regularly...

World warned over killer flu pandemic

Sorry for being MIA for some time again.

Anyway, here's an article from Focus Information Agency:

"World warned over killer flu pandemic

London. The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned, cited by The Independent Daily.

The British Government's evidence appeared in a highly critical report from the Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee, which attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "dysfunctional" and criticised the international response to the threat of an outbreak of disease which could sweep across the globe.

Peers joined ministers calling for urgent action to build up early warning systems across the Third World that can identify and neutralise outbreaks of potentially deadly new strains of disease before they are swept across the globe by modern trade and travel. Peers also called for new action to monitor animal diseases, warning of the potentially disastrous effects of conditions such as the H5N1 bird flu virus jumping to humans and demanded that Britain step up funding for the WHO to tackle the threat.

With international tourist journeys now reaching 800 million a year, giving unprecedented potential for epidemics to spread across borders, and many cities rapidly growing in developing countries, which would provide "fertile ground" to spread disease, peers on the committee warned that conditions such as Sars, avian influenza and ebola "have the potential to cause rapid and devastating sickness and death across much of the world if they are not detected and checked in time". "

Hmmm..well it's really a matter of "when" and not "if". Which many researchers have already mentioned. And I got this feeling that it might come in a few years later, in other words: soon.

The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned.

Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and Earthquake in China

I'm sure many of you should have been aware by now, the recent disasters that have occurred in Asia.

Firstly, there was a cyclone that hit Myanmar last week.

"Cyclone Nargis hit five divisions and states -- Yangon, Bago, Ayeyawaddy, Kayin and Mon on May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon sustained the heaviest casualties and infrastructural damage.

The death toll of Myanmar's cyclone disaster kept rising with 3,480 more people killed, bringing the total to 31,938, according to a news report of the state radio Monday evening. "

For the full article, click this link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-05/13/content_6679171.htm

Then, just yesterday morning, a major quake struck China, the epicentre in the province of Sichuan, and the death toll had already exceeded 12,000.

"More than 18,000 people were still trapped in the rubble of Sichuan's second city today as Chinese troops battled through the disaster zone to devastated towns and villages cut off by yesterday's earthquake

As the official death toll climbed past 12,000, the official Xinhua agency reported that 3,639 people had been killed in Mianyang, a city near the epicentre of the 7.9-magnitude quake. A further 18,645 were still buried in the debris of collapsed buildings, beyond the reach of rescue teams, it said.

In another town, Beichuan, where 5,000 are feared dead, the old town had been almost completely buried by a landslide, residents said. In the new town, built on the banks of a river, the casualty toll was also expected to be high after the earthquake sent hundreds of buildings slipping into the water below.

The area has been hit by wave after wave of aftershocks, including a particularly violent tremor today measuring 6.1 that sent thousands of office workers in Chengdu rushing out into the open. Tens of thousands of people were already standing on the pavements huddling under umbrellas and makeshift plastic covers, sheltering from the rain, reluctant to return to their homes.

One said: "We are just too afraid that our homes will fall down."

For full article, click here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3921520.ece?token=null&offset=12

~~~

It is just so sad, whenever any disaster happens, that people can lose their lives in just a matter of seconds because of the uncontrollable force of Mother Nature. Let's hope that they would all be able to rebuild their lives again and move on. May God be with them always. If you can, please pray for all those affected by these devastating disasters too.

The PCR song

I've recently received a link from my school about the PCR song from bio-rad.

The song is so cute!

For those who don't know what PCR is, it's short form for polymerase chain reaction. It is a technique used to amplify a piece of DNA to produce more copies of it for further testing. It's an amazing technique used for many purposes such as genetic fingerprinting or genetic analysis.

Here's the music video:



Here are the lyrics:


There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.

Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases, too.

Denaturing, annealing, and extending.
Well it’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

Chorus:
PCR, when you need to detect mutations.
PCR, when you need to recombine.
PCR, when you need to find out who the daddy is.
PCR, when you need to solve a crime.
(repeat chorus)



Thanks Bio-Rad for such a cute and wonderful song (:

Experiment - Blood type and Rhesus testing

As a timid person, pain terrifies me.

Before the experiment yesterday I knew that someone from the group would have to "sacrifice" to donate a little blood from his/her finger to do the blood type testing experiment in genetics class.

The objective was to demonstrate the principles of blood grouping and mendelian genetics. And to check out how testing can be done.

Even though there was a guy in my group, I didn't know what my blood group was, so I thought I should volunteer. Apparently, up till my batch, we no longer have to test our blood group for our identification card, and there was also no record of my blood group on my birth certificate, plus being in a single parent family, I know my mum's an O, which means I will definitely inherit one of her Os, but I dunnoe what's the blood grp of my dad. So I prepared myself for the experiment.

I was so freaking out before the experiment, as the teacher was explaining the procedure.

I looked away as my friend pricked my middle finger on my left hand with the lancet. I kept telling myself as I was looking away that it's just going to be like an ant's bite. An ant's bite. Nope, it felt more like a cut. Which it really was. Seeing as I used to work in a pharmacy and got myself lots of cuts from packing medications, it felt like another work accident. But it was quite painful though.

My friend then drew blood that came out blob-like (I had to squeeze my finger so that she can draw using the micropipette). Interestingly though, I gave more than was required. I was afraid there might not be enough or like in case something happens. I won't want to prick my finger again.

We did two kinds of testing too, a blood group testing and rhesus testing. And with two different methods, one that was fast and another that would take an hour.

It was cool at the end of it actually. Coz I found out what's my blood group and rhesus! Saves me a trip to the doc plus I felt much braver after that too.

Thank God He gave me that courage (:

Results are in!

Let's take a look at our results from the lab:

1. My hand imprint




As you can see, even though I've washed my hands before I did this, there is still a mixed colony of bacteria. But at least still clean because it's not a lot.

2. Serial dilution

I will only show dilution 10^(-2) plate and dilution 10^(-5) plate for comparison:






10^(-2)

10^(-5)

As you can see, the colonies on 10^(-5) look easier to count. But we'll only be counting them in the next lab session.

3. Streaking

The streaking was done pretty well by my friend, as isolated colonies were observed:

4. Gram staining

Sadly, I haven't gotten the gram staining pics from my other friend who took the photos, but I will post them once I get them.

I am really satisfied with the results and can't wait for the next session (:

Lab experiment with Staphylococcus auerus

I had a very interesting lab session in school last night.

There were four experiments conducted during the session:

1. I volunteered for the first one where I had to imprint my fingers onto the nutrient agar to kind of culture and see the different kinds of bacteria that were on my fingers. The agar was to be incubated at 37 degrees C, for 24 hours.

2. The second experiment was to do a serial dilution using a Staphylococcus aureus culture and then do a spread plate from the dilution tubes 10^(-5), 10^(-4), 10^(-3) and 10^(-2).

The way to do dilution is to firstly pipette 1ml of pure culture from a sample of S. aureus and then transfer that to another tube containing 9ml of water. This tube will be labelled as 10^(-1). From this 10^(-1) tube, another 1 ml of this mixture is drawn and placed in a new tube containing 9ml of water, this tube will be labelled as 10^(-2).

The same method continues until a 10^(-5) tube is obtained. So from tubes 10^(-2) to 10^(-5), 1 ml from each tube is drawn and expelled onto a nutrient agar plate each, and using a hockey stick (not the big one used for playing, but a small one that looks kind of like a straw that is bent at the top), the mixture is spread around the plate and they will again be incubated at 37 degrees C, for 24 hours.

The purpose of dilution is so as to make the colonies so called "countable" because if you spread and grow the undiluted culture, there will be too many colonies to count. But if you dilute them step by step, it makes them more countable. And after the colonies are counted, calculations will be done to estimate the number of bacterial/ml in the sample. This is known as bacteria enumeration.

3. The third experiment of the session was to do a streak plate. Streaking is a method used to isolate separate bacterial colonies from a culture. This is somewhat similar to dilution. There must first be a primary innoculation site, where a culture is taken using a sterilised loop and streaked many times on one part of the agar plate, another sterilised loop is used to draw abt 3-4 lines from the primary innoculation site (the plate turned 90 degrees), and another sterilised loop will draw another 3-4 lines from those 3-4 lines, the last part will be to use another sterilised loop to do a streak from the previous 3-4 lines, care must be taken not to touch the primary innoculation site. The same loop can be used but has to be sterilised using the aseptic technique of flaming the loop. But for my class, we used plastic sterilised loops, so we didn't have to flame them, or they might melt haha.

The difference between serial dilution and streaking is that serial dilution is used to estimate the number of bacteria per ml in the culture while streaking is used to isolate a single colony.

4. The last experiment of the session was to do gram staining, this experiment is one of the coolest i've ever done because gram staining, stains the bacteria to show what type it is (is it gram positive (purple) or gram negative (pink)?), and the shape, size and how they group together. Since the bacteria used last night was Staphylococcus aureus, Staph actually means cluster, and coccus is like grape-shaped, and since it is a gram positive bacteria, it should also be purple colour. And what we saw was indeed, grape-shaped purple bacteria clustered in groups.

When we did it the first time, we couldn't see anything under the microscope, probably coz I placed too little an amount onto the slide, so it could have been all washed off when we did the staining. So we tried again, and I was so happy and excited that we could actually see them, lol, believe me, all of us took turns to try and focus here and there but couldn't see anything (except probably the hair from someone that fell onto the slide haha), and finally when we could, it was like a Eureka moment. lol.


Anyway, all these would sound more exciting if there were pictures, but i'll only be going back to check on them on Friday. So be sure to check back here after Friday for the photos and further explanations!

Oh yeah, this is actually for a developing professional skills module, and so we learnt the various techniques related to microbiology work.

I am also taking the microbiology module this term, and let me tell you, the lab was even more exciting. But again, we will only have the chance to check on our plates in the next session, so I will blog about them when the time comes. The micro-organisms we used that time was more than just Staphylococcus aureus. We also used Saccharomyces cerevisiae (or baker's yeast), Bacillus cereus (close family with Bacillus anthracis [causes anthrax]. They produce endospores which are harmful to us), and also Klebsiella pneumoniae. For that session, one experiment allowed us to choose one of these micro-organisms to learn streaking, and I chose K. pneumoniae, I shall take a picture and post it here if it looks ok, haha, after I take a look at the plate.

Hailstones + 2nd announcement:promotion

It was pretty scary.

I was at home two days ago during a very intense thunderstorm.

Hailstones were supposed to be really rare in such a tropical hot country like Singapore.

But around 3.15 in the afternoon, there was a thunderstorm, and as I sat on my bed tidying up some photos, I heard knocking sounds on my windows, as though someone was throwing stones at it. Seeing as I'm staying on the 30-something floor, I don't think any human being can throw stones that high up. I looked out of the window but couldn't see anything because the rain was just too heavy, it was like a blank white picture outside. But the knocking sounds continued and I suspected it could really be hailstones. I was quite afraid that my windows were going to break with the constant knocking, plus I couldn't tell what size they were.

Turns out, they were hailstones. Apparently, the storm was that intense that in the presence of a strong downdraft, the hailstones were most likely brought to the ground rapidly without melting.

Check out the news report here: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/337625/1/.html

Luckily, they were about the size of a five cents coin, too small to cause much damage.

Aside from that I have a second announcement from my E-book site:

I am now having a special opening one-week promotion for my E-book!

Instead of the introductory price of $6.95 for the E-book (worth $19.95),

You can now get the E-book for only $2.95!

Hurry! Go to http://www.search-effectively.com/ and grab a copy now!

Promotion lasts till 4th April!

Unlocking Secrets of the Search Engine E-book

Finally, I've finished my E-book "Unlocking Secrets of the Search Engine".

You might be wondering what this book is about. Well, in short, it shows you how you can search the internet for information more effectively. Gives you tips and tricks on how you should pick your words so that you get relevant results from your search engine.

It includes a free bonus report: "Unlocking the secret to having fun researching on the internet, the scientific way." and a free bonus interview with Brad Callen (search engine optimization expert) on some key things you must take note when creating a website, especially if you're new to it and where you can get help regarding search engine optimization for your website.

For more information on the book, check out the website at http://www.search-effectively.com/ or click the banner in the sidebar.

It's been a long time

Wow, I didn't realize it's been 3 months since I've posted anything here. Really sorry about it.

Here's an interesting article from NewScientist.com:

Stressed parents equals sick kids

STRESSED parents aren't just damaging their own health - they may also be making their children more vulnerable to illness.

Stress is well known to affect a person's own physical health, but the effect on their children's health was unclear. To investigate, Mary Caserta and her colleagues at the University of Rochester in New York asked the parents of 169 children aged between 5 and 10 to monitor their child's health over three years, recording symptoms of illnesses and taking their temperatures.

Every six months, the parents took a test designed to assess their own psychiatric health, noting markers of stress such as anxiety or depression.

Caserta's team found that the total number of illnesses, both with and without fever, was significantly higher in the children of parents who reported high levels of emotional stress. The team also measured the levels of immune cells in the children, and found those with highly stressed parents were much more likely to have heightened immune activity - a sign that they were working hard to fend off infection (Brain, Behavior and Immunity, DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2008.01.007)

David Jessop at the University of Bristol in the UK calls the results fascinating, and thinks that future studies should aim discover which stress factors have the biggest impact on children's immunity.

[Acknowledgement: Newscientist.com]

This is quite interesting isn't it? But I thinks its quite ironic, in a sense that, sometimes, it's the children that gives the parents stress because maybe they are naughty, they don't do their homework etc..plus the stress that parents get from work..but the children in turn become sick. Another thing is that, probably when the parents are around their children, the children's mirror neurons are at work, so they "feel" what their parents are feeling. And as stress lowers our immune system, it may have caused them to fall ill more easily.

For more information on the mirror neurons, click here to read the article i posted.

another year

how time flies. I've not blogged here for a long time, and another year is starting. I rmbed starting this year with a look back at the weirdest science of 2006. Hmm..this year, maybe i'll post this video about the top 5 science videos of 2007 in newscientist. (you'll need a shockwave player)

Live Earth

I'm sure most of you must have heard of "live earth" on the 7/7/7 by now.

You can show your support by wearing green on 7/7 and 8/7.

Here's the website:

http://www.liveearth.org/

It provides many resourses on how you can help in the fight against global warming and to protect our Earth.

Please take some time to look at how you can help. The Earth needs us now!

Belief in reincarnation tied to memory errors

I noe I've not been blogging for more than a month. really sorry. Shall post this really interesting article:

"People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study.

The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to implausible reincarnation claims in the first place.

Researchers recruited people who, after undergoing hypnotic therapy, had come to believe that they had past lives.

Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of names: non-famous names they had already seen (from the earlier list), famous names, and names of non-famous people that they had not previously seen. Their task was to identify which names were famous.

The researchers found that, compared to control subjects who dismissed the idea of reincarnation, past-life believers were almost twice as likely to misidentify names. In particular, their tendency was to wrongly identify as famous the non-famous names they had seen in the first task. This kind of error, called a source-monitoring error, indicates that a person has difficulty recognizing where a memory came from.

Power of suggestion
People who are likely to make these kinds of errors might end up convincing themselves of things that aren’t true, said lead researcher Maarten Peters of Maastricht University in The Netherlands. When people who are prone to making these mistakes undergo hypnosis and are repeatedly asked to talk about a potential idea — like a past life — they might, as they grow more familiar with it, eventually convert the idea into a full-blown false memory.

This is because they can’t distinguish between things that have really happened and things that have been suggested to them, Peters told LiveScience.

Past life memories are not the only type of implausible memories that have been studied in this manner. Richard McNally, a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, has found that self-proclaimed alien abductees are also twice as likely to commit source monitoring errors.

Creative minds
As for what might make people more prone to committing such errors to begin with, McNally says that it could be the byproduct of especially vivid imagery skills. He has found that people who commonly make source-monitoring errors respond to and imagine experiences more strongly than the average person, and they also tend to be more creative.

“It might be harder to discriminate between a vivid image that you’d generated yourself and the memory of a perception of something you actually saw,” he said in a telephone interview.

Peters also found in his study, detailed in the March issue of Consciousness and Cognition, that people with implausible memories are also more likely to be depressed and to experience sleep problems, and this could also make them more prone to memory mistakes.

And once people make this kind of mistake, they might be inclined to stick to their guns for spiritual reasons, McNally said. “It may be a variant expression of certain religious impulses,” he said. “We suspect that this might be kind of a psychological buffering mechanism against the fear of death.” "

Lab disaster may lead to new cancer drug

Ok, i noe its been a looonng time since i last posted sth. I've started working so sometimes i just feel too tired to post. Even my own blog has shorter entries nowadays coz i usually end up been so tired i forgot what i intended to blog abt. But i do still read articles from various sources i subscribe to just that yeah, just tired. I'll try to post as much as i can (: Here's one that's quite recent and i thk it's good news for many cancer patients.

"WASHINGTON - Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed, but just a few minutes later, the researcher realized she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment.

Schaefer and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York believe they have discovered a new way to attack tumors that have learned how to evade existing drugs.

Tests in mice suggest the compound helps break down the cell walls of tumors, almost like destroying a tumor cell’s “skeleton”.

The researchers will test the new compound for safety and hope they can develop it to treat cancers such as colon cancer, esophageal cancer, liver and skin cancers.

“I was using these cancer cells as models of the normal intestine,” Schaefer said in a telephone interview.

Normal human cells are difficult to grow and study in the lab, because they tend to die. But cancer cells live much longer and are harder to kill, so scientists often use them.

Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which cause pain and diarrhea.

She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.

“I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died,” Schaefer said.

A colleague overheard her complaining. “The co-author on my paper said,’ Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?’ I said ‘Oh’, and took a closer look.”

They ran several tests and found the compound killed ”pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen,” Schaefer said. Epithelial cells line organs such as the colon, and also make up skin.

It also killed colon tumors in mice without making the mice sick, they reported in the journal International Cancer Research.

Targets cells
The compound works in much the same way as the taxane drugs, including Taxol, which were originally derived from Pacific yew trees.

“It targets part of the cell cytoskeleton called tubulin,” Schaefer said. Tubulin is used to build microtubules, which in turn make up the cell’s structure.

Destroying it kills the cell, but cancer cells eventually evolve mechanisms to pump out the drugs that do this, a problem called resistance.

“Resistance to anti-tubulin therapies is a huge problem in many cancers. We see this as another way to get to the tubulin,” Schaefer said.

The PPAR-gamma compound does this in a different way from the taxanes, which might mean it could overcome the resistance that tumor cells often develop to chemotherapy.

“Most of the drugs like Taxol affect the ability of tubulin to forms into microtubules. This doesn’t do that -- it causes the tubulin itself to disappear. We do not know why.”

Schaefer’s team plans more safety tests in mice. As the compound is already patented, her team will probably have to design something slightly different to be able to patent it as a new drug.

Taxol, developed by U.S. National Cancer Institute researchers and manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1993, had annual sales of $1.6 billion at its peak in 2000."

[Acknowlegement: Reuters; Msnbc]

Yep, i thk its really amazing and i hope that everything will go well in creating the new drug.

Report: Amniotic fluid yields stem cells

This is such a breakthrough!

Here's the article:

"Stem cell researchers reacted with enthusiasm and reservations to a report that scientists have found stem cells in amniotic fluid, a discovery that would allow them to sidestep the controversy over destroying embryos for research.

Researchers at Wake Forest University and Harvard University reported Sunday that the stem cells they drew from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells.

They reported they were able to extract the stem cells from the fluid, which cushions babies in the womb, without harm to mother or fetus and turn their discovery into several different tissue cell types, including brain, liver and bone.

But Dr. Anthony Atala, head of Wake Forest’s regenerative medicine institute and the senior researcher on the project, said the scientists still don’t know exactly how many different cell types can be made from the stem cells found in amniotic fluid. The scientists said preliminary tests in patients are years away.

The cells from amniotic fluid “can clearly generate a broad range of important cell types, but they may not do as many tricks as embryonic stem cells,” said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientist at the stem cell company Advanced Cell Technology. “Either way, I think this work represents a giant step forward for stem cell research.”

Dr. George Daley, a Harvard University stem cell researcher, said the finding raises the possibility that someday expectant parents can freeze amnio stem cells for future tissue replacement in a sick child without fear of immune rejection.

Nonetheless, Daley said, the discovery shouldn’t be used as a replacement for human embryonic stem cell research.

“While they are fascinating subjects of study in their own right, they are not a substitute for human embryonic stem cells, which allow scientists to address a host of other interesting questions in early human development,” said Daley, who began work last year to clone human embryos to produce stem cells.

Atala said the research reported in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology expands far beyond similar work.

At a heart research conference in November, Swiss researcher Simon Hoerstrup said he managed to turn amniotic fluid stem cells into heart cells that could be grown into replacement valves. Hoerstrup has yet to publish his work in a scientific journal.

“Our hope is that these cells will provide a valuable resource for tissue repair and for engineered organs as well,” Atala said.

It took Atala’s team some seven years of research to determine the cells they found were truly stem cells that “can be used to produce a broad range of cells that may be valuable for therapy.”

Atala said the new research has found even more promising stem cells with the potential to turn into many more medically useful replacement parts.

“We have other cell lines cooking,” Atala said.

The hallmark of human embryonic stem cells, which are created in the first days after conception, is the ability to turn into any of the more than 220 cell types that make up the human body. Researchers are hopeful they can train these primordial cells to repair damaged organs in need of healthy cells.

However, many people, including President Bush, oppose the destruction of embryos for any reason. The Bush administration has restricted federal funding for the embryo work since 2001, leading many scientists to search for alternative stem cell sources.

The advance is the latest in the so-called regenerative medicine field that has sprung from Atala’s lab in Winston-Salem, N.C.

No substitute for embryonic cells
In April, Atala and his colleagues rebuilt bladders for seven young patients using live tissue grown in the lab.

In the latest work, Atala’s team extracted a small number of stem cells swimming among the many other cell types in the amniotic fluid.

One of the more promising aspects of the research is that some of the DNA of the amnio stem cells contained Y chromosomes, which means the cells came from the babies rather than the pregnant moms.

Dr. George Daley, a Harvard University stem cell researcher, said that finding raises the possibility that someday expectant parents can freeze amnio stem cells for future tissue replacement in a sick child without fear of immune rejection.

Nonetheless, Daley said the discovery shouldn’t be used as a replacement for human embryonic stem cell research.

“While they are fascinating subjects of study in their own right, they are not a substitute for human embryonic stem cells, which allow scientists to address a host of other interesting questions in early human development,” said Daley, who began work last year to clone human embryos to produce stem cells."

[Acknowledgements: Associated press; Msnbc health]

Well although they are not a substitute for human embryonic stem cells, at least it is another path to which stem cells may be extracted and used to generate different types of organs or tissues etc. Much safer than using human embryos.

Stem cell researchers reacted with enthusiasm and reservations to a report
that scientists have found stem cells in amniotic fluid, a discovery that would allow them to sidestep the controversy over destroying embryos for
research.

A new year!

Happy New Year everyone! Should have posted a last entry for 2006, but oh well, now i shall post the first entry of 2007. haha.

Let's look back at the weirdest science stories of 2006:

1st up:
Whales found to speak in dialects

We could blame our accents and different dialects on self-imposed borders -- but that doesn’t explain why animals from different regions speak in dialects. Using underwater microphones, scientists eavesdropped on whale talk and found that the blue whales off the Pacific Northwest sound different than those living in the western Pacific Ocean or near Chile. The reason? Still unknown.

2nd in line:
The Red Sea parts again

It parted once. It parted twice. And this time scientists are watching the whole thing. Satellite images show the Arabian tectonic plate and the African Plate are moving away from each other and parting the southern end of the Red Sea. This growing rift, which is tearing the northeast of Ethiopia and Eritrea from the rest of Africa, could eventually create a whole new sea.

the 3rd:
A new wave: Scientists write on water

Using wave generators, scientists were able to write on water. The Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin (AMOEBA)-- a circular tank created by researchers -- can form the Roman alphabets and some Japanese characters. The device could soon find its way to your nearest amusement park.

4th:
Spider cries out while mating

When mating, female Physocylus globosus squeak to tell their men what they should be doing. The cries are in response to being excited by males rhythmically squeezing their genitalia inside the female. The more a male squeezes, the greater the chance that it will be his sperm that sires her offspring.

5th:
Rats born to mice

Scientists produced healthy offspring from the cells of another species for the first time by taking rat stem cells involved in sperm production and implanting them in mice testicles. In the future, researchers hope to grow sperm of livestock or endangered species in mice or other lab animals.

6th:
Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin

In a tragic and unusual accident, the much loved and popular Australian television personality and conservationist,Steve Irwin, was killed by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. Stingrays sport a tail with an 8-inch spear that stiffens when faced with a threat. Although the spear packs venom that alters heart rate and respiration, it rarely kills humans. The Crocodile Hunter was probably killed because the stingray's spear pierced his heart.

7th:
Scientists create cloak of partial invisibility

Writer H.G. Wells imagined it in his writing in the late 1800’s, and this year scientists inched closer to creating an invisible man. Duke University researchers created a cloaking device that can make objects invisible to microwave light. The device works by rerouting microwaves beam around it the way boulders in a stream divert flowing water.

8th:
Penis transplant removed

Chinese doctors removed the transplanted penis of a 44-year-old man who had lost his own in an accident. The organ was removed two weeks after the transplant because of psychological problems encountered by the man and his wife.

9th (quite interesting):
Coins don't smell -- you do

That metallic odor you smell after handling change? It's created by the breakdown of oils in skin after touching objects that contain iron. The chemical reaction has most of us running to wash our hands to get that musty scent out

last one:
Amazon River flowed backwards

The Amazon River apparently changed its mind a few times in history. South America’s majestic waterway currently flows east into the Atlantic Ocean. But scientists found this year that millions of years ago, the great river flowed east to west and at one time went in both directions at once.

[Acknowledgement: LiveScience and msnbc ]

Some of these are quite interesting so hope it ends 2006..weirdly enough. lol.

Most Chicken Harbors Harmful Bacteria

I felt this was a very important article indeed:

"Dec. 4, 2006 -- Even if you go for the more expensive organic or antibiotic-free chicken, the chicken you buy at the grocery store probably contains bacteria that can make you sick.

But safe handling and proper cooking can reduce the risk.

A startling 83% of the chickens tested in a recent Consumer Reports investigation were contaminated with one or both of the leading bacterial causes of food-borne disease -- salmonella and campylobacter.

That is up from 49% in 2003, when the group last reported on contamination in chickens.

However, the results are similar to the contamination found in 1997, when almost three-fourths of the broilers Consumer Reports tested were positive for salmonella or campylobacter.

In their new report, "Dirty Birds," investigators with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, concluded that paying more for a chicken does not increase your chances of getting one free of illness-causing bacteria.

"Overall, chickens labeled as organic or raised without antibiotics and costing $3 to $5 per pound were more likely to harbor salmonella than were conventionally produced broilers that cost more like $1 a pound," they wrote.

Jean Halloran of Consumers Union tells WebMD that fewer than one if five birds tested (17%) were free of both pathogens, the lowest percentage of clean birds recorded since the group began testing chickens eight years ago.

Antibiotic Resistance High
Investigators for the independent consumer group tested 525 whole broiler chickens from leading brands like Perdue, Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, and Foster Farms, as well as organic and other brands raised without antibiotics.

The chickens were purchased at supermarkets, mass retailers, gourmet shops, and natural food stores in 23 states last spring.

Among the findings:

• 15% of chickens tested were contaminated with salmonella, compared to the 12% reported by Consumers Union in 2003.
• 81% harbored campylobacter, up from 42% in 2003. This bug is the main identified cause of bacterial diarrhea illness in the world.
• 13% of chickens were contaminated with both bacteria, up from 5% in 2003.
• 84% of the salmonella organisms analyzed and 67% of the campylobacter were resistant to one or more antibiotics. In the 2003 report, 34% of the salmonella and 90% of campylobacter were resistant.

"The problem of antibiotic resistance is related to both the widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed to promote growth and the widespread use in humans," Halloran says.

Major brands tested did not show better results than smaller brands, overall, based on tests of 78 chickens from each brand.

Among major brands, salmonella contamination ranged from a low of 3% in Foster Farms chickens to a high of 17% in chickens processed by Perdue.

But Perdue had the lowest level of campylobacter-contaminated chickens, with 74%; Tyson had the highest, at 89%.

Chicken Producers Respond
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires chicken producers to test for salmonella, but not campylobacter. The agency will begin collecting data on campylobacter soon, but it is not clear if it will set federal limits or require routine testing.

Halloran says it is clear routine testing is needed.

"81% [campylobacter] contamination is intolerable, in our view," she says.

Richard L. Lobb, a chicken industry spokesman, agrees that 81% would be unacceptable, but he argues that far fewer chickens are contaminated with the bacteria.

Lobb is director of communications for the National Chicken Council. He cites a recent, larger study by USDA researchers, in conjunction with the 10 major chicken processors, which found campylobacter bacteria in 26% of the processed chickens tested.

"How they could get from 26% to 81% just blows my mind," Lobb tells WebMD.
He adds that the chicken industry does not oppose testing for campylobacter, and says chicken is both a safe and healthy food.

"Consumer Reports says what every cook already knows -- that fresh poultry may carry naturally occurring bacteria and should be properly handled and cooked," says Lobb.

"The Consumer Reports story, as far as we know, contains nothing new and should not be cause for alarm to anyone," he says.

What Can You Do?
All agree proper handling and cooking can greatly reduce and even eliminate the risk of illness from chickens harboring salmonella or campylobacter bacteria.

That means always cooking chicken thoroughly, to the point where there are no red juices.
"Chicken needs to be cooked to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit," Halloran says. "The best thing to do is test it with a meat thermometer. And if you are in a restaurant and you cut into chicken that doesn't look done, send it back."

Other suggestions for reducing risk include:

• At the grocery store, make chicken one of the last things you pick up before heading to the check-out line.
• Store and thaw chicken in the refrigerator, making sure its juices are contained and cannot contaminate other foods. Placing it on a plate, in a bowl, or inside a plastic bag is a good way to do this.
• When preparing chicken, wash your hands with soap and water after contact, and immediately clean cutting boards, knives, and anything else the chicken touches in hot, soapy water.
• Never return cooked meat to the plate that held it raw without washing the plate first.
  Washing chicken and removing its skin before cooking does not ensure it is free of bacteria.
  

"Consumers now have to realize that most chickens contain disease-causing bacteria, and that means they have to act appropriately," Halloran says. "They can't take chances.""

[Acknowledgement: WebMD]

"Consumers now have to realize that most chickens contain disease-causing bacteria, and that means they have to act appropriately," Halloran says. "They can't take chances."

And I agree with him.

Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says

This is interesting, after many debates abt what cell phones can do to us, the debate is still continuing.

"WASHINGTON - A huge study from Denmark offers the latest reassurance that cell phones don’t trigger cancer.

Scientists tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including 52,000 who had gabbed on the gadgets for 10 years or more, and some who started using them 21 years ago.

They matched phone records to the famed Danish Cancer Registry that records every citizen who gets the disease — and reported Tuesday that cell-phone callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer a range of cancer types.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the largest yet to find no bad news about the safety of cell phones and the radiofrequency energy they emit.

No end to the debate
But even the lead researcher doubts it will end the debate.

“There’s really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves,” said John Boice, a Vanderbilt University professor and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. “Nonetheless, people are.”

So Boice and colleagues at Copenhagen’s Danish Cancer Society plan to continue tracking the Danish callers until at least some have used the phones for 30 years.

This so-called Danish cohort “is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,” said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer.

Reassurance ... for now
“As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,” Muscat added.

Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, raising questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk, but a few studies have raised questions. And while U.S. health officials insist the evidence shows no real reason for concern, they don’t give the phones a definitive clean bill of health, either, pending long-term data on slow-growing cancers.

For the latest study, personal identification numbers assigned to each Dane at birth allowed researchers to match people who began using cell phones between 1982 and 1995 with cancer records.

Among 420,000 callers tracked through 2002, there were 14,249 cancers diagnosed — fewer than the 15,001 predicted from national cancer rates. Nor did the study find increased risks for any specific tumor type."

[Acknowledgement: Associated Press]

"As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet"

Eating red meat may raise breast cancer risk

Here's what I just read:

"CHICAGO - Eating red meat may raise a woman’s risk of a common type of breast cancer, and vitamin supplements will do little if anything to protect her heart, two new studies suggest.

Women who ate more than 1½ servings of red meat per day were almost twice as likely to develop hormone-related breast cancer as those who ate fewer than three portions per week, one study found.

The other — one of the longest and largest tests of whether supplements of various vitamins can prevent heart problems and strokes in high-risk women — found that the popular pills do no good, although there were hints that women with the highest risk might get some benefit from vitamin C.

The meat study was published in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine. The vitamin study was presented at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago. Both were led by doctors at Harvard Medical School and were aimed at two diseases women most fear and want to prevent.

Antioxidants like vitamins C and E attach to substances that can damage cells. Scientists have been testing them for preventing such diseases as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

This is the first large study to test vitamin C alone, not in combination with E or other vitamins, for heart health, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who led the research.

More than 8,000 women were randomly assigned to take vitamin C, E or beta carotene alone or in various combinations for nearly a decade. An additional 5,442 women took folic acid and B vitamin supplements for more than seven years.

“Overall, there was minimal evidence of any cardiovascular benefit of any of these antioxidants,” and people should not start or continue taking them for that purpose, Manson said.

Among the 3,000 women in the study who had no prior heart disease but three or more risk factors for it, those who received vitamin C alone or in combination had a 42 percent lower risk of stroke. Smokers taking C also had a 48 percent lower risk.

Vitamin E could help a little
Vitamin E may give very small benefits for some women, the study suggests. Those with prior heart disease had a 12 percent reduction in the risk of new heart problems, Manson said.

“Many of these subgroup findings are intriguing. However, they need to be confirmed in other studies,” Manson said. “We don’t want this to be interpreted as a conclusive finding.”

What does appear conclusive is that folic acid and B vitamins “are not effective as preventive agents,” said Dr. Christine Albert, who presented that portion of the study at the heart meeting on Monday. These nutrients lower homocysteine, a blood substance thought to increase heart disease risk, but many studies now call the importance of that into question.

The meat study was based on observation rather than an experiment. The Nurses’ Health Study tracked the diets and health of more than 90,000 women who were 26 to 46 years old when they enrolled roughly two decades ago.

They filled out diet questionnaires in 1991, 1995 and 1999, and were divided into five groups based on how much red meat they said they ate. Researchers checked on their health for 12 years on average and confirmed breast cancer diagnoses with medical records.

Meat consumption was linked to a risk of developing tumors whose growth was fueled by estrogen or progesterone — the most common type — but not to tumors that grow independently of these hormones.

The women who ate more red meat were more likely to smoke and be overweight, but when the researchers took those factors into account, they still saw that red meat was linked with an increased risk of breast cancer.

Red meat also raises risk of colorectal cancer
Earlier studies have found that obesity raises the risk of breast cancer and that red meat raises the risk of colorectal cancer.

“Our study may give another motivation to reduce red meat intake,” said study co-author Eunyoung Cho.

However, Dr. Anne McTiernan of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle cautioned that the findings rely on women’s recall of what they ate — an inexact way to measure diet.

“A 16-ounce steak and a three-ounce piece of meat are counted the same. People are horrible at determining what is a real serving,” said McTiernan, author of “Breast Fitness,” a book on reducing cancer risk.

It may be wise to cut down on red meat because of its fat and calorie content, McTiernan said, but “this isn’t a reason to become a vegetarian if you weren’t planning to do that already.”"

[Acknowledgement: Associated Press]

Happy people catch fewer colds

Here's an article that's really interesting. Now there's another reason to be happy! (:

"Happy people are healthier people, research suggests.

People who are happy, lively, calm or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to catch colds and report fewer symptoms of the illness when they are under the weather.

The new finding held true regardless of personality traits such as optimism, extraversion and self-esteem. A person’s age, race, gender, education and body mass also did not make a difference.

Researchers interviewed 193 volunteers, aged 21 to 55, over several weeks to assess their moods and overall emotional states, and then infected them with either a rhinovirus, known to cause the common cold, or an influenza virus, responsible for the basic flu.

The volunteers were then quarantined to see if they came down with a cold or the flu. While the study found happiness is associated with boosted health, it suggests the opposite might not be true.

People who reported more negative emotions, such as depression, anxiety and anger, were not any more likely to catch colds than normal controls, the study found.

The study, led by psychologist Stephen Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University, will be detailed online in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. "

[acknowledgement: Livescience.com]

An Inconvenient Truth

Ok, So I've watched it. And I'd give it a 4/5.

Firstly, the statistics were real and enough to prove a lot. Indeed, temperature do have a correlation with the amount of carbon dioxide.

The whole film was somewhat an in-between thing between one of his lectures on global warming and his life revolving around saving the planet. The illustrations he gave were easily digestible. Especially the one about the frog in a beaker of water that was slowly boiling. The images that he has shown were amazing and astonishing as well.

It's an inspirational film that will encourage you to save the planet now before it's too late. You can reduce your carbon emissions to as much as 0%. And by other ways we can do, we can reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the air to as low as the level in 1970.

Anyway, if you love your planet, there's no harm watching it.

You can visit the official site at www.climatecrisis.net on how you can start saving the Earth.

Watching "An Inconvenient Truth" tmr

I am so excited. I'll be watching this documentary movie/film tmr and really just watching the trailer is already quite scary. Not the horror gore kind of scary but the oh-my-god-this-is-actually-happening kind of scary. As I blog most of the time about global warming, I know most of these effects. But just watching it all as once will really remind one the importance of saving the environment. Global warming is real. It's already happening and by 10 years time if we don't do anything, the effects are really too vast and horrifying to describe. I've seen some images in the trailer and those are real from pictures I myself have seen. It's a movie that should not be missed. Even if you're not an environmental person, you should not miss this chance seriously. But still, I haven't watched it, haha. So I shall rate and review it tmr. So be sure to check back tmr. Right now, I will list down these global warming facts from the official site of the movie:


"WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.(1) The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.(2)

Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.(3)

The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.(4)

At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.(5)

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences :

Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.(6)

Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.(7)

Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.

Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.

The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.(8)

More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.(9)

There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION

1 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this era of global warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of the global climate."

2 Emanuel, K. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436: 686-688.

3 World Health Organization

4 Krabill, W., E. Hanna, P. Huybrechts, W. Abdalati, J. Cappelen, B. Csatho, E. Frefick, S. Manizade, C. Martin, J, Sonntag, R. Swift, R. Thomas and J. Yungel. 2004. Greenland Ice Sheet: Increased coastal thinning. Geophysical Research Letters 31.

5 Nature.

6 World Health Organization

7 Washington Post, "Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change," Juliet Eilperin, January 29, 2006, Page A1.

8 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Also quoted in Time Magazine, Vicious Cycles, Missy Adams, March 26, 2006.

9 Time Magazine, Feeling the Heat, David Bjerklie, March 26, 2006.

The next section I'm posting is "about the film":


"Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life - convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.

Paramount Classics and Participant Productions present a film directed by Davis Guggenheim, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Featuring Al Gore, the film is produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns. Jeff Skoll and Davis Guggenheim are the executive producers and the co-producer is Leslie Chilcott. "


I've also got the trailer from Youtube so that all of you can watch it:

Why does eating feel so good? It’s in your head

I found this article in MSNBC health provided by Reuters. It's really interesting..

"WASHINGTON - Why does eating feel so good? The secret may lie in the head, not in the stomach, U.S. researchers reported.

Tests on rats show that the appetite hormone ghrelin acts on pleasure receptors in the brain.

The findings may help researchers develop better diet drugs.

“In mice and rats ghrelin triggers the same neurons as delicious food, sexual experience, and many recreational drugs; that is, neurons that provide the sensation of pleasure and the expectation of reward,” the researchers write in Friday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“These neurons produce dopamine and are located in a region of the brain known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA),” wrote the researchers, headed by Dr. Tamas Horvath of the Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut.

Horvath’s team found that ghrelin, itself only discovered in the last decade, acts on a molecular structure on brain cells called the ghrelin receptor growth hormone secretagogue 1 receptor or GHSR for short.

When ghrelin was infused into this area of the rats’ brains, they ate as hungrily as they did after being kept hungry overnight, the researchers said.

Ghrelin is produced in the gut and triggers the brain to promote eating.

Several hormones are known to be involved in eating and appetite, and studies have shown that influencing them can affect weight gain in rats and mice. Influencing human eating behavior has proven far more difficult, however.

Horvath said it might be possible to design a drug that interferes with GHSR and thus help people with eating disorders."

[Acknowledgements: MSNBC health, Reuters]

'One degree and we're done for'

This article is from newscientist 27 sept , it's rather shocking and scary really:

""Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."'

So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen's team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

The analysis reinforces a series of recent findings on accelerating environmental disruption in Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska, underlining a growing scientific consensus that these regions are pivotal to climate change. Earlier this month, NASA scientists reported that climate change was speeding up the melting of Arctic sea ice. Permanent sea ice has contracted by 14 per cent in the past two years (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, L17501). However, warming and melting have been just as dramatic on land in the far north.

A meeting on Siberian climate change held in Leicester, UK, last week confirmed that Siberia has become a hotspot of global climate change. Geographer Heiko Balzter, of the University of Leicester, said central Siberia has warmed by almost 2 °C since 1970 - that's three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska Fairbanks this week reported that air temperatures in the Alaskan interior have risen by 2 °C since 1950, and permafrost temperatures have risen by 2.5 °C (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606955103).

In Siberia the warming is especially pronounced in winter. "It has caused the onset of spring to advance by as much as one day a year since satellite observations began in 1982," says Balzter. Similarly, Alaskan springs now arrive two weeks earlier than in 1950, according to Chapin.

The Leicester meeting heard that the rising temperatures are causing ecological changes in the forests that ratchet up the warming still further. Vladimir Petko from the Russian Academy of Sciences Forest Research Institute in Krasnoyarsk says warm springs are triggering plagues of moths. "They can eat the needles of entire forest regions in one summer," he says. The trees die and then usually succumb to forest fires that in turn destroy soil vegetation and accelerate the melting of permafrost, Petko says.

In 2003 Siberia saw a record number of forest fires, losing 40,000 square kilometres according to Balzter, who has analysed remote sensing images of the region. Similar changes are occurring in Alaska. According to Chapin, warming there has shortened the life cycle of the bark beetle from two years to one, causing huge infestations and subsequent fires, which destroyed huge areas of forest in 2004. "The current boreal forest zone could be so dried out by 2090 that the trees will die off and be replaced by steppe," says Nadezhda Tchebakova, also at the institute in Krasnoyarsk.

Melting permafrost in the boreal forests and further north in the Arctic tundra is also triggering the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from thick layers of thawing peat. First reports published exclusively in New Scientist last year (13 August 2005, p 12) were recently confirmed by US scientists (Nature, vol 443, p 71).

"Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect," says Balzter. Hansen's paper concludes that the effects of this positive feedback could be huge. "In past eras, the release of methane from melting permafrost and destabilised sediments on continental shelves has probably been responsible for some of the largest warmings in the Earth's history," he says.

We could be close to unleashing similar events in the 21st century, Hansen argues. Although the feedbacks should remain modest as long as global temperatures remain within the range of recent interglacial periods of the past million years, outside that range - beyond a further warming of about 1 °C - the feedbacks could accelerate. Such changes may become inevitable if the world does not begin to curb greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, Hansen says.

Meanwhile, another new study underlines that the boreal peat bogs, permafrost and pine forests are not just vital to the planet as a whole, they are major economic assets for the countries that host them. A detailed study of the northern boreal forests by environmental consultant Mark Anielski of Edmonton, Canada, puts the value of their "ecosystem services" at $250 billion a year, or $160 per hectare.

These benefits include flood control, water purification and pest control provided by forest birds, plus income from wilderness tourism and meat from wildlife such as caribou. Anielski presented his findings to Canada's National Forest Congress in Gatineau-Ottawa earlier this week.

The value of these ecosystem services is more than twice that of conventional resources taken from the region each year, such as timber, minerals, oil and hydroelectricity, Anielski says. "If they were counted in Canadian inventories of assets, they would amount to roughly 9 per cent of our gross domestic product - similar in value to our health and social services."

You can add to that figure the value of having such a huge volume of carbon locked away. "The boreal region is like a giant carbon bank account," he says. "At current prices in the European carbon emissions trading system, Canada's stored carbon alone would be worth $3.7 trillion."

And if Hansen is right that the carbon and methane stored in the boreal regions has the potential to transform the world into "another planet", then the boreal region may be worth a great deal more than that."

It's really scary that just one degree will trigger so many inextricably linked events because of the burning of fossil fuels, the emission of greenhouse gases etc. We have to really save the environment!Or we'll all perish from our own actions.

I've also subscribe to msn alerts that allows you to receive an update once I update this blog. I hope it'll work. If there's any problems do email me, and I'll see what can be done.

Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know.

Embryonic stem cells without embryo death

Well, as I promised, the article. Sorry for the delay, heh. Have been really busy. After this article, I will only update either the end of this month or next month. Sorry everyone, coz I'm having my prelims this month and 'A' levels in november. Yep.

"You don’t have to destroy an embryo to create stem cells for medical research. An American biosciences company has succeeded in deriving the cells from embryos without killing them, raising hopes that President Bush will reconsider his veto on federal funding for such work.
Last year, Bob Lanza and his team from Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, demonstrated that stem cells could be harvested from mouse embryos without killing them (see Are all human embryos equal?). Now they have done the same in human embryos left over from IVF treatment.

The researchers employed a technique used in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in which a single cell or “blastomere” is removed from the ball of eight to 10 cells that comprise the early embryo. The researchers were able to grow a stem cell line from just one or two cells from an early embryo - leaving that embryo viable. The cells are “pluripotent”, meaning they can grow into the three major tissue types (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05142).

Lanza hopes that because the method does not involve destroying embryos, it will lead to the lifting of the veto on federal funding for stem cell research. “We need to jump-start the field – it’s been crippled by a lack of funding,” he says. “This will hopefully solve the political impasse and bring the president on board, as no embryos will be harmed with this method.”

IVF embryos that have been biopsied for PGD have grown into normal babies, says Alison Murdoch of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. “However, it is not true to say the biopsy is not detrimental to the embryo,” she says. “Some embryos do not survive.”

Lanza says that until the safety issues have been examined more closely, the procedure should only be used on a cell already taken from an embryo for PGD."


This would be quite a good news to embryonic scientists throughout the world. With this technology, many controversies abt killing a life would be less critical and with safety issues examined by these scientists, there shouldn't really be much problem.

Update

Sry abt not updating for a month. Have been really busy. I will be updating soon I hope. And most probably on the recent research in embryonic stem cells.

How nicotine helps cancer grow

Sorry for not updating for some time. Right..this article is very suitable for all smokers out there or even non-smokers who have people around them that are smokers. The article is from newscientist 21 July :
"Nicotine influences a key cancer pathway in cells, which may explain how it speeds up cancer growth, says a new study. The researchers believe their results may help in the design of better anti-cancer drugs.

"We believe that these components can be targeted for cancer therapy," says Srikumar Chellappan of the University of South Florida, in Tampa, US, who led the study. "So we are quite excited about the new therapeutic avenues this study has revealed."

Rather than initiate cancer, nicotine seems to make existing cancers more aggressive, he says. Previous studies have found, for example, that breast cancer is more likely to spread to the lungs of patients who smoke than those who do not. And blocking the receptors for nicotine on the surface of aggressive cancer cells in a laboratory dish halts their growth (see Nicotine speeds the growth of lung cancers).

Cigarette smoking can nevertheless trigger the development of cancer, stresses Chellappan. By-products of nicotine and other compounds are to blame, though, rather than nicotine itself.

One pack a day
Although it was known that nicotine makes cancers more aggressive, relatively little is known about how it has this effect. To explore this question Chellappan and his colleagues looked at the specific molecules in cancer cells that interact with nicotine.

They exposed human lung cancer cells to an amount of nicotine equivalent to that present in the bloodstream of a person who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day. This stimulated the cells to replicate. A closer look revealed that nicotine caused a molecule called Raf-1 to bind to a key protein called Rb, which normally suppresses tumours.

This interference with the Rb protein's function could make the cancer spread faster, says Chellappan. Eight out of ten tumours examined by his group had abnormally high Raf-1 and Rb interactions, a finding that lends further support to this idea.

"One area of active research in our laboratory is to identify agents that can prevent the binding of Raf-1 and Rb," says Chellappan, adding that such drugs "could have potent anti-cancer activities".

[Acknowledgement: Newscientist]

Well, although a drug that may perform anti-cancer activities is under research..It'll still take quite a long time to be produced and trialled. That is why, every smoker should quit smoking. Every non-smoker should not smoke. Cigarettes should be banned while nicorette gums encouraged. This is also for the benefit of non-smokers because second hand smoke is potentially more dangerous than first hand. Smoking in public also affects many different people like pregnant women, the elderly and young children. They are innocent especially an unborn child. Therefore, one should always think before smoking. It not only affects you in the future but the people around you...at a faster rate than you think. If one cannot quit, he/she should always think about everyone that he/she cares about and after some time, of distractions and much nicorette gums, I'm sure a better life awaits. Smoking is bad for health so quit before it's too late; hesitate before addiction awaits.

A closer look revealed that nicotine caused a molecule called Raf-1 to bind to a key protein called Rb, which normally suppresses tumours.
This interference with the Rb protein's function could make the cancer spread faster

Kyoto promises are nothing but hot air

Check out this article from NewScientist, 22 June. It's quite disappointing.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025574.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19025574.000

Many governments, including some that claim to be leading the fight against global warming, are harbouring a dirty little secret. These countries are emitting far more greenhouse gas than they say they are, a fact that threatens to undermine not only the shaky Kyoto protocol but also the new multibillion-dollar market in carbon trading.

A revealing reflection

Ok..I noe...I haven't updated for nearly a month..haha. Have been really busy. Right..this time, I'll be talking about sth really interesting. It somehow answers our common question of "Why is yawning and laughing contagious?". This article is from Scientific American Mind April/May issue (I haven't gotten the June/July yet. If I do, I'll find some interesting ones :)). Ok..so anyway..This article talks about how the discovery of mirror neurons provide stunning insights into everything from how we learn to walk to how we empathise with others. This article is really long, so I'll just type a few here and there:

"These neurons have been studied in the past for their roles in movement and other functions. Now, however, researchers are examining them intensely for what seems to be an additional function - the way they fire in response to something observed. The discovery of this mechanism, made about a decade ago, suggests that everything we watch someone else do, we do as well - in our minds. At its most basic, this finding means we mentally rehearse or imitate every action we witness, whether it is a somersault or a subtle smile. It explains much about how we learn to smile, talk, walk, dance, or play tennis. At a deeper level, it suggests a biological dynamic for our understanding of others, the complex exchange of ideas we call culture, and psychosocial dysfunctions ranging from lack of emphathy to autism. Comprehending mirror neurons helps us make sense of everything from why yawns are contagious to why, watching Lawrence Olivier fall to his knees, we share Hamlet's grief for Ophelia."

"The researchers have learned, for instance, that mirror neurons do not just fire when an animal is watching someone else perform an action. Mirror neurons also fire if a monkey hears the sound of someone doing something it has experienced - say, tearing a piece of paper. And as the scientists began studying humans (using brain imaging rather then electrodes), they found groups of mirror neurons in higher numbers and in more places than occur in monkeys. Mirror neurons revealed themselves in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal areas - associated with movement and perception - as well as in the posterior parietal lobe, the superior temporal sulabilities to comprehend someone else's feelings, understand intention and use language.

Unlike monkeys, humans also use mirror neurons to directly imitate actions and to understand their meanings. It appears we use mirror neurons to learn everything from our first smiles and steps to our most sauve expressions and graceful dance moves. We also use them to appreciate these things, to feel the meaning behind a smile or to enjoy - in a sense by doing it at a premotor neural level - the thrill of hitting a tennis ball as we watch a Pete Sampras backhand. (and just adding sth on my own - probably the thrill of kicking a soccer ball as we watch the world cup lol)"

" Another major insight relates to our understanding of other people's intentions and emotions. Several studies have demonstrated the dynamics of empathy, two with particular elegance. One, described by Iacoboni in 2005, shows that our mirror neurons work in elaborate sets. We possess a basic set of mirror neurons corresponding to an action's most essential form - reaching, for instance - that is supplemented by other groups of mirror neurons that selectively fire according to the action's percieved purpose. Iacoboni had volunteers watch films of people reaching for various objects within a teatime setting - a teapot, a mug, a pitcher of cream, a plate of pastries, napkins - in different contexts. In every instance, a basic collection of "reaching" mirror neurons would also fire depending on what expected action was suggested by various details in the scene. If the viewer saw a neatly set table and expected the hand to pick up a teacup to drink, one array fired; if the viewer saw a messy table and expected the hand to pick up a cup to clear it away, another group fired. Thus, mirror neurons seem to play a key role in percieving intentions - the first step in understanding others and also in building social relations and feeling empathy."

Here are two captions from two pictures:
"Contagion: When we see another person yawn, mirror neurons in primal brain regions tell us to do the same. Group laughter can be catching, too."
"Empathy: Theatregoers feel the pain of an actress spurned because their mirror neurons fire as if they were experiencing their own rejection firsthand."

[Acknowledgement: Scientific American Mind]

Wow with so much typing..my hands are getting tired already as I just updated my blog too heh. Anyway, I think that's really probably how we learn what we learnt with the mirror neurons being the backstage crew of our lifestages. It's really interesting isn't it? Such breakthrough..as mentioned in the last para: " If their enormous explanatory power is backed by more robust results, they might indeed become regarded as the DNA of neuroscience" Oh yes I'd have to agree with that. Such a wonderful thing for a better understanding of life should be researched into more; producing even more intriguing results (:

Contagion: When we see another person yawn, mirror neurons in primal brain regions tell us to do the same. Group laughter can be catching, too.

The 2% Difference

This article is from Discover, April and it is about the 2% difference between chimps and us humans; what those differences are. I'll not post the whole article but the most interesting part about the difference in our brains and theirs: "...That all makes sense. Still, chimps and humans have very different brains. So which are the brain-specific genes that have evolved in very different directions? It turns out that there are hardly any that fit that bill. This, too, makes a great deal of sense. Examine a neuron from a human brain under a microscope, then do the same with a neuron from the brain of a chimp, a rat, a frog, or a sea slug. The neurons all look the same: fibrous dendrites at one end, an axonal cable at the other. They all run on the same basic mechanism: channels and pumps that move sodium, potassium, calcium around, triggering a wave of excitation called an action potential. They all have a similar complement of neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and so on. They're all the same basic building blocks. The main difference is the sheer number of neurons. The human brain has 100 million times the number of neurons a sea slug's brain has. Where do these differences in quantity come from? At some point in their development, all embryos - whether human, chimp, rat, frog, or slug - must have a single first cell committed toward generating neurons. That cell divides and gives rise to 2 cells; those divide into 4, then 8, then 16. After a dozen rounds of cell division, you've got roughly enough neurons to run a slug. Go another 25 rounds or so and you've got a human brain. Stop a couple rounds short of that and, at about one-third the size of a human brain, you've got one for a chimp. Vastly different outcomes, but relatively few genes regulate the number of rounds of cell division in the nervous system before calling a halt. And it's precisely some of those genes, the ones involved in neural development, that appear on the list of differences between the chimp and human genomes.

That's it; that's the 2 percent solution. What's shocking is the simplicity of it. Humans, to be human, don't need to have evolved unique genes that code for entirely novel types of neurons or neurotransmitters, or a more complex hippocampus (with resulting improvements in memory), or a more complex frontal cortex (from which we gain the ability to postpone gratification). Instead, our braininess as a species arises from having humongous numbers of just a few types of off-the-rack neurons and from the exponentially greater number of interactions between them. The difference is sheer quantity: Qualitative distinctions emerge from large numbers. Genes may have something to do with that quantity, and thus with the complexity of the quality that emerges. Yet no gene or genome can ever tell us what sorts of qualities those will be. Remember that when you and the chimp are eyeball to eyeball, trying to make sense of why the other seems vaguely familiar."

[Acknowledgement: Discover Magazine]

That was only like 1/3 of the whole article yet it is really fascinating to know that the number of neurons actually makes us so different from the chimps. There was a picture of the foot of a chimpanzee and it resembles so much like our limbs with the lines and everything. There were other differences mentioned in the article for example that "chimps have a great many more genes related to olfaction than we do; they've got a better sense of smell because we've lost many of those genes. The 2% distinction also involves an unusually large fraction of genes related to the immune system, parasite vulnerability, and infectious diseases; chimps are resistant to malaria, and we aren't; we handle tuberculosis better than they do. Another important fraction of that 2% involves genes related to reproduction - the sorts of anatomical difference that split a species in two and keep them from breeding." They make a whole lot of difference don't they.

Examine a neuron from a human brain under a microscope, then do the same with a neuron from the brain of a chimp, a rat, a frog, or a sea slug. The neurons all look the same: fibrous dendrites at one end, an axonal cable at the other.

Prisoner's dilemma

Sorry about the stagnatation.Here's the Prisoner's dilemma as I've promised. This is mentioned in a chapter in Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue: Human instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation" It is actually a game, the most famous game in all of game theory which has been central to one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of recent years - nothing less than an understanding of why people are nice to each other. It applies whenever there is a conflict between self-interest and the common good. The game is called the prisoner's dilemma because the commonest anecdote to illustrate it describes two prisoners each faced with the choise of giving evidence against the other and so reducing his own sentence. The dilemma arises because if neither defects on the other, the polive can convict them both only on a lesser charge, so both would be better off if they stayed silent, but each is individually better off it he defects.

There is another sophisticated version of it known as the stag hunt and a modern version of the stag hunt - the wolf's dilemma. In the wolf's dillema: "Twenty people sit, each in a cubicle, with their fingers on buttons. Each person will get $1,000 after ten minutes, unless someone pushes his button, in which case the person who pushed the button will get $100 and everybody else will get nothing. If you are clever you do not push the button and collect $1000 but if you are very clever, you see that there is a tiny chance that somebody will be stupid enough to push his or her button, in which case you are better off pushing yours first, and if you are very, very clever you see that the very clever people will deduce this and will push their buttons, so you, too, had better push yours. As in the prisoner's dilemma, true logic leads you into collective disaster"

There are many other versions, explanations and etc. elaborated in the chapter. But on reading and understanding the prisoner's and wolf's dilemma alone, it seems quite true when illustrating humans co-operation with each other. For example, in the wolf' dilemma, if everyone collaborated at the start to not push the button together, there is still somehow a normal natural instinct in them that one of them will push the button and all will end up with nth except the person who pushed the button..it is probably a human nature in all of us to think like so.

In the later part of the the chaper, there is actually another game called tit-for-tat which is predicted to be a mechanism for generating co-operation between unrelated individuals. It has got something to do with reciprocity in society. But it is a little too long to elaborate. Anyway, all this is definitely something worth thinking about.

[Acknowledgement: Ridley, Matt.1996.The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Co-operation. 3:53-55, 63.]

Next update

Really sorry abt not updating for at least 2 weeks.I'm having my exams next week..so I'll probably update next weekend thereafter. I've also thought of creating a new section at the side-bar for latest bird-flu articles/updates so I can talk about more interesting stuff or news ;) yeps.

Bird flu arrives in Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia

This is an article from irishexaminer.com, I had already seen this in the news yesterday and it is that the deadly H5N1 has been detected in Greece, Italy Bulgaria and Slovenia. So far no human cases have been found in these places. For the full article this is the website: http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/world/Full_Story/did-sgynF8r3r4ybcsg0aewFBADppk.asp I will not be commenting too much on this because I would like to talk about something more interesting. Something called "The prisoner's dilemma" or another version of it: the "wolf's dilemma". This has got something to do with the evolution of cooperation. But I shall only discuss this in my next post. Going for dinner now and quite tired after running 10 rounds of the school track.

H5N1 bird flu reaches Africa

This is quite a major news, I shall post the article first from NewScientist, 9th Feb: "The H5N1 bird flu virus has been confirmed in north-central Nigeria. Scientists had feared the virus would reach Africa, where human poverty and disease could combine with millions of highly susceptible backyard poultry to produce many human infections, and potentially a human pandemic virus.

But New Scientist can reveal that the location of Africa’s first reported outbreak should not come as a surprise. The region affected is right beside a major wintering ground for two relatively common species of duck. Those ducks shared breeding grounds in Siberia last summer with birds that winter in Turkey and around the Black Sea, where the virus also appeared recently.

“We are facing a serious international crisis,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal health at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy. He is pleading for any further die-offs of poultry in the region to be reported immediately.

The World Animal Health Organization (OIE) in Paris, France, reported on Wednesday that 40,000 poultry, mainly laying hens, have died since 10 January at a commercial farm near Igabi in Kaduna state, a small town 150 kilometres south of the northern city of Kano. The owners initially tried antibiotics.

But the cause has now been confirmed as highly pathogenic H5N1 by the OIE’s collaborating centre for bird flu in Padua, Italy. Moreover, it is the same strain that appeared in wild birds at Qinghai Lake in China in spring 2005, and has since travelled across Siberia to Turkey and the Black Sea.

Summer breeding grounds
As it has everywhere it has gone, the virus is devastating poultry in the region, with Nigerian agricultural authorities reporting the death of 150,000 birds in Kano and Kaduna states, and more outbreaks reported in other parts of Nigeria.

Furthermore, Kano is near the Hadejia-Nguru inland river delta, which is a major wintering location for Northern pintail and garganey ducks. These species summer in breeding grounds across Siberia, where the Qinghai strain of H5N1 infected poultry and wild birds in summer 2005. They then winter in Turkey, around the Black Sea, and in West Africa. The Qinghai strain has already broken out in Turkey and around the Black Sea, apparently carried by migrants.

The authoritative 1996 Atlas of Anatidae [ducks, geese and swans] Populations of Africa and Western Europe says the Northern pintail wintering in the Black Sea and Mediterranean basins “are lumped with those wintering in West Africa as a single large population”. On average, 18,000 pintails winter each year at Hadejia-Nguru. Similar numbers of garganey ducks follow the same migration and 500,000 of each species winter at nearby Lake Chad.

Some of the Northern pintail wintering now in Britain and along Europe’s North Sea and Atlantic coasts also spent last summer on the same breeding grounds as the pintail that subsequently flew to the Black Sea, Turkey and West Africa."

I first heard, or rather, saw this news when I was having my break in the canteen. There was then, news being reported on the tv in the canteen and as I read the headlines scrolling across at the bottom I saw something like "the bird flu that has been spreading in Turkey has spread to Africa" and I was like omg...and I told my friends the news..but they don't seem to be worrying about the pandemic if it really happens. But I told another friend though and she got into the same worrying level as me. So, I guess we're both like scared..heh. Anyway, it seems the probability is really getting even higher, It's now a matter of how soon. I think the whole world should be on the alert mode now, so all of us better be prepared. Remember to wash your hands frequently with soap and to practise good hygiene. Oh, and also remember to cook any poultry or eggs thoroughly with high heat to ensure that any viruses or microorganisms will be killed.

Scientists had feared the virus would reach Africa, where human poverty and disease could combine with millions of highly susceptible backyard poultry to produce many human infections, and potentially a human pandemic virus.

“We are facing a serious international crisis,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal health at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy.

Avian flu

I had an intuitive fear after watching the news yesterday and today. Yesterday, there were some bird flu cases discovered in Iraq; today, it seemed the bird flu has resurfaced in Hong Kong somehow.It seems to have gone from Turkey to Iraq to Hong Kong..where is it going next? Somehow as I listened and watched the news closely and carefully, it sparked a fear in me that I think the pandemic is getting nearer and nearer i.e. it's highly possible that it may happen quite soon....this year maybe. Of course I'm not some expert or anything, but seeing the news as it is.. it seemed possible. very possible. Just be on the alert... I hope I'm wrong of course..

Sweets for Stress

This is a rather interesting article from sciencentral.com which I found when I was browsing the site:"For some people sweets offer a treat or a little pick-me-up.

"It boosts my mood, makes me a little happier and then I can get through my day," says Leanne Mercadante a student in New York. "I feel happy, a little more relaxed."

For others it's more of an obsession.

"It's just comfortable, just total comfort food," explains Mika De Young, a self-confessed chocoholic. "It makes you happy."

"People that are stressed out, have any kind of anxiety, will definitely look to candy for relief," explains Kris Minkstein who meets many a sweet-lover while working at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York City. "When, a lot of times, a customer's had a long day… they'll pretty much indulge. They'll buy a lot of candy."

To those of us with our hands in the candy jar, here's some sweet news. Scientists have now shown that sugar can calm the nerves, at least in rats.

As reported on ScientificAmerican.com, brain researchers studied rats that were given water sweetened with sucrose — another name for sugar — twice a day for two weeks, as part of their regular nutritionally balanced diet, and compared them to rats that were not.

"We found that if they drink small amounts of sucrose it will reduce the amount of stress hormone produced during stress… relative to the rats that did not have access to sucrose," says stress neurobiologist Yvonne Ulrich-Lai from the University of Cincinnati's department of psychiatry.

During stress, signals are sent to a particular region of the brain that tells the body to release stress hormones, called glucocorticoids, from the adrenal gland. The researchers found that sugar reduces this hormonal response by about 25 percent, which may be why many of us feel more relaxed after eating sweets.

"Glucocorticoids are a type of stress hormone that are produced here in the body as the name implies during stress episodes. And in the short term they can help for survival during stress but excessive levels or levels that are high for too long can have detrimental side effects," Ulrich-Lai says.

These stress hormones help make sure that energy is available to the body during the fight or flight response and they can also help maintain blood pressure levels.

The research team stressed the rats using two different types of stressful stimuli. "One of them we referred to as 'restraint stress.' So, that is analogous to a person being in a well-lit well-ventilated crawl space for a long or short period of time," she explains. "The other stress that we use we term 'hypoxia,' and it's going into an environment with a slightly lower oxygen level, so it's the equivalent to a person being at a high altitude for a short period of time."

However, she says, that at this point they don't know to what extent these results might apply to people. Future work will need to be done to establish that.

Co-author of the study James Herman agrees that it's too soon to rush to the candy store just yet.

"People can, and animals can, essentially use sucrose as an anti-stress mechanism, and whether that is beneficial in the long run or contributes to things like obesity and diabetes and things along those lines, we don’t really know," says Herman, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.

In the meantime, a sweet snack on a rough day may not be so bad.

They say that interestingly, artificial sweeteners also reduced stress levels, although not as much as the real thing.

This work was featured on ScientificAmerican.com on November 16, 2005 and was presented at the 2005 annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.. The work was funded by a Diabetes and Disorders grant from the National Institutes of Health. "

Well, at least that might answer the question as to why sometimes we feel better after eating sweets. haha. And sometimes I do crave for sweets when I'm feeling down or stressed. I could feel my mood getting better. And last time when I have panic attacks, I turn to sweets as well. So they were the must-haves in my bag. Now, I still have them in my bags so that I can eat them when I'm feeling hungry or panicky. Some paediatric doctors give their patients sweets as well, to calm some of them down. But the long-term effect,when one eats too much is obesity and diabetes, especially diabetes. Some might wonder how eating too much sugar will cause diabetes. Well, I remembered in one of my notes or sth, it mentioned that overeating of sugary foods for a long period of time causes the repeated stimluation of the pancreas, secreting high levels of insulin and this in turn will desensitise the cells' response to insulin. And so glucose remains in the blood causing diabetes. Yep. That's why parents always tell their kids not to eat too much sweets as besides the possibilty of tooth cavities, there is also diabetes. I used to disbelieve that until I studied it, heh. So..just eat in moderate amounts >0<

Top 10 Health Stories of 2005

Happy new year everyone!! Sry abt not updating for a month, been reali busy. To start the year, here's the website for the top 10 health stories of 2005 picked by webMD editors: http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/116/112251.htm?pagenumber=1
It has five pages, so just slowly read through. Well, i browsed through an article in the newspaper today and it said that the number of suspected bird-flu cases in turkey has reached at least 30 - in unusual clusters which raise the possibility that the virus is becoming more contagious to humans. And I think I do rmb the news mentioning sth abt this too - that there might be a possibility of it being in the city. So after reading that i was quite afraid that if the pandemic is getting nearer, is there enough time for us to prepare?

Scientists discover how cancer spreads

Well, I came across this article today and thought it was realli a breakthrough: "LONDON - Scientists have discovered how cancer spreads from a primary site to other places in the body in a finding that could open doors for new ways of treating and preventing advanced disease.

Instead of a cell just breaking off from a tumor and traveling through the bloodstream to another organ where it forms a secondary tumour, or metastasis, researchers in the United States have shown that the cancer sends out envoys to prepare the new site.

Intercepting those envoys, or blocking their action with drugs, might help to prevent the spread of cancer or to treat it in patients in which it has already occurred.

"We are basically looking at all the earlier steps that are involved in metastasis that we weren't previously aware of. It is complex but we are opening the door to all these things that occur before the tumor cell implants itself," said Professor David Lyden, of Cornell University in New York.

"It is a map to where the metastasis will occur," he added in an interview.

Landing site for cancer cells
Cancer's ability to colonize other organs is what makes the disease so deadly. Once the cancer has spread beyond its original site it is much more difficult to treat.

In research reported in the journal Nature, Lyden and his colleagues describe what happens before the arrival of the cancerous cells at the new site.

"The authors show that tumor cells can mobilize normal bone marrow cells, causing them to migrate to particular regions and change the local environment so as to attract and support a developing metastasis," Patricia Steeg, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said in a commentary.

Cells at the site of the metastasis multiply and produce a protein called fibronectin, which acts like a glue to attract and trap the bone marrow cells to create a landing pad or nest for the cancer cells.

"These nests provide attachment factors for the tumor cells to implant and nurture them. It causes them not only to bind but to proliferate. Once that all takes place we have a fully formed metastatic site or secondary tumor," said Lyden.

"This is the first time anyone has discovered what we call the pre-metastatic niche."

Without the landing pad, the cancerous cell could not colonize the organ. In animal and laboratory studies, the scientists looked at how breast, lung and oesophageal cancer spread. The envoys from the tumor determine the site of the secondary site.

Lyden said measuring the number of special bone marrow cells circulating in the body could help to determine whether a cancer is likely to spread.

"This opens up the door to new concepts of how metastasis is taking place. If we can understand all these multiple processes we can develop new drugs that block each step. That way we have a much better future than just trying to treat the tumor cell, which is almost like a last step in this process," he added. "

[acknowledgement: Reuters ]

I agree with Prof. Lyden that "If we can understand all these multiple processes we can develop new drugs that block each step. That way we have a much better future than just trying to treat the tumor cell, which is almost like a last step in this process" There is always hope for everything, now that this had been discovered. This is just like finding something more complicated than the primary data. At first, it was discovered that cancer cells spread through the bloodstream. But now, we are able to determine the mechanism behind it. But I was thinking, the drug might be hard to develop as more time is needed to know more about this and to come up with something to fight it. I read about something in Discover and a link from this article about how nanotech can be used to treat cancer. I might post it the next time.

DNA restriction enzyme analysis workshop

Looking at the title, you might have wondered whether am I holding it or sth. lol. no.. In fact, I went to it last Friday, 18th nov. It was held in the Singapore Science Centre. I thk I can roughly remember the details of it:

Introduction: This workshop is mainly about restriction enzyme analysis and gel electrophoresis. In restriction enzyme analysis, specific enzymes are used to digest DNA, thus resulting in banding pattterns for comparisons and analysis. Gel electrophoresis separates the digested DNA fragments in an electric field to produce bands of DNA ( you can try guessing: DNA moves to the +ve or -ve side of the field?) . This technique is also the basis of DNA fingerprinting - often used in screening for diseases and solving criminal and paternity cases

09:30 - 11:30 a.m.: The workshop starts. Of course, the trainer introduces herself and went to introduce some facts abt DNA and also the micropipette and other apparatus in the lab. One micropipette costs abt S$500 and a bottle of agarose powder costs I thk S$800 if I'm not wrong. Ok, so then, we sort of practise with all the apparatus especially the micropipette. We did a run on sample dyes to get bands and we do case studies. After all that, we started on the real thing coz time will be needed for incubation in 37 degrees celsius environment in which that time will be our break. Okay, so it was like a case study thing again in which lots of bottles restriction enzymes were broken but onli 4 bottles were unbroken and we have to analyse and identify each restriction enzyme in the bottles. The 4 different restriction enzymes used by the company in the case study are EcoRI, HindIII, BamHI and NcoI. Lambda DNA (it's a bacteriophage which is a bacterial virus) was used as it is only 48, 502 bair-pair long, so is good for analysis. So four microtubes were labelled 1-4 and inside were different restriction enzymes. But of course, we have to make the agarose gel first. After the agarose was done, we have to wait for it to set. So in the mean time, we prepared the digestion mixture which is a mixture of the restriction enzymes, dye and DNA. The tubes were centrifuged to ensue that all the liquid in the tube settles to the bottom of the tube. And the tubes were placed in a 37 degrees celcius incubator/ water bath (I thk it's incubator) and time was also given to the enzymes for them to digest. Then, time for break.

11:30 - 13:30 p.m.: Break-time. Me and my friends had lunch at Macdonalds' and explored the science center. It was realli cool. I mean, its been like 4/5 years since I've been there haha. There was this human body exhibition, some physical science exhibition and of course we explored a little of the DNA trail since we had to go back for the workshop.

13:30 - 15:30 p.m.: The workshop continues. Now, the samples are ready for gel electrophoresis. 10 micro litres of each samples were loaded into four different wells in the agarose gel. We had to let it run for 45 min. In the mean time, we have to interpret restriction maps and calculate the sizes of the different fragments that each restriction enzyme will cut at specific sites of the lambda DNA. Then we did a drawing on the positions of the DNA fragments on a diagram of an agarose gel as these will be seens as bands on the actual agarose gel after it has been appropriately stained with ethidium bromide (highly mutagenic substance, must be handled very carefully and appropriately) and viewed. We watched some videos and very soon, the 45 mins were up. The gels were then taken for staining by the instructors and in the mean time, we did some more case studies. Soon after, the results of each group were printed and the enzymes were identified. The first tube is just the DNA sample with no digestion coz there was actually no enzyme inside. The second tube contains EcoRI, the third - HindIII and the last one is a mixture of EcoRI and HindIII. Yep. Then we did a group survey and it was the end of the workshop.

15:30-16:30 p.m.: One hour of exploration once again before it was time to leave for school.

It was a really fun and enjoyable experience althogether especially with the handling of the micropipette and other apparatus although I've handled a micropipette before when I was in secondary school, this time, I had longer time with it and more usage too. Not only that, I gain more knowledge about DNA profiling from the case studies. The case studies were realli interesting too. The videos shown were also very educational and enriching for us. This workshop reinforces my skills and knowledge in this area and not one minute was wasted ;). It was realli cool to be in the lab and wear the lab coat as well, makes all of us feel like scientists, haha.

High IQ in childhood tied to longer life

This is quite an interesting article as read from the title alone. It was from MSNBC health but they got it from Reuter so its essentially from Reuter. Anyway, so here it is: " NEW YORK - Smarter children may enjoy longer lives, the results of a new study suggest.

The study, which followed elderly adults deemed gifted by childhood IQ tests, found that the higher their early IQs were, the longer they lived -- up to a point, at least. The survival advantage began to plateau after a childhood IQ of 163, an intelligence level few people reach.

Dr. Laurie T. Martin and Laura D. Kubzansky of the Harvard School of Public Health report these findings in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Though the reasons for the link between IQ and longevity are not clear, it does not appear to be merely a reflection of income and social position. As children, the participants were from affluent families and most were white. Yet childhood IQ was still a factor in their lifespan.

Similarly, in an earlier study of Americans with more varied childhood IQs and family incomes, Martin found that IQ was related to health problems independently of socioeconomics.

This, she told Reuters Health, suggests that IQ affects longevity among lower-income people as well.

As research has already linked IQ to mortality, the current study, according to Martin, was in part an attempt to see how far the IQ-health advantage extends. The researchers expected there to be a cutoff at which a high IQ no longer brought any extra health benefits.

And there was. But, Martin said, they were surprised at how high that cutoff turned out to be.

IQs of 163 or higher are not often seen; the average IQ score in the general population is 100 (by definition), and children who score above 130 are considered “gifted.”

Smarter children, healthier habits
The current study is based on data from 862 men and women followed since childhood, starting in 1922, until 1986. All had childhood IQs of 135 or higher, with the average being 151.

The researchers found that, up to the cutoff point of 163, participants’ risk of dying during a given period decreased as their IQ increased; for example, those with a childhood IQ of 150 had a 44 percent lower risk of death than those with an IQ of 135.

Though it’s not clear why childhood IQ itself might affect a person’s lifetime health, Martin and Kubzansky point to several possibilities. For one, these children may be more likely to take up healthy habits like regular exercise, while shunning health risks like smoking. They are also more likely to get high-paying, prominent jobs as adults, with all the advantages that confers.

And in general, Martin noted, IQ scores reflect a “set of skills,” like reasoning, planning and communication, that affect how people manage their health -- from talking with their doctors to dealing with a complex healthcare system.

Understanding exactly why IQ affects longevity, according to Martin, could ultimately help improve health and healthcare for everyone."

Yep, this is a rather cool article. But from what I think, to me, it just seemed to be an incentive for the very high IQs. For the average, their lifespan are average too. While those with high IQ live longer. If they are those genius kind, at least living longer means they can contribute to the society more too since they are cleverer than the average and they are independant of their socioeconomic status. So its quite fair. And anyway, some high IQ ones are those born with it so its somewhat genetic and if its genetic then probably the genes are "tougher" and so they live longer. Oh yea, and I watched this documentary yesterday on Channelnewsasia, and its abt "Global dimming", its actually happening now and the most impt point that they mentioned is that if we dun control global warming, if warm temp sort of overrides the cool temp, then by 2030 (from one of the models) , the world will warm by 4 degrees and by then, all the ice sheets from Greenland could melt, tropical rain forests could wither and burn from the heat, there'll be heat stroke and many more. By 2100, the world might warm by 10 degrees. So unless we do something, these predictions might be true. [ all the info should be like that, I was quite engrossed in the show to catch some of the words] The documentary called "A species' odyssey" is just great too. It's about the evolution of men and I think it started from Australopithecus anamensis (I didnt realli catch the name) yep and it was in two parts, and it went all the way to Homo Sapiens. Its one of the best documentaries I've watched so far.

Scientists look to DNA for personalized diets

Firstly, I'll like to thank all the comments that was posted so far and in the future if any. I'll try and improve this blog in anyway I can. Okay, so back to this. I chanced upon this article while searching for articles for my general paper. This is from MSNBC heath and I thk it's realli cool:

"NEW YORK - As a registered dietitian, Ruth DeBusk has eaten a healthy diet for a long time. As a geneticist, she wondered if she could do better.

So earlier this year, she had her DNA tested by a company that gives personalized nutrition advice based on genetics. The results indicated she needed more folate.

So DeBusk doubled her minimum amount of folate, a B vitamin found in leafy greens and citrus.

“I’m more diligent about being sure that I get it every day if possible, because it really matters,” said DeBusk, who has a private practice in Tallahassee, Fla., and has written a book on nutrition and genetics.

“I’ll actually make an effort to drink a glass of orange juice or eat an extra big salad in the evening, being aware it hasn’t been one of my better folate days.”

Personalized dietary advice
That’s the way it’s supposed to work in a field called nutritional genomics or nutrigenomics. The basic idea is this: There are genes that affect the risk of getting illnesses like heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and diabetes, and the impact of those genes can be modified by what you eat. Everybody carries one version or another of each of those genes. So why not find out what gene versions you have and base dietary advice on that?

“Every time we go to the supermarket we’re using educated guesses about what we should eat and what we shouldn’t eat,” says Raymond Rodriguez, director of the National Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics at the University of California, Davis.

In the future, more of that guesswork may be replaced with accurate, personal DNA-based dietary advice, which Rodriguez says is “rapidly emerging on the horizon.”

But that time isn’t here yet, most experts say. Nutrigenomics is still in its infancy, with plenty to be learned, and it’s not yet clear what role it may play in standard medical practice.

Most of the research targets heart disease and cancer, and scientists may be ready to deliver personalized diet recommendations in those areas within five years, said Jose Ordovas, director of the nutrition and genomics laboratory at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston.

“We have scientific evidence that the concept is right, that we can provide something along those lines in the future,” Ordovas said. “We are not there yet.”

DNA test kit
No? You can walk into some pharmacies or grocery stores right now and pay $99 for a DNA test kit that will get you personalized diet advice for heart health, bone health, or any of three other areas. It’s from Sciona Inc., a small company based in Boulder, Colo., that started offering DNA-based diet advice in 2001. Such tests are also available by mail order and on the Internet.

Sciona customers collect their own DNA with a cheek swab, complete a diet and lifestyle questionnaire and send it all in for analysis. Sciona encourages customers to review its advice with a doctor.

The company acknowledges that some scientists say it’s too soon to offer such a service, but says its testing is based on solid research. Current testing focuses on 19 genes and the company is studying others, said Rosalynn Gill-Garrison, chief scientific officer and a company founder.

Sciona’s approach basically starts with standard healthy-eating recommendations and modifies them when genetic analysis indicates a need for something more, Gill-Garrison said.
After a DNA test, Sciona may recommend steps like eating more broccoli or omega-3 fatty acids, she said, or limiting caffeine to protect against bone loss.

Gill-Garrison said studies show that people with a certain version of a gene called MTHFR tend to have high blood levels of a substance called homocysteine, which has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Studies also show that people with this gene version can reduce their homocysteine levels by taking in more folate, she said. So that’s the advice Sciona customers with that gene version get.

High levels of homocysteine also can be spotted with a standard blood test at a doctor’s office.

A work in process
Ordovas said the trouble with anybody providing gene-based dietary advice now is that scientists don’t yet have the whole picture of what genes should be considered. With current tests, it’s like trying to size up a landscape by looking through a keyhole, he said. You can’t tell what you’re not seeing.

“At least in that very narrow region of our genome that they are looking, they have potential that they may provide some valuable information, and it could benefit some people,” he said. But advice based on current tests “can also be misleading because you are ignoring pieces that are very important,” he said.

Rodriguez said he doubts anybody will be harmed by the current tests, and that they’re beneficial because they get people to think about diet and lifestyle. But he said they remind him of the first VCRs or CD players to hit the market.

“It is an expensive new technology ... and it will probably, in my estimation, become more efficient, more accurate and more affordable with time.”

DeBusk, who said she has no financial ties to any of the companies, figures the time for DNA-based diet advice has come.

“The scientist in me says we shouldn’t do this now, we need to wait another 20 years until many studies have been done,” she said. But her clients want to know what the best science is right now, and “it’s difficult to say, 'Come back in 20 years.' You can’t do that.

“Do we know everything we’d like to know? No. ... Do we know enough to start introducing this type of technology and start the long process of educating people? I would say yes.”"

Cool, isn't it? Personalised diets using DNA. Might be a great help to me since I need to gain a lot of weight, haha. Maybe I just lack in sth. Anyway,somehow I thk this technology seems a little dangerous. I mean, yea it's a new technology but just sth is missing, i thk. What if the genes that they are looking at indicated a person needs calcium but yet there is a gene undiscovered in the person that actually too much calcium could harm him so only a certain right amount is enough, not too much, not too little. So, yes, more studies should be done so that personalised diets become even safer and more accurate.

“At least in that very narrow region of our genome that they are looking,
they have potential that they may provide some valuable information, and it could benefit some people,”

But advice based on current tests “can also be misleading because you are
ignoring pieces that are very important,” he said.

Commentary

Today I won't post any articles but I will be commenting on events and disasters that has happened/are happening in the world today after the tsunami on Dec 26th 2004. First ,Dec 26th; tsunami; Coastal parts of Indonesia and some countries around the epicentre ;the effects of the tsunami could have been less pronounced if the mangrove swamps had not been cleared.

January 6th-13th, Heavy Weather; California to Pennsalvania;in California, a low-pressure system with drenching rains and heavy snows at higher elevations, dumped up to 11 inches of rain and caused a large mudslide in La Conchita, killing 10. Total storm-related deaths reached 25. Los Angeles has had 17 inches of rain since Dec. 27, 2004. The same system piled up more than 4 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevadas on Saturday, stranding an Amtrak train and closing roads and airports. Since the end of December, the Reno-Lake Tahoe area has up to 19 feet of snow, the most since 1916. In Arizona 7 people died from storms and 7 of 15 counties were declared states of emergency. More heavy weather from Indiana to Pittsburgh caused flooding all along the Ohio River where state emergencies have been declared for 56 of 88 counties in Ohio. Three people died in a Pittsburgh tug boat accident and 5 in Ohio from storm-related causes.

January 8th to 12th, wild storms; Europe; wild storms battered many European countries, leaving 19 dead; High winds and flooding left people without power and shut down ferries, trains, and highways.

January 22nd to 23rd, Snow storm; Eastern U.S. ; strong snow storms swept across the Midwest to the Atlantic coast, killing 20 people. A blizzard blanketed parts of the Northeast with snow depths up to 38 in north and south of Boston and the entire island of Nantucket lost power. By the end of January, Boston had the snowiest month on record with a total of 43.1 inches of snow.

February, Extreme winter weather; South-East Asia; extreme winter weather including cold, snowfall, avalanches, and flooding in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan killed more than 1,400 people in the last month and a half; Due to the lack of communications actual numbers were hard to confirm.

March 18th-22nd, Heavy rains and melting snow; Afghanistan; more than 200 killed; thousands homeless; this followed what was already the worst winter in years that had killed several hundreds of people.

In June, there was flooding in Southern China; Many were killed; Rain not historic high but too heavy in such a short period of time. There was also a hailstorm in Beijing, someting rare indeed as it was summer. (A rainstorm on July 12 04' in Shanghai claimed 7 lives, a disaster which happens only once a century.)

July 7th, terrorist attack;London; four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, killing 52 people plus 4 bombers, and wounding more than 700.

On July 21st, terrorist attacks;London; four bombs partially detonated but did not explode on three trains and a bus in London exactly two weeks after the July 7th bombings.

July 26th, Monsoon;Mumbai; a record of 37 in of rain fell in Mumbai (Bombay) in a 24 hour period; the most ever recorded in India. A week of relentless monsoon rains left 1,000 dead in western India.

August 29th, Hurrican Katrina; Los Angeles, Missisipi, New orleans; Predicted to be a category 2 but ended up being a 5; devasting effects; the third deadliest hurrican in the U.S.; More than 1,200 killed .

September 1st-3rd, Typhoon Talim ; China; major flooding and landslides, extensive crop damage; killed at least 129 people.

September 6th-7th, Typhoon Nabi; Japan; killed at least 18 people.

September 24th, Hurrican Rita; Category 3; Strong storm surges and heavy winds caused major damage in the Louisiana and Texas coastal areas; Heavy rains also drenched New Orleans, causing the Industrial Canal levee to breach, re-flooding parts of the city.

September 20th-25th, typhoon Damrey; Philippines, China, Thailand, Nepal; killed at least 122, primarily from flooding.

October 1, terrorist bomdings; Bali; Three suicide bombers hit Bali restaurants in the resort beach area; killed 22 people.

The last few months , Dengue fever; Singapore and Malaysia; Dengue fever was (and still is) a major concern in these two states as the warm climates were perfect breeding places for them; Number of people infected was on record high in both states.

October 19th, Hurrican Wilma; Mexico; Wilma is the 12th hurricane of the Atlantic season, the largest number of hurricanes recorded since 1969.

Now, fear of a bird flu pandemic; World;H5N1 strain might mutate into another form where human-human transmission will be high and widespread(for now it's from infected birds to humans) . It might cause deaths up to millions; Many drug companies are planning to produce large quantities of vaccines and medications like Tamiflu to fight the pandemic if it strikes; However, there was a sign that the strain might be resistant to Tamiflu, a powerful antiviral drug. Therefore, they are now currently working on a flu vaccine that can be inhaled.

"Experts consider the avian flu the single biggest threat to human health in the world today.
The H5N1 virus has killed and forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and can on occasion be transmitted to people, often killing them.

A slight mutation would enable the virus to be passed easily from person to person and because it is such a new virus, experts believe it would sweep around the world, killing millions of people, if it is not stopped." (MSNBC health)

Latest from NewScientist(oct 18): Antarctic glaciers calving faster into the ocean; "The edges of the Antarctic ice sheets are slipping into the ocean at an unprecedented rate, raising fears of a global surge in sea levels, glaciologists warned on Monday.

The findings confound predictions made just four years ago, by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that Antarctica would not contribute significantly to sea level rise in the 21st century. In one area, around the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, glaciers are dumping more than 110 cubic kilometres of ice into the ocean each year, Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, US, told a meeting at the Royal Society in London, UK. This loss, which is increasing each year, is many times faster than the ice can be replaced by snowfall inland, he says.

The impending ice disaster centres on Pine Island Bay on the shores of the Amundsen Sea, where the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers enter the sea. These glaciers, like many in West Antarctica, are perched on underwater mountains. The meeting heard that warmer ocean waters are circulating beneath the ice and melting their bases at a rate of 50 metres a year.

As this happens, the glaciers float clear of the submarine mountains and slide into the ocean. According to Andy Shepherd at the University of Cambridge, UK, they are discharging ice three times faster than a decade ago.

These glaciers are being dubbed the “plug hole” of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers disappeared, they alone could raise sea levels worldwide by more than a metre, says Rignot.

Antarctic glaciers are much bigger than those in warmer climates. They are up to a kilometre thick, tens of kilometres wide and hundreds of kilometres long. Connected to inland ice tributaries, they drain the continent’s ice caps, which are the largest stores of frozen water on the planet.

In many places, the glaciologists reported that the recent acceleration in glacier flows has been triggered by the break-up of a series of floating ice shelves at the continent’s edge. These shelves acted like a cork in a bottle, holding back the glaciers.

After the Larsen B ice shelf – a 3000 square kilometre floating slab of ice – broke up over three days in 2002, glaciers behind it afterwards accelerated eight-fold. “The ice mass balance of Antarctica is controlled by these ice shelves,” says Rignot, who believes Antarctica is now responsible for the majority of global sea level rise.

Researchers also warned that the larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet is not as stable as thought. A recent study suggested that it might be accumulating snow in its high interior – possibly supporting the IPCC’s predictions – but it warned that little was known about events on the coast (Science, vol 308, p 1898).

Rignot revealed that several major coastal glaciers in the east are now known to be accelerating, like their counterparts to the west."

[Acknowlegdement: Infoplease.com(for most of the disasters I've listed), NewScientist, MSNBC health]

Comments: I''m sure many of us have watched "The Day after Tomorrow" and many have also said it will never happen because it is not possible. But looking at all these events around the world in just a year. The chance of being possible could have increased, maybe except for the ice-age part in the movie as I myself dun thk it's possible too. Global warming, a possible bird flu pandemic and terrorist attacks are now major concerns of everyone in the world now. And we definitely have to deal with each carefully.

Global Warming: In the movie, one of the characters mentioned "strongest hurricane, strongest typhoons, hailstorms, they all fit" Hasn't it all happened alreadi? Hurrican Katrina, typhoon Talim, extreme weather and the melting of glaciers; they are all because of Global Warming, because we did not take care of the environment well enough and it's either us or our children or grandchildren who is going to suffer and try to salvage everything. Is there anything? anything at all we can do? except to run, evacuate, save everything we could, help each other and to sacrifice sometimes. As for Earthquakes, sometimes there's just nothing we can do as well, except to wade them out and survive.

Terrorist attacks: The World is an uncertain place.Everyday is unpredictable. You could be on a train on the way to work/school and suddenly your whole world blanks out from a bomb which exploded on the train that you are taking. But no one really knows. How would you know that the guy who looks innocent, carrying a school bag, is actually carrying a bomb? It depends a lot on fate. If you are fated, you are just fated. However, You can't refuse to go anywhere because you are afraid of the world out there either. Even staying at home is unsafe too. Who knows, someone might plant a bomb in the lift when you are going downstairs. I'll be praying for World Peace.

Bird Flu: Bird flu used to be transmitted bird-bird but now there are cases of bird-human and soon, it will be human-human. The chance of it mutating is high and after mutation, its new strain is gonna be fatal and will cause a pandemic as predicted by many scientists, etc. The U.N. health agency has warned countries to prepare for a death toll of up to 7.4 million. 7.4 million; that's about 1/3 of the global population (I thk so, my math is not realli that good) and this is definitely a big figure.

If this generation of Homo Sapiens were to be extinct, will those who survive, evolve to be a new species of beings?(natural selection selects those who are able to survive and when they survive, they sometimes evolve because they grow stronger and are different). If all of our teachnology gets destructed with nothing except trees and stuff then its like starting all over again. We would have to start from the beginning, from scrap.I am currently still writing something about evolution, I dunnoe if I am going to blog it or not(most likely I'm not) but I did make some comments that early Homo Sapiens care for the Earth a lot, they let nature be nature but as we grow and change, we began to use its resources without replenishing it and even harming it with our waste. Are we able to reverse all these so that we may still survive? No one knows.

sorry

haven't blog for quite long as I'm having exams so I'll post after my exams finishes..around oct 4th maybe..

Problem with posting but nevertheless..

Seems I have a problem posting a long article but not with a short article. So I shall make do with it then. Here's the website of the article that I would want to comment about. Oh yea and sorry for not updating for so long. Here's the website http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7950&print=true . My comment about it: I agree strongly to the statement "The research is a setback for stem cell science and contradicts an earlier study which found no significant changes to the genomes of lab-cultured stem cells" The moment I read the first paragraph, this statement had alreadi been formed in my mind. Well, I guess nothing is perfect in the world, including human stem cells. In my opinion, I thk that yes there might be a problem with the medium(as mentioned in this article) and there might also be a problem with the genetic make-up of the cells when they are cultured. The mutations could already have been there and the cells may also have a problem carrying out apoptosis. So the mutations remain and develop.

Does e-mail make you dumber?

Sorry for not updating my blog for so long..have been really busy and stressed. Anyway..this is a rather interesting article from Discover, August: If you feel like a zombie at work, perhaps you’re suffering from infomania, the term the Hewlett-Packard affiliate in Britain coined for people addicted to e-mail, instant messaging, and text messages.

A recent study for the company found that British workers’ IQ test scores drop temporarily by an average of 10 points when juggling phones, e-mails, and other electronic messages—more of an IQ drop than occurs after smoking marijuana or losing a night’s sleep. “This is a very real and widespread phenomenon,” said Glenn Wilson of the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, who conducted the tests on some 1,100 volunteers. Just how long it takes to recover is unclear.

The study found that modern-day communications have become addictive: Sixty-two percent of adults check work messages after office hours and on vacation. Half of those surveyed reply to an e-mail immediately or within 60 minutes. About 20 percent were “happy” to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to a telephone or e-mail message. Yet 89 percent of those surveyed found it rude for colleagues to do so.

Whether infomaniacs are less intelligent is another question. “It didn’t affect their IQ at all; it affected their performance on an IQ test,” says Bob Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard University. “When you’re taking an IQ test, you probably want to be really focused. That’s the antithesis of the state you get into when you do a lot of multitasking.”

The human brain has evolved different modes for concentrating on a single thing versus jumping from one thing to another. “The reason we have these systems that quickly shift between each other is because what’s right for you now might not be right later,” Stickgold says. “There are basic brain-stem mechanisms that will cause you to shift and focus your attention on a change in stimulus.”

Whether that change is a saber-toothed tiger popping out of the woods or a phone ringing suddenly, the consequences are the same. “The switch signal comes fast and powerfully. This system knows at a moment like this that what’s important is to shift your state quickly, and damn the cost. And the cost is that it takes several minutes to shift back,” says Stickgold. “That’s the way we’re wired.”

haha..well..I would agree that yes, e-mailing, instant messaging and text messaging can be addictive (considering the fact that I was addicted to it before but now a little too busy with my life that I'm not that addicted now..lol). But I guess it's a means of communicating with our family and friends in a more closer way? I mean..when we speak face-to-face we may not have the courage to say things but through means of communicating through the net and phone we may actually say more things than we want to and may also be more closer that when we meet for lunch or something,a conversation could be so easily started, it just with communication. Sometimes the prospect of recieving e-mails, instant messsaing with friends after a busy day and text messaging just makes them addictive.

Climate warning as Siberia melts

Sorry for not updating for a week again..have been realli busy...Anyway, this article is a pretty urgent news I just read in NewScientist . Details: "The world's largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.

The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

The news of the dramatic transformation of one of the world's least visited landscapes comes from Sergei Kirpotin, a botanist at Tomsk State University, Russia, and Judith Marquand at the University of Oxford.

Kirpotin describes an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He says that the entire western Siberian sub-Arctic region has begun to melt, and this "has all happened in the last three or four years".

What was until recently a featureless expanse of frozen peat is turning into a watery landscape of lakes, some more than a kilometre across. Kirpotin suspects that some unknown critical threshold has been crossed, triggering the melting.

Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3 °C in the last 40 years. The warming is believed to be a combination of man-made climate change, a cyclical change in atmospheric circulation known as the Arctic oscillation, plus feedbacks caused by melting ice, which exposes bare ground and ocean. These absorb more solar heat than white ice and snow.

Similar warming has also been taking place in Alaska: earlier this summer Jon Pelletier of the University of Arizona in Tucson reported a major expansion of lakes on the North Slope fringing the Arctic Ocean.

The findings from western Siberia follow a report two months ago that thousands of lakes in eastern Siberia have disappeared in the last 30 years, also because of climate change (New Scientist, 11 June, p 16). This apparent contradiction arises because the two events represent opposite end of the same process, known as thermokarsk.

In this process, rising air temperatures first create "frost-heave", which turns the flat permafrost into a series of hollows and hummocks known as salsas. Then as the permafrost begins to melt, water collects on the surface, forming ponds that are prevented from draining away by the frozen bog beneath. The ponds coalesce into ever larger lakes until, finally, the last permafrost melts and the lakes drain away underground.

Siberia's peat bogs formed around 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Since then they have been generating methane, most of which has been trapped within the permafrost, and sometimes deeper in ice-like structures known as clathrates. Larry Smith of the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates that the west Siberian bog alone contains some 70 billion tonnes of methane, a quarter of all the methane stored on the land surface worldwide.

His colleague Karen Frey says if the bogs dry out as they warm, the methane will oxidise and escape into the air as carbon dioxide. But if the bogs remain wet, as is the case in western Siberia today, then the methane will be released straight into the atmosphere. Methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

In May this year, Katey Walter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks told a meeting in Washington of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that she had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia, where the gas was bubbling from thawing permafrost so fast it was preventing the surface from freezing, even in the midst of winter.

An international research partnership known as the Global Carbon Project earlier this year identified melting permafrost as a major source of feedbacks that could accelerate climate change by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. "Several hundred billion tonnes of carbon could be released," said the project's chief scientist, Pep Canadell of the CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research in Canberra, Australia."

I was reading this article and omg-ing all the way..it's realli shocking and this is one evidence showing that climate warming is going to get worse with the release of so much methane. It's getting more and more serious now. And I think it was on wednesday, I watched the news and it reported that it was snowing in Melbourne and Tasmania and probably moving to Queensland..I was shocked..I just found an article about it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1434243.htm . Here it says "Snow is falling in low-lying areas of Victoria and Tasmania for the first time in up to 50 years, as a cold snap hits south-eastern Australia.", "Stephanie Jones from the newsagency at Korumburra south-east of Melbourne says it was snowing when she drove to work at 5:30 this morning.
"It's horrible," she said. "It's snowing and raining and wet and cold. It stuck around about 25 minutes, then it started to rain and then about 8:30am it started to snow again.
"It looks like it's set - it's snowing now, it's covering the road white." It's realli weird for it to be raining and then snowing..and it's like supposed to be summer now..how can it be snowing? Even Autumm doesn't have snow.

Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on
the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3 °C in the last 40 years.

World not set to deal with flu

Sorry for not blogging for so long..have been really busy..Anyway..I've found that article about the diagnostic kit thing..but I'll first talk about this article since it's a more urgent problem. Well this is a rather long article so I'll cut it short. For the full article go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001429.html . Well, I heard about this report on a news radio station this morning so I went to look for this article and I found this similar to the one on the radio and it's rather scary to know somehow : "Public health officials preparing to battle what they view as an inevitable influenza pandemic say the world lacks the medical weapons to fight the disease effectively, and will not have them anytime soon.

Public health specialists and manufacturers are working frantically to develop vaccines, drugs, strategies for quarantining and treating the ill, and plans for international cooperation, but these efforts will take years. Meanwhile, the most dangerous strain of influenza to appear in decades -- the H5N1 "bird flu" in Asia -- is showing up in new populations of birds, and occasionally people, almost by the month, global health officials say.

If the virus were to start spreading in the next year, the world would have only a relative handful of doses of an experimental vaccine to defend against a disease that, history shows, could potentially kill millions. If the vaccine proved effective and every flu vaccine factory in the world started making it, the first doses would not be ready for four months. By then, the pathogen would probably be on every continent.

The public, conditioned to believe in the power of modern medicine, has heard little of how poorly prepared the world is to confront a flu pandemic, which is an epidemic that strikes several continents simultaneously and infects a substantial portion of the population.

The secretary or the chief of staff -- we have a discussion about flu almost every day," said Bruce Gellin, head of HHS's National Vaccine Program Office. This week, a committee is scheduled to deliver to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt an updated plan for confronting a pandemic.

Despite these efforts, the world's lack of readiness to meet the threat is huge, experts say.

In hopes of slowing a pandemic's spread, public health specialists have been debating proposals for unprecedented countermeasures. These could include vaccinating only children, who are statistically most likely to spread the contagion; mandatory closing of schools or office buildings; and imposing "snow day" quarantines on infected families -- prohibiting them from leaving their homes.

Other measures would go well beyond the conventional boundaries of public health: restricting international travel, shutting down transit systems or nationalizing supplies of critical medical equipment, such as surgical masks.

But Osterholm argues that such measures would fall far short. He predicts that a pandemic would cause widespread shutdowns of factories, transportation and other essential industries. To prepare, he says, authorities should identify and stockpile a list of perhaps 100 crucial products and resources that are essential to keep society functioning until the pandemic recedes and the survivors go back to work.

Pandemics are caused by strains of virus that are highly contagious and to which people have no immunity. Such strains are rare. They arise from the chance scrambling and recombination of an animal flu virus and a human one, resulting in a strain whose molecular identity is wholly new.

The microbe called influenza A/H5N1 appeared in East Asia in 1996 and has flared periodically since. It is highly contagious and lethal in chickens, but it can be carried without symptoms in some ducks -- a combination that helps keep it in circulation.

Birds occasionally infect humans, and scientists recently found evidence that the virus is sometimes passed person to person. That form of transmission is now difficult and rare, but the virus could evolve so that it becomes easy and common.

If H5N1 never becomes easily transmissible in human beings, it will never become a pandemic. If it does become transmissible, the consequences are difficult to imagine. But history provides some clues.

The "Spanish flu" in 1918 and 1919 was the biggest and, along with AIDS, the most important infectious disease outbreak of the 20th century. It is on the short list of great disasters in human history.

At least 50 million people, and possibly as many as 100 million, died when the world's population was 1.9 billion people, one-third its current size.

Tests are underway at three U.S. hospitals on an experimental vaccine against H5N1. But it is not the first H5N1 vaccine.

As the first, small hedge against disaster, the government last fall ordered 2 million doses of H5N1 vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur, one of the country's three flu vaccine makers, even though nobody yet knows whether it works.

A half-dozen other countries are also working on pandemic vaccines. But making enough to fight an outbreak is a tall order.

About 300 million flu shots are made worldwide each year. The vaccine protects against three flu strains. If the global production capacity were directed to make only H5N1 vaccine, the output could be 900 million shots.

Can the world produce more flu shots? Not easily.

In theory, even a modest amount of vaccine might be useful. Fighting disease outbreaks is like fighting fires. You do not have to hose down the whole world to put the fire out, but you do have to hose down the perimeter to keep it from spreading. It might be possible to contain an H5N1 outbreak at its source if the surrounding population were immediately vaccinated.

In the absence of a vaccine, the only pharmaceutical bulwark against H5N1 is oseltamivir. It can shorten the illness's duration, and if taken immediately after exposure, it can even prevent infection. But the world's supply of the drug is limited.

Sold as Tamiflu, it is manufactured by just one company, the Swiss giant Roche, in a laborious, expensive process that takes eight months.

Would having lots of vaccine or oseltamivir make a difference?

In a study published last year, Ira M. Longini Jr. of Emory University ran a mathematical model of what might happen if a pandemic such as the 1957 Asian flu, which was caused by a virus far milder than bird flu, hit the United States.

He and his colleagues estimated that with no vaccine or antiviral drugs, there would be 93 million cases and 164,000 deaths. Vaccinating 80 percent of people younger than 19 -- the group most responsible for spreading the virus -- "would reduce the epidemic to just 6 million total cases and 15,000 total deaths in the country."

Giving that group eight weeks of oseltamivir would have the same effect, at least temporarily. But it would take the equivalent of 190 million courses of treatment -- more than anyone thinks the country will have in the next few years.

Somewhat more realistic is deploying the drug to where the outbreak begins. One researcher, Neil M. Ferguson of Imperial College in London, said in an interview that results of his not-yet-published mathematical modeling "are encouraging."

But unless antiviral drugs squelch a pandemic at the outset, their ultimate usefulness will be small. Without widespread immunity through vaccination or infection, the virus will simply move into a population when the drugs run out."

I remembered watching this show on channelnewsasia, it's like a documentary from national geographic..it's called "End Day" or sth liddat..It's a show whereby they show four different endings in the same day and they are all predicted by scientists. I missed the first part of the show and i thk it showed the ending like in the movie "the day after tmr" . Anyway so I watched the second part of it on Tuesday and they showed an ending whereby there was a flu epidemic and the flu strain was highly contagious that many people contracted it and it looks pretty bad..Yep..so..what if it really happens? It's realli hard to imagine..*sigh* Anyway, I'll post the article abt the diagnostic kit next time as i'm rather busy now and I'm having dinner soon too. Remember..for this full article go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001429.html .

Genes predict cancer spread

This is an article from Health24.com, 28th July stating that researchers have discovered a set of genes which could help tremendously in predicting if breast cancer would spread to the lungs and how serious it will be:
"Researchers have identified a set of genes that seems to predict if breast cancer will spread to the lungs and how serious the disease will be.

The finding could eventually help doctors to predict whose disease will become aggressive and spread, and potentially help them to better target treatments. The lungs and the bones are frequent sites for cancer that spreads from the breast. And cancer that spreads from the breast to organs such as the lungs accounts for the majority of breast cancer-related deaths, research has shown.

"We are the first to identify a clinically relevant set of genes that can predict metastases (spread) of breast cancer to the lungs," said study co-author Gaorav Gupta, a graduate student and researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City.

A report on the finding appears in the July 28 issue of Nature.

How the study was conducted(sub-title)
The researchers began with a set of cancer cell lines from 82 human breast cancer tumours. "We used a mouse model to mimic metastases," Gupta said. "We take these cells and inject them into a special type of mouse that allows you to inject human cells into them. We allowed lung metastases to form. We took out the lung metastases and took the cells and asked, 'What is special about these cells that will allow them to create the metastases?' "

To answer the question, the researchers used a "microarray" technique that allowed them to look at 22 000 genes all at once. Then they identified the genes that created the cancer spread to the lungs, and then put the genes back into the original cells to verify they were responsible.

Then they took another look at the human tumours. "We asked, of these 82 tumours, which ones expressed our genes (identified as those responsible for the spread). We found a subgroup that expressed the genes and these patients were much more likely to develop lung metastasis."

Next, said Gupta, the research team hopes to repeat the findings in a larger group of patients, "to be certain this isn't just something unique about the cohort we selected."
If patients with these genes can be identified, the next avenue of research would be to figure out if there are specific drugs that could prevent the lung tumours from forming. Certain "inhibitor" drugs have already been shown to suppress the genes identified in the new study, Gupta said.

May be of great value in managing breast cancer patients (sub-title)
William C. Phelps, scientific programme director of the research department for the American Cancer Society, praised the new study, saying, "Being able to identify a patient with a higher probability of developing metastasis would be of tremendous importance in terms of managing these patients."

The severity and course of cancer, even the same type, can be very different from patient to patient, Phelps said. "One of the decisions to struggle with is what (treatment) to give to which patients," he said. "Obviously, if you know cells in a particular tumour will be more likely to spread to the lung or bone, you would treat these patients more aggressively."

The identification of the gene pattern is a first step, he said. "If we can identify those genes, the next step may be to target the genes for therapy to prevent the spread of the tumours." – (HealthDayNews) "

This is realli good news as doctors can now be more accurate in their diagnosis and need not worry about whether the medication is given in the right dose or not. Anyway, my bio lecturer today mentioned that in Singapore, some diagnostic kit that could detect viruses like the H5N1 strain, has been created and is fast and accurate unlike the conventional method, so I might comment about it if the newspaper is not taken home by my uncle. Even if it is, I'll probably just wait for my mum to come back from overseas so I could go home and take the newspaper.

High heels can drive you crazy

This is a very interesting article from News24.com, 25th July . It's a relation between wearing high heel shoes and schizophrenia. (There are some rather long and profound medical terms) : "Malmo - Verifying what many women have known for years, a scientist in Sweden says wearing high heels can drive you crazy, and he has drawn alarming parallels between heels and schizophrenia among women.

Jarl Flensmark of Malmo says high heels cause their wearers to tense their calves in a way that normal walking never does. That could prevent neuro-receptors in the calf muscles from triggering release of dopamine, a compound necessary for mental well-being.

"During walking, synchronised stimuli from mechanoreceptors in the lower extremities increase activity in cerebellothalamo-cortico- cerebellar loops through their action on NMDA-receptors," Flensmark wrote in a recent paper in the journal Medical Hypotheses.

Increased schizophrenia prevalence (sub-title)

"Using heeled shoes leads to weaker stimulation of the loops. Reduced cortical activity changes dopaminergic function, which involves the basal gangliathalamo-cortical-nigro-basal ganglia loops," he said.

Long-term wearing of high heels could conceivably explain why Western societies have higher rates of schizophrenia among women then do other societies where high heels are rarely worn.

"Heeled footwear," he writes, "began to be used more than 1 000 years ago, and led to the occurrence of the first cases of schizophrenia. Industrialisation of shoe production increased schizophrenia prevalence.

"Mechanisation of the production started in Massachusetts, spread from there to England and Germany, and then to the rest of Western Europe. A remarkable increase in schizophrenia prevalence followed the same pattern."

"The oldest depiction of a heeled shoe comes from Mesopotamia, and in this part of the world we also find the first institutions making provisions for mental disorders In the beginning, schizophrenia appears to be more common in the upper classes."

Upper classes the hardest hit (sub-title)

He cites evidence from other parts of the world, too - Turkey, Taiwan, the Balkans, Ireland, Italy, Ghana, Greenland, the Caribbean and elsewhere. He then cites studies from India and elsewhere, which seem to confirm "schizophrenia first affects the upper classes".

From these two streams of evidence - the rise of heels and the increase in documented cases of schizophrenia - Flensmark divines a strong connection.

He modestly implies he is not the first to do so. In the year 1740, he writes, "the Danish-French anatomist Jakob Winslow warned against the wearing of heeled shoes, expecting it to be the cause of certain infirmities which appear not to have any relation to it".

Flensmark boils the matter into a damning statement: "After heeled shoes are introduced into a population, the first cases of schizophrenia appear and then the increase in prevalence of schizophrenia follows the increase in use of heeled shoes.

"I have," he writes, "not been able to find any contradictory data." - Sapa-dpa "

Hmm it does sound a little scary to me, I mean, I wear high heel shoes most of the time when i go out (when I do not have school and also when I have the time, haha) so it does sort of shock me for a while. I've read some news last year, that wearing high heel shoes hurt your tendons if u do not message your ankles after you take them off. So, after I wear them, I'll always sort of message my ankles, it does make them feel better. But, wow, now it's linked to schizophrenia..maybe I shouldn't wear them that often then.

Long-term wearing of high heels could conceivably explain why Western
societies have higher rates of schizophrenia among women then do other societies where high heels are rarely worn.

Showers 'may damage your brain'

This piece of article was from news24. com . It reported: "Traces of magnesium found in household water could be sufficient to cause permanent brain damage to those who take a regular shower, according to a report published in the US journal Medical Hypotheses.

John Spangler of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina and his team suggested that breathing in vapour containing manganese salts could be dangerous over the longer term.

"Inhaling manganese, rather than eating or drinking it, is far more efficient at delivering manganese to the brain. The nerve cells involved in smell are a direct pathway for toxins to enter the brain," Spangler wrote.
The team used animal studies aimed at showing how much a person who showered for 10 minutes a day would absorb.

The effects are dependent on the levels of manganese in household water. In the United States, a limit of 0.5 milligrams a litre of water is imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, while in the European Union, an upper level of just a 10th of that was set only in 1998.
Spangler suggested that even levels below the US upper limit could lead to brain damage.
Ten years of showering in water containing concentrations of manganese around the US limit would expose young people to levels three times higher than that found to leave deposits in rats' brains.

The longer the exposure, the worse the risk.

Manganese poisoning leads to tremors in sufferers - much like Parkinson's disease.
Apart from natural sources in ground water, manganese is sometimes added to petrol. This also finds its way ultimately into drinking water. "

Sounds rather scary, luckily i dun take more than 30 mins in the shower..usually abt 10-15. Anyway..I tot at first it might onli apply to the waters in US but I've checked up the public utilities board website in singapore and they do add manganese (about < 0.05 mg) so...well.. I guess a possible solution to prevent the effect and still be able to take regular showers is to either take away tt manganese and/or substitute it with a safer element.

"Traces of magnesium found in household water could be sufficient to cause permanent brain damage to those who take a regular shower"

Cars develop killer heat, even on cooler days

I am so super sorry...i've not updated this blog for like a week? haha..okay..so i've found this rather informative article in NewScientist, 05 July It's title is "Cars develop killer heat, even on cooler days" It's quite important actually especially for parents who drives and usually leave their kids in the car for a while: "Sunlight can heat car interiors to lethal temperatures in just 30 minutes, even if the weather is relatively cool, a new US study has found. The researchers strongly urge parents not to leave children alone in parked cars, no matter how mild the weather.

“Even on relatively mild-temperature days, the internal temperature of a vehicle left in the sun quickly gets very warm – the average rise in one hour is 22°C," says lead author Catherine McLaren at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. "My guess is that parents would be surprised that leaving children in the car is very much like leaving them in a sauna.”
In 2004, 35 children died of heat stroke in the US after being left unattended in a parked car. Previous research has shown that when ambient temperatures rise above 35°C, sealed cars reach a suffocating 65°C in just 15 minutes.

But research on car heating has all been conducted on hot days – never less than 28°C. So McLaren and her colleagues wanted to test how hot cars could get on cooler days, when the dangers of enclosed vehicles might not be as obvious to parents.

Open windows (sub-heading)
On 16 cloud-free days in Northern California, the team measured a car’s inside temperature at 5 minute intervals for one hour post-parking. Ambient temperatures on the study days ranged from 22°C to 35°C.
They found that, regardless of outside air temperature, the car heated up at a similar rate – gaining 80% of its final temperature within 30 minutes. Cars that started out comfortable 22°C, for example, rocketed to over 47°C after 60 minutes in the sun. And keeping the windows open a crack hardly slowed the rise at all.
Young children and infants are much more susceptible to heat illnesses than adults, write the authors, meaning that such temperatures could prove dangerous. Toddlers’ body temperatures rise faster and they lose proportionally more water than adults in hot weather, for example.

The team suggest that laws against leaving kids in cars could help to raise awareness of the danger. But they note that because these heat-related deaths are mostly unintentional, additional public education is probably the best way to decrease the number of these preventable tragedies. "

Hmm..This is quite serious, especially for Singapore, where it is a tropical and warm country.Sometimes when my mum leaves me in the car for a while to get something, I do feel realli realli warm even with the door open on my side or with the window open. So, yea,there should be additional public education for this in every country to raise awareness.

Researchers strongly urge parents not to leave children alone in parked
cars, no matter how mild the weather.

How olive oil helps fight breast cancer

Sorry for not updating for a few days..have been studying for my biology exam..Well, I found this article in Discover, June rather helpful and interesting for those of you who like olive oil, heh. So, here goes:
"For decades, epidemiologists have collected evidence showing that a mediterranean diet rich in olive oil offers protection against breast cancer. But they never understood why. Javier Menendez of the Northwestern University School of Medicine recently figured out how it works.

Olive oil is a rich mixture of fatty acids, chiefly oleic acid. When Menendez bathed human breast cancer cells with purified oleic acid, the cells cut production of a cancer-causing gene, HER2, by nearly 50 percent. The fatty acid also increased the effectiveness of Herceptin, a drug made from antibodies that latch onto HER2 proteins and trigger the death of cancer cells.

The HER2 gene is overactive in more than one-fifth of all breast cancer and operates in a host of other tumors that may prove vulnerable to oleic acid. So far, menendez and his collegues have discovered the fatty acid cuts the expression of the gene in ovarian, stomach and colon cancer cell lines. "It will probably turn out to be a universal effect," he says.

The researchers also found that other dietary fatty acids, like the omega-3 fatty acids in fish, can block HER2. It may mean there is an "ultimate molecular mechanism" by which fatty acids in food prevent cancer. Menendez suspects the compounds help the malevolent cells survive and grow, "but when you are getting fatty acids from the diet, the cancer cells fatty-acid factory gets blocked."

Prevention comes in relatively small doses: Olive-oils researchers and health experts recommended 40 to 50 grams of olive oil a day (four to six tablespoons) to help stave off cancers and reduce risk of heart disease. "You can get that very easily in a salad," Menendez says. More of the oil might be necessary to help beat existing breast tumors and other cancers, he says, although just how much is not yet known."

Well, that's a really good discovery. Slowly, as years go by and more and more cancer cures/preventions are discovered, we might not be so afraid of it anymore. The main message is still to have a healthy diet. =)

Harmless Virus May Kill Cancer Cells

This is a June 24th article from webMDhealth it's quite interesting and it is quite a breakthrough as well: "A common virus may have the potential to become a powerful cancer fighter.

Laboratory tests showed that the virus, known as adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2), kills many types of cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

"We believe that AAV2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV2 has great potential to be developed as an anticancer agent," says researcher Craig Meyers, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Penn State College of Medicine, in a news release.

Meyers presented the results this week at the 24th annual meeting of the American Society for Virology held at Penn State in University Park.
Virus May Lead to New Cancer Treatments

AAV2 is considered a harmless virus and infects the majority of the population. The virus normally resides in epithelial cells, which form the outermost layer of tissues.

For unknown reasons, people who carry the virus are less likely to develop human papillomavirus (HPV), some strains of which are associated with cervical cancer.

Researchers say AAV2 usually requires a second, helper virus, such as HPV, to become activated. When it finds a helper virus, AAV2 replicates and causes infected cells to die.
In the study, researchers examined the effects of AAV2 on normal human epithelial cells and cells infected with HPV or cancer.

In one test, researchers combined cells infected with both HPV and AAV2 and found that after six days all HPV-infected cells had died.

Similar tests showed that the AAV2 virus killed four different types of cancer cells (cervical, breast, prostate, and squamous cells) within six days of treatment without affecting healthy cells. It did so without the presence of a second, helper virus.

"One of the most compelling findings is that AAV2 appears to have no pathologic effects on healthy cells," says Meyers. "So many cancer therapies are as poisonous to healthy cells as they are to cancer cells. A therapy that is able to distinguish between healthy and cancer cells could be less difficult to endure for those with cancer."

Researchers say future studies are needed to determine exactly how AAV2 causes cancer cell death and how the virus might be developed to more aggressively target and treat cancers."

This is realli great, once the drug or medication is out, it's gonna help mankind in a very big way. Hmm, well at first I thought isn't viruses suppose to be harmful? I mean they will infect a host cell and then exploit it's machinery(ribosomes, enzymes, etc) But like it said, for unknown reasons, it actually helped in preventing or treating cervival cancer with the help of another virus, and the treatment lasts only six days even for other common cancer like breast and prostate cancer, which do not need a helper virus. Oh, by the way, squamous cells are flat, scalelike cells found in epithelial tissue. Cancers that originate in these cells are called squamous cell carcinomas. Hopefully, more viruses like AAV2 which is not harmful, could be discovered quickly so that many cancer patients need not have to suffer anymore.

AAV2 virus killed four different types of cancer cells (cervical, breast,
prostate, and squamous cells) within six days of treatment without affecting
healthy cells. It did so without the presence of a second, helper virus.

The burden of a lasting memory

This is a pretty interesting article I read in NewScientist website, altho' this is a 28th of May 2005 article, it's still quite recent, heh. The study was done on fruit flies but the results might be the same for humans too. Here's the article:
"If you are forever forgetting people's names or family birthdays, take heart. Forming permanent memories is so physiologically expensive it can result in early death - at least for fruit flies.

When fruit flies form lasting memories, their neurons must make new proteins. Now Frederic Mery and Tadeusz Kawecki at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland have shown that this extra work takes its toll on the flies' ability to survive.

They trained one group of flies to associate a jolt with a bad-smelling mixture of two alcohols, while other flies were subjected either to jolts only or to jolts and odours, but not at the same time. When the flies were subsequently deprived of food and water, the group that had learned the link died an average of 4 hours, or 20 per cent, earlier than the others (Science, vol 308, p 1148).

The study suggests that there is a cost to memory and learning, raising the question of whether humans lost other qualities when they evolved superior intelligence. "We have such an extraordinary memory and learning capacity, we must have paid for it," says Kawecki"

Hmm, yes we must have paid for it. Who knows, people who have short-term memory might have a longer life than people who have long-term memory. Although, I think people who have long-term memory should have more advantage since they are able to remember more things. But ya, they'll need to make more cells to remember more things and etch them inside too. Well, We'll just leave it to more studies then.

Bear the heat

Now, it's about the heat wave, Climate change models did predict more fatal heat waves, altho' it does happen every year, it just gets worst. And freak weathers are happening around the world, like a report updated by AFP at 05:21 today titled: "Freak storms hit Europe, hundreds of houses flooded" . It says that a violent electrical storm struck the Paris region, flooding hundreds of houses, disrupting two lines on the metro system and causing delays at the city's two main airports. Elsewhere, lightning struck an electrical center in Switzerland, blocking about 100 trains in the second major breakdown to hit the Swiss railway system in two days. Luckily, no casualties were reported, but a motorcyclist had to be rescued when he was engulfed by water under a Paris road tunnel. In addition, South Asia is not the only one under the sufferings of the heat wave. France and other countries like Portugal, Spain, Nepal, and many more are also in the heat. Just from the South Asia heat wave alone, at least 375(yesterday was 200) people have died from sunstroke and dehydration in a month-long heat wave sweeping India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as it endures one of its hottest summers on record, authorities said. From the report: "Temperatures hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some parts of South Asia this week, parching fields, emptying dams and drying river beds ahead of the annual monsoon.

Freak weather extended as far as northern China, where the heat set off explosives at a chemical plant in Shanxi province that injured hundreds. In central Chongqing city, authorities opened old bomb shelters so people can cool off.

Worst hit was India's impoverished eastern state of Orissa, where almost 100 people were reported killed from the heat.
Streets in the region emptied and many cities and villages resembled ghost towns as residents stayed indoors to avoid the sun. The state ordered government offices to close before noon.

"The heat wave along with occasional power-cuts had made life miserable here," said Lingaraj Panda, a local resident.
Officials reported drinking water shortages in the giant Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh as ponds and lakes dried up and villagers were forced to travel 10km to 15km to fetch water from deep wells.

Beer sales in New Delhi hit a record high with nearly 6 million bottles being sold in the first three weeks of this month as temperatures hit 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit).
India's weather department says the June-September rains got off to a weak start, but initial showers are now being reported across southern India and Bombay.

The month-long heatwave also killed more than 100 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, while in Pakistan more than 65 people died in the past week, including at least 24 believed killed over the last 24 hours from the heat, authorities said.

Villagers in Bangladesh held prayers in mosques and temples for rain -- though not too much rain. Last year, devastating floods caused by monsoon rains in July-September killed more than 1,000 people and left about 10 million homeless.

"The monsoon is playing truant this year in Bangladesh as well as in India, scorching farmland and killing people," one weather official said.

Tahir Ali Javed, Health Minister of Pakistan's central Punjab province told Reuters all the fatalities have come in the province where temperatures soared to 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.

Temperatures shot up to 44 degree Celsius (111.2 Fahrenheit) in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Tuesday - a four-year record.
At least 11 people have died in neighbouring Nepal, a local media report said, but monsoon rains had now begun in most parts of the country." Well, at least some rain did fall in some parts of some country but it's not gonna be enough to help cool of this heat.

About the heat wave in France: "France was on a heat-wave alert yesterday as the government released its new emergency plan to avoid a repeat of the nearly 15,000 deaths attributed to the scorching temperatures during the summer of 2003.

As the mercury climbed above 30 degrees in parts of France during the past two days, Health Minister Xavier Bertrand released the new heat-wave plan including measures to bolster emergency services and to care for elderly people living on their own.

Meanwhile, extreme or severe drought has gripped 79 per cent of Portugal, the government's water institute said yesterday. The country has slashed the wheat-harvest forecast by as much as 70 per cent.

In neighbouring Spain, farmers also expect huge losses. Environment Ministry data show Spain's water reserves stand at 56 per cent of capacity." Hopefully, the heat wave incident in 2003 could be totally avoided. This, again, shows an obvious consequence - drier countries get drier, wetter countries get wetter.

"The monsoon is playing truant this year in Bangladesh as well as in India,
scorching farmland and killing people,"

China floods kill 536 this year, worse to come

I watched the news yesterday on Channel 8 and they reported about the China floods and the heat wave around the world. I shall talk about the China floods first. I went to check out Reuters this morning and it reported : "flooding and landslides across China have killed 536 people and caused nearly 20.4 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in losses this year, scores in the last week alone, and worse is expected on Friday(which is today). In the past few days, at least 97 people had been killed and 41 were missing in southern China, where days of torrential rain had pushed rivers past their breaking points and sparked mudslides, Xinhua news agency said.
Some 1.4 million people have been evacuated in six provinces, with floodwaters climbing up to four stories tall in the industrial city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region, one of the worst-hit areas(Yesterday is was three stories high). State television showed pictures of rushing, turbid waters crashing through villages and cities alike and rescuers pulling children to safety. With floods peaking in some areas, worse is to come in others. "More than 100,000 people and soldiers are now bracing themselves for the worst peak of the floods on the river as it passes Guangxi," the China Daily quoted an official from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying, referring to the Xijiang River that runs through Wuzhou. " I didn't put in the whole report but most of it is here. Not only that..I forgot to mention that the main reason why the fatalities due to the floods in 1998 in China is the highest should be because that year, 1998 was the warmest year in record as well and the 1990s was the warmest decade. Just look at what Global warming can do to us.

A link between tofu and male infertility?

I just found this article in The Straits Times..I guess I didn't notice it just now when I first read it..This is rather interesting..I think I'll post the heatwave article tomorrow coz anyway..it's a rather long one..Okay..so researchers in copenhagen has discovered a link between soya products and sperms in male..here's how it goes: "A plant chemical found in soya, tofu and legumes could potentially damage sperm and affect male fertility, a British researcher says.
Professor Lynn Fraser of King's College, London, has shown that genistein, which can mimic the effect of the female hormone oestrogen, affects sperm in mice.But it seems to have an even stronger impact on human sperm.In laboratory tests, Prof Fraser found that small amounts of the chemical can cause human sperm to 'burn out' and lose fertility.'Human sperm proved to be even more responsive than mouse sperm to genistein,' Prof Fraser said at a recent fertility meeting.She said that if women eat soya and foods high in genistein it might have a bigger impact on male fertility because the chemical is likely to affect sperm when it is in the female, preparing to fertilise an egg.'Maternal exposure to the compounds is probably more important than paternal exposure,' she said.Although it is very preliminary research, Prof Fraser speculated that the findings could have an impact on women trying to conceive.'On the basis of what we have seen, it might be a practical thing to do if you are in the habit of eating lots of soya-based products to restrict your diet for a short time over the window of ovulation,' she told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.Professor Richard Sharpe of Edinburgh University, in Scotland, described the research as interesting and the results as surprising.But Prof Sharpe added that oriental societies that traditionally eat a soya-rich diet show no signs of reduced fertility that he is aware of.The effects on sperm in the laboratory may not be directly related to what happens in real life.Dr Allan Pacey of the University of Sheffield said: 'It's early days, but clearly if what happens in the laboratory also occurs in the woman's fallopian tube as the sperm make their way to the egg, then there would be the potential for fertilisation to fail.' " Well..maybe researchers could think of how to develop contraceptives from soya products then?

40 killed and 300,000 flee worsening floods, landslides

I just saw this article in The Straits Times.. This is about the flooding in Southern parts of China, I'll highlight the more important parts in red: "Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain killed more than 40 people in Southern China and forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 in a mountaineous region. In response to the rapidly worsening situation, China Premier Wen Jiabao called for an "all-out effort" to combat floods.The reported death toll from heavy rains and floods in China since last month is now more than 400. In the south-west Guangxi region, the worst hit area in recent days, around 333,000 people have been evacuated from flooding prone areas, reported Xinhuan news agency. 27 people were confirmed dead and 20 others missing there, the regional disaster relief headquarters said. About 100,000 residents in low-lying areas of Wuzhou were evacuated overnight, state media said. It was the industrial city's worst flooding in 100 years. Notices about the mass evacuation were posted on walls, warning sirens blared in the night and residents loaded up cars, trucks and carts with valuables and fled the area for higher ground. Along the Wuzhou River, 8.5m above its danger level, thousands worked to fortify its banks and dams with sandbags, state broadcaster CCTV said. The water reached as high as the thirdflood of buildings in some areas. In south-eastern Fujian province, floods and landslides killed 12 people and left five missing. In Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong, 10 people were reportedly killed, while more than half a million were affected by the bad weather, the China News Service said. Rainstorms in eastern parts of Guangdong caused cave-ins on part of the Beijing-Kowloon railway line. Dozens of trains were forced to delay or turn back while repairs were made. In the South-western municipality of Chongqing, around 30,000 residents were evacuated after rising waters endangered peoples lives, Xinhua said. Thousands of people perish every year from floods, land-slides and mudflows in China, with millions left homeless. Officials said this year's floods could be worse than usual." adding on another paragraph from Reuters: "While the south is suffering a deluge, much of northern China is sweating through a heat wave, which has driven temperatures to nearly 40 C in the capital Beijing and convinced Chongqing to open air raid shelters to provide shade. " Comments: The green numbers are from Reuters..it was originally 24 and 23..but I just went to check reuters and the death toll went up to 27. About the blue highlighted sentence, the thing i'd want to say is that yes thousands of people perish every year from floods and all that in China..but the thing is..it might get worse this year because of Global Warming..this is the second time that one side of the country is raining heavily while the other side is so hot..it just happened in February this year...which is somewhat the nearing end of winter..It can't be that hot during winter right.. I've also just checked out the flood data of China for last year, 2004..In total..about 1,343 people were killed by the floods. In late july, the death toll was 439..It's only june now and it's alreadi 400..*sigh*..It also mentioned: "While the annual rains and floods usually strike hardest in rural areas, this year(2004) big cities like Beijing and Shanghai have felt the effects with both experiencing freak weather."The country has witnessed extreme weather recently in big cities, such as Beijing's unprecedented rainstorm earlier this month, which paralyzed local transportation," Wang was quoted as saying by China Daily."The rainstorm in Shanghai on July 12 can be said to be a very rare disaster which happens only once a century." The storm claimed seven lives. Look at the hailstorm that just happened recently in Beijing..it's rare. But one good thing..The death toll did decrease over the years..with the worst in 1998 at 4,000 to 1,900 in 2003 and continue to decrease to 1,343 in 2004.. Another point is that it said that in 2004 it was the worst flood in decades...but this year is century..look at the difference.And last year..there was also this pattern whereby "while central and southern China were awash with water, northern and eastern regions were suffering severe drought or scorching temperatures.The provinces of Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the north are all parched with rain only starting to fall in July, several months later than normal, the newspaper said.Meanwhile, the cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou in the east and Chongqing and Chengdu in the southwest are sizzling in temperatures of up to 38 degrees C. "(tenses were changed because it's already in the past) Anyway..if you see the last sentence..the maximum temperature was at least till 38 C..but this year it went up to 40 C. Looking back at the article from Straits Times..the last sentence said that officials said this year's flood could be worse than usual.See. Talking about the heatwave in Northern China..I'll post an article from The Straits Times later about the heatwave in India happening now. I'm off for brunch now..

Fingering the Answers

This is from the June issue of discover, it's pretty cool: 'Don’t judge a man by his handshake; look at his fingers instead. Psychologist Peter Hurd of the University of Alberta in Canada compared the second and fourth fingers, that is, the index and ring fingers, of 300 university students and found males with the longest ring fingers were most likely to get in fights.“A longer ring-to-index finger ratio has been correlated with higher levels of prenatal testosterone exposure,” says Hurd. Previous studies suggest that men with longer ring fingers are better when it comes to sports and have especially developed male-pattern visuospatial skills. “We originally started this study just to have fun,” says Hurd, who is now looking at the fingers and penalty records of professional hockey players to see if they confirm his results. But assessing a potential mate by his fingers would be premature. “Finger length explains only 5 percent of the variation in physically aggressive behavior between individuals,” says Hurd. “But it does suggest more of our personalities are determined in the womb than we thought.” ' It's quite interesting and also quite agreeable that we shouldn't be assessing a potential mate by his fingers. At least..well..the girls may just know if their partner is agressive or not. Something relating to this..I remembered my biology lecturer mentioning that the reason why twins do not have similar fingerprints is by the different way in which they clasp their hands in the womb..that applies to us too..that's y all of us have different fingerprints.

Patagonia-Evidence of Climate Change(video from Greenpeace)

Patagonia has one of the largest ice fields in the Southern Hemisphere outside Antartica..I just watched this video and seeing the ice melt is really astonishing.. I've linked them here: Quicktime, Real Player, Windows Media Player. I've also found some images from the Artic in the Greenpeace website: click here

Brain study links negative emotions and lowered immunity

This is another article from the archive in newscientist, 02 september 2003. It can be said it is more "recent" than my previous post worriers prone to cancer. This is about how the study of the brain has linked negative emotions with lowered immunity: "Brain activity linking negative emotions to a lower immune response against disease has been revealed for the first time, claim researchers.Many previous studies have shown that emotions and stress can adversely affect the immune system. But this effect had not been directly correlated with activity in the brain, says study leader Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the US.
The part of the brain the team studied, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), is associated with depression. People who had the greatest activity in the right PFC when asked to dwell on distressing episodes in their life had a markedly lower antibody levels after an influenza vaccination. In contrast, those showing exceptional activity in the left PFC when recalling happy times developed high antibody levels.Davidson says emotions play an important role in regulating systems in the body that influence health. "This study establishes that people with a pattern of brain activity that has been associated with positive [emotions] are also the ones to show the best response to the flu vaccine.""It begins to suggest a mechanism for why subjects with a more positive emotional disposition may be healthier," he says. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an expert on stress and immunity at Ohio State University, told the New York Times that the study represents "some of the best evidence we've seen to date."
Intense sadness (Sub-title):Davidson, with colleagues at Wisconsin and Princeton University, New Jersey, asked 52 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin in 1957 to recount both the best and worst events in their lives on paper.For their best experiences, the subjects were asked to write about an event where they experienced "intense happiness or joy". And for their worst experience they were asked to remember an event causing "the most intense sadness, fear, or anger".During this autobiographical task, the electrical activity of the brain was measured. The subjects were then given flu shots and their antibody levels were measured after two weeks, four weeks and six months. The researcher found a clear link between strong activity in the left PFC and a large rise in antibodies, and vice versa. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1534743100).However, the study could not explain exactly how having a positive attitude boosts the immune system. The researchers say some evidence exists to suggest a link between the PFC and the immune system via a complex hormonal system governed by the hypothalamic, pituitary and adrenal glands.Another study by Italian and UK researchers, also published on Monday, reveals that depressed elderly people have fewer lymphocytes and T-cells - white blood cells crucial for fighting disease. This study is published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (vol 72, p 253)" So..here's another evidence that being depressed is not a very good thing. So let's all be happy and stress-free :)

Worriers more prone to cancer

This was from an archive in newscientist, 28 May 2003.. it may be quite old but research these days have also been passing on similar messages.. So this article is called Worriers more prone to cancer.. I would highlight the more important parts in red: "It is not the kind of news that will help matters. A study involving over 60,000 people suggests that people prone to anxiety are more likely to get cancer.The findings will add to the controversy over whether purely psychological factors such as stress, anxiety and depression can trigger cancer. Part of the problem with this kind of study is that it is hard to exclude with certainty the influence of behavioural factors, such as lack of self-care, poor diet and smoking.A team of psychiatrists led by Arnstein Mykletun at the University of Bergen in Norway followed up 62,591 people who took part in a massive medical survey of people living in one county in Norway during 1995 to 1997. The Norway National Cancer Registry was used to identify participants in the survey who had developed cancers or premalignancies - abnormal cells that can turn cancerous.Those who scored highly in an anxiety test in 1995 were about 25 per cent more likely to have premalignancies, the team told a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco last week.
Inconsistent results (Sub-title):Previous studies of the link between mind and cancer have produced inconsistent results, Susanne Oksbjeg Dalton's team at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, Denmark, concluded in the most recent review. But two studies did find an association between psychological stress and two specific types of tumours, lymphomas and malignant melanomas.These results are intriguing, as lymphomas and melanomas are linked with immune system dysfunction. One theory is that psychological states like stress, anxiety or depression lower immune activity, compromising the body's constant surveillance for premalignant or cancerous cells, and thus allowing cancers to grow.Support for this theory comes from another study presented at the San Francisco meeting. Sandra Nunes's team at the State University of Londrina in Brazil compared 40 depressed adults who were not on medication with 34 healthy controls. In the depressed patients, there were dramatic reductions in immune functions, including white blood cell activity and antibody responses. However, Mykletun's team did not find a statistically significant link between depression and premalignancies in the Norwegian study, as they did with anxiety. Dalton also points out that it is vital that factors like smoking are adequately controlled for in research of this type. People suffering psychological stress are more likely to smoke, greatly increasing their risk of cancer. Mykletun's team did try to take this into account, but screening for smokers and determining how much they smoke is difficult in large studies like the Norwegian one.
The debate looks set to run and run. Until it is resolved, anxious people will have one more thing to worry about." Well.. at least it is quite clear that being depressed lowers your immune system greatly and so the body is more likely get cancer. I do find the sentence in blue quite interesting..anxious people do have one more thing to worry about..heh..

rise in ocean temperatures

I just saw this small information in the "flash" section of Discover magazine, May. It says: "Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography say a rise in ocean temperatures shows global warming is well underway. Meanwhile, former Secretary of State James Barker, a close ally of the president, calls for "gradual and orderly transition" away from fossil fuels." I went to the website for a more in-depth story...so i've got out the more important parts: '"This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now and it shows that we can successfully simulate its past and likely future evolution," said Tim Barnett, a research marine physicist in the Climate Research Division at Scripps. Barnett says he was "stunned" by the results because the computer models reproduced the penetration of the warming signal in all the oceans. "The statistical significance of these results is far too strong to be merely dismissed and should wipe out much of the uncertainty about the reality of global warming." Yes i would strongly agree with the one i highlighted in red.. "According to Barnett, the climate mechanisms behind the ocean study will produce broad-scale changes across the atmosphere and land. In the decades immediately ahead, the changes will be felt in regional water supplies, including areas impacted by accelerated glacier melting in the South American Andes and in western China, putting millions of people at risk without adequate summertime water. Similarly, recent research by Barnett and his colleagues with the Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative analyzed climate warming impacts on the western United States using one of the models involved in the new study. The earlier study concluded that climate warming will likely alter western snow pack resources and the region's hydrological cycle, posing a water crisis in the western U.S. within 20 years. "The new ocean study, taken together with the numerous validations of the same models in the atmosphere, portends far broader changes," said Barnett. "Other parts of the world will face similar problems to those expected--and being observed now--in the western U.S. The skill demonstrated by the climate models in handling the changing planetary heat budget suggests that these scenarios have a high enough probability of actually happening that they need to be taken seriously by decision makers." In the new study, Barnett and his colleagues used computer models of climate to calculate human-produced warming over the last 40 years in the world's oceans. In all of the ocean basins, the warming signal found in the upper 700 meters predicted by the models corresponded to the measurements obtained at sea with confidence exceeding 95 percent. The correspondence was especially strong in the upper 500 meters of the water column. It is this high degree of visual agreement and statistical significance that leads Barnett to conclude that the warming is the product of human influence. Efforts to explain the ocean changes through naturally occurring variations in the climate or external forces- such as solar or volcanic factors--did not come close to reproducing the observed warming" So..we'd better stop all the fossil fuels burning and come up with alternative resources.. and also be prepared for what may be happening real soon.. for full article..click here

Global warming is a 'clear and increasing threat'

I was reading the online newsletter posted to my hotmail by NewScienctist and I saw this title and was like "ha!finally.." So the title is of course "Global warming is a 'clear and increasing threat' " I'll post the whole article since every part is as important: "Eleven of the world's most influential science academies warned world leaders that the threat of global climate change "is clear and increasing" and that they must act immediately to begin addressing its causes and consequences. The stark warning came on Tuesday in an unprecedented joint statement from the heads of the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US. The statement, issued ahead of the G8 economic summit in Gleneagles, UK, in July, outlines the strong evidence for global warming. "The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems," the statement says, adding that most recent warming is likely to have been caused by human activity. Majour put-down(sub title):That the US National Academy of Sciences, the key scientific adviser to Congress, has signed the document is seen as a major put-down to the global warming naysayers in the Bush administration, which has refused to sign up to the Kyoto protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions.Following a meeting in Washington DC between President George Bush and UK prime minister Tony Blair on Tuesday, Bush conceded that climate change is a "major long-term problem" and cited US research into hydrogen-powered cars and low-pollution coal as moves already under way to help combat it. But there was no change to his opposition to the Kyoto protocol. Nevertheless, Blair intends to make tackling climate change a central plank of the G8 summit he will be hosting. "We need to be thinking about how we move beyond a situation where there are huge emissions of greenhouse gases from present energy consumption," he said. Environmental group Friends of the Earth welcomed the joint statement but complained that it lacks targets and a timetable for action. "G8 countries must accept their historic responsibility in creating the problem, and show genuine leadership through annual reductions in emissions," says Catherine Pearce, climate expert at Friends of the Earth. " The first part of the article before the sub title is the most important part of everything..Yes, i would really totally agree that they must act immediately before everything is too late!! look at what is happening to the weather pattern prior to the fact about changing global temperature..Well, at least finally something is said..

Eleven of the world's most influential science academies warned world leaders
that the threat of global climate change "is clear and increasing" and that they
must act immediately to begin addressing its causes and consequences.

Please read: Important

I am sooo sorry..made a mistake about tt article abt ice in China..it was not ice but hailstones...guess i saw the word "bing bao" and tot it was ice since it had bing in it meaning ice but later realised when i went to check out in the English-Chinese dictionary that hailstone in chinese means bing bao...I am so so sorry...But anyway since hailstones are made of ice so it's actually the same...heh..so there is still "ice" raining in China just that the word for it is hailstones..so tt post still matters...anyway..I JUST FOUND THE ARTICLE!!!Okay..here's what it says:
'BEIJING, June 1 -- Car owners in Beijing were carefully examining their precious vehicles yesterday after hailstones the size of golfballs tumbled from the sky. Traffic was brought to a near-standstill in the heart of Beijing when millions of unseasonable ic crystals pierced the humid skies and caused minor damage pock-marks to paintwork. The hailstorm only lasted for about 10 minutes but it sent pedestrians scurrying for cover as they used handbags and briefcases to shield them from the heavenly artillery. "Hailstones hit parked cars and left small dents," said a witness. Thunderstorms and downpours also struck the capital. Zhou Qingliang, an expert with the Central Meteorological Observatory, said the weather front should have hit western parts of Northeast China's Liaoning Province and parts of Hebei Province neighbouring Beijing. "Thunderstorms with probable hails are likely to go on over the next two to three days in those areas," he said. In downtown areas, many people rushed to open parking areas to check on their cars, only to find most imprinted by the hailstones. Some bicycle riders in rain coats protected their heads with one hand while cycling home. Some residents had their windows broken by hailstones' The wild weather helped cool the sweltering temperature, however.
(Source: China Daily)' Finally i found it! Searched 'hailstones' instead of 'ice' in search buttons and found it easily...Anyway..well look at the damage the stones have done..it was even said as wild weather so you could see how rare it actually is..i thk it could even be the first time the capital has it..hmm I've also found a picture over here:

This is, in my opinion, just the start of the damage.

China floods leave 200 dead, missing-resident

It seems i couldn't find the article anywhere about tt ice raining incident but i did find this in The Straits Times this morning while trying to find the article..It's from Reuters so i went there to find out more: 'BEIJING (Reuters) - Heavy rain has triggered floods and mudslides in southern China, leaving at least 200 people dead or missing, a resident and state media said on Wednesday. Torrential rain hit a mountainous region of Hunan province in the early hours on Wednesday and 22 people died in floods, the official Xinhua news agency said. Two officials were killed during rescue work. Thirty-five people, including five students, were missing, Xinhua said. However, a local resident with knowledge of the casualties and damage said at least 200 people died or were missing after torrential rains hit Xinshao and Lianyuan counties, Shaoyang city and three other cities in Hunan province since Tuesday. "Villagers, cadres and rescuers were washed away by floods," the resident, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "More than 10,000 people were left homeless after their homes were either washed away, flooded or toppled," he said. Mountain torrents in Xinshao were the worst in the county's history, Xinhua said. At least 47 villages were devastated by the torrents and 54,600 villagers affected, Xinhua quoted Shen Guirong, director of the county government's publicity department, as saying. About 3,560 homes were destroyed, Shen said, and electricity and telecommunications services were cut off in some villages. Crops, bridges and roads were destroyed. Taizimiao village was the worst hit and the local government scrambled to build temporary bridges to rescue stranded villagers, Shen said. A local official reached by telephone estimated damage to property at over 2 billion yuan ($240 million). People's Liberation Army soldiers were mobilized to help with rescue work, residents said. "We'll be working overtime all night," said a rescue center official in Taizimiao, who gave his surname as Zhu. A local weather bureau official reached by telephone said heavy rainfall caused the floods. "Rainfall in the first half of this year was not a historic high but it was too heavy in a short period of time," the official said. In southwestern Guizhou province, a thunderstorm triggered flooding and landslides killing 12 people and injuring dozens, state radio said. Parts of China are hit by summer floods annually. ' Okay..so it seems that 'China suffers widespread flooding and drought each year, causing huge loss of life. Earthquakes are common and typhoons roar ashore from the South China Sea in the summer,' according to Reuters..so that could explain this article but what about the ice raining thing still? Something must explain it.. You could read back on what i blogged about "as the world warms" there is this part at the start about the weather in Beijing too where it was raining like mad on one side and hot like the desert on the other.. I am still keeping a look-out for the article so if anyone happens to see it..could you tell me please? thanks.

Shocking

This is so shocking i just HAD to say it..I just saw Channel 8 news on tv and u noe what?In China, Beijing...it rained ICE THE SIZE OF PING PONG BALLS !!!I was totally staring at the screen with my mouth opened..not only tt..it was raining at the same time too..I'm trying to find if there's an article abt it on the net but i guess they probably may not post it yet or something..But I'll definitely post it here immediately after I find it..This is realli getting out of hand..It's like supposed to be summer soon in China..ICE during SUMMER??Anyway...let's just hope it's not the effects of global warming but just some strange phenomenon like in August 6, 2000:In Norfolk, England, It was raining fish from the sky. But..well this is not some fish or cat or dog but ice...something natural from the environment..Wonder what will happen next..Snow in Singapore? That might just happen ya noe..

Why and how do lizards grow back separated tails?

Now this is another interesting one from May issue of Discover. It's realli quite a coincidence tt my last two posts is about animals too..hehe..The red ones are the more interesting ones..okay so here goes: "Losing a tail is a significant event in a lizard’s life. Herpetologists refer to the process as caudal autotomy (caudal relates to “tail” and autotomy to “casting off a body part”). It is considered an antipredatory adaptation since it is effective at confusing a predator. Although the chance of attacking the tail versus the head is often described as fifty-fifty, many species have brightly colored tails, and they will wag them back and forth to increase the likelihood that a predator will target the tail. When attacked, a lizard releases its tail either by direct trauma or sometimes before it is even touched. The detached tail wiggles with a nervous spasm, distracting the predator long enough for the lizard to escape. The specific mechanism that allows the tail to be released evolved early in the history of lizards. Lizard tail vertebrae have a perforated fracture plane encircling the bone. When a tail is broken, the vertebrae break along the fracture plane, and overlying muscle and connective tissue separate as the tail falls off. Over time, trauma to the vertebrae induces dormant cells to activate, and the tail will regenerate with an underlying tube of cartilage rather than separate vertebral bones. While the ability to lose and regenerate the tail may save a lizard’s life, it isn’t without costs. Should a lizard be attacked twice, it is advantageous to have a regrown appendage. However, tail regeneration is energetically expensive and can also result in lowered social status. Still, it is better than being someone’s dinner."

How do flies walk on the ceiling?

Sorry for not posting anything..been quite busy..so now here's an interesting one from Discover :How do flies walk on the ceiling?" I would highlight some of the interesting points in red: 'In addition to tiny claws, flies have specialised adhensive pads on their feet called pulvilli. These are covered with minute hairs that are between 2/10,000 and 2/1,000 of an inch long, each with a flattened tip. Scientists speculated that because they were curved, flies' foot hairs must be tiny hooks, latching onto microscopic irregularities in surfaces. "Hairy" adhensives in other organisms such as beetles, spiders, and geckos were postulated to work the same way. Later, research showed that such hairs were flexible and didn't behave like hooks at all. Many animals adhered strongly to both smooth and rough surfaces. Scientists discovered that flies and beetles secret a sticky fluid over their feet, which seems to act like a glue. The feet of spiders and geckos, in contrast, are pefectly dry, which suggest these animals employ intermolecular forces to adhere to various surfaces. Such observations leave us with more questions. Why, for instance, would lightweight flies need glue to stick to the ceiling, which much heavier animals like geckos don't? And how do flies detach once they've "glued" themselves to a surface? We won't understand the true nature of how flies actually walk on the ceiling until these questions are answered.'

"Mosquito Barricade"

Sorry for not updating my blog..My browser was not working properly but now it's all perfectly fine now..Anyway, There is this interesting article on this month's issue of "Discover" . In summary, it is something like why mosquitoes like some people better than others. I would take out only the more interesting and more important part: " 'Mosquitoes find their victims by homing in on specific molecules emanating from human breath and skin,' says team leader Jennifer Mordue, 'and some people's particular blend or molecules is more attractive than others. ' After putting mosquitoes in the base of a y-shaped tube with different blends of human compounds at each end, Mordue watched whick fork the bugs preferred.
After repeated tests, Mordue isolated several compounds that were as powerful as commercial sprays at deterring mosquitoes. 'These compounds are only present normally in a fraction of people, preharps those who evolved a bit of extra resistance,' she says. Mordue suggests that rather than repelling mosquitoes , the compounds mask molecules that normally attract them. For example, the repellent deet doesn't harm insects; it just interferes with their ability to detect a specific molecule on human skin that acts as a powerful attractant." Tune in next week for more articles..

DNA model

Had a very fun biology pratical today.We had to make a model of a DNA. I guess mine was the longest since ihad finished it very fast :P but it wasn't very good i thk. I have taken a picture of mine and a model of my teacher's DNA model.

My teacher's model(above)

My model :) (above)
A little bit of infomation on the DNA..You should be able to see "coloured" nitrogen bases
held together like rungs of a ladder by the sugar phosphate backbone. Red and Blue is Adenine(red) and Thiamine (Blue) while Yellow and Green is Cytosine (Yellow) and Guanine (Green). Of course, in actual life our DNA has no colour.

Spinach fights the flu

This article comes from the febrary issue of discover - "Spinach fights the flu" This is quite interesting: Spinach may soon be packing health benefits Mom never dreamed of. Molecular Biologists at Philadelphia's INB:Biotechnologies are using the vegetable to make vaccines against anthrax, influenza, even plague. The new vaccines are cheaper to produce than traditional ones made from animales - and could be quicker to make. Until now, biologists had long assumed that using plants to grow human vaccines was impossible. But INB found a way to trick spinach ( along with Swiss chard and Petunias) into producing harmless bits and pieces of common human pathogens that cause diseases like flu and plague. When these chopped-up, deactivated pathogens are injected into mammals, the animals acquire immunity, just as if they had been infected with a virulent version. " now that's cool i mean in the past no one thought that vaccines could come from vegetables it would be great because vegetables are easier to produce better than using animals which may be at a disadvantages especially if they come from chickens and they happen to have the bird flu. Stay tune for more articles.

Disaster upon disaster

This extract is from a very long article from The Straits Times Feb. 23..some of you may have read it but i would like to make a few comments about it. I would, however, only stress on two parts of this article and they are "Vicious Winter" and " Lethal storms". In the part "vicous winter", it said that "at least 180 children have died in Afghanistan's coldest winter in years, the Health Minister said yesterday, amid warnings that the final toll from the subzero temperature and heavy snow could run into the thousands" and in Kashmir "Heavy snow and low temperatures have gripped the Kashmir valley since last week. Avalanches and mudslides have buried entire villages and collasped houses across the state." Okie..look.. for these two countries it seemed that winter this year was the coldest that they ever had and it really does seem that there is something very wrong with the climate. For the part "Lethal Storms": "Mudslides trapped residents in their homes and forced others to flee as lethal storms continues to pound southern california for the fifth consecutive day, in what could prove to be the wettest rainfall season on record in Los Angeles" In the later part of this part: "There is also a possibility of severe thunderstorms and hailstorms in the coastal valleys and blizzard conditions in the mountains. "If it keeps raining like this, and it will, it'll break the record set more than 120 years ago," said Mr. Bill Patzert, a meteorologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada." okie so in this article it is obvious that it kept raining, yes, the thing is look at the phrase "it'll break the record set more than 120 years ago" it seemed to be similar to the first one " coldest winter in years" so therefore the climate is moving into the EXTREME. In singapore, we are now experiencing a dry spell though it's getting better now but two weeks ago it was so hot tt u could just cook an egg on the ground. Temperatures could go to 34, 35 and the Fire stations had received more bush fire cases compared to the last few years and it is said that it is the worst dry spell in the last 29 years. So, the conclusion is still the same thing. Global Warming.

As the World Warms..

Well...i thk i sort of said i would post the article on some electron bond or sth..but i thk i need to address this issue again...as I've just got the new issue of Discover..I thk I've been stressing this from the start but I've got to say it again and that global warming is getting serious..I thk I remembered watching the news some weeks ago saying that one part of China was raining like cats and dogs and the weather was cold and the other part was hot like a desert. See? So..I'll talk about this article called "As the World Warms"..Firstly: "New Reports - from greenland to antartica - show rising temperatures at both poles and changing conditions in what were once stable, icebound regions." Well I thk it'll be best if i post the whole article because almost every part is important: - "Data from NASA, European, and Canadian satellites show a continuing impact from the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in early 2002. Nearby glaciers along the Antartic Peninsula are now flowing into the open ocean three to eight times faster than when they were buttressed by the ice shelf, contributing significantly to rising sea levels. Additionally, NASA satellites found that some glaciers in the area have thinned by up to 125 feet.", "Populations of krill have declined by 80% in the Southern Ocean in the last 30 years. An international tean of oceanographers attributed the drop to a loss of winter sea ice that supports the algae on which young krill feed. Krill, small shrimp-like creatures, form a cornerstone of the southwest Atlantic food web." Can you imagine if that because of the decline in the Krill population..whales may become extinct..okie..continuing..." NASA satellites confirm that the rate of ice flow into the ocean from Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier - the continent's fastest moving - has doubled between 1997 and 2003, increasing the rate of sea level rise by 4 % " , "Temperatures are going up twice as fast in the Arctic as in the rest of the world, according to an impact statement by the Arctic Council, a consortium of 14 countries and six organisations of indigenous peoples. Further, the group reports that polar snow cover declined 10 percent in 30 years, and the thaw of permafrost will likely creep hundreds of miles northward within this century. The council also predicts that by the end of the century the famously ice-locked Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean will become open water in summer." This is really quite scary though maybe the end of the world may not be fast enough..the fact is..IT IS POSSIBLE.

Thumb's the word

Well...as i'd promised..i'll post an article called "Thumb's the word" It's realli very interesting and sort of ,well, maybe related to when u were a foetus..Okie..this article is actually about how scientists had found out a way of interpreting whether a foetus, when it's born, will they be left- or right- handed..Here's a part of it.."Parents ofter try to figure out whether toddlers will be left- or right- handed. When they clasp their hands, which thumb is on the top? If they grab a crayon, which hand do they use? Many children, under the influence of rapidly developing brains, flip-flop between right and left, so parents mistakenly think they must be ambidextrous. " Actually..that's sort of wat my cousin do..she always changes hand ..sometimes left..sometimes right..but either way..i dun realli thk she's ambidextrous..Anyway..continuing .."In July (2004) scientists came up with an easy - and early- way to tell : Look at the sonograms. Fetuses sucking their right thum in the womb then to be right-handed, and vice-versa " Okie..that's the more important part la..i thk..the rest of the articel is more about the speculation of most experts..like the brain hemispheres, genetic processes...and so on so forth..The next article..should most likely be.."Chemists find new electron bonds"..

World's smallest fish

I'm realli sorry to say that..now i even have no time to do experiments coz i'm now in jc and it's realli very very tiring..maybe i even have to let my microscope rot..haha..jkjk...alright..i thk maybe i'll just give everyone interesting articles i've read in science mags and of course i'll still update the highlights of the sky part. Article for this week is..World's smallest fish: "After a delay of 25 yrs, scientists announced they had found the world's smallest fish - toothless, scaleless, colourless (except for it's black eyes), and so light that it takes 500,000 of them to weigh a pound" wow..this is realli amazing..at first i still tot ikan bilis was the smallest fish or sth..haha.. okie.." Named the stout infantfish, the largest, a female, a measured only abt a third of an inch long. Males averaged about a quarter of an inch. Their lifespan is tot to be abt 2 months" okie...this is sort of the extract of the more interesting part..Next time i'll extract an article called "Thumb's the word"...stay tune ;)

Research postponed

So ever sorry for not blogging for very long. I have been postponing the research i'm doing because i've just realised I may not be able to do it because of some issues I may not know and i've got to find out just so i do not waste my time doing the research and then there's nothing i can do abt it.

A new discovery!

As I've said on my blog..I was doing crossword puzzles this morning and I've discovered an amazing thing. Some of us may be fast in finding the words, but some may find it difficult due to the crowding of so many different letters together. I've discovered that if you stare at the word you are looking for or imagine it hard in your head for about 10 seconds[+/-] (just long enough) you may find the word easier. What I've also found is that my eyes automatically went to look for the first letter of the word or sometimes the word itself the moment i fixed my eyes on the puzzle and it took me only a few seconds to find the word. In the past, I did the same but not automatically (my eyes), I had to use a pencil and follow every line and look for the first letter because I just read the word I'm looking for very fast like a glance. It's quite interesting and I think it could be on the fact that your brain is registering the facts and then sending the messages to your eyes. In short, It's All In The Mind ;) I'll need to do more and also some research on it plus i also need someone to help me with this little research to see whether everyone has the same effects. Try it.

Home experiment 3

Today I will be showing you how to make litmus indicator. This special vegetable is quite rare in the supermarket and sometimes you have to wait till it's in season. The vegetable i'm talking about is - red cabbage. No, it's not red but purple in colour because of a pigment called flavin.

You need:
2-3 cabbage LEAVES
1 pot
water
1 container

Steps:
1) wash the cabbage leaves and place them neatly into the pot.
2) Fill the pot with water until it just covers the leaves

3) Boil it for about 10 minutes or till the water turns a rich purple colour

4) Let it cool and pour the liquid into a container and use it when needed.

Note:
-When the sample you're trying on is an acid, the indicator turns pink.
-When the sample you're trying on is an alkali, the indicator turns blur-green.

Tried and Tested:
I tried the indicator with a little bit of lime juice and guess what colour it turns. Yes, pink!!!

Chromatograph

I did a chromatography experiment today with filter paper and the result was beautiful. I think it would be better to use filter paper instead of kitchen towel because it's more, how to say, "specialised" kind of thing. Here's the photo:

Home experiment 2

I did about 2 to 3 experiments today and I'll post one here(I even took the pictures for it):
You need:
-1 dish or petri-dish of water
-a little bit of talcum powder
-a few drops of dish-detergent

Steps:
1. Sprinkle some talcum powder over the surface of the bowl of water. The talc will settle on the water surface like this:

2. Now drip two to three drops of detergent into the middle fof the bowl and watch.
3. The detergent reduces the water's pulling power near where it lands. As a result, the talc is pulled outwards by the water with greater pulling power and even sinks to the bottom:

This is serious

I've read an online science article about the ozones level in the world as in those produced by human activities which is formed when sunlight interacts with emissions from cars and power plants - such as nitrogen dioxide - and is generated in greater quantities when air temperatures are high.
Here's is part of the extract:
Death records for 95 US cities - representing about 40% of the population - over 14 years. They found that a person is 0.52% more likely to die on a given day when ozone levels during the previous week rose by 10 parts per billion. That figure is slightly higher - 0.64% - when the researchers looked only at deaths due to cardiovascular and respiratory problems.

If ozone levels were decreased by 10 ppb, about 4000 lives would be saved each
year in these 95 urban centres.

"Ozone is clearly a problem, particularly for those that spend a lot of time outdoors, for those exercising, for asthmatics, and maybe others," says Bart Ostro, chief of the air pollution epidemiology unit at the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in Oakland, US. "Moving to ever-cleaner cars and controlling some of the large stationary sources of nitrogen dioxide, such as power plants, are important steps."
Bell agrees: "There are a lot of things we can do on an individual basis, such as taking the bus to work or carpooling. We can also look at the exposure to ozone - if high ozone levels are anticipated, people can stay indoors or not exercise outdoors.""

Interesting Experiment

Here's an interesting experiment:
"Sit in a Dark Room for about five minutes, then look briefly toward the sun or a bright light. Did you feel a tickle in your nose? Did you sneeze? If so, you belong to the 18 to 35 % of the population who suffers from a medical condition known as ACHOO (autosomal dominant compelling helioophthalmic outburst) syndrome. ACHOO, also commonly called the sunsneeze response – is an inherited disorder in which sensory impulses from the optic nerve spill over into the trigeminal nerve in the nose. A strong visual signal causes itching in the nostrils, which triggers the sneeze reflex."

The Hottest and Coldest place on Earth

I've read an interesting fact from a small article in a science magazine and this person asked a scientist where is the hottest and coldest place on Earth and here's an extract:
"The most frigid spot know on earth’s surface is at the Vostok Ice station in Antarctica, where in 1989 the temperature hit -128.6 Fahrenheit. It was so cold that when scientists there poured water from the kettle, the water froze before it hit the ground. At the other extreme is El Azizia, Libya, where the hottest temperature recorded was 136 Fahrenheit in Sept 1922. High in the atmosphere or deep underground, temperatures are even more extreme. In the noctilucent clouds that form 50 miles above the north and south poles, temperature fall to as low as –220 Fahrenheit. And in the Earth’s solid iron core, 4000 miles beneath us, temp may reach 13,000 F hotter than the surface of the sun." Cool.

Home experiment 1

Here's an interesting chromatography experiment which you can do it yourself at home.
You need:
A piece of filter paper or Kitchen Towel
A bowl or flat plate of water
Some felt-tip pens

1. Put some spots of ink about 3 cm from the bottom of the paper

2. Hang the paper over a bowl of water so that the water touches the paper but not the ink spots.

3. The paper absorbs the water. As the water reaches the blobs of ink, the dyes in the inks dissolve and are carried upwards. The dyes that dissolve most easily travel furthest.