Royal Flush Havanese Shares Tips on How to Find a Reputable Dog Breeder
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Royal Flush Havanese shares tips with readers on what to look for in order to find a reputable dog breeder.
Charlestown, Rhode Island (PRWEB) April 28, 2015
When searching for a purebred Havanese, it can be tempting to choose the puppy with the smallest fee. Royal Flush Havanese shares tips with readers on what to look for when trying to find a reputable Havanese breeder and, consequently, the perfect dog.
1. Do Your Research
Upon deciding to purchase a new dog, many people are desirous to find one immediately. In doing so, people usually end up purchasing dogs from what are known as “backyard breeders"– unregistered and unlicensed individuals who breed their dogs solely for profit, without giving them proper medical care or socialization. A reputable Havanese breeder, on the other hand, will make sure all of their breeding dogs have the proper genetics to as to ensure no inbreeding occurs. Reputable breeders take into account dog health, and will feed their animals the best diet possible and give them paramount medical care. Because their animals are so well cared for, these breeders will have many happy clients and a long list of positive reviews that they are proud to show off.
2. Check for an Application Process
All good breeders know that not everyone who wants to purchase a puppy is the ideal candidate to own one. Because of this, reputable breeders require potential owners to go through an application process. Look for questions regarding living situation (owning or renting a home), a veterinary reference, and a spay or neuter contract. Each puppy should come with a health guarantee for a certain number of years. Additionally, if purchasing a puppy, a peculiarly small price for a dog should be a warning sign. Reputable Havanese breeders put a lot of time into caring for their litters, and medical care for puppies can be expensive. If searching for a puppy with good genetics that was raised in the proper environment, fed the best possible diet, given the best medical care, and provided with proper socialization from a young age, their price will reflect that.
3. Find a Helpful Breeder
Any reputable breeder has extensive knowledge of the breed they work with, and will be anxious to share that knowledge with the client. They will be able to help new owners through almost any issue that arises, whether it be house-training or behavioral difficulties, and are informed of all of the eccentricities their breed may have, as well as any common health issues. However, not only will a reputable breeder possess this knowledge, but they will continually make themselves available to clients by phone or email to help whenever the need arises. Additionally, each puppy will be sent home with detailed care instructions, a health and veterinary care record, and directions as to exactly what type of feed and supplements the dog should be given.
Royal Flush Havanese shares these tips with the hope that they will encourage potential clients to purchase from only the most reputable breeders. When purchasing a dog from Royal Flush Havanese, clients can receive $100 of their purchase price by donating just $25 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Go to the Royal Flush Havanese website to read more useful tips for the health and well being of dogs. Awarded a Certificate of No Complaints and rated A+ for their outstanding dedication to honesty in the business place, customer satisfaction, and ethical policies and procedures by the Better Business Bureau, Royal Flush Havanese is dedicated to producing the finest Havanese puppies for sale and providing outstanding service in their care. "Like" the Royal Flush Havanese Facebook page today to show your support.
Podiatrists Affiliate with Wimbledon Health Partners to Diagnose Peripheral Arterial Disease
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Wimbledon Health Partners has expanded their network to provide on-site non-invasive vascular testing to help podiatrists diagnose peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) April 28, 2015
Wimbledon Health Partners, the leading on-site diagnostic testing organization which provides vascular, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and NCV testing, has expanded their network to provide on-site non-invasive vascular testing to help podiatrists diagnose peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
“It can be challenging to diagnose PAD without the aid of vascular testing,” said Bradley Artel M.D., F.A.C.C., Chief Medical Officer at Wimbledon Health Partners. “Diminished peripheral pulses, atrophic skin changes, and loss of hair are some classic findings, but are not always sensitive or specific indicators.”
Wimbledon Health Partners uses vascular ultrasound to diagnose a number of conditions. The turnkey on-site diagnostic program allows podiatrists to enhance their patient care by providing vascular and nerve conduction velocity (NVC) testing in their office. Patients appreciate the convenience and podiatrists appreciate the clinical data.
About Wimbledon Health Partners:
Wimbledon Health Partners was formed in response to the demand to attain on-site diagnostic testing capabilities for circulatory conditions. Furthering our capabilities, nerve conduction velocity testing (NCV) is also utilized to support diagnosis of nerve involvement and manage risk. Wimbledon Health Partners provides physicians with the educational, compliance, and marketing tools necessary to provide quality, state-of-the-art, in-office testing procedures. http://www.dxtesting.com (855) 200-8262
NeuLife Welcomes Chief Administrative Officer Ross A. Baird, NHA, MBA
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NeuLife, a post-acute, rehabilitation facility in Mount Dora, completes their executive team by announcing Ross A. Baird, NHA, MBA, as Chief Administrative Officer.
Mount Dora, Florida (PRWEB) April 28, 2015
NeuLife, a post-acute, rehabilitation facility in Mount Dora, completes their executive team by announcing Ross A. Baird, NHA, MBA, as Chief Administrative Officer.
Baird’s twenty year experience as a health care administrator has been focused on developing first class, results-orientated rehabilitation facilities. Under his leadership, therapy teams focused on both clinical expertise and providing “compassion guided” services with quality outcomes.
Baird’s facilities utilized a holistic approach in providing therapy that included teaching, training and supporting not only the therapists but also the families and those entrusted to the patient’s care.
“NeuLife continues to determinedly pursue its mission and vision in the marketplace by seeking out and attracting top healthcare executives to assist us with achieving our goals. Ross Baird has a lifetime of experience in managing, growing and delivering excellence in care for individuals in need. We are excited to have Ross join our leadership team and are confident that his addition will help accelerate NeuLife’s mission.” says Michael Upchurch, Chief Executive Officer.
Baird earned his administrator’s license in 1992, a Bachelor of Science in Health and Human Services with a focus on Gerontology from College of Boca (now Lynn University), and an M.B.A. from Nova Southeastern. Since 1993, Ross served Central Florida’s medically needy population as a health care administrator.
A third-generation health care provider, Baird follows in the footsteps of his father, who moved from Ohio to Ormond Beach, Florida, to build a rehabilitation facility in 1985.
Baird’s involvement in the Central Florida Health Care Community includes serving on the Halifax Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Board, the Council on Aging’s Board of Directors, the Children’s Home Society North Coast Division’s Board of Directors, and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Baird lives in Longwood, Florida, with his wife and three children.
NeuLife, a specialized, residential rehabilitation facility provides aggressive therapy to accelerate the recovery of clients who have experienced a catastrophic life event. Through intensive therapeutic rehabilitation, NeuLife helps clients regain the ability to achieve things once thought to be impossible, such as walking, talking or rejoining the work force.
NeuLife’s accessible facility is situated on forty-three acres near downtown Mount Dora and about thirty-five minutes from downtown Orlando. NeuLife serves individuals age eighteen or older who have been diagnosed with catastrophic and challenging diagnoses, including brain and spinal cord injury, amputations and multiple trauma.
New Movement Focuses On Creating A More Enjoyable And Memorable Experience
Orange, Calif. (PRWEB) April 28, 2015
Allied Anesthesia physicians are embracing the concept of “gentle C-sections” which was pioneered in Boston and is swiftly gaining ground across the country.
Unlike traditional cesarean sections, gentle C-sections focus on making the experience more enjoyable and memorable for the mother by making her comfortable and speeding up the bonding process between mother and baby.
“We’re the hand holders of the patients,” said Dr. Salomon Maya of Allied.
Maya and other Allied anesthesiologists have been known to entertain their patients, turn on music, make sure they have fresh, warm towels, and even scratch their nose for them if necessary.
“We almost pamper them to make sure the birthing experience is as positive as humanly possible for them,” Maya said. “A lot of times they are afraid or nervous and they just want someone to hold their hand during the C-section. And, we do all that.”
Allied physicians go one step further than most by performing a regional nerve block called a TAP block, which helps alleviate the pain of a C-section once the epidural wears off. The TAP block is done after the C-section is completed and while the patient is still numb from either her epidural or spinal anesthesia.
“Most women, all they need to take is Motrin and they don’t have to take any narcotics which can cause side effects like nausea and constipation,” Maya said.
Gentle C-sections also commonly involve removing arm straps from the mother so she and baby can have immediate skin-so-skin contact. Skin-to-skin contact, which is more common in vaginal births, promotes quicker bonding and gives them a head start on breastfeeding.
“It’s really a team effort with us figuring out exactly what we can do for the OB and what we can do for the mom,” Maya said. “We’re the ones making sure everything goes smoothly.”
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About Allied Anesthesia: With over 100 highly qualified physician anesthesiologists on staff, Allied Anesthesia provides adult and pediatric anesthesia services to St. Joseph Hospital of Orange, CHOC Children’s Hospital, St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, St. Mary’s Hospital in Apple Valley and many other Southern California health care facilities. In 2014, Allied Anesthesia joined with Fullerton Anesthesia Associates and Upland Anesthesia Medical Group to consolidate best practices in more than six hospitals and more than a dozen ambulatory surgery centers. The expanded medical practice is dedicated to offering the highest comprehensive quality of care and the most cost-effective procedures in all facilities they serve. All Allied physician anesthesiologists are board certified in Anesthesiology and they staff and manage the most efficient operating rooms in Southern California. Allied is a member of the California Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and the Anesthesia Quality Institute.
The 17-year-old Kardashian sister has created a growing trend that matches the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Harlem Dance in popularity and humor. Kylie Jenner’s famous pouty lips has trended the “Kylie Jenner Challenge,” where teenagers will suck on glass bottles and glasses in order to get those luscious lips for themselves. However, as we have all seen in various videos, the reactions have been hilarious, but the desired effects have been taken to the dangerous extreme.
How does one even get their lips to become so full using solely a shot glass? Dr. Dendy Engelman, director of dermatologic surgery at New York Medical College, answered the world’s questions and concerns on Fusion–with the science behind the Kylie Jenner Challenge.
Looking engorgeous
First, a glass is placed on the lips and the participants sucks in the trapped air, thereby inducing negative pressure from the suction. As the pressure increases, it causes “vessel engorgement,” with means your blood rushes to the blood vessels in that area, causing inflammatory reactions.
As the chemicals causing the inflammation flood the suppressed area on your mouth, the soft tissue will quickly become engorged to the point of plump—the Kylie Jenner look.
While the celebrity may have the possibly perfect pout (if you so believe), Dr. Engelman warns that the challenge can also have serious lasting effects.
Unlike past challenges where the results were soaked clothes or public embarrassment archived on YouTube, Dr. Engelman said that the pressures caused by sucking too hard can break the fragile blood vessels around that area, and that’s what results in bruising. For those of us with fairer skin, we are even more sensitive to these bruises.
Basically like a hickey for your lips
Dr. Engelman still understands the desires to complete each societal challenge, and so she warns that if a pair of lips just happen to find themselves in a shot glass out of boredom, curiosity, or a friendly dare, a fifteen to thirty second suction would probably be okay without causing more than mild and temporary effects. However, sixty seconds or more, like what is seen in a new wave of videos filling the Internet, can lead to longer term damage.
While the trend may not be the best, there is one new thing that can be learned. Fun fact: Dr. Engelman stated that if you do the challenge, you’ve also found an innovative way to give yourself a hickey.
Are you up to the challenge? If so…be cautious, folks. When in doubt, love your lips.
If researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute have anything to say about it, the automotive headlight of the future will be able to adjust the changing environment, let drivers see through rain or snowstorms, follow GPS directions and avoid road construction.
Those innovations, the subject of recent articles by Engadget and Scientific American, would be able to parse raindrops to cancel them out and would use a feedback system to regularly improve performance. For instance, it could detect vehicles coming towards the car, preventing oncoming lights from blinding the driver and improving overall safety.
In the future, the system could be able to collect satellite data that will adjust the direction of the headlights in concert with GPS directions, help make your lane appear brighter than others on the roadway, and provide an early warning when there are obstacles in the driver’s path.
Improving upon previous smart headlight technology
The Carnegie Mellon team, led by associate professor Srinivasa Narasimhan, is building upon a previous version of their smart headlight system with looked to improve visibility in bad weather by anticipating the movement and velocity of precipitation and shining the headlights into spaces between them, according to Scientific American.
Developed in 2012, that prototype used a digital camera to record the motions of raindrops and snowflakes every eight milliseconds, then used a computer algorithm to predict where each one would be a few milliseconds later, the website noted. It would then deactivate light beams which would otherwise shine upon precipitation once it reached its expected location.
Narasimhan’s team claimed that their technology would reduce the visibility of rain four meters away from the headlights by more than two-thirds when the vehicle was traveling at a speed of 18 mph (30 km/hour). It also reduced the visibility of slower-moving snowflakes by as much as 60 percent, and one version had a response time of less than 1.5 milliseconds.
That version, which the website said was approximately the same size as a small foot locker, is mounted on the hood of an automobile using suction cups. The most recent prototype, however, is smaller and can fit inside the headlight compartment of a truck, explained Robotics Institute scientist and longtime project team member Robert Tamburo.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have for the first time explained why being treated with chemotherapy can adversely affect the cognitive function of cancer patients.
Writing in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology, associate professor Kristin Campbell, former UBC Ph. D. student Julia Kam and their colleagues explained that the phenomenon known as “chemo brain” is marked by excessive mind wandering and an inability to concentrate. While the condition has long been suspected, the reason for it had never been explained.
Campbell explained to redOrbit via email that chemo brain “is a common side effect of cancer treatment where patients report changes in their ability to think, concentrate and remember. It is commonly linked to chemotherapy treatment but the cause is not entirely clear. One idea is that chemotherapy causes low-grade inflammation throughout the body and the inflammatory markers travel in the blood stream and influence the brain structure and function that way.”
“A healthy brain spends some time wandering and some time engaged,” added professor of psychology and co-author Todd Handy. “We found that chemo brain is a chronically wandering brain, they’re essentially stuck in a shut out mode.”
Testing patients for attention level fluctuations
The researchers asked breast cancer survivors to complete a series of tasks as the researchers monitored their brain activity. Nineteen patients who experienced issues related to cognitive function and 12 healthy control subjects completed target-detection tasks.
“The task we used is a very easy computer task that is designed to allow for fluctuations in attention,” Campbell told redOrbit. “Fluctuations in our attention levels is a normal phenomenon and is commonly called ‘mind wandering.’ Since an inability to maintain attention is one of the things patients report with chemo brain, we used this test to see if women who reported chemo brain symptoms were mind wandering more than women who had not had cancer.”
As they took part in those tasks, subjects periodically reported their attentional state, and their brain activity were recorded both during the task and at rest using electroencephalogram (EEG). The researchers found that cancer survivors were less likely to maintain sustained attention during the task, and that their brains displayed greater amounts of neural activity at rest.
Women who were suffering from chemo brain were more likely to stay in a disengaged state, with their minds wandering, Kam and her co-authors wrote. Furthermore, even when survivors believed they were focusing on a task, the EEG measurements indicated that a large portion of their brains were “turned off” and that their minds were wandering.
Searching for ways to test patients for chemo brain
Furthermore, they found evidence suggesting that the cancer survivors were focused more on their “inner world,” and that even when they asked to relax, their brains were more active than the healthy women. Campbell explained that the UBC team’s findings could help health care providers measure the impact of chemotherapy on the brain.
The findings could also provide doctors with a new way to test patients for chemo brain, and to gauge if they are improving over time, she noted, as tests developed for brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease or other cognitive orders have proven ineffective for measuring chemo brain.
“The changes patient report with chemo brain are subtle and the traditional tests used to look at memory and cognitive function may not be sensitive enough to pick up the symptoms,” Campbell told redOrbit. “Our study shows that measuring brain waves (by EEG) during an attention test may be a new way to measure chemo brain symptoms.”
“Identifying a sensitive test is important to allow us to now start to test possible intervention strategies that may help to improve chemo brain. This test will allow us to compare before and after values with a treatment intervention,” she added. “One treatment option we are interested in looking at in the future is to see if exercise may help to improve chemo brain symptoms, [since] exercise has been shown to improve memory and cognitive function in older adults.”
“Chemo brain or cancer-associated cognitive changes, as it is more commonly called in the medical community, is common and does tend to improve over time,” Campbell concluded. “However, for some patients the symptoms do persist. We are interested in finding possible intervention strategies to possibly reduce the severity of the symptoms and assist those who have persistent symptoms more than a year after finishing treatment.”
German carmaker Audi has reportedly developed what they are calling the ”fuel of the future” – a carbon-neutral type of diesel fuel made from nothing but water, carbon dioxide, and renewable energy sources. It was also produced after a commissioning phase of just four months.
Furthermore, according to Science Alert, the synthetic e-diesel is currently being used to power the Audi A8 3 of German Federal Minister of Education and Research Professor Dr. Johanna Wanka, who hailed the breakthrough as “a huge success for our sustainability research.”
“If we can make widespread use of CO2 as a raw material, we will make a crucial contribution to climate protection and the efficient use of resources,” Dr. Wanka added in a statement issued last week by the auto manufacturer, “and put the fundamentals of the ‘green economy’ in place.”
E-diesel touted as “superior to fossil fuels”
The clear e-diesel is being produced by a pilot plant set up by Audi and operated by clean tech firm Sunfire. The Dresden-based factory will reportedly produce 160 liters (more than 40 gallons) of the synthetic fuel every day over the next several months. It operates using power-to-liquid principles, using green energy to make liquid fuel from water and CO2.
The product is produced first by harnessing renewable energy from wind, solar, and hydropower sources, then using that power to split water into oxygen and hydrogen through a process known as reversible electrolysis. The hydrogen is then mixed with carbon monoxide created using CO2 harvested from the atmosphere to create hydrocarbon compounds used in the fuel. Once refined, the e-diesel can be used on its own or in combination with currently available diesel fuels.
Reiner Mangold, the head of sustainable product development at Audi, said that he sees the new synthetic diesel as a way to complement electric vehicle technology. He added that “using CO2 as a raw material represents an opportunity not just for the automotive industry in Germany, but also to transfer the principle to other sectors and countries.”
In a statement, Sunfire officials said that an analysis of the fuel showed that its properties were “superior to fossil fuel” and that the e-diesel “is particularly eco-friendly” because it contains no sulfur or fossil oils. Sunfire CTO Christian von Olshausen added that engines using the fuel run “quieter” and produce “fewer pollutants,” ensuring “cleaner and better combustion as a blending component for conventional diesel fuel.”
Men and women with prediabetes, a disorder marked by slightly elevated blood sugar levels, could be able to keep their condition from progressing to full-blown diabetes by treating any sleep disorders they have, according to a new study.
As researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center and McGill University in Montreal explain, there is a link between prediabetes, a condition that affects 57 million people in the US, and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), an ailment that results in breathing difficulty during slumber.
“Although obstructive sleep apnea is associated with impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes, it remains unclear whether OSA treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) has metabolic benefits,” they wrote in a paper published online last Tuesday by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
They set out to find the answer in a controlled study in which 39 participants were randomly assigned to receive either eight hours of CPAP treatment each night or an oral placebo. The researchers then monitored their sleep using a diagnostic tool known as a polysomnogram to record the biophysiological changes that occurred during sleep.
As lead author Dr. Sushmita Pamidi, a former fellow at the University of Chicago who now teaches at McGill University, and her colleagues explained, many people with prediabetes also have untreated OSA. Using CPAP, a device which constantly blows air into the lungs through a tube and facemask, helps keep the upper airway open and allows them to breath better.
Dr. Pamidi said that their study showed that people with prediabetes who use CPAP “can lower their risk of progressing to diabetes when CPAP is used for eight hours, a full night’s sleep,” and that while “eight hours of CPAP per night can be difficult to achieve” in real-life conditions, the findings “should provide a strong incentive for anyone with sleep apnea, especially prediabetic individuals, to improve adherence to their treatment for cardio-metabolic risk reduction.”
Sleep apnea is common among overweight and obese men and women, the study authors noted, and can cause a person’s upper airway to become closed off during sleep, causing a temporary reduction in oxygen levels. The condition has been associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, stroke and cardiovascular disease, as well as a decrease in the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar levels that could ultimately result in diabetes.
Twenty-six of the participants were randomly assigned to receive CPAP treatments, while the remaining 13 were given a placebo in pill form 30 minutes prior to bedtime. The researchers then monitored their glucose metabolism both before and after treatment, as well as their levels of the stress hormone noradrenaline and their blood pressure.
After two weeks, blood sugar control improved for those in the CPAP group compared to the oral placebo group, the researchers said. Furthermore, the ability of insulin to regular their blood sugar improved and they had lower blood pressure and reduced levels of norepinephrine versus the placebo group, suggesting that treating sleep apnea could reduce risk-factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in at-risk patients.
The “decline of the West” due to ageing population is an exaggerated fear, new research from the University of Oxford suggests. The paper argues that some countries in Western Europe together with the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand now have birth rates that are relatively close to replacement, and that developed countries are well-placed to deal with ageing populations.
Security, stability, and relative gender equality combined with measures such as later retirement age means Western countries can address the problems of ageing in populations effectively. Demographic trends are “more stable and sustainable than supposed”, the researchers say.
In the case of the UK, population decline is no longer a concern. The impending general election has healthcare for an older population and record immigration figures as two major debating issues. Between robust birth rates and immigration, population is certainly not in decline.
Emerging superpowers?
The publication in the journal Population Studies by Professor David Coleman and Associate Professor Stuart Basten also suggests that fears of a future powershift to countries like China and India are exaggerated. Less secure civil society and politics combined with gender inequality means that population problems will be more difficult to deal with, while the economies will not grow quickly enough address the issues.
Half the world’s populations now live in countries where the birth rate is below replacement, including Brazil, Iran, Turkey, and the southern half of India, says the paper. It suggests Brazil, Iran, Thailand, and Indonesia may face decades of below-replacement fertility, an experience already familiar to China. It says the birth rates may fall in many of these populations to a level lower than that in much of Europe and the USA, because of the slow pace of change of traditional patriarchal society and the sexual inequality that goes with it.
The impact of climate change
The report also highlights the damaging impact of climate change in developing countries, with deteriorating environments adding to the population problems. India, soon to be the world’s most populated country, faces particular challenges of resource sustainability made worse by its vulnerability to climate change.
Co-author Professor David Coleman from the University of Oxford said: “Much has been written about the ‘Death of the West’, with its threatened demise reportedly due to the low level of reproduction in Western countries. We show that this so-called decline has been exaggerated and trends in European fertility have been misunderstood. With immigration, fertility rates have gone up in many European and English-speaking countries.”
“India and China and other fast growing economies have their problems too. Fast rising populations in developing economies do not equate with future success as demographic changes are difficult to absorb if they happen too rapidly. Countries with mature social and political systems will find such transitions easier to bear.”
Co-author and Associate Professor Stuart Basten added: “Many commentators focus on China as the future global superpower – ever growing in economic and political stature. However, China risks falling into a low-fertility trap coupled with severe levels of population ageing.”
“Even when allowed two children, couples prefer one child, with my research showing that this attitude has been reinforced by the urban conditions that families are forced to adjust to and policies that are not family-friendly. Both East and West have their separate different challenges which may mean painful periods of adjustment for everyone concerned.”
Dealing with the loss of a loved one can be difficult to deal with, and since pictures and home movies sometimes just aren’t enough, a French perfume company has come up with a new way to keep the memories alive: by turning their unique smell into a personalized fragrance.
According to AFP and Discovery News reports, the concept for “Eau de Parted” (not actual name) first came to 52-year-old insurance agent Katia Apalategui after she dealt with the loss of her father seven years ago. She even found herself missing the unique way he smelled.
She mentioned this to her mother during a conversation, and found that she, too, was having a similar experience–finding it difficult to wash her husband’s pillowcase, hoping to keep a reminder of her beloved’s scent.
Extracting the scent molecules
Her mother’s confession inspired Apalategui to think of ways that the individual scent of a man or woman could be captured and preserved so that people mourning the loss of a loved one could have a way remember that individual using their olfactory sense.
“Scientists have long known that smells are linked to the part of the brain that regulates emotion and memory and have the ability to propel you back to a specific time, place or person,” the AFP and Discovery News report explained. “The retail industry often takes advantage of this powerful psychological power, using various odors in stores, cars or restaurants to lure customers.”
Apalategui eventually got in touch with Geraldine Savary, a research chemist at the University of Le Havre. Savary and colleagues in her laboratory used a technique to reproduce human smell by extracting the molecules from clothing and reconstructing as a perfume. Savary would not reveal the secrets of her team’s method, but said that it take four days to create the fragrance.
Scientists have long known that the sense of smell is powerful and plays an key role in memory, and Apalategui said that the perfume provides “olfactory comfort” to mourners similar to photos, videos and other mementos left behind by the dearly departed. She and her son, who is currently in business school, plan to commercially launch their service by September.
Scooter Direct Offering Pride Go Go Traveller Elite 3-Wheel Scooter At Discounted Price
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Scooter Direct, an Odessa, Florida based mobility products store, is offering Pride Go Go Traveller Elite 3-wheel scooter at slashed price.
(PRWEB) April 27, 2015
Scooter Direct is now offering Pride Go Go Traveller Elite 3-wheel scooter at a discounted price of only $929.00, marked down from the MSRP of $1605.00. Scooter Direct, the top mobility products store is known for offering quality mobility solutions to its clients. The online store excels in selling scooters, lifts, wheel chairs, lift chairs, and their accessories at unbeatable prices.
Speaking about the salient features of Go Go Traveller Elite, a senior store manager stated, “Electric mobility scooters are all about taking the ease of transport to its next level, while ensuring that these mobility products are ideal to steer through narrow hallways. The Pride Go Go Traveller Elite belongs to a specific class of mobility scooters with tight turning radius and unmatched stability. Whether indoors or outdoors, the commute will be a breeze for its proud owners. Equipped with interchangeable 12AH or 18AH battery pack, this particular mobility scooter serves two purposes: use 12AH for the lowest weight lifting requirements, or use the 18AH for long-distance driving, such as a theme park..”
Pride Go Go Traveller Elite Scooter is undeniably a convenient mode of transport for those who need a compact scooter to make their daily chores more enjoyable than ever before. On 12AH battery packs, it offers an impressive range of 7.2 miles per charge, which can be increased up to 14 miles by swapping the battery packs with 18AH ones. Despite only weighing 75 lbs, without the battery pack, the Pride Go Go Traveller Elite scooter is powerful enough to flaunt a maximum weight bearing capacity of 300 lbs.
The senior store manager commented further, “Other features of Pride Go Go Traveller Elite portable mobility scooter that deserve a mention include its top speed of 4 mph, 33” turning radius and its 2” ground clearance. Since it is portable, the scooter disassembles into five lightweight pieces, which allow owners to lift the scooter into the vehicle a piece at a time. Furthermore, it is perfectly easy to charge the battery pack on or off the scooter. You never need to bend down to charge the battery since its charging port is there close to handle bar itself. Last but not least, its flat-free non-scuffing tires won’t leave you stranded, providing you with perfect peace of mind.”
Scooter Direct is offering a free one-year in-home service warranty with all Pride scooters. Simply call us and report the issue and we will send the technician to your home to repair the warranty issue. Other freebies that would help prospective buyers arrive at a decision faster include arm saddlebag, front basket and cup holder. The online scooter store further offers free shipping within the continental US. Scooter Direct’s lowest price guarantee provides yet another reason to prospective customers to buy this particular model of Go Go Scooter. The leading Mobility Scooter Store Online further offers home delivery and in-home setup on request.
About Scooter Direct:
Based in Odessa, Florida, Scooter Direct is a forerunner in mobility products’ segment. The leading mobility products store also supplies related accessories to customers at reasonable prices. Mobility products available in its inventory include 3-wheel travel scooters, 4-wheel travel scooters, 3-wheel mobility scooters, 4-wheel mobility scooters, and other products, sourced from reputable mobility product manufacturers. Therefore, those who want to buy mobility scooters for sale find Scooter Direct perfectly suited to their needs and requirements. The online store has a range of portable travel mobility scooters each of which promises quality, affordability, and ease of transport.
Susanna Pilny for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Dog owners should be familiar with this: You get a small cut while chopping vegetables and suddenly your dog is on you like a shark to blood (or like Kanye to himself). Some people let their dogs lick their wounds because it’s said to promote healing and because “their mouths are cleaner than ours,” but if everything the general populace knew as a fact were true, half of us would be dead from daddy longlegs bites and swimming after eating.
So how true is it?
As it turns out, it’s kind of true. First off, the physical act of licking itself helps to clean debris from the injury: the saliva loosens it, and the tongue removes it.
Beyond that, the saliva itself actually contains proteins that help promote healing. One of them is known as histatin, which helps you heal by preventing infections and by promoting the skin to close over the injured area. Other proteins are antibacterial, like lysozyme and thiocyanate. A third recognized protein is called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), which literally does what its name entails: It grows and maintains nerve cells, and upon exposure it wounds it halves the length of time for wound healing.
The final known component of dog saliva that helps heal wounds is also what helps men of a certain age who have had trouble…rising to certain occasions. Nitrate is concentrated in saliva, which is converted into nitric oxide inside the wound. It’s not entirely clear how nitric oxide promotes healing, but it does increase blood flow locally, meaning the body is able to transport more of its own healing factors to the area faster—which is also how Viagra works, minus the healing factors.
This all sounds really great, but there’s one small snag:
Dog saliva contains potentially harmful bacteria like Pasteurella, thereby giving you an infection in your papercut. And if your dog gets too close to his feces (or another dog’s behind), he or she can have E. coli in there too. These overly-friendly dogs can also get parasites in their mouths through the same mechanism; Giardia is a possibility.
So letting your dog lick your cuts might not be such a great idea—even just regular dog kisses have been linked to gum disease in humans. And besides, humans themselves have healing factors in their own saliva and brush their teeth regularly, so licking your own wounds is probably a safer bet.
Researchers from Yale have successfully fixed the genetic mutation most frequently responsible for causing cystic fibrosis, a condition that primarily affects the lungs and can result in long-term breathing difficulties, frequent respiratory infections and other symptoms.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, explains how the authors were able to correct a mutation in the cystic fibrosis gene known as F508del by using synthetic molecules similar to DNA called peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) as well as donor DNA to edit the genetic defect responsible for the inherited, incurable, life-threatening ailment.
Cystic fibrosis is typically treated through management of symptoms, and previous attempts to address the condition through gene therapy were unsuccessful. In their new approach, however, Dr. Peter Glazer, chair of therapeutic radiology, and his colleagues developed a novel approach that uses PNA to clamp the DNA close to the mutation, causing it to begin repairing itself.
Dr. Glazer, Yale biomedical engineering chair Dr. Mark Saltzman, professor Dr. Marie Egan and their fellow scientists also developed a method that delivers the PNA/DNA combination by using microscopic nanoparticles specifically designed to penetrate targeted cells in patients.
Step one in the search for a cure
“Dr. Glazer is an expert and pioneer in DNA repair and the PNA/DNA Technology. He has developed very unique and sophisticated PNA molecules that are more efficient than previous attempts,” Dr. Egan told redOrbit via email. “Dr. Saltzman has developed newer nanoparticles that are much more efficient at delivering the PNA/DNA. Together this approach has resulted in a higher percentage of cells with the corrected sequence and much lower off target effects.”
They observed corrections in the targeted genes in both human airway cells and in mouse nasal cells, and Dr. Egan explained that they were able to edit a higher percentage of cells in humans and mice than had previously been reported in gene editing technology. She also noted that their new approach had minimal unintended side-effects on the targeted cells.
While the researchers called their findings “significant,” Dr. Egan emphasized that there is far more research that needs to be done in order to refine their genetic engineering approach. She called it the first step in a long process, but added that it was a process which may one day lead to a way to fix the genetic defects responsible for causing cystic fibrosis.
“Changing things in a layer of human airway cells or in a mouse model of cystic fibrosis is a long way from a treatment for people,” she told redOrbit, adding that there are still “many steps” which still need to be done before it can be a full-blown fix for the inherited genetic disorder.
“To name a few: We would need to optimize the particles, optimize the treatment protocol to get the most correction,” the Yale professor added. “We would need to show this is safe over long periods of time in mice and then in larger animals, then would need to show this is safe in people and that it would work in people.”
One of the enduring themes of science fiction is the galactic empire: Thousands of star systems tied together by gleaming spaceships hurtling through the cosmos. And why not? Civilization on Earth progressed from hunter-gatherers eking out a bare existence to planet-spanning empires over the course of a few thousand years. Surely our next step will be to colonize the Galaxy. Unfortunately, a galactic empire of this sort would be doomed, not by alien adversaries, nor by internal dissension, but by the discoveries of a German physicist more than a century ago. Albert Einstein may have been one of the greatest physicists of all time, but he did more to crush the childhood dreams of aspiring interstellar explorers than anyone who ever lived. Einstein posted a cosmic speed limit back in 1905, and it’s still in force.
Vanderbilt physicist Robert Scherrer supplements his scientific research with writing science fiction stories. (Credit: Daniel Dubois/Vanderbilt University)
No matter how much energy you pump into a spaceship, no matter how hard you push it, it can never move faster than the speed of light. Needless to say, this throws a wet blanket on science fictional dreams of space travel. The stars in the Galaxy are typically about 10 light years apart, while cities in the United States are about 100 miles apart. So exploring our galaxy in a spaceship moving at nearly the speed of light would be like driving around the country on a tractor plodding forward at the dizzying speed of six feet per hour! Imagine a band of explorers fanning out over North American on a fleet of these tractors, and you have some idea of the difficulty of exploring and colonizing our galaxy. Even visiting another city, much less holding a civilization together, would be impossible if we were limited to such a slow speed.
But why is there a cosmic speed limit? Like many new ideas in physics, it grew out of an apparent contradiction between two different fields — in this case, classical mechanics, which describes the motion of matter through space, and electromagnetism.
Let’s begin with a mundane example. Imagine that you are cruising down the highway in the left lane at 70 miles an hour. Ahead of you in the right lane is a car moving at 60 miles an hour. Obviously, you’ll pass this car quickly, but how quickly? From your point of view, it looks like you are moving at 70-60 = 10 miles an hour relative to the slower car.
So far, so good. We have an intuitive sense that we can add and subtract speeds like this. But here’s the problem. When scientists were codifying the laws that explained electricity and magnetism, a bonus popped out of the equations: They predicted that we ought to see some sort of radiation travelling at about 186,000 miles a second. And of course, scientists had already seen this radiation: It was called light! But there seemed to be no way to get light to travel at any other speed. The equations gave the same speed for light, without providing any hint that the speed would be different if you were moving toward or away from the motion of the light.
Most scientists thought that there was some sort of problem with our understanding of the way that light propagates. After all, the theory that predicted the existence of light was only a few decades old, so maybe there was something missing from it. But Einstein took a much more radical position. He suggested that our laws for adding and subtracting speeds, which physicists had taken for granted for hundreds of years, must be wrong. In fact, he postulated that the speed of light had to be the same no matter how fast you moved toward or away from the light!
This is a truly bizarre idea. Let’s go back to your car travelling at 70 miles an hour down the highway. If you threw a baseball out the front of the car at 10 miles an hour, a friend standing on the side of the road would see the ball moving forward at 70+10 = 80 miles an hour. But now suppose you turned on your headlights. Would the light travel down the road at 186,000 miles per second + 70 miles an hour? No! Your friend standing by the road would measure the light moving at 186,000 miles per second, and so would you.
Similarly, you can never “catch up” with a beam of light. If you had a spaceship that could move at half the speed of light, and you tried to overtake a ray of light, you would still see it escaping from you at 186,000 miles a second. Even if you could speed up to 99.999% of the speed of light, you would see the light moving away from you at exactly the same speed. Light is the proverbial gingerbread man – run as fast as you can, but you’ll never catch it. You won’t even get close.
In fact, the laws for adding and subtracting speeds have to conspire to keep the speed of the light the same no matter how fast or in what direction an observer is moving. The only way to make this happen is for space and time to expand or contact as objects move. Before Einstein, scientists believed that space and time were rigid and unchanging. Rulers always had a fixed length, and time passed at the same rate everywhere. But Einstein’s theory predicted that space and time were malleable. As objects moved closer and closer to the speed of light, they would shrink in their direction of motion, and time would slow down for them. And all of this would ensure that the speed of light was unchanging.
For instance, if a spaceship whizzed past you at 90% of the speed of light, you would see it shrink to only half its size. And if you could peek through the spaceship window and watch a clock inside the ship, it would appear to be running only half as fast. (This is called “time dilation”). You might think that the passengers in the space ship would then see you stretched to twice your length, with your clock running twice as fast, but in fact the opposite is true. From the point of view of the spaceship passengers, they are at rest, and you are flying by them in the opposite direction at 90% of the speed of light. So they would see your clocks running slow and your body compressed to half its width. Isn’t this a contradiction? Who is correct?
You both are. One of Einstein’s postulates is that the laws of physics are same for any person moving at a constant speed and direction (this is technically called an “inertial reference frame”). So each of you is entitled to consider yourself at rest, with the other person moving at nearly the speed of light. And each of you sees the other person’s clock running slow. (And yes, this is as weird as it sounds).
But now we can set a trap for Dr. Einstein. What happens when the spaceship lands and you compare clocks with the spaceship passengers? Whose clock was really running slow? The problem is that you’ve now violated one of Einstein’s rules. His prediction only applies if you keep moving at a constant speed and direction. (Since this is a very special set of circumstances, this theory is called the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short.). When the space ship slowed down and returned to Earth, it had to change both its speed and direction — it had to accelerate. At that point the equivalence between you and the spaceship is broken, and time really does run slower on the spaceship (and faster for you).
One other prediction of special relativity is that the speed of light is an absolute limit. And that’s where the problem for science fiction comes in. How has science fiction tried to evade this limit, or to live within its boundaries? That’s what I want to talk about in my next post.
Cosmic Yarns is the new blog from Dr. Robert Scherrer, published science fiction author and chair of the Astronomy and Physics Departments at Vanderbilt University. It is dedicated to exploring the intersection between science and science fiction.
Doing 30 minutes of cardio work or spending an hour on the treadmill will do you absolutely no good if you continually consume pizza, soda, and Twinkies, a trio of international fitness gurus write in a scathing editorial published last week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Don’t be like Snorlax here.
While many health and wellness experts tout the importance of both a healthy diet and adequate activity in preventing obesity and keeping in good physical condition, the three researchers claim that there is overwhelming evidence suggesting that diet is more important than exercise.
Furthermore, as Forbes summarizes, even if people regularly work out and have an acceptable body weight, they could still be unhealthy if that individual consumes too many carbohydrates. The authors of the editorial are calling for a basic reboot of our concept of health.
It looks like you can’t just “work off” that fat piece of chocolate cake you had for breakfast…and lunch.
Exercise is not a cure for obesity
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist at Frimley Park Hospital in the UK and a consultant clinical associate to the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, along with colleagues from the University of California, Davis and the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, wrote in response to a recent study citing the “miracle cure” abilities of a specific exercise regimen.
That study claimed that working out for 30 minutes five times a week was more effective than many drugs administered for chronic disease prevention, and that this type of regular physical activity reduced the risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and other similar conditions. Dr. Malhotra’s team writes unequivocally that exercise “does not promote weight loss.” Hold up, what?!
“Many still wrongly believe that obesity is entirely due to lack of exercise,” they noted, adding that recently published research “concluded that dietary carbohydrate restriction is the single most effective intervention for reducing all the features of the metabolic syndrome and should be the first approach in diabetes management, with benefits occurring even without weight loss.”
Blame the food industry
They blame this “false perception” on the food industry, which they accuse of using tactics not unlike those once utilized by the tobacco industry as they managed to keep the government from regulating their products for decades. In particular, they are calling for an end to both celebrity endorsements of sugary beverages and the relationship between sports and junk food.
“The ‘health halo’ legitimization of nutritionally deficient products is misleading and unscientific,” the authors wrote “This manipulative marketing sabotages effective government interventions such as the introduction of sugary drink taxes or the banning of junk food advertising. Such marketing increases commercial profit at the cost of population health.”
They added that, for every additional 150 calories in sugar (roughly equal to a can of soda) that a person consumes each day, his or her risk of contracting diabetes increased 11-fold, regardless of physical activity levels. The most effective things that an individual can do their weight is to cut calories, and especially carbohydrates, Dr. Malhotra and his co-authors said.
When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft makes its flyby of Pluto in July, scientists are hoping to get an up-close look at dark, spider-like surface patterns caused by nitrogen ice and gas eruptions triggered during the dwarf planet’s ice geyser season.
As Discovery News explained on Friday, during Pluto’s ice geyser season, sunlight hits its north pole, causing ice and gas to spray across the surface. The patterns formed as a result of this odd phenomenon have been spotted several times over the years by ground-based observatories, and by the Hubble Space Telescope, but the US space agency is hoping to get a closer look.
Past observations have been unable to resolve details of the dwarf-planet’s surface, but have managed to confirm color and lighting changes that have taken place on a grand scale over the past four years. New Horizons could shed new light on these changes.
Evidence of frost movement found on the dwarf planet
Bonnie Buratti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory told the website that she and her colleagues are “pretty certain there is some kind of movement of frost” on Pluto. To support that theory, she cites evidence of telescope observations demonstrating how the planet reflects light while it spins on its axis.
Buratti and her colleagues compared those curves to simulated ones which assume that there is no frost rising from Pluto’s ice caps and being deposited elsewhere, causing some of the surface to become darker and others to become lighter, the website said. The modeled light curves do not match the observed ones, the JPL researcher explained.
“We compared it and for the last four years we’ve had substantial changes,” Buratti explained to Discovery News. Those changes are taking place as Pluto moves further away from the sun, but also during a period when the north pole of the planet is turning towards the star at the center of the solar system, creating an Earth-like northern summer.
Pluto could have geysers
Buratti and colleagues from Boston University, UCLA and Grays Harbor College report their findings on Pluto in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. They predict that New Horizons will find explosive geysers similar to those previously found on Triton and Mars, in light of the similarity between the dwarf planet and Neptune’s largest moon.
“We are pretty close to polar summer – so there is a lot of frost there to sublimate,” she pointed out, referring to the process where solid ice skips the liquid phase and turns directly into gas. As the sun’s rays hits the surface, they should be powerful enough to penetrate frozen nitrogen, even though Pluto is 32 times farther away from the sun than the Earth.
That would allow the dwarf planets polar cap to trap enough energy to convert some of that ice into pockets of gas, which accumulates pressure until it breaks through the surface. The impact of that blast would send nitrogen ice crystals all over the place, forming the spider-like patterns. Data from New Horizons should be able to prove or disprove this hypothesis.
The R&D folks at the US Naval Research Laboratory have once again done their best MacGyver impression, creating something impossibly cool and useful (a new type of bulletproof glass) from seemingly mundane source materials (synthetic powdered clay).
While it might not be exactly akin to taking a wad of chewed-up bubblegum and a paper clip and fashioning it into a bazooka, the NRL took the clay material, heated and pressed it under vacuum (a process also known as sintering) and turned it into durable, transparent sheets.
This material is known as Spinel, and according to lead investigator Dr. Jas Sanghera, it actually is “a mineral, it’s magnesium aluminate”. More importantly, he added, Spinel is “much tougher, stronger, harder than glass” and “can withstand sand and rain erosion”.
Several potential military and commercial uses for Spinel
The material “provides better protection in more hostile environments,” Dr. Sanghera explained, and unlike most commercially available types of bulletproof glass, it doesn’t block infrared light waves. As a result, Engadget explains, it can be used to protect a UAV’s surveillance camera or a laser lens without hampering the operation of those devices.
Furthermore, the NRL said that the sintering method makes it possible to create optics in several different shapes based on the specific press being used. Spinel can be conformed to the surface of a UAV or airplane wing, and because it’s resistant to wave slap and saltwater, it can be used on maritime vessels as well. Spinel took ten years to develop.
Dr. Sanghera said in a statement that there are “a lot” of potential applications for the material, specifically mentioning that watches, smartphones and consumer electronics could benefit from the innovation. The military is also eyeing the material for transparent vehicle armor and face shield, as they would be far lighter than those currently in use.
Furthermore, the armed forces are also interested in using Spinel to better protect both visible and infrared cameras on planes and other platforms. Since glass does not transmit infrared, the optics currently in use are created out of soft, fragile exotic materials, the NRL explained, and have multiple layers to compensate for color distortions. Spinel could replace those materials, and Dr. Sanghera said he is also interested in testing it on space satellite sensors.
Odds are, most people at one point in their childhood blamed their “evil twin” when something went wrong or was broken. But as it turns out, doctors recently discovered an Indiana woman’s brain tumor actually was caused by an “evil twin”…sort of.
As Discovery News reported, 26-year-old Yamini Karanam recently underwent brain surgery in Los Angeles after reporting difficulty comprehending things that she had read or been told; and when doctors opened her up, they found a brain tumor that contained hair, teeth, and bone.
While the tumor was dubbed an “embryonic twin,” it actually wasn’t an embryo or a twin; it was a teratoma, a tumor that may contain three major cell types found in early-stage, developing human embryos, the website said.
Not as uncommon as one might think
NBC Los Angeles called it “a twist worthy of a sci-fi plot,” but Dr. Amir Dehdashti, director of cerebrovascular neurosurgery research at North Shore University Hospital in New York, and Dr. Cathy Burnweit, chief of pediatric surgery at Miami’s Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, explained to Discovery News that teratomas themselves are not all that rare.
Teratomas, which can even contain tissue from lung, muscles and the gastrointestinal tract, occur when germ cells that are supposed to migrate to the gonads during embryonic development wind up going to the wrong place. They most frequently occur in the ovaries, testes and tailbone, the website noted, and Dr. Burnweit said she treats at least one ovarian teratoma per month.
Brain teratomas are relatively rare in comparison, according to Dr. Dehdashti. Only 0.5 percent to 3.0 percent of brain tumors are germ cell tumors, and only one-fifth of those are teratomas. Still, he said, “This is not something totally unknown to neurosurgeons,” adding that he had encountered three or four such tumors over the course of his career.
The tumors tend to be benign, rarely spread to other parts of the body, and post-treatment survival rates are high.
Using keyhole surgery to remove the “evil twin”
Karanam, a Ph. D. student at Indiana University, explained to NBC Los Angeles that she first noticed something was amiss last September, but became frustrated because the doctors she consulted could not agree on the possible cause of her comprehension problems. She decided to conduct her own research, and found Dr. Hrayr Shahinian at the LA-based Skullbase Institute.
Dr. Shahinian had come up with a minimally-invasive method of reaching deep into the brain to extract tumors, the news outlet explained. Instead of opening the skull and using metal retractors as in traditional brain surgery, his technique uses fiber-optic technology and digital imagery to see the inside of the brain. The keyhole procedure requires just a one-half inch incision into the brain, and the use of an endoscope to slowly and carefully remove the tumor.
Dr. Shahinian said he had taken out at least 7,000 brain tumors, but that this was just the second teratoma he had encountered. Karanam woke up after surgery and joked that the tumor was her “evil twin sister who’s been torturing me for the past 26 years”, and despite initial fears that the tumor could be cancerous, Karanam is expected to fully recover in just a few weeks.
The crewmembers onboard the International Space Station have never been shy about sharing their marvelous view of the Earth through social media, but thanks to a Vancouver-based tech firm, people on the ground are about to get around-the-clock coverage of the planet.
Two years ago, UrtheCast installed a pair of cameras on the orbiting laboratory using a Soyuz rocket, and now has announced plans to provide an astronaut’s-eye view of Earth that can be watched 24/7 using a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
The website goes on to state that the camera’s coverage area will be between 51 degrees and -51 degrees latitude, an area that runs from Chile to England and reportedly represents 90 percent of the planet’s population. UrtheCast will be streaming in ultra HD, providing 60-second videos at a rate of 30 frames per second, and it is free to set up a basic service account.
Service scheduled to launch this summer
On its website, UrtheCast said it is working on what it calls “the world’s first Ultra HD video feed of Earth, streamed from space in full color”. The company explained that both video and still images will be recorded and downlinked to ground stations all over the planet, where the content would be displayed on its web platform to distributed directly to customers.
The experimental system, known as the High-Definition Earth-Viewing System (HDEV), was switched on back on April 30 of last year, and the cameras are mounted on the ESA’s Columbus module’s External Payload Facility. In a statement released last week, UrtheCast CEO and co-founder Scott Larson said that the HD streaming would launch soon.
“This summer we’ll begin feeding live video data from the HDEV cameras to UrtheCast’s web platform, our interactive hub of Earth video and imagery,” he explained. “NASA’s online HDEV channel has already garnered over 46 million views in under a year, so this is no doubt an exciting opportunity for everyone involved. With this resource, we’ll tap into a view of the world that is not only breathtaking, but incredibly inspiring.”
“Our platform is designed in such a way that will really make this HDEV data shine,” added Dan Lopez, the company’s Vice President of Technology. “The video stream itself will provide yet another innovative layer to our web platform offering. It will be integrated into the UrtheCast feed and APIs, which will provide a rich, interactive media experience for viewers and application developers.”
A team of Chinese researchers led by Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo, according to research quietly published earlier this month in the journal Protein & Cell.
The research, which Science explained, went largely unnoticed until it was the subject of an April 22 article by Nature News that confirmed rumors such research was underway. It has now led to a renewed debate over the ethical implications of editing the genomes of human embryos.
Huang’s team emphasized their experiments used “non-viable” embryos obtained from local fertility clinics and which could not result in a live birth, their announcement nonetheless ignited what Science dubbed “a firestorm of controversy around the world and renewed recent calls for a moratorium on any attempt to establish a pregnancy with such an engineered embryo.”
What the controversial research entailed
In their study, Huang and his colleagues explained that, while genome editing tools such as the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-associated system (Cas) had previously been used to modify genes in animal zygots, human cells and other model systems (and showed “tremendous promise” for both basic research and clinical applications), there was a “serious knowledge gap” when it comes to human embryonic DNA repair mechanisms.
To rectify that, as well as to learn more about the efficiency and potential off-target effects of this type of technology in human pre-implantation embryos, they used tripronuclear zygotes to probe the use of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human cells. They said they were able to successfully use CRISPR/Cas9 to cleave the endogenous β-globin gene (HBB), but that the efficiency of homologous recombination directed repair (HDR) of HBB was low.
They added that “off-target cleavage was also apparent” in the tripronuclear zygotes “as revealed by the T7E1 assay and whole-exome sequencing. Furthermore, the endogenous delta-globin gene (HBD), which is homologous to HBB, competed with exogenous donor oligos to act as the repair template, leading to untoward mutations. Our data also indicated that repair of the HBB locus in these embryos occurred preferentially through the non-crossover HDR pathway.”
Debating the ethics and value of human embryo modification
Huang’s team said their work highlighted “the pressing need to further improve the fidelity and specificity of the CRISPR/Cas9 platform,” demonstrating there are serious obstacles to overcome before these techniques can be used in medical applications.
However, Nature News explained that it has also led to a debate about whether or not using human embryos for this type of experiment is safe and/or ethical.
In the study, the Chinese researchers wanted to use the procedures to replace a gene in a single-cell fertilized human embryo, the website explained. If successful, this would have theoretically caused all cells produced as the embryo developed to have the altered gene. Due to the nature of the research, Huang claimed that the paper was rejected by Nature and Science. Neither of those publications responded to Nature News’ request for comment on the issue.
Last month, Edward Lanphier, president of Sangamo BioSciences in Richmond, California, and his colleagues published a study in Nature arguing that genetic modifications to human embryos crossed an ethical line-in-the-sand, noting that since changes are heritable, they could well have an unpredictable impact on future generations. Lanphier told Nature News that the new Chinese study “underlines what we said before: we need to pause this research and make sure we have a broad based discussion about which direction we’re going here.”
However, Guo-Qiang Chen, a microbiologist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told Science that in China, “most scientists are more positive” about the value of research that involves genetically modifying human embryos.” Harvard Medical School stem cell biologist George Daley agreed, stating that he “personally would defend the fundamental scientific value of research into gene editing” in human embryos to explore the risks associated with its potential clinical use.
Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
5 million year old adaptation still causing problems
Data from a 1980’s industrial “crash test dummy” study has provided evidence of evolutionary adaptation in human childbirth. New research has identified a complex link between pelvis structure and head size and shows how the human body evolved to ease childbirth.
Compared to other primates, human mothers and babies have a particularly hard time during delivery. This is a throwback to the time when upright walking evolved 4-5 million years ago. The human pelvis adapted to the new type of movement. Much later, our brains became much larger. That, of course, meant the head size of neonates also increased, but they were still being be delivered through pelvises which had adapted to upright walking.
This evolutionary legacy left the modern human with restricted space in the birth canal during childbirth that can have severe consequences. Women in developing countries, without modern medical care or cesarean sections during birth, still suffer from high mortality due to childbirth, and this is partly due to this pelvic adaptation problem.
Large heads run in the family
This new study by scientists from the Universities of Oslo and Vienna shows how the dimensions of head, stature, and pelvis in a human body are linked in a complex way to help ease the “tight fit” childbirth problem. These links have not been recognized before.
Mothers with large heads usually give birth to neonates with large heads. The researchers found that females with a large head have birth canals that can better accommodate those large-headed neonates.
Barbara Fischer, an evolutionary biologist at the Universities of Oslo and Vienna, along with Philipp Mitteroecker, an anthropologist at the University of Vienna, analyzed 3D data of the human pelvis. The data came from an older and rather unusual source.
“The motivation for the US-American researchers who collected these pelvis data in the 1980s was an industrial one. They wanted to improve the design of crash test devices and car seats to increase vehicle safety,” said Fischer. A large number of human pelvises were measured.
Fischer and Mitteroecker found a complex association between the shape of the human pelvis, body height, and head size which helps to ease the “obstetric dilemma.” Their results show that the dimensions of head and height do not vary independently, but instead they are linked to pelvis shape.
“We found out that women with large heads, compared to women with small heads, possess a birth canal that is shaped in a way that neonates with large heads can pass it easier,” explains Fischer. The sacrum is shorter in these women and it leaves more space in the outlet of the birth canal, which is beneficial for birth.
On average, short women have harder births than taller women, and carry a higher risk that the fetus will not fit through the birth canal. Fischer and Mitteroecker show in their study that shorter women possess a rounder birth canal, probably an adaptation to the stronger selection pressure at birth in these women. Despite the identified patterns, the authors clarify that the individual risk for a difficult birth depends on various environmental influences along with genetic factors.
A new study has found that students who work at a standing desk during class enjoy higher academic achievement than those who sit down.
Previous research looked at standing desks as an option for reducing childhood obesity and easing the pressures on the spine of sitting down for too many hours a day. Standing desks in schools could be a way to improve both health and learning.
“Simply put, we think better on our feet than in our seat,” said Mark Benden, associate professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health and study lead. His findings were reported by Futurity.org and published in the International Journal of Health Promotion and Education.
An ergonomic engineer by trade, Benden previously conducted research to prove that standing desks can help reduce obesity. He found students at standing desks burn 15 percent more calories than students at traditional desks (25 percent for obese children).
There was also anecdotal evidence that the desks increased academic engagement, and the new study was the first designed specifically to look at the impact of classroom engagement.
Get off your ath let’s do some math!
After observing almost 300 children in second through fourth grade over the course of a school year, preliminary results showed that on-task engagement was 12 percent higher in classrooms with standing desks. This equates to an extra seven minutes per hour of engaged instruction time.
Engagement was measured by actions like answering a question, raising a hand, or participating in active discussion. Off-task behaviors such as talking out of turn were also measured.
Benden said he was not surprised at the results of the study, given that previous research has shown how physical activity, even at low levels, can potentially have beneficial effects on cognitive ability.
He noted that: “Standing workstations reduce disruptive behavior problems and increase students’ attention or academic behavioral engagement by providing students with a different method for completing academic tasks (like standing) that breaks up the monotony of seated work.”
Adding that: “Considerable research indicates that academic behavioral engagement is the most important contributor to student achievement.”
Standing desks, also known as stand-biased desks, are raised desks that have stools nearby, which let students sit or stand during class at their discretion. Benden’s research resulted in the creation of Stand2Learn, an offshoot company of a faculty-led startup that manufactures a classroom version of the stand-biased desk.
According to Open Culture, Soren Kierkegaard, “the father of existentialism”, did his best writing standing up, as did Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov, and Virginia Woolf. Ernest Hemingway was in the standing desk club too, although his level of drinking – which led fellow author Philip Greene to write the book To Have and Have Another about his drinking adventures – is not currently recommended for the classroom.
For the first time ever, an ESPN TV network will be carrying live e-sports! ESPN2 is scheduled to broadcast the final round of the collegiate Heroes of the Dorm championship starting at 6:30pm PT on Sunday night.
The televised tournament will match the final two teams in the tournament battle in Heroes of the Storm, a Blizzard-developed multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game similar to League of Legends and Dota 2, according to Engadget and VentureBeat. Semifinal matches will be aired on ESPN’s online-online network, ESPN3, earlier in the day, the website added.
This will mark the first time that an e-sports competition will be aired by one of the “worldwide leader in sports” family of television networks. Last year’s League of Legends and Dota 2 finals aired on ESPN3, and ESPN2 also broadcast a documentary of the latter in 2014.
Professional gaming’s growing popularity
ESPN’s decision to air the Heroes of the Dorm finals comes just months after network president John Skipper apparently dismissed the possibility of television e-sports tournaments, saying back in September, that is was “a competition” like chess or checkers, not a sport, Engadget noted. He added that he was “mostly interested in doing real sports.”
“This shows that ESPN is definitely interested in e-sports, which is a market that is growing as a rapid pace,” VentureBeat explained. “Millions of young people – often in the key advertising demographic of 13-to-35-years-old men – regularly tune into watch livestreaming e-sports matches on sites like MLG.tv and Twitch.”
“And professional gaming could even dig into the NFL, MLB, and NBA over the next few decades as young people decide to stick with e-sports as they grow older,” the website added, noting that some analysts have predicted that professional gaming could generate more than $450 million in revenue from advertising, ticket sales and more by the year 2017.
As for the event itself, the Heroes of the Dorm semifinals (dubbed the “Heroic Four” by Blizzard) will get underway Sunday with a match pitting Arizona State versus Boston College at 2:30pm PT. This is followed two hours later by the other semifinal, Illinois Urbana-Champaign versus Cal. Following the conclusion of that match, coverage will shift from ESPN3 to ESPN2.
So grab your Mountain Dew and Doritos and get watching, you crazy kids!
If you’re looking to find a potentially habitable Earth-sized planet outside of our solar system, you should probably look somewhere other than the Tau Ceti system, according to a new study by researchers at Arizona State University. Sorry Star Trek fans.
While planets in the system were frequently references as being colonized worlds in the popular science-fiction universe, the ASU team explains in a recent edition of The Astrophysical Journal that the chances of that are unlikely. Their findings are based on an extensive analysis using both astronomy and geophysics to evaluate the potential habitability of Tau Ceti planets.
Can’t support life here, move along
At first glance, Tau Ceti seems like an ideal place for a potential human colony. It is located in close proximity to Earth and its star has many of the same characteristics as our sun. In addition, back in December 2012, astronomers found evidence suggesting that five planets orbited the star, including two (Tau Ceti e and f) that were potentially located in the habitable zone.
However, the ASU team’s calculations found that Tau Ceti e is only in the habitable zone “if we make very generous assumptions,” astrophysicist Michael Pagano explained. He added that Tau Ceti f, “initially looks more promising,” but modeling of the star’s evolution makes it likely that it “has only moved into the habitable zone recently as Tau Ceti has gotten more luminous.”
Based on their findings, Tau Ceti f has probably been in the habitable zone for far less than one billion years, less than half the time required for potentially detectable changes to be produced in the Earth’s biosphere. A planet that entered the habitable zone around its star this recently may be habitable and inhabited, but could lack detectable biosignatures.
Unusual composition makes life around Tau Ceti “unlikely”
Pagano said that he and his fellow researchers opted to study Tau Ceti not because they were “hoping, wanting, or thinking” that it could be a good candidate for extraterrestrial life, but for the notion that it could host completely new worlds. The star has an unusual composition, with a 1.78-to-1 magnesium-to-silicon ration, about 70 percent higher than our sun.
Mineral physicist Sang-Heon (Dan) Shim analyzed the data collected by Pagano’s team to see what this would mean for the planets in the system. He explained that the high magnesium and silicon ration could indicate that the planets around Tau Ceti have a mineraological make-up that is “significantly different” than Earth’s. They could be predominantly made up of the mineral olivine at shallow parts of the mantle, and by ferropericlase at lower depths.
Since ferropericlase is far less viscous, hot, yet solid, mantle rock may be flowing. This could have a profound effect on surface-level volcanism and tectonics – processes that have a significant impact on the habitability of Earth.
“Tau Ceti has been a popular destination for science fiction writers and everyone’s imagination as somewhere there could possibly be life,” Pagano said, “but even though life around Tau Ceti may be unlikely, it should not be seen as a letdown, but should invigorate our minds to consider what exotic planets likely orbit the star, and the new and unusual planets that may exist in this vast universe.”
Fluorescent cells could provide a new target for preventing blindness in age-related macular degeneration patients, scientists from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research and the Yale University School of Medicine reported.
Their research, which is detailed in a paper published earlier this month in the journal Nature Medicine, suggest that the nuclei of cells in blood vessels that supply blood to the eyes could be targeted to help keep AMD patients from losing sight in their aging eyes.
In their experiments, a team led by Alain Chédotal of the Institute of Vision in Paris genetically modified mice to block a protein called Slit2, and found that cell division in the retina was much slower, according to Gizmodo. Now they are working to determine if drugs could be developed to block this same protein in humans to prevent deterioration in the eye.
Allowing a blind man to ride his horse again
As they explained in their study, Slit-family proteins are ligands of Roundabout receptors that repel developing axons in the nervous system, and expression of those receptors can be altered in ocular diseases such as AMD. Blocking Slit2, the authors discovered, “could potentially be used therapeutically to inhibit angiogenesis in individuals with ocular neovascular disease.”
The cells that were found to be dividing can trigger an excessive increase in blood vessels in AMD, New Scientist explains, and blocking Slit2 could make it possible to reduce this effect. The altered mice no longer overproduced the blood vessels that can lead to the loss of sight, which indicates that drugs targeting these proteins could help AMD patients.
The website added that “pioneering treatments for AMD currently rely on replacing epithelial pigment cells in the retina that are damaged by the disease,” and that a team of US scientist was recently able to use “pigment cells made from human embryonic stem cells to reverse damaged sight, in one case allowing a blind man to ride his horse again.”
The US Army has developed an attachment for its M4 assault rifle that basically converts the weapon into a ray gun capable of disability electronics and circuit boards from a distance.
The attachment is named “Burke’s Pulsar” in honor of its creator, Army Armament Research electronics engineer James E. Burke, and fits over an standard-issue M4 barrel like a bayonet, according to Engadget and Gizmodo reports. When the rifle is discharged, the energy from the gunpowder explosion is converted into electrical energy through the piezoelectric effect.
The charge, which is produced when pressure is exerted on crystalline materials such as quartz, is then transmitted through a pair of antenna that spread out from the gun’s barrel. The pulsar’s range and power remain classified, but the hope is that the weapon could be used on battlefields to disable IEDs from a distance, knock out communications, or stop vehicles.
Cheaper, portable energy weapons for the battlefield
According to the website Defense One, in addition to the piezoelectric generator and the two antennas, Burke’s Pulsar also includes a blast shield to protect the user from electricity levels that the inventor said could be “hazardous.” While not the first energy weapon the military has experimented with, the pulsar would be smaller and would cost less than $1,000 each.
Burke’s Pulsar “is intended for use against electronics,” Defense One explained on Wednesday, “potentially giving dismounted soldiers an edge against the ever-wider range electronic and cyber threats that they might face on patrol: Bluetooth-enabled improvised explosive devices, consumer drones modified to be more deadly, and the like.”
Most energy weapons “are vehicle-towed and require a huge power system,” and have antennas that can be up to seven-feet in size, Burke told the website. However, the Pulsar would attach directly to a soldier’s firearm and could be used against a wide variety of devices, such as a 555 timer, a bipolar junction transistor, and a yellow LED, the inventor explained.
“All these things pretty much generalize all the common electronics you’ll find in a circuit board. What we’re going to do is fire at it. If the LED light stops blinking, it was defeated, and if smoke comes up, it was destroyed,” Burke added. He said that the range was still to be determined, and while he could not elaborate on the experiments, he called the early results “very promising.”
Researchers from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are working on a new software system capable of correctly diagnosing cancer in a patient and even determining which type he or she has, potentially speeding up the treatment process.
According to Gizmodo, Ph. D. student Yuan Luo, MIT Professor Peter Szolovits, and a team of experts from Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a software system which analyzes data from existing medical records, then suggests potential cancer diagnoses to doctors.
Using the system to improve lymphoma diagnoses
In a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association earlier this month, the authors demonstrate how their system can be used to identify the 50 different types of the difficult-to-diagnose cancer lymphoma. Up to 15 percent of lymphoma cases are initially misdiagnosed, the MIT team explained, which could cause unnecessary delays in treatment.
The software accessed a massive collection of pathology reports, Gizmodo said, gathering data that can be linked to relationships used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to define the sub-types of the cancer. Furthermore, the system links words that appear frequency in the medical records to each of those data points in order to provide another layer of information.
“It is important to ensure that classification guidelines are up-to-date and accurately summarized from a large number of patient cases,” Luo, the first author of the study, explained in a statement. “Our work combs through detailed medical cases to help doctors more comprehensively capture the subtle distinctions between lymphomas.”
Making doctors’ jobs easier
The researchers also emphasize that the AI models not only need to be accurate, but also doctor-friendly, meaning that clinical workers and medical personnel need to be able to easily interpret the findings. The information their system collects is converted into a graph representation that features medical concepts as the nodes and semantic dependencies as the edges.
“Clinicians’ diagnostic reasoning is based on multiple test results simultaneously,” Luo said. “Thus it is necessary for us to automatically group subgraphs in a way that corresponds to the panel of test results. This makes the model interpretable to clinicians instead of being a black-box, as they often complain about many other machine-learning models.”
Their work uses a technique known as Subgraph Augmented Non-negative Tensor Factorization (SANTF), which organized data from the roughly 800 medical cases as a three-dimensional table that can easily link test results to lymphoma subtypes. In their paper, the authors reported that SANTF was 10 percent more effective than similar methods.
“The promise of Luo’s work, if applied to very large data sets, is that the criteria that would then help to identify these clusters can inform doctors about how to understand the range of lymphomas and their clinical relationships to each other,” said co-author Peter Szolovits, adding that he is confident that that the model could led to more accurate lymphoma diagnoses.
“Our ultimate goal is to be able to focus these techniques on extremely large amounts of lymphoma data, on the order of millions of cases,” he noted. “If we can do that, and identify the features that are specific to different subtypes, then we’d go a long way towards making doctors’ jobs easier – and, maybe, patients’ lives longer.”
It seems like technology becomes obsolete in the blink of an eye, and apparently, the same holds true for additive manufacturing methods as well: no sooner do scientists use 3D printing to make functioning organs and full-scale rocket engine parts, 4D printing comes along.
The fourth-dimension in 4D printing is time, or more specifically, shape-shifting, they explained. Just like in 3D printing, a structure is created one layer at a time into the desired shape. However, these new materials have the ability to alter their shape from one type of object into another.
No assembly required: Just add water
ACES Professor Marc in het Panhuis and his colleagues, who published their findings earlier this month in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications, believe that their work could lead to advances in a number of fields, including robotics, medicine, construction, and automation.
In their research, they 4D printed hydrogels to create a valve, which can actuate in response to the temperatures of the surrounding water. Those printed hydrogels were created out of a network of alginate and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) that interpenetrated, they explained in their study.
“The cool thing about it is, is it’s a working functioning device that you just pick up from the printer. There’s no other assembly required,” the professor explained in a statement. Actuators in the 3D-printed valve are activated by water, meaning that it is “autonomous” and that there is “no input necessary other than water; it closes itself when it detects hot water.”
Marc in het Panhuis and his colleagues, Ph. D. candidate Shannon Bakarich, Dr. Robert Gorkin III and Professor Geoffrey M. Spinks, said that they are the first group to combine the printing of a 4D device with four different cartridges simultaneously, while also using tough gels along with the incorporated actuating materials.
In most versions of the Biblical story of Sampson, the ancient Israelite gained incredible strength through his hair, but if a 14th century image currently making the rounds on the Web is accurate, he might have also had some help from a certain Jedi master.
It’s hard to deny that this illustration of a monk bears a striking resemblance to the popular Star Wars character Yoda, as Mashable pointed out on Thursday. Yoda was spotted in the Decretals of Gregory IX with gloss of Bernard of Parma (also known as the Smithfield Decretals) by historian Damien Kempf while he was researching for his book Medieval Monsters.
According to the website, Kempf said during a recent interview that he “actually couldn’t believe it” when he spotted the Yoda-like monk in a 700-year-old manuscript. Julian Harrison, curator of pre-1600 historical manuscripts at the British Library, told NPR that the artist who illustrated the manuscript “clearly had a vivid imagination.”
14th century depictions of Star Wars characters and beyond
NPR went on to explain that the Smithfield Decretals were created in southern France between 1300 and 1340, and were a collection of papal letters combining doctrine and decrees on church law. The image was also highlighted recently, along with several other odd images, by historians Damien Kempf and Maria L. Gilbert on the Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog.
Among the other creatures featured in pictures on the blog were a big-eared race known at the Panotii that somewhat resemble the Ferengi race from Star Trek, a half-woman, half-bird hybrid, and an apocalyptic beast with six heads and ten horns. The Library started posting these pictures on the Internet back in 2010, Harrison said in an interview with The Guardian.
When the blog was first launched, he said it was “a niche thing for a niche audience,” but now, the Library uses it “to promote what we do. One popular post explains why we don’t wear white gloves to handle manuscripts, but we also try to cater for a non-academic readership.”
“Our most popular post is Knight v. Snail that looks at why images of armed knights fighting snails are common in illuminated manuscripts,” Harrison continued, adding that the blog now has “an incredibly international readership,” and draws more than 36,000 readers per day. Not bad, when you consider they started off with a modest two visitors per day, but not surprising.
After all, who can pass up a blog that features Yoda in a 14th century manuscript? Not us!
Having already discovered nearly two-dozen runaway stars and even one star cluster that had been ejected from its galaxy, researchers have now reportedly located 11 homeless galaxies that were flung from their home clusters due to gravitational turbulence.
According to Discovery News, the galaxies were found by Igor Chilingarian, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Moscow State University, and his fellow astronomers. They were reviewing publicly available data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the GALEX satellite for compact elliptical galaxies and came across these galaxies by happenstance.
The loneliest galaxies
“These galaxies are facing a lonely future, exiled from the galaxy clusters they used to live in,” explained Chilingarian lead author of the paper in the journal Science. Ivan Zolotukhin from Moscow State and the L’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie, is a co-author of that newly-published study.
Chilingarian and Zolotukhin explained that they originally set out to identify new members of a class of galaxies known as compact ellipticals, miniature groups of stars that are larger than star clusters but smaller than typical galaxies. Their search identified nearly 200 previously unknown compact ellipticals, 11 of which were isolated and found far away from any clusters.
The discovery was unexpected, because the previous 30 compact ellipticals that had been found were all located in clusters. Experts had believed that isolated compact galaxies came from larger galaxies that had been stripped of most of their stars during interactions with larger galaxies, and thus they should be found near those larger galaxies. However, not only where these newfound galaxies isolated, they were also found to be moving faster than those in clusters.
So what caused this phenomenon?
Chilingarian explained that “a classic three-body interaction” was responsible. A star can reach hypervelocity if a binary star system comes too close to a black hole, causing one star to be captured and the other ejected. Similarly, a compact elliptical could be paired with a big galaxy that strips its stars before a third galaxy enters the scene and is accreted by the big galaxy, causing the compact elliptical to be ejected in the process.
Chilingarian and Zolotukhin explained that an object is considered to be a runaway if it travels faster than escape velocity, meaning it will never return to its place of origin. For a runaway star, the required speed is more than one million miles per hour (500 km/s), but for a galaxy, it has to be moving far more quickly, reaching speeds of up to six 6 million miles per hour (3,000 km/s).
Is it a Symptom? A Guide to Understanding What Fibromyalgia is Doing to Your Body
Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating
For many people a diagnosis of fibromyalgia is a relief. There is typically a 2 to 3 year gap between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis. This time-frame is getting shorter as there are now more concise diagnostic tests. Getting your doctor to recognize your symptoms as potentially indicating fibromyalgia is important. The reality is that sometimes they have to wait for a cluster of symptoms to appear before they will be able to order any of the new tests.
What is fibromyalgia?
Answering this question has suddenly become more difficult for doctors. For years, fibromyalgia was defined as a syndrome – not a disease. This meant there were a cluster of symptoms that appeared and indicated there was an underlying , but un-diagnosed cause. Fibromyalgia typically causes widespread joint and muscle pain, fatigue and cognitive issues. The new diagnostic tests have determined that there is an identifiable change in brain functioning with fibromyalgia that effects how the body’s endocrine and immune system work. It is not yet known if this is a symptom or the cause of fibromyalgia. If it is identified as a cause then the syndrome will be reclassified as a disease.
Who gets fibromyalgia?
People suffering from fibromyalgia come in all different shapes and sizes. It affects people of all ages and can be very detrimental to their quality of life. Some of the more common symptoms including pain, excessive tiredness, and fibro fog are well known, but there are a lot more symptoms and related conditions that people might not be aware of. The causes of fibromyalgia are not known, but suggested. Family history plays a role, as does prior illness or injury. Stress and depression are also thought to be potential triggers for the disease.
Whether you are male or female will change your symptoms too
Once considered a “white woman’s disease,” new evidence shows that more people of all races and both genders are affected. The issue was that the symptoms presented by men can be much different from those presented by women. With this new awareness, more men are being diagnosed with the condition. Not only does this mean that more people are now getting help with their chronic pain and fatigue, but that more money will become available for research on treatments and cures too.
The general symptoms
Here is a list of the general symptoms associated with fibromyalgia. One of the best things that you can do to improve your chances of getting properly diagnosed is to keep a symptom diary. Make a note each day of the following:
What symptom(s) you had?
What the weather was like?
What time?
How long?
What you ate/drank during the day?
What activities were you doing?
What your sleep was like?
All of this will help your doctor make a diagnosis and to create a treatment plan for you. While there are many medications you can help with the chronic pain of fibromyalgia, there are also lifestyle changes that can help you control your symptoms too. Many people don’t realize that there are foods that cause fibromyalgia flares; learn what they are and you can reduce your pain even before you have the confirmed diagnosis. Making lifestyle changes can also be helpful as many of the habits that can aggravate fibromyalgia symptoms can also aggravate other conditions.
Here is a list of the general symptoms of fibromyalgia:
– Headaches – Migraine-like headaches and pressure headaches similar to sinus headaches are a very common symptom for fibromyalgia. They are usually accompanied by a marked sensitivity to light and sound, as well as tinnitus.
– Pain – Chronic pain in the muscles and joints is considered to be the hallmark symptom of fibromyalgia. The pain differs from that of osteoarthritis as it is not limited to the joints, but felt all over the body. It is described as being a gnawing, burning, sore, throbbing, aching and tender pain that is felt even in the soft tissue. The pain may increase with weather changes and with certain foods.
– Tender points – A common symptom of fibromyalgia, and the part that usually helps doctors diagnose it, are tender points. These are localized painful areas around the joints that hurt when they are touched. These are normal pressure points to someone without fibromyalgia, but to someone with it pushing on these points can be very painful.
– Anxiety – Emotional symptoms can include panic attacks and anxiety that isn’t associated with anything. You might experience crying at the drop of a hat, extreme mood swings, and irritability for no reason. The anxiety comes in two ways. The first is as a result of the chemical changes in the body that indicate the presence of fibromyalgia, and the second is from the stress of experiencing symptoms without any idea what has caused them before diagnosis.
– Cognitive problems – These are some of the most troubling symptoms to experience. They can mimic a stroke like confusion, directional disorientation, poor coordination and balance, short term memory loss, and the inability to recognize your surroundings. There can also be tingling and burning in your extremities and the loss of your ability to see some colors. People might stare into space for a bit before they feel their brain start working. One manifestation that people experience is commonly referred to as the “fibro fog.” The person wakes and never feels as if they have woken up the whole day as they have a difficulty concentrating and focusing.
– Depression – It is not clear whether or not depression is a symptom of fibromyalgia, or if it is an associated condition. Periods of depression, or the development of chronic depression may indicate the presence of fibromyalgia. Many of the same neuro-chemical disruptions that are thought to increase symptoms are also associated with depression. It is also common for those with the condition to develop depression for many reasons.
– Fatigue – Fatigue can show itself in several different ways when you have fibromyalgia. You can be too fatigued to start or finish a project. You can be really tired after finishing a project or even doing something mundane like dusting the living room. You can be too fatigued to exercise and even to function at work. It can be very hard for someone to move around and live a normal life when they are tired all the time. People have likened the fatigue they feel with fibromyalgia to be like the flu, but the flu never goes away.
– Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) – Digestive issues are considered to be co-occurring with fibromyalgia. The most common one is the development of IBS.
– Stiffness – Joint and muscle stiffness, most commonly in the morning is experienced by both men and women. There also may be other periods of prolonged stiffness in which there is no related cause for the difficulty in movement.
– Painful menstrual cramps – It is not uncommon for women with fibromyalgia to experience painful menstrual cramps, bloating, gas or heavy bleeding too. One of the overlapping conditions can include tender and lumpy breasts which are called fibromyalgia cystic and severe PMS Changes in your period should be noted and reported to both your GP and OB-GYN.
– Difficulty sleeping – Sleep can be disrupted by the pain and shortness of breath that comes along with fibromyalgia but there are also symptoms that make it difficult to sleep. This includes a broken pattern of sleep, starts or the sensation of falling, twitching muscles and allergy issues. The main reason sleep is disturbed in people who have fibromyalgia is because of bursts of brain activity happening while you are asleep. This is something that happens often when you are awake, but when it happens at night you are constantly being woken up throughout the night. You don’t realize it which is why you wonder what is making you so sleepy in the morning. If you had a full night’s sleep you should be well rested.
Numbness, and tingling
Frequent or painful urination
Different symptom clusters for men
Men experience many of the same symptoms, but fewer symptoms overall than women. Chronic fatigue, muscle/pain, IBS and restless leg syndrome (RLS) are found in most men who are diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Women rarely have RLS as a part of the symptom cluster. Recognition of the syndrome in men and how it presents itself is still new. There are many doctors who are unaware of how the symptoms can occur in their male patients. Do not hesitate to offer your doctor information, or to find a new doctor if you feel that would be a better choice.
More unusual symptoms
There are other symptoms that may be associated with fibromyalgia, but they occur rarely. It is important to remember that one symptom never indicates fibromyalgia; it is the presence of many. Some of the rarer symptoms you might have with fibromyalgia include cravings for carbs or chocolate. They can also include a difference in weight either up or down. Your vision might change including getting a lot worse. There might be some uncontrollable sweating and stiffness in the morning. The pain that you feel can go from severe to mild depending upon the day. You might also find that your muscles twitch. Allergy problems can also increase, especially a sensitivity to yeast or mold; sinus drainage, ear pressure, tinnitus and thick mucus secretions.
Some of the other weird symptoms associated with fibromyalgia include pain in your scalp feeling like your hair is being pulled from your head, spacing out, hallucinating smells, lightheadedness, and seizures. You might experience vertigo when you have fibromyalgia which will make it difficult to walk around and do some of the things you love to do. You also can experience chest pain or tightness that mimics a heart attack. This is called costochondritis.
You might find that you are sensitive to noise, light, odors, and any changes in pressure, humidity, or temperature. People with fibromyalgia might find that they have a hard time driving at night.
Other physical symptoms that show up with fibromyalgia may include changes to the surface of your skin. It can become mottled and it might bruise or scar easily. You might have tissue overgrowth resulting in lipomas, ingrown hairs, splitting cuticles, and adhesions. Your nails can curve under and you might have pronounced nail ridges. You can experience hair loss that is temporary. Random symptoms include hemorrhoids, cold hands and feet, hypoglycemia, intense thirst, low blood pressure, low body temperature, noisy joints, eye dryness and nose bleeds that can come on at any time.
What are the treatments for fibromyalgia?
The basic treatment is to use a variety of medications to reduce the symptoms and bring pain under control. The medications used may vary from person to person as everyone has a different cluster set of symptoms. There are many lifestyle changes, alternative treatments and diet changes that have also proven successful in reducing the impact of fibromyalgia on your life.
The worst thing you can do is self-diagnose
The Internet should be used as a resource to help you educate yourself about possibilities, and to learn about lifestyle changes and possible treatments. You should never decide that you have fibromyalgia based upon what you have read. Many of the symptoms can also indicate life threatening conditions. Your doctor can order tests to help determine the issue. There is now a blood test for fibromyalgia that can help identify its presence in some people. Be educated, but always consult with your physician when you notice any symptoms appearing. Once you have a diagnosis, you can explore all the treatments and therapies together. While there is no cure for fibromyalgia, there is no reason for you to suffer a loss of quality in your life.
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital Hosts 15th Annual Night of Champions Fundraiser
Written By: admin
Special guests scheduled to include Mo’ne Davis, Scott Palmer, Howard Eskin, Mike Mamula, and more
Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) April 24, 2015
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital will host the 15th Annual Night of Champions fundraiser on Friday, May 8 at Penns Landing Caterers at 1301 South Columbus Boulevard in Philadelphia. All proceeds benefit Magee’s community and patient programs, such as wheelchair tennis, rugby, racing, and basketball; art therapy; horticultural therapy; the Facility Dog Program; the Peer Mentor Program; the Patient Resource Center; and the Gaspar Center. The evening features dinner, live and silent auctions, live entertainment by The Reverb Brothers, local sports celebrities, and more.
“Rehabilitation is about healing the mind, body, and spirit, and the programs supported by Night of Champions all contribute to that comprehensive approach to recovery,” Jack Carroll, President and CEO of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, says. “The funds raised at Night of Champions truly change the lives of people living with disabilities and their families.”
All guests at the 15th Annual Night of Champions will be greeted by the sounds of the Mummers. The evening begins with a V.I.P. reception at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7:15 p.m. The event is scheduled to include special appearances by sports celebrities such as emcee Scott Palmer, Little League Baseball star Mo’ne Davis, former Philadelphia Eagle Mike Mamula, Howard Eskin, Speedy Morris, Stu Tomkins, Bob Johnson, and Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown. Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy live entertainment by The Reverb Brothers – featuring former Magee patient Ryan “Gooch” Nelson – and appearances by Magee’s wheelchair sports teams. Also, guests will have the opportunity to participate in live and silent auctions, featuring luxurious experiences like a week at a penthouse in Maui and an African safari. All items will be available for bidding at http://501auctions.com/noc/ so guests can bid straight from their smartphones or tablets at the event, or even from the comfort of their own homes if they are unable to attend.
The evening also includes the presentation of two awards. The 2015 Champion in the Community Award will be presented to Won Shin, Esq. Won came to Magee after an injury that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Just 14 months later, Won returned to Texas Christian University as a full-time student. He graduated from Southern Methodist University and then Georgetown University Law Center and is now Senior Manager with Ernst & Young. An athlete prior to his injury, Won naturally become involved in Magee’s wheelchair sports programs. Also active in community service, Won is a peer mentor at Magee and serves as Vice Chair of the Board for the Inglis Foundation, which provides support for people with severe physical disabilities.
New this year, the BELIEVE Award will be presented to Rebecca Levenberg. Rebecca was a Magee patient in 2010 following an accident that resulted in the amputation of her left leg. Rebecca has not let her amputation stop her from being active. She set a goal of completing 1,000 miles after receiving her prosthesis, inspired by the Confucius quote, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” and achieved her goal in March 2013. At Magee, she volunteers weekly and has served on Magee’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, providing innovative ideas to help shape the patient experience. With her background in teaching, Rebecca has donated her time engaging grade-school students in discussion about her prosthesis and disability awareness and has presented to medical students and doctors on trauma from a patient’s perspective. Rebecca also established a healing garden at Jefferson’s Surgical Family Waiting Area, which she visits regularly.
For more information or to purchase tickets to the Night of Champions event, please contact Magee’s Development Department at 215-587-3090 or giving(at)mageerehab.org.
About Magee Rehabilitation Hospital
Magee Rehabilitation Hospital (MageeRehab.org), a founding member of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s NeuroRecovery Network, is the Philadelphia region’s original provider of physical and cognitive rehabilitation. The not-for-profit hospital provides nationally-recognized lifetime rehabilitation and wellness programs for individuals with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, orthopedic joint replacement, amputation, pain management, and work injury. Since 1978, Magee has partnered with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to form The Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center of the Delaware Valley, one of only 14 federally designated model systems of care in the country.
An invasive predatory fish that has been rapidly expanding its presence in the Caribbean Basin and the Western Atlantic originated from multiple locations, not just one as previously believed, according to research published in a recent edition of the journal Marine Biology.
The venomous, coral reef-dwelling red lionfish had long been thought to have been introduced in Florida. In the new study, however, a team of US Geological Survey scientists propose that there were multiple points of origin, including some further south in the Caribbean Basin range.
Two genetically distinct populations discovered
Using new genetic data to help unravel the mystery, the study authors collected lionfish samples from 14 countries and territories in the Greater Caribbean and Western Atlantic. They discovered unique regional patterns that separated the area into distinct northern and southern regions.
The split occurred in the vicinity of the Bahamas, and given the regional genetic differences they found in the course of their investigation, the study authors now believe that there were multiple introductions of the species. One rare genetic strain was detected in only a few southern samples, but was found to be pervasive in the northern ones, the researchers explained.
“Studying the genetic strains across regions gives us insight into how these fish are spreading,” said lead author John Butterfield, a USGS contract biologist. “Dispersal against the flow of ocean currents may explain why we see this rare strain in the south, but even if that is the case, additional support for multiple introductions exists.”
“The genetic patterns found in this study support the idea of multiple introductions, and could be due to additional releases in the south,” Butterfield added. He and his fellow investigators noted that continued releases could make it more likely that genetically diverse red lionfish could join the existing population, hampering attempts to remove the species or limit its spread.
Using the findings to address the lionfish problem
Conversely, conducting genetic analysis of the invasive red lionfish and determining if there are still introductions occurring could give a boost to response and control efforts, the USGS experts said. The creature, which is native to the Indo-Pacific, can have a significant negative impact on its environment by disrupting marine food webs and preying on fish and invertebrates.
“The red lionfish can be used to help us understand other non-native populations and their invasion dynamics,” USGS geneticist Margaret Hunter said. “The more we know about this species and its progression, the more we can help resource managers and others fighting the invasion be prepared to help control lionfish colonization in new locations.”
“Ultimately, any information gleaned from this species could be applied to managing and assisting with eliminating future invasive species,” she continued. State and federal officials in the US are currently in the process of finalizing a national plan to prevent the spread of the lionfish and assess its impact on native species and habitats, the USGS added.
If you’ve ever felt like you’d have to be able to walk on water to impress your significant other, take comfort in the fact that there’s a North American waterbird that knows exactly what you’re going through – because that’s exactly what they have to do to get and keep a mate.
In fact, according to a recent Journal of Experimental Biology study, western and Clark’s grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis and Aechmophorus clarkii) use water running to attract the interest of a mate during a display known as rushing. They are one of the new vertebrates to take part in this type of ritual, as well as the largest – which can make the display difficult to pull off.
The grebes “weigh an order of magnitude more than” basilisk lizards, the next largest water runners, the authors explained. Therefore, they “face a greater challenge to support their body weight,” leading them to launch a quantitative study to investigate how the birds can “produce the hydrodynamic forces necessary to overcome gravity and sustain rushing.”
Mechanics could be used in rescue robots
As part of the study, Glenna Clifton, a doctoral student at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her colleagues set up high-speed video cameras at Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, according to National Geographic. They recorded and analyzed footage of the grebes, focusing on their feet to track their step rate and how they moved their limbs.
In addition, they conducted a series of laboratory experiments using physical models and the preserved foot of one of the birds in order to estimate how slapping it against the surface of the water contributes to supporting the weight of the up to 60 ounce aquatic birds.
“Our results indicate that grebes use three novel tactics to successfully run on water,” they wrote. “First, rushing grebes use exceptionally high stride rates, reaching 10 Hz. Second, grebe foot size and high water impact speed allow grebes to generate up to 30–55% of the required weight support through water slap alone. Finally, flattened foot bones reduce downward drag, permitting grebes to retract each foot from the water laterally.”
Those techniques are notably different from those used by the basilisk lizard, the authors noted. “The hydrodynamic specializations of rushing grebes could inform the design of biomimetic appendages. Furthermore, the mechanisms underlying this impressive display demonstrate that evolution can dramatically alter performance under sexual selection,” they added.
Clifton told National Geographic that she isn’t certain why grebes turn their feet out to the side, but that it could be the result of something happening under the water that throws off their stride. She added that the technique could be adapted to create robots capable of running on water for use in search and rescue operations in flooded areas – one that are heavier than models based on the water-running mechanics of the basilisk lizard.
Allergy season is upon us and those sniffles and runny nose that come with it are caused by the body’s immune system erroneously reacting to pollen as if it was invading microbes.
A new study could provide valuable insight into allergies as researchers from University of Edinburgh have found that the immune system of Shetland ponies can actually prevent an allergic reaction from happening.
It had been previously thought that Shetland ponies are not allergic to bites from tiny flies known as midges because no observable reaction could be seen in some ponies.
Two reactions
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the new study described how after a midge bites a Shetland pony, the equine’s immune system can react one of two ways. It can produce allergy symptoms like inflammation and itching or it can release factors that shut down the allergic response before it happens.
Upon further inspection, the study team saw that ponies allergic to midge bites release a signaling protein known as IL-4 that goes on to stimulate an immune response. Meanwhile, ponies not allergies to the bites release a similar factor called ‘IFNγ,’ which impedes various immune cells that would otherwise set off allergic reactions.
“To our knowledge, this is the very first study of a natural allergic disease in which we can show that immune responses to allergens can take two directions, either leading to allergy or to tolerance,” said study author Dietmar Zaiss, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences. “We believe this finding could have direct practical implications, for example by helping immune responses to choose the ‘right’ direction in individuals who we would like to protect from developing occupation-associated allergies.”
The study team noted that it remains unclear as to why some people develop sensitivities to certain substances, while others do not. Scientists still do not know why the immune system is activated to produce a protective response over an allergic one.
The study involved two groups of children. One group was given a dose of probiotics and peanut protein in increasing amounts over 18 months. The other group received a placebo.
About 80 percent of the children taking the probiotic treatment were able to consume around 0.1 ounces of peanut protein without a reaction. Only about four percent of children in the placebo group were able to consume peanuts without a reaction.
The researchers of that study called it a “first step” toward a possible treatment.
As NASA considers establishing colonies on the moon, Mars and perhaps even in the skies high above Venus, they’ll obviously need a good place to sit down, enjoy a bite to eat, or to kick back and relax with a good book. Thankfully, Rice University’s got them covered.
As the Houston, Texas-based university announced on Thursday, a group of five seniors calling themselves the Lunar Lounger team created – at the behest of the US space agency – a prototype table and chair designed to for use in space of environments other than good ol’ planet Earth.
Rice engineering students have designed a flexible chair for space habitats. Along with a custom, adjustable table, the prototypes are intended to present ideas for both space-bound astronauts and future habitats. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow)
The members of the Lunar Lounger team, all of whom are mechanical engineers, developed the furniture to serve multiple functions in environments requiring maximum flexibility without too much hassle. The table and chair pack flat for shipping, and are specially designed to cope with the decreased gravity in non-Earth environments, team member Laura Blumenschein said.
Crafting tables and chairs usable in low gravity
Blumenschein and colleagues Archit Chaba, Rey Amendola, Alex Schmidt and Dan Peera also had to account for the limited area that would be available in a space-based colony, and account for weight and strength requirements. They came up with tables that can be adjusted for standing and seated work, while also being light enough to keep the weight of the furniture down.
The table itself rests on gas springs for easy height adjustment, and connection ports allow it to be paired with other tables. As for the chairs, Peera explained in a statement that they are usable by astronauts ranging in height from 5’0” to 6’2”. Both table and seat were designed to be floor-mounted in order to keep them anchored in microgravity, and the chair can be adjusted to be a traditional seat or a back chair with a knee rest with pin-and-hole mechanisms.
Furthermore, the Lunar Lounger team noted that the seat has restraining footrests that can be used in zero-gravity environments. The furniture was developed by the mechanical engineering students as part of their senior class capstone project, and they received guidance from veteran astronaut/engineer Nancy Curry and other NASA experts throughout the development process.
Discussing the project with the Lunar Lounger team
RedOrbit had the opportunity to chat about the project with the Lunar Lounger team via email, and naturally, the first thing that we wanted to know was if the project was as fun to work on as it seemed. They said that it was “very fun” and “a great experience intreating with NASA” on it, but that it also meant “a lot of late nights sometimes to get to where we are now.”
“We were approached by NASA with a general idea of making furniture specifically for partial gravity environments” such as the moon and Mars, they explained. “There had been very little research into what this would entail, so they were interested in a dedicated team of undergraduate mechanical engineers tackle the problem. A lot of the specifics of what furniture we were going to focus on we came up with ourselves.”
The Lunar Lounger team said that the biggest challenge they faced when designing the table and chairs was creating furniture intended to be used in partial gravity environments – something that they admittedly have “no experience” with. They consulted with people with experience working on moon and Mars rover, but found there had not been much attention paid to furniture design, in part because it had there simply had not been a lot of experience in partial gravity.
In a statement, Peera called the table and chairs were early prototypes, and the team told redOrbit that the furniture was “a first attempt at addressing” these issues. “We anticipate that there will be many iterations in the years to come, but we think that we have set a good foundation to build upon and make a design ready for astronaut use on the moon and Mars,” they added.
Finally, the Lunar Lounger team said that it was “amazing how much thought goes into every piece of furniture you use.” Oh, and about their chair? Apparently, it’s “super comfortable.” In fact, they confessed, “a few of us have fallen asleep in it after a long night of work!”
Researchers at Cardiff University in the UK have reportedly pinpointed the genetic cause of asthma for the first time: a receptor known as the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) responsible for symptoms such as narrowing of the airway and inflammation.
The discovery, which is detailed in a paper published earlier this week in the journal Science Transitional Medicine, means that the condition could theoretically be treated with an existing group of drugs called calcilytics, UPI and BBC News reported on Thursday.
“Our findings are incredibly exciting,” lead investigator Daniela Riccardi, a professor at the Cardiff University School of Biosciences, said in a statement. “For the first time, we have found a link airways inflammation, which can be caused by environmental triggers – such as allergens, cigarette smoke, and car fumes – and airways twitchiness in allergic asthma.”
A potentially “life changing” breakthrough
In their study, Riccardi and her colleagues explored the respiratory disorder using airway models of both humans and mice, and with tissues obtained from both people with asthma and without it. Their analysis revealed that those aforementioned environmental triggers release chemicals that activate CaSR in airway tissue, causing asthma-related symptoms to surface.
By using calcilytics nebulized directly into a person’s lungs, the researchers are confident that they can deactivate the receptor, thus preventing those symptoms from occurring. Calcilytics were developed about 15 years ago to treat osteoporosis by strengthening bone with the release of an anabolic hormone. However, they proved unsuccessful in treating osteoporosis.
Dr. Samantha Walker, director of research and policy at Asthma UK, called the findings “hugely exciting” and potentially “life changing” for the five percent of the nearly 300 million people worldwide who suffer from asthma and do not respond well to existing treatments. This could potentially help “hundreds of thousands of people,” she said.
“If this research proves successful, we may be just a few years away from a new treatment for asthma, and we urgently need further investment to take it further through clinical trials,” Dr. Walker added. She went on to call asthma research “chronically underfunded,” noting that there have only been “a handful of new treatments” for asthma developed over the last 50 years.
Professor Riccardi and her colleagues will now attempt to secure enough funding to launch human trials involving calcilytics within the next two years. Provided her team can prove that the drugs are safe when administered directly into a person’s lungs, she believes that the therapy may be able to treat patients and prevent asthma from happening within the next five years.
A robot developed by researchers at Cornell University could someday make your friendly neighborhood Starbucks employee redundant, as it has learned how to autonomously make an espresso using crowdsourced instructions provided by Internet users. We would never have the problem of misspelled names on cups again. (Seriously, how do you get Jannett from Shannon?! Come on guys!)
Officially known as PR2 but affectionately dubbed Robobarista by its creators, the machine has progressed from pouring hot coffee over ice cream to make an affogatto coffee to the somewhat more complex latte, which also requires the use of steamed milk, according to CNET.
Step 1: Get the robot acquainted with your kitchen
The Cornell University team behind Robobarista has designed it to follow verbal commands as well as collect information sent in by volunteers that tell it how to use objects that it had never previously encountered, such as an espresso machine. Once it had enough know-how to perform such tasks, it was able to do so on its own, extrapolating the actions that needed done.
“In order for robots to interact within household environments, robots should be able to manipulate a large variety of objects and appliances in human environments, such as stoves, coffee dispensers, juice extractors, and so on,” the researchers explained on the robot’s official website.
“Consider the espresso machine,” they added. “Even without having seen the machine before, a person can prepare a cup of latte by visually observing the machine and by reading the instruction manual. This is possible because humans have vast prior experience of manipulating differently-shaped objects. In this project, our goal is to enable robots to generalize to different objects and tasks.”
Makin’ the cup of joe
CNET uses the example of a toaster to explain the concept. While toasters aren’t all the same, people generally know what constitutes a toaster, and generally how it is used. Robots, however, function on pure logic and lack the intuition to deal with differences in appliance models. Thus, they need to have access to a through database to figure things out – hence the crowdsourcing.
Once PR2 had collected enough information about various objects, it was able to teach itself how to actually make coffee using an English-language instruction manual, CNET said. When it saw the instruction “push down on the handle to add hot water,” it knew that it had to locate a handle on the unfamiliar espresso machine using its knowledge of a similar-looking urinal handle.
Step by step it went through the instructions, referencing its database and comparing objects that were similar in order to produce a latte without any direct human intervention. The robot is still learning how to perform different tasks and add new drinks to its arsenal as well, so if you want to help out, you can visit the project’s home page and drop some knowledge on the Robobarista. It might be some time before PR2 can create a grande, iced, sugar-free, vanilla latte with soy milk.
CubeSats may not yet be widely known, but they are a game-changer in satellite technology. Remarkably, in the near future there will not only be many more people who have heard of them, but many more people who own them. It’s becoming much easier for anyone and everyone to play around in space.
RedOrbit talked to MIT’s Kerri Cahoy who explained the exciting new technology to us and what it means for the future… and why there are two different kinds of weather. (What?!)
“CubeSats are miniature satellites and range in size from the size of a coffee cup to the size of shoebox,” the planetary scientist explained. “They are popular now for two reasons. 1) They can be tucked into rockets and taken into space pretty cheaply, and 2) We’ve been miniaturizing our electronics and our mechanical devices for spacecraft so we can actually do something with these mini satellites.”
So what is her involvement?
“I’m interested in weather sensors from space. There are two kinds of weather; the first is weather we normally think of on our planet such as hurricanes, rain, clouds, snow and precipitation. But I’m also interested in the other kind of weather, which comes from our sun. There are actually energetic particles that come from our sun and they can damage our satellites because they cause impacts on our ground power systems. The Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from this a little bit, but we still need to monitor these big storms that come at us from the sun.”
She added: “They can cause power outages, they can interfere with our satellite infrastructure, including cable TV, for example, and other kinds of media distribution.”
CubeSats help by giving us early warning and can teach us how to tailor our electronics to be more resilient.
The big idea
“CubeSats are a great way to get experiments and tests up into space quickly. They are also proving to be really useful to get observations which are much more frequent than one big satellite,” said Cahoy.
This big swarm of mini-satellites can really get around, and because they are inexpensive. Cahoy explains, “You can change out your instruments, your cameras, and your weather sensors pretty quickly, rather than waiting ten or twenty years for the next big satellite to go up.”
“People like to talk about how our cell phones now have more computational power than was used for the Apollo program. Things go quickly on the ground with electronics and innovation but less so in space. The computer in your spacecraft could be completely outdated, but you’re not going to change it because it took so long to develop.” Not so with CubeSats.
Anyone can play in space
The compact satelites are another example of how the use of space is no longer limited to government agencies. CubeSats have been built by start-ups and crowdfunders, and private industries are using them in all sorts of ways.
“Maybe you have people who are looking at the parking lot activity of their stores, or traffic direction to help with urban planning. They help farmers with planting, they help with boundary disputes and shipping tracking,” Cahoy says. “There are a bunch of things you can do with pretty straightforward approaches to collecting imagery and data from space.”
CubeSats may be easy for people to build, but getting them into space is currently less easy.
“One way to do it is to hitch a ride with NASA when they send up cargo spaceships to astronauts on the International Space Station,” Cahoy explains. “They get loaded into a spring-loaded box and sprung into space.” They can also be attached to actual rockets, getting you to the exact right place to orbit around the Earth.
CubeSats are a great way of testing new miniature technology and new devices at lower risk, and then if they work, they can be transferred to larger satellites. This may not happen if designers had to take the risk of going straight to a traditional satellite, which is greater.
3D printed satellites
Kerri Cahoy concluded: “The technologies to build CubeSats are actually pretty easy to get hold of; some of the parts you can order online. This is very reachable for most people who are tech savvy and want to innovate.”
“The other thing that’s kinda cool is that 3D printing is being used for CubeSats. Being able to go ahead and think of something you want to put on your sat and put in a drawing, and send it to a 3D printer to print a part of your satellite, or even your whole satellite. It’s really fun.”
We wholeheartedly agree. Maybe a redOrbit Cubesat is in the near future?
Seismologists from the University of Utah have discovered a massive pool of hot, partly molten rock hidden deep beneath Yellowstone’s supervolcano – a reservoir that is more than four times larger than the shallower, more well-known magma chamber there.
The researchers, who reported their discovery Thursday in the journal Science, captured images of the rock 12 to 28 miles beneath the volcano, and said that there was enough magma in the new reservoir to fill the entire 1,000-cubic-mile Grand Canyon eleven times over.
They also were able to image the continuous underground volcanic structure for the first time, said first author Hsin-Hua Huang, a postdoctoral researcher in geology and geophysics. Those images include the previously-seen upper crustal magma chamber, as well as the never-before-imaged lower crustal reservoir that connects it to the hotspot plume.
A new University of Utah study in the journal Science provides the first complete view of the plumbing system that supplies hot and partly molten rock from the Yellowstone hotspot to the Yellowstone supervolcano. The study revealed a gigantic magma reservoir beneath the previously known magma chamber. This cross-section illustration cutting southwest-northeast under Yelowstone depicts the view revealed by seismic imaging. Seismologists say new techniques have provided a better view of Yellowstone’s plumbing system, and that the supervolcano hasn’t grown larger or closer to erupting. They estimate the annual chance of a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption is 1 in 700,000. (Credit: Hsin-Hua Huang, University of Utah)
Yellowstone volcano “a gold mine of data”
“For a seismologist, Yellowstone is a gold mine of data,” study co-author Jamie Farrell, a postdoctoral researcher and a member of Utah’s Seismology and Active Tectonics Research Group, told redOrbit via email. “Since Yellowstone is such dynamic system, it seems we are always learning something new and seeing new and interesting things. It’s always fresh and exciting and this project was no different.”
Thanks to the new research, Farrell explained that the researchers “now have a complete picture of the Yellowstone plumbing system from deep in the mantle to the upper-crust,” and that they can “use this data to model how heat and magmatic fluids are transferred from deep in the Earth to the shallow crust. Results of this type of modeling could give us real insights into what type of things we should look for if magma is moving into shallower depths.”
“We still have a lot to learn about the volcano but I think we are really getting a good picture of this volcano,” the Utah seismologist added, “and I believe that these types of findings will help us better understand not only Yellowstone, but other volcanic systems as well… We are not quite there yet but this is a big step in the right direction.”
No increased risk of an eruption
Contrary to popular belief, the magma chamber and reservoir are not filled with molten rock, the study authors explained in a statement. Rather, the majority of the rock there is hot, largely solid, and spongelike with just a few pockets of molten rock. According to the study, the upper magma chamber contains an average of about nine percent molten rock (previous estimates had placed it as between five and 15 percent) while the lower one is approximately two percent melt.
Huang, Farrell and their colleagues pointed out that the volcano’s plumbing system is no larger and no closer to erupting than previously believed. However, thanks to advanced technology, the seismologists said that they were able to create a complete and detailed image of the system that carries molten rock upward from the top of Yellowstone’s plume (located 40 miles underground) to the magma reservoir and the magma chamber located above it.
Neither the magma chamber nor the reservoir are growing larger, Farrell said, but the team was able to see them better than ever before using new imaging techniques. Likewise, Utah professor and study co-author Robert B. Smith noted that the “actual hazard is the same, but now we have a much better understanding of the complete crustal magma system.”
Exploring the anatomy of a supervolcano
Prior to this new researcher, experts believed that the Yellowstone volcano features partially molten rock moving upwards from the hotspot plume through either a series of horizontal and vertical cracks (also known as sills and dikes), or as blobs. They still believe that these cracks move hot rock from the plume head to the reservoir, then to the shallow magma chamber.
At the bottom of the Yellowstone system is a plume that originates from depths of at least 440 miles in Earth’s mantle, and perhaps as much as 1,800 miles deep within the planet’s core. The plume conduit is roughly 50 miles wide as it comes up through the mantle, then spreads out. A previous study said that the plume head was 300 miles wide, but the new study suggests that it could be smaller than that. The Utah team’s data cannot say for certain.
Hot, partially molten rock rises in dikes from the top of the plume to the bottom of the newfound reservoir, which measures 30 miles northwest to southeast and 44 miles southwest to northeast. The 2,500-cubic mile upper magma chamber rests below the volcano’s 40-by-25-mile caldera, or giant crater. Farrell said that it is said to be shaped like a giant frying pan located about three to nine miles beneath the surface, with its so-called handle rising towards the northeast.
The shallow magma chamber was once believed to be 1,000 cubic miles, but Farrell and Smith showed earlier this year that it is actually 2.5-times larger than that, a finding which is supported by the new study. Also, the magma reservoir discovery – which was made using seismic imaging methods similar to medical CT scans – explains why Yellowstone’s soil and geothermal features emit more CO2 than can be explained by gases from the magma chamber, the authors said.
A new gene-editing technique created by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California could provide new hope for women carrying a mitochondrial disease who want to be mothers, but are afraid of passing their condition on to their children.
Typically, these women have relied on preimplantation genetic diagnosis to pick the healthiest embryos, but as the researchers point out, this is no guarantee that they will have a healthy baby. The new technique, however, can simply and effectively eliminate these mitochondrial mutations from eggs and early-stage embryos using a pair of molecular “scissors.”
Understanding and treating mitochondrial disease
Mitochondrial diseases, which are passed exclusively from mother to child, result when these specialized cellular compartments responsible for creating most of the energy needed for a body to survive unexpectedly fail. The resulting reduction in energy causes injury and even death to the cells and eventually organs, ultimately causing entire systems to fail.
“Currently, there are no treatments for mitochondrial diseases,” explained Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of a study on the new technique, published Thursday in the journal Cell. “Our technology may offer new hope for mitochondrial disease carriers wishing to have children without the disease.”
Each living cell can have up to thousands of mitochondria, and each of the organelles contains their own DNA which are vital for its function , the Salk Institute team explains. Mutations in this set of 37 genes can cause a wide array of different diseases, and can result in fatality at the time of birth, a short life expectance or several decades of debilitating symptoms.
A new approach: focusing on prevention, not cure
Alejandro Ocampo, a research associate in Izpisua Belmonte’s lab and one of the first authors of the paper, explained that most methods currently being used to address these hereditary illnesses focus on patients who have already contracted them. As an alternative, his team looked for ways to prevent the transmission of the mutations themselves early in a child’s development.
They focused on two types of molecules: restriction endonucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs). They cut specific strands of DNA out of these nucleases and by doing so, were able to eliminate only the mitochondrial DNA that contained specific, disease-causing mutations in eggs or embryos while leaving healthy ones intact.
To prove their concept, they used mice containing two types of mitochondrial DNA, selectively prevented one of them from being passed on to their offspring by using engineered nucleases in both eggs and one-celled embryos. The mice born using this approach developed, as normal, into adults. Also, the authors were able to use the technique to successfully reduce levels of mutated mitochondrial DNA most responsible for a pair of human mitochondrial diseases.
“We might not be able to eliminate one hundred percent of the mutated copies of mitochondrial DNA, but you don’t need to eliminate all of the mutated copies: just reducing the percentage significantly enough can prevent the disease in the next generation,” said Pradeep Reddy, first author of the new paper and a research associate in the Izpisua Belmonte lab.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s launch, and the instrument’s science team is marking its silver anniversary by releasing a brand new image of the star cluster Westerlund 2, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina.
It was April 24, 1990 when Hubble was first sent into orbit aboard space shuttle Discovery, and over the past quarter-century, it has “reached and surpassed all expectations,” the Hubble team said in a statement, “beaming back data and images that have changed scientists’ understanding of the Universe and the public’s perception of it.”
The subject of the new Hubble photo, Westerlund 2, is a large cluster of approximately 3,000 stars that is part of a highly active stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29. The cluster is typically hard to observe because it is obscured by dust, but Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument is powerful enough to sneak a peek through that veil in near-infrared light.
“This image is a testament to Hubble’s observational power and demonstrates that, even with 25 years of operations under its belt, Hubble’s story is by no means over,” they added, noting that it will at least temporarily work alongside its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, after the latter launches in 2018.
Young cluster is home to bright, hot, massive stars
The new image clearly shows the central cluster, which is only about 10 light-years across but is densely packed with stars. Westerlund 2 is believed to be just two million years old, but is nonetheless home to “some of the brightest, hottest and most massive stars” discovered to date, according to the Hubble research team.
A few of the biggest, most massive stars are said to be giving off streams of ultraviolet light and charged particles known as stellar winds, which are tearing holes in the material surrounding the cluster. As a result, the hydrogen gas cloud in which its stars were originally formed are starting to be eroded.
The gas-and-dust monoliths depicted in the image have thus far been resisting the powerful stellar winds and the radiation, the researchers noted. These pillar-like structures, which are a few light-years tall, point to the central cluster. The pillars are also surrounded by additional dense regions, including dark filaments of dust and gas, they added.
“Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, the brilliant stars can also help create a succeeding generation of offspring,” the Hubble team said. “When the stellar winds hit dense walls of gas, they create shocks, which generate a new wave of star birth along the wall of the cavity. The red dots scattered throughout the landscape are a rich population of forming stars that are still wrapped in their gas and dust cocoons.”
Those still-forming stars have not yet ignited the hydrogen in their cores, and as such have not yet started to illuminate as stars. However, they were able to identify these stellar fetuses using the telescope’s near-infrared vision. The bright blue stars that also appear in the new image are primarily located in the foreground, the astronomers explained.
97.7% of Bariatric Surgery Patients Would Recommend Mexico Bariatric Center to a Friend
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Mexico Bariatric Center, a facilitator of weight loss surgeries in Mexico, reports that 97.7% of past patients would recommend Mexico Bariatric Center to a friend. Mexico Bariatric Center also releases an internal report on patient's weight loss with various procedures.
(PRWEB) April 23, 2015
Mexico Bariatric Center, a weight loss surgery center, reports that over 97% of past patients would recommend Mexico Bariatric Center (MBC) to a friend. In a recent survey of past patients, MBC has found interesting data about its patient’s average weight-loss and other metrics.
Mexico Bariatric Center performs surveys on a regular basis from its patients in an effort to analyze its patients progress and improve its services to its clients. In a recent survey, MBC asked respondents whether they would recommend Mexico Bariatric Center to a friend, 97.7% of respondents responded ‘Yes,’ while only 2.3% responded ‘No.’
“Our post-op care is what makes the difference,” Ron Elli, Ph.D., the founder of Mexico Bariatric Center, explains. “We have two registered dietitians, a surgeon liaison, and caring patient-coordinators who’ve undergone surgery with our company. By choosing MBC, patients will receive a level of care that’s just not possible elsewhere,” Dr. Elli continues.
In addition to discovering Mexico Bariatric Center approval ratings, MBC also asked questioned past patients to discover just how well our patients are doing postoperatively. Mexico Bariatric Center asked a host of questions including, ‘How Much Weight Have You Lost 30 Days After Gastric Sleeve Surgery,’ and ‘How Much Weight Have You Lost 1 Year After Gastric Bypass Surgery.’
Survey Findings: Gastric Sleeve Average Weight Loss with MBC
We polled other information for other surgery types including gastric sleeve, gastric banding and lap-band to gastric sleeve revisional surgery. Other qualitative questions were asked about MBC’s management and how can Mexico Bariatric Center can improve in the future.
Please view our full survey findings on our website http://www.MexicoBariatricCenter.com – where you can find out more about bariatric surgeries and Mexico Bariatric Center – and, discover that MBC is taking bariatric medical tourism to the next level.
About Mexico Bariatric Center
Mexico Bariatric Center is the leading bariatric surgery center in Tijuana, Mexico. MBC has helped hundreds of patients achieve weight loss success through their experienced bariatric surgeons, while sustaining excellent post-operative care. MBC is transcending medical tourism industry by being the first company to offer bariatric seminars in both the United States and Canada. MBC also offers engaging webinars on preoperative and postoperative care – leading to high expected weight loss for our patients.
Brain Aneurysm Foundation’s 14th Annual Arterial Challenge This Sunday at Fenway Park in Boston
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This Sunday, April 26, 2015 brain aneurysm survivors, families, and supporters will all converge on Fenway to walk in support of greater brain aneurysm awareness. For the first time in its 14-year history, The Arterial Challenge benefitting the Brain Aneurysm Foundation and The Brain Aneurysm Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will be held at Boston’s historic Fenway Park.
Hanover, MA (PRWEB) April 23, 2015
This Sunday, April 26, 2015, Fenway Park will host the 14th Annual Arterial Challenge walk benefitting the Brain Aneurysm Foundation and The Brain Aneurysm Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
For the first time in the event’s 14-year history, participants will have the opportunity to walk onto the home field of the Boston Red sox, meet the team’s famed mascot, Wally as well as take photographs with past Red Sox World Series trophies.
Registration for the Arterial Challenge will take place at Fenway’s Gate E, which is at the corner of Landsdowne Street and Brookline Avenue, and begins at 8:00am. The walk itself will start promptly at 9:00am. T-shirts are available with registration on a first-come first-serve basis. The registration fee for adults is $35, while the fee for children 12 is only $15. Children under 12 are free. Also, parking is available for $10 at 73 Brookline Avenue which is directly across from Fenway Park.
Virtual participation is available and encouraged for those unable to attend this Sunday. Please visit the event’s website to register and contribute.
The Brain Aneurysm Foundation can be reached directly via email: office(at)bafound(dot)org.
The Brain Aneurysm Foundation is the world’s leading source of private funding of brain aneurysm research. Now celebrating 20 years of service, the Brain Aneurysm Foundation was established in 1994 in Boston, Massachusetts with a mission to promote early detection of brain aneurysms by providing knowledge and raising awareness of the signs, symptoms and risk factors; work with the medical communities to provide support networks for patients and families; as well as to further research that will improve patient outcomes and save lives. For more information about the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, visit http://www.bafound.org.
PureFormulas ranks among America’s leading web merchants for the fourth consecutive year
Written By: admin
South Florida-based e-retailer of dietary supplements has placed among Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide
Miami, FL (PRWEB) April 23, 2015
PureFormulas has ranked 401st among North America’s leading web merchants in the newly released 2015 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. PureFormulas has also placed 22nd in the Health/Beauty category.
One common feature of the retailers featured on the list, whether they are in the top 10 or 500, is their ability to adapt to a rapidly changing industry, including the customers’ increasing reliance on social media and mobile-friendly technology.
“Over the last year, the PureFormulas team has focused on enhancing our customers’ experience with a new and improved website, featuring a more robust e-commerce platform, and a fully secure, personalized visit for loyal customers and new visitors alike,” said PureFormulas CEO José L. Prendes. “While we are thrilled to stand with the top online retailers in North America, our reason for being is to continue offering an efficient, secure and friendly shopping experience with highest-grade products.”
According to Internet Retailer, the Top 500 outpaced an already strong e-commerce industry, which grew far faster than overall retail in North America. America’s 500 largest e-retailers grew their web sales by 16.2 percent to $256 billion in 2014, more than six times the sales growth of traditional stores.
PureFormulas’ position in the rankings is particularly significant when considering that the Health/Beauty category has only a 1.8 percent share among 15 categories of Top 500 retailers. This includes leading category of Books/Music/Video with a 73 percent share; Office Supplies at 45.7 percent; and Apparel, with a 13.7 percent share
About PureFormulas
Headquartered in Miami, FL, PureFormulas.com is a leader in the online health supplement space, distributing GMP-certified quality products, including dietary supplements, organic food, beauty products, sports nutrition supplements, and pet products, with an average of 400,000 active customers and 80+ service professionals. PureFormulas.com features a secure and friendly online shopping experience providing free shipping on more than 40,000 products. PureFormulas’ professionals work with a board of healthcare advisors, naturopaths and chiropractors to keep up-to-date with customers’ needs and healthcare trends. PureFormulas’ mission is to maintain daily motivation and passion for healthy living, with a focus on high-level customer service and quality products. For more information on PureFormulas, please go to: http://www.pureformulas.com.
About Internet Retailer®
Internet Retailer is the world’s largest publisher in the field of e-commerce. Through multiple print, digital and web-based publications and database services, they provide strategic and practical business information and original competitive research on e-retailing to more than 400,000 retail executives and direct marketers every month. Publications include the monthly Internet Retailer magazine, which has been covering e-commerce since March 1999, internetretailer.com and IRNewsLink, a daily e-mail newsletter. Internet Retailer also provides proprietary research on online retailing through its database, Top500Guide.com and its research guides, including the Top 500 Guide, Second 500 Guide, Top 500 Europe, Mobile 500, and Social Media 500.
If you suffer from fibromyalgia, or you know someone that does, you may have been looking at the various ways that you can deal with the pain and pressure that happens as a result of the disease. So what treatments are out there? What medications might you be put on if you’re dealing with the problems that are related to fibromyalgia? Here’s a brief look at some of the treatments that are utilized for fibromyalgia symptoms.
Pharmaceuticals
Since we are still working on figuring out what causes fibromyalgia in the first place, it can be rather difficult to try and figure out the best way to move forward with your treatment plan. So, instead of actually being able to deal with the disorder itself, doctors will have to work with you in order to help you overcome the symptoms that you’re dealing with. In this section, we’re going to take a look at what medications are usually used to help with what parts of the disorder, while at the same time giving you an idea of how they work to deal with the overall disorder.
Anticonvulsants
Anticonvulsants are, essentially, medications that stop seizures. Even though seizures are not related to fibromyalgia, these medications that are intended to treat epilepsy are regularly helpful in diminishing certain sorts of pain as well. Gabapentin (Neurontin, Gralise) is some of the time accommodating in diminishing fibromyalgia manifestations, while pregabalin (Lyrica) was the first medication affirmed by the Food and Drug Administration to treat fibromyalgia.
There are others that are also used nowadays, but the ones that we have mentioned here are among the most commonly used ones that are on the market. If you are dealing with extreme pain that is related to your fibromyalgia, then you may be put on anticonvulsants in order to be able to function more easily. Ask your doctor about your options and to see if this may be an option that you can pursue for your pain symptoms.
Antidepressants
Antidepressants are incredibly common for use in all sorts of afflictions, and they have been found to be useful in assuaging fibromyalgia pain. They are also very helpful if you have sleeping issues related to your fibromyalgia; instead of taking a sleeping pill and an antidepressant, many doctors will try to find a two in one solution that will work for you in all of the ways that you need it to. The reason that antidepressants work is because they adjust serotonin and other brain chemicals that are related to dulling and soothing pain. Milnacipran (Savella) and Duloxetine (Cymbalta) may help to do a number of different things that are connected with fibromyalgia, including reducing the amount of fatigue and pain that you feel. Your specialist might prescribe amitriptyline or fluoxetine (Prozac) to help with your sleep issues as well. Let’s take a look at each of the main categories of antidepressants that may be used for your fibromyalgia, and how they may help out.
– Elavil, Amitril, and other tricyclic antidepressants are frequently recommended for fibromyalgia, however numerous individuals don’t care for their reactions (many people notice weight gain, dizziness, and tiredness when they take these sorts of antidepressants). At low dosages, these drugs don’t help with anxiety or depression, which fibromyalgia patients regularly have. In any case, this sort of antidepressant can play a role in helping reduce the effects of insomnia and other disorders.
– The serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, which are usually referred to as SNRI’s, help ease fibromyalgia pain, whether the patient is dealing with the symptoms of depression or not. SNRIs may include Effexor and Cymbalta. The main SNRI that is endorsed by the FDA to treat fibromyalgia pain is Cymbalta, but others are also recommended for use. Effexor is, likewise, used to help reduce the pain that is associated with fibromyalgia, as is the new drug, Savella. A quick thought and warning regarding SNRIs: These medications can’t be utilized if the person in question takes a kind of medication called an MAOI, which stands for monoamine oxidase inhibitor, or has glaucoma. In those cases, you may have to seek out SSRI’s or other antidepressants for use instead.
– Research demonstrates that specific serotonin reuptake inhibitors (better known as SSRI’s) such as Zoloft and Paxil, help a number of fibromyalgia patients with insomnia, overall general well being, and pain reduction – with lesser impacts on those painful areas and anything related to motion from fibromyalgia. However, exploration shows the SSRIs aren’t as successful as the SNRIs in treating fibromyalgia, but if you can’t take the SNRI’s, then it’s good for you to have the option to take the SSRI’s instead.
– A note about combining antidepressants: On occasion, a mix of antidepressants can help diminish muscle pain, tension, and depression in fibromyalgia. Patients additionally get more tranquil slumber, feel less exhaustion, and have better wellbeing in general. In those cases where your doctor gives you a combination of antidepressants, they will do everything that they can to make sure that you don’t have any reactions. If you start to see any issues from your antidepressants, talk to your doctor as soon as possible to prevent any further issues.
Pain Relievers
Many people don’t know how to deal with the pain that they’re coping with as a result of their fibromyalgia. Because of that, you want to make sure that you have a way to make the pain lessen. Pain relievers are usually used in conjunction with some of the other medications that we listed here. Also, they can help to dull the pain that you may not have otherwise been able to dull or reduce with the other types of medications that we have talked about in this section.
Pain relievers, for example, Ultracet and Ultram can help reduce the number, alleviate the pain in those moments where you get sharp pains in certain areas of your body, and diminish muscle fits or spasms that you may be trying to cope with. The muscle relaxant Flexeril can help diminish pain and enhance the sleep that you’re trying to get more of. Injections of painkillers and/or cortisone at some of your worst trigger areas can be particularly successful in breaking cycles of muscle spasms and painb. Many doctors will try to avoid using injections if they feel like you can go without them, but in some cases, it’s the best option for you to try in order to relieve your pain.
Over-the-counter pain relievers, for example, naproxen sodium (Aleve, others), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) or acetaminophen (Tylenol, others), may be useful. Your specialist may propose another type of pain reliever, for example, tramadol (Conzip, Ultram, etc). Opiates are not usually used for fibromyalgia patients, on the grounds that they can cause people to become addicted to them if they are used too often, and may even compound the pain that you’re feeling.
All that being said, the medications that are used to help with your fibromyalgia are going to vary on a number of factors. It could be based on the pain that you’re dealing with, or it could be based on what your doctor prefers to use with various fibromyalgia patients. Even though the medications that we mentioned here are the most commonly used, there may be others that your doctor suggests so that you can better deal with the health issues that you’re working with. If you have any questions about these medications or want to consider trying some of the others that we mentioned here, make sure to talk to your primary care physician so that you get the information that you need, while at the same time ensuring that you’re getting the right care as well.
Other Treatments
Of course, there are a wide variety of other treatments that you can try as well. You aren’t just stuck using the basic treatments that are “typical” for these sorts of disorders. There are lots of different things that you can do in order to help reduce the pain that you’re dealing with naturally. Even if you’re not into “holistic health” methods, these can still play a pretty big role in helping you to find pain relief and relief from your other fibromyalgia symptoms. Let’s take a look at these based on the different categories that they fall into – those related to insomnia and fatigue; those related to exercise and physical therapy; those related to mental health; and other miscellaneous treatments that may be utilized in order to reduce the more frustrating symptoms of the disorder.
Treatments related to fatigue and insomnia
Fibromyalgia frequently disturbs rest because of pain, restless leg disorder, or different reasons. Because of that, people who have fibromyalgia usually have a great need for help with their sleeping routine. Here are some tips that you can use in order to make sure that you get a good night’s sleep more often, even if you’re dealing with fibro pain.
– The first thing that you can do is put together an appropriate sleeping environment that encourages you to rest. Attempt to set a proper sleeping plan by going to bed at the same time every night and, in the meantime, staying away from taking a nap.
– Put together a sleep time routine – perhaps taking a short walk and a hot shower. Also, make your room helpful for slumber by keeping it dim, cool, and free of diversions like TV and PCs. This is called “cleaning up” your sleeping, or making your sleep routine more hygienic. Less diversion means that you’re going to have an easier time going to bed.
– Don’t smoke, drink alcohol, or drink caffeine. These can all make it a lot more difficult for you to sleep at night, thus causing you even more difficulty than you already have when you’re dealing with your fibromyalgia symptoms.
– Try to get more activity during the day. Even though we’re going to be discussing this concept a little bit more when we get to the next section (which is about exercise and physical therapy), it can also help with sleep. The more energy that you use during the day, the more likely you will be able to sleep at night because you’re just going to be more worn out than you would have been otherwise.
If you have other ways that help you get to sleep, go ahead and try them out as well. All of these are just suggestions; if you have your own way of doing things that works, then you will want to throw those things into your daily routine as well.
Exercise and Physical Therapy
Many people ask why they have to exercise as part of their fibromyalgia treatment plan. This is actually a really good question; a lot of people think that, because they’re dealing with a lot of pain as a result of their fibromyalgia, that they don’t have to “make it worse” through exercise. The truth of the matter is, it actually helps you more if you’re out and about and moving. Here are some exercises that you can try in order to get the benefits without all the pain and stiffness that you may associate with physical therapy and exercise routines.
– Aerobics:Consider beginning with a warm water treatment program, particularly if your pain levels are truly high. It’s simpler on the muscles and joints to be in the water, and the warmth from the water is actually helpful when it comes to reducing muscle pain and weakness. It is probably the easiest way to get started with a treatment plan. When you have made strides with your water aerobics plan, you may move to land-based exercises two to three times each week. Stroll at a pace where you can still hold a conversation with other people while you walk. Explore vigorous exercises that you appreciate and go at an agreeable pace that will help you to get the benefits without adding the stress.
– Isometric Strengthening: Keeping up your strength is vital, but you don’t want to do it if you’re starting to see yourself get weaker as a result of it. Isometrics include squeezing against a stationary item (or you can utilize both arms or legs as resistance if you don’t have an item that you can squeeze) for six seconds while breathing to verify your muscles have enough oxygen. It doesn’t devour a lot of your energy, yet doing this for about 10 minutes every day can make it really easy for you to keep your muscle mass up.
– Tai Chi:This development structure is facilitated with profound breathing and relaxing. You ought to maintain a strategic distance from kicks and forceful developments that may overstretch your muscles. Remain stationary until you pick up confidence. Then, as you get used to what you’re doing, try some other things. If you start to notice that you’re losing energy, let up on your routine a bit. If you feel like you can push more without any problems, do that too.
– Yoga: Gentle extending developments while concentrating on musical breathing can help extricate muscles, enhance physical capacity, ease your muscle tension, and lessen the fibromyalgia pain. It is critical to discover a therapeutic sort of yoga class with an educator who will suit your particular needs or limitations. Many yoga teachers know how to help people with fibromyalgia, but talk to them ahead of time to see how they can help you and what they may integrate to help reduce your pain even more.
Emotional Wellness Care
Your mental health is a huge part of your overall well being, and if you’re dealing with fibromyalgia symptoms, you may notice that you’re dealing with a lot of those problems on a regular basis. Here are some quick tips that you can use in order to make sure that your mental health is in tip top shape, even on your roughest days.
– Reduce stress. Add to an arrangement to maintain a strategic distance from or limit overexertion and emotional anxiety. Permit yourself time every day to unwind. That may mean figuring out how to say no without feeling bad for doing so. Be that as it may, make an effort not to change your routine totally. Individuals who quit work or drop all action have a tendency to do feel more guilt than do the individuals who continue doing the same things on a daily basis. Attempt stress administration procedures, for example, profound breathing activities or yoga and meditation techniques.
– Get enough rest on a nightly basis. We talked about this above, but it’s also really important for your mental health. Since weakness is one of the primary attributes of fibromyalgia, getting enough sleep on a nightly basis is vital. If you need more hints for how you can keep up with good sleep habits, go back to the section above where we discuss sleeping.
– Pace yourself. Keep the things that you’re doing on a daily basis on an even level. In the event that you do way too much on your good days, you may deal with a lot of pain on your off days. Control implies not pushing yourself too hard on your great days, but rather moreover it implies not limiting yourself or doing too little on the days when side effects flare.
– Take time out for yourself. Many people don’t take care of themselves, especially when they’re trying to deal with all of the other things related to fibromyalgia. That being said, make sure that you take a little bit of time in order to be able to rest and relax. Hang out with those you love, eat good meals, and have times where you have fun. Just make sure that you do that while, at the same time, making sure that you’re not pushing yourself too hard when you do.
Other Treatments
There are a wide variety of other treatments that you can consider as well. Here are just a few of them that can help with your general symptoms of fibromyalgia.
– Massage: Patients rate a massage as their top nondrug treatment for treating the muscle pain of fibromyalgia. You will need to find someone who can issue you an exceptionally gentle (low weight and low impact) rub until you know how you will react.
– Osteopathic Manipulation: Osteopaths are prepared in a mixed bag of hands-on ways to deal with simplicity muscle pain. An illustration is strain-counterstrain (or positional discharge), which permits the tight muscles to relax in the areas that are causing you the most pain. You can figure out how to do some of these strategies at home. Your physical therapist can give you some hints and teach you how to do it at home.
– Neuro-solid Adjustment: Small muscles close to the numerous joints and vertebrae along the spine could be included in the improvement of myofascial trigger focuses. Delicate control of the spine and adjacent muscles may offer alleviation for low back pain and certain sorts of cerebral pains, in spite of the fact that the system is not completely understood.6
– Acupuncture: This treatment option can decrease pain and weakness, however the outcomes for fibromyalgia may be different depending on how your body reacts with pain. Verify that you work with an authorized professional who has experience treating fibromyalgia. Exploration demonstrates that the extra utilization of acupuncture with other types of therapy creates better results. There are other acupunctures techniques and warm water therapies that you can try as well.
As time goes on, we’re going to continue to find treatments that we can use in order to help relieve the pain and stress that are often associated with fibromyalgia. If you have fibromyalgia and you want to find relief from the pain that you’re feeling, contact a doctor or another medical professional today in order to get more information. Getting connected with a medical professional can help you start to put together a treatment plan and you can get all of your questions and concerns answered.
A new tabletop particle detector (shown here) is able to identify single electrons in a radioactive gas. (Credit: MIT)
As they explained in research published earlier this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, the detector uses a magnet to trap those electrons in the bottle, then uses a radio antenna to pick up extremely weak signals they emit to map their precise activity for several milliseconds.
The work was completed along with colleagues from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Washington, the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) as part of an experiment known as the Project 8 collaboration. The device has been used to record the activity of more than 100,000 individual electrons in krypton gas, the Institute noted in a statement.
Using electron measurements to hunt for neutrino mass
According to the researchers, as the radioactive krypton gas decayed, it emitted electronics that vibrated as a baseline frequency before fading. That frequency increased again when one of the electrons hit an atom of radioactive gas, and as an electron collided with multiple atoms in their detector, its energy appeared to spike in what a step-like pattern.
Shown here is "event zero," the first detection of a trapped electron in the MIT physicists' instrument. The color indicates the electron's detected power as a function of frequency and time. The sudden “jumps” in frequency indicate an electron collision with the residual hydrogen gas in the cell. (Credit: MIT)
Joe Formaggio, an associate professor of physics at MIT and a member of the Project 8 group, said that they are able to image the frequency of the electron, and that since they can be detected using the radio antenna, they are “chirping” in radio waves. Their findings are a big step forward in ongoing efforts to measure the mass of the mysterious particles known as neutrinos.
Billions of neutrinos pass through our body’s cells every second, but little is known about these elementary particles, which don’t appear to interact with ordinary matter and tend are notoriously difficult to detect, the researchers explained. While scientists have established theoretical limits on neutrino mass, they have yet to precisely detect it. However, Formaggio noted that measuring the energy of an electron, it should be possible to learn more about the neutrino.
When a radioactive atom decays, it turns into a helium isotope and releases both an electron and a neutrino. The sum of the released particles’ energy equals that of the original parent neutron, so that measuring the electron’s energy can reveal the energy and mass of the neutrino. By using the radioactive hydrogen isotope tritium, which has a decay rate through which the byproducts of its electrons can be easily observed by scientists, they can obtain precise measurements.
Five-year effort pays off with early successful results
The Project 8 team’s detector is based on a phenomenon known as cyclotron radiation, in which electrons or other charged particles emit radio waves in a magnetic field. The team found that the electrons emit radiation at a frequency of 26 gigahertz, similar to that used by the military for its radio communications. This baseline frequency changes only slightly if the electron has energy, they explained, so they opted to look directly at the radiation emitted by electrons.
Formaggio and his colleagues proposed that by tuning into this baseline frequency, they would be able to catch the electrons as they were emitted by a decaying radioactive gas and measure the energy in a magnetic field. By doing so, they believe that they would be able to conduct far more accurate measurements than is possible through other methods, but it requires observing a rather weak signal over a long period of time, so it had not been attempted previously.
It took them five years of work before they were finally able to build a particle detector that was up to the task, and once the researchers switched it on, they said that they were able to record the individual electrons within the first 100 milliseconds of the experiment. It took longer to analyze the results, but their hard work ultimately paid off with precise krypton gas measurements.
On the heels of their success with krypton, the researchers believe that they may be able to move on to tritium within the next year or two. If they can accomplish that, Formaggio explained, they could be well on their way toward eventually measuring the mass of a neutrino.
A look inside the research with MIT’s Noah Oblath
We had a chance to get chat via email with Noah Oblath, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT who was involved in the project. He explained that the research was “significant on several levels. By itself, we have made a direct observation of a natural phenomenon, single-electron cyclotron radiation, that previously had only been seen indirectly. We’ve also shown that it’s possible to use electron cyclotron radiation as a tool to perform spectroscopy.”
While neutrino physics was “the original motivation for the experiment,” he explained that the technique of Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy could be applicable to other scientific issues, some of which the team was looking into. Oblath added that their work demonstrates that there is “hope for using tritium beta decay to probe even lower neutrino masses.”
That’s not to say that the work was easy, as evidenced by the five-year period it took to build the detector. “We knew from the beginning that the principle behind Project 8 was straight-forward, but that the implementation would be challenging,” he told redOrbit. Since they were attempting to observe “a very weak radio-frequency signal,” they knew that it would “require some care.”
“Initially we did not have any funding specifically for Project 8, so we tried to re-use equipment where we could find it; our initial attempts were not sensitive enough to detect the cyclotron radiation,” Oblath said. “Piece by piece we managed to improve our equipment and how it was put together, and eventually we were able to demonstrate that this technique does, in fact, work.”
What would it mean to the team to be able to use the tabletop detector to measure the mass of a neutrino? Oblath said that it would be “a remarkable achievement” to directly measure neutrino mass “with any experiment.” He added that in the field of neutrino physics, “we often focus on a particular set of techniques that have been shown to work well, and improve on them gradually. In the case of Project 8 we have started with a brand-new technique and have shown that we will be able to apply it to the quest to measure the mass of the neutrino.”
“That uniqueness makes it an extremely exciting project to work on,” he concluded.
Abbey Hull for redOrbit.com – @AbbeyHull4160
Almost all of us have been there before: It’s three in the morning with a paper due at 9AM, and a group presentation the next day, and yet what are we doing? Binge watching Gossip Girl or Breaking Bad on Netflix saying, “Ehh, I’ve got time.”
As winter thaws into spring, our minds take on the effects of spring fever and lose interest in the classes we’ve endured all winter long. Most seniors get this disease around March of their final semester, but this illness is neither bacterial nor viral—it’s mental. It’s called, well, “Senioritis”. But the good thing is: There’s a cure. What is senioritis?
It’s hard to define exactly what senioritis is in scientific terms, but various seniors at Belmont University define it well:
“Senioritis is just like trying to bring your butt to the gym.”
“Senioritis is complete and utter burnout.”
“Senioritis is getting in bed and realizing you have to pee.”
“Senioritis is the point in your life where nothing shocks you anymore.”
“Senioritis is the dream that you have when you’re being chased and you can’t run.”
While it may be hard to pinpoint the exact feeling, Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D., a psychologist in Austin, Texas and author of The Connected Father: Understanding Your Unique Role and Responsibilities during Your Child’s Adolescence, The Future of Your Only Child: How to Guide Your Child to a Happy and Successful Life, and Stop the Screaming: How to Turn Angry Conflict With Your Child into Positive Communication, gave us an excellent definition of senioritis via email: “The principle dynamic I see is fear of the future/unknown,” he wrote, “and loss of the present/familiar. A ‘student’ is a person in sheltered preparation. Graduation means preparation is over, and now work world exposure and engagement must begin.”
In this acceptance of the work world as inevitable, senioritis goes hand in hand with “future fear” of what is to come, a psychological limiter that makes future graduates reluctant to take that next step. And after all those years of school, the burnout only increases that reluctance.
“It is very common in last stage adolescents (ages 18-23). It takes courage to proceed, but that courage gets easier once one is in motion to further goals,” Pickhardt told redOrbit, noting that working towards goals is one way seniors can stay motivated. Symptoms include:
Lack of motivation to complete homework assignments
Attention deficit in the classroom
Increased Netflix bingeing
Anxiety when asked the question what are you going to do after graduation
The common phrase, “It went by so quickly…what am I going to do now?”
The origins of senioritis, while a common mental state across the United States during those last few months of schooling, all come from the common idea of goal avoidance. Pickhardt says Simon and Garfunkel put it best: “The closer your destination, the more you’re slip sliding away.” As the real world creeps in among those final assignments, there is a certain amount of anxiety towards not knowing what comes after graduation. I mean, all they know is school, which they’ve attended the past 15+ years, so the gap between educational and adulthood can seem very intimidating for those who have only experienced one side. Risks of senioritis
At the start of senioritis, some risks of giving in to the black hole of motivation can start small, with missing one too many classes or forgetting assignments, both of which can lead to the possibility of delaying Graduation. However, the other side of the spectrum can be just as harmful, as too much focus can lead to seniors missing out on the fun of their final semester. Either way, there are still risks involved for those with senioritis.
“The risks are self-defeating behavior in the form of incompletion of school work that protracts schooling, or one ‘boomerangs’ home un-graduated in hopes of regressing to a simpler time,” Pickhardt said. The risks are not worth the reward…if there even is one. Treatments—it is curable!
The best way to avoid the senioritis letdown is to keep yourself motivated in the final months of the semester…easier said than done right? But still, there are ways to find the extra push in the final weeks ahead.
First, be sure to take care of your body—no one can work efficiently if they haven’t slept in the past 37 hours (trust me, I know). By eating healthy and getting the recommended hours of sleep, those healthy habits may just be the thing you need to get to the other side of that graduation stage.
Second, know that organization is key—these are the days where time management is crucial! School, work, and social obligations all pile up as the semester comes to an end, and by writing in your academic deadlines as well as your social outings, there is a more likely chance you won’t be that one in the library writing until sunrise (but if you are, at least you knew about the deadline beforehand).
Lastly, know the importance of practice—gain work world experience before it becomes reality. The best way to prepare for work is to experience it first-hand in a safe environment before graduation.
“Even unpaid (although paid is best) job internships while in college are great confidence boosters because they familiarize one with the world of work, they provide role play experience, and they demonstrate that one has something of worldly value to offer,” Pickhardt said. Internships are the perfect opportunity to gain the most experience with the least amount of risk, and after gaining knowledge about the work world, the “future fear” of those affected by senioritis may lessen in severity.
While it may be tempting to prolong the inevitable, the truth is that college is not meant to last forever. Graduation is not something to fear and neither is the future, so by refusing to let senioritis destabilize life, senior graduates can succeed in transitioning from the educational world into the work world.
It won’t be long till you get to turn that final tassel—find the motivation and cure senioritis once and for all.
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Construction crew finds dozens of dinosaur eggs in China
Of course something like this would happen with a new Jurassic Park movie on the horizon: Members of a construction crew working on a road in China’s Guangdong Province earlier this month discovered dozens of fossilized dinosaur eggs, according to media reports.
As the Huffington Post reported, the workers uncovered a total of 43 fossilized eggs while working on a road in the city of Heyuan in the southern part of the country. Nineteen of the eggs were described as fully intact, and the largest was more than seven inches in diameter.
It is currently not known what species the eggs belong to, but they have been sent to a museum in the city for analysis, according to ABC News. While this is the first time dinosaur eggs have been found in the city center, they are far for the first fossils found in the region.
“Hometown of the Dinosaur in China”
As The Verge explains, the local dinosaur museum in Heyuan was presented with a Guinness World Record in 2004 for having the largest collection of fossilized dinosaur eggs in the world. At the time, they had 10,008, and nearly 17,000 have been found there since 1996.
In April 2005, the city was officially declared “Hometown of the Dinosaur in China” during an international paleontology event, according to local media reports. Heyuan was honored by the China Geological Survey’s Stratum and Paleontology Center, as well as 40 paleontologists from the US, France, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Canada and Belgium.
At the time, Zhao Zikui from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Palaeoanthropology said that dinosaur egg fossils recovered in China accounted for one-third the total amount found worldwide, and experts credit the red sandstone formations found in the city for helping to keep the fossilized eggs well preserved.
In addition to the thousands of fossilized eggs, at least eight preserved dinosaur skeletons and 168 dinosaur footprints have also been discovered in the region. The previously unearthed fossils were from the late Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, and seven belonged to the oviraptor family.
Fibromyalgia Treating is now part of the RedOrbit.com community!
We are excited to announce that FibromyalgiaTreating.com is now part of RedOrbit.com. All of the same great people, writers and editors but now with more firepower. We now have access to an enormous amount of additional research information
from doctors and scientists. We can now extend to other conditions that may be part of your everyday lives and help you on a broad level if that is what you need. We are here for you and now, better than ever so sit back and enjoy
the new Fibromyalgia Treating by RedOrbit!
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, gave us an excellent definition of senioritis via email: “The principle dynamic I see is fear of the future/unknown,” he wrote, “and loss of the present/familiar. A ‘student’ is a person in sheltered preparation. Graduation means preparation is over, and now work world exposure and engagement must begin.”