Tuesday, November 18, 2008

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...

Saturday, July 26, 2008

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.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

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.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

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 (:

Friday, April 18, 2008

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 (:

Friday, April 04, 2008

Results are in!

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

1. My hand imprint


handprint


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:





Dilution Two
10^(-2)


Dilution Five
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:


streak_2_illustrated

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 (:

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

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.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

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!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

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.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

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.