Teenage Scientists Working on Turning Mosquitos Into 'Flying Syringes' to Deliver Vaccines

A team of teenagers interested in biotechnology is working on turning mosquitos into “flying syringes” to deliver vaccines to humans. Their company, Provita Pharmaceuticals

, has already presented its research to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has submitted a grant idea to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Provita’s sixteen-year old CEO Joshua Meier was a finalist in the 2012 Google Science Fair and a student at the Bergen County Academies. After teaming up with several other kids interested in biotechnology and business, Meier founded the company and started work on a business plan to support their research.

The first goal of the flying syringe project is to bioengineer mosquitoes to deliver vaccinations against the West Nile Virus. Most of the research is conducted on the Bergen County Academies high school campus and is owned and paid for by the school.

“We can’t really culture mosquitoes in the lab at our high school because that’s dangerous, but we a have research adviser and ideas planned out, and the next step is making a partnership, contacting other places that do have animal facilities,” said Meier. Their project has also caught the attention of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, which has expressed its interest in helping with future development of the firm.

The team’s first project called Coagula aims to help people with hemophilia and von Willebrand disease by enabling patients to take fewer treatments for their conditions, while reducing the possibility of infections. Coagula is still under development, Meier said.

Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?

Our ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared or have changed in function.
This raises the question, ‘Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?’. Scientists have entertained the idea before but conclusive evidence was lacking. By combining different research methods, we now have a first piece of evidence that could prove that humans have unique cortical brain networks.
Professor Vanduffel explains: “We did functional brain scans in humans and rhesus monkeys at rest and while watching a movie to compare both the place and the function of cortical brain networks. Even at rest, the brain is very active. Different brain areas that are active simultaneously during rest form so-called ‘resting state’ networks. For the most part, these resting state networks in humans and monkeys are surprisingly similar, but we found two networks unique to humans and one unique network in the monkey.”
“When watching a movie, the cortex processes an enormous amount of visual and auditory information. The human-specific resting state networks react to this stimulation in a totally different way than any part of the monkey brain. This means that they also have a different function than any of the resting state networks found in the monkey. In other words, brain structures that are unique in humans are anatomically absent in the monkey and there no other brain structures in the monkey that have an analogous function. Our unique brain areas are primarily located high at the back and at the front of the cortex and are probably related to specific human cognitive abilities, such as human-specific intelligence.”
The study used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans to visualise brain activity. fMRI scans map functional activity in the brain by detecting changes in blood flow. The oxygen content and the amount of blood in a given brain area vary according to a particular task, thus allowing activity to be tracked.

Cordless Neuromuscular Back Pain Reliever

Some of us do experience issues with our back, and let me say this, it is not a nice problem to have at all. Of course, we have seen the resident chiropractor but to no avail, and all the different kinds of so-called “grandmother’s remedies” and tips that you picked up from friends and family members do not seem to work, either. Don’t give up on your back just yet, especially after it has supported you all these years, why not give the $199.95 Cordless Neuromuscular Back Pain Reliever a chance?

The Cordless Neuromuscular Back Pain Reliever will boast of a streamlined cordless electrotherapy system that delivers hours of drug-free pain relief from lower back pain. It is touted to be as powerful as professional equipment, where the device itself employs Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) which are actually harmless electrical pulses that block pain signals which pass through nerves to the brain. The system is also capable of increasing blood flow to the area in order to promote healing and relaxation. This thin, flexible unit will not impede movement, as it can be worn under clothing, and you will not need to have it removed between treatments. It is said that these adhesive electrode pads will remain securely in place for up to 5 applications, where this purchase includes 40 gel pads that ought to last for approximately three months, and it is powered by a couple of AAA batteries.

The first bionic eye is here!

After years of research, the first bionic eye has seen the light of day in the United States, giving hope to the blind around the world.

Developed by Second Sight Medical Products, the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System has helped more than 60 people recover partial sight, with some experiencing better results than others.

Consisting of 60 electrodes implanted in the retina and glasses fitted with a special mini camera, Argus II has already won the approval of European regulators. The US Food and Drug Administration is soon expected to follow suit, making this bionic eye the world's first to become widely available

Evolution to be blamed for bad backs, tooth aches: Scientists

Evolution may have put humans at the top of the food chain but it also landed us with bad backs, dropped arches and impacted wisdom teeth, scientists have claimed.

While the process of natural selection allowed humans to become much more advanced than other primates, it is also to blame for many of the maladies we suffer from today.

For all our success as a species, the problems we still experience as a result of our evolution demonstrates that humans are in fact "not very well designed", researchers explained.

Our development of large and complex brains, for example, resulted in a narrowing of our mouths which in turn caused the pain of impacted wisdom teeth.

Similarly, when our ancestors began walking on two feet six or seven million years ago, they prompted skeletal changes which today result in bad backs.

Our spines were originally arch-shaped, but standing upright turned the backbone into a weight-bearing pillar, causing the development of the "S" shaped curves which help us balance and walk but also cause lower back pain.

Studies suggest that conditions like flat footedness and high ankle sprains, which are often attributed to our modern, inactive lifestyle, were in fact plaguing our ancestors as many of 3.5 million years ago, the Telegraph reported.

Prof Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University said that our feet would be much more effective if they resembled the "blades" used by paraplegic runners, rather than consisting of 26 individual moving parts.

Impacted wisdom teeth can be blamed on our development of large brains, which caused the shape of our skulls to change and shortened our mouths leaving no room for a third molar, Prof Alan Mann added.

Many people now carry genetic mutations which mean they no longer develop wisdom teeth, with 25 percent of people now lacking at least one third molar.

Although lacking wisdom teeth does not provide a survival advantage in the modern world,

Prof Mann suggested that the trait may one day die out because people with aching jaws might be marginally less likely to have children.

He said that one plausible scenario might be that one evening, a partner in a relationship suggests a bout of reproduction, and the other partner, plagued by an impacted third molar which is painful enough to be distracting, says: "not tonight dear, my jaw is killing me."

Scientists create nanoscale vehicle to battle cancer without harming healthy cells

Devising a method for more precise and less invasive treatment of cancer tumors, a team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed a degradable nanoscale shell to carry proteins to cancer cells and stunt the growth of tumors without damaging healthy cells. In a new study, published online Feb. 1 in the peer-reviewed journal Nano Today, a group led by Yi Tang, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, reports developing tiny shells composed of a water-soluble polymer that safely deliver a protein complex to the nucleus of cancer cells to induce their death. The shells, which at about 100 nanometers are roughly half the size of the smallest bacterium, degrade harmlessly in non-cancerous cells. The process does not present the risk of genetic mutation posed by gene therapies for cancer, or the risk to healthy cells caused by chemotherapy, which does not effectively discriminate between healthy and cancerous cells, Tang said. "This approach is potentially a new way to treat cancer," said Tang. "It is a difficult problem to deliver the protein if we don't use this vehicle. This is a unique way to treat cancer cells and leave healthy cells untouched." The cell-destroying

material, apoptin, is a protein complex derived from an anemia virus in birds. This protein cargo accumulates in the nucleus of cancer cells and signals to the cell to undergo programmed self-destruction. The polymer shells are developed under mild physiological conditions so as not to alter the chemical structure of the proteins or cause them to clump, preserving their effectiveness on the cancer cells. Tests done on human breast cancer cell lines in laboratory mice showed significant reduction in tumor growth. "Delivering a large protein complex such as apoptin to the innermost compartment of tumor cells was a challenge, but the reversible polymer encapsulation strategy was very effective in protecting and escorting the cargo in its functional form," said Muxun Zhao, lead author of the research and a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA. Tang's group continues to research ways of more precisely targeting tumors, prolonging the circulation time of the capsules and delivering other highly sought-after proteins to cancer cells. The research team also included former UCLA Engineering student Zhen Gu, now an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, and University of Southern California researchers including graduate student Biliang Hu, postdoctoral scholar Kye-Il Joo and associate professor Pin Wang.

A monster tumor

A monster tumor (red, glossy lump) is rerouting the brain's streets and highways. These pathways -- the white matter that connects neuronal cell bodies -- are represented in red and blue, with red being near enough the tumor to be a concern during surgery, and blue being a safe distance away. Constructed by a team at Sherbrooke Connectivity Imaging Lab using magnetic resonance imaging, this image was awarded an honorable mention.

Your Immune System 'Remembers' Microbes It's Never Fought Before, New Study Says

Immune cells are like the Hatfields and McCoys of our bodies--once wronged, they never, ever forget. This is how we gain immunity, and it’s why vaccines work: Immune cells develop a memory of an invading pathogen, and they build an alert system to find and fight it should it ever return. But a new study by Stanford researchers adds a new wrinkle to this long-held immune theory. It turns out immune cells can develop this memory-like state even for pathogens they’ve never met. This may come from exposure to harmless microbes -- or the memories may actually be borrowed from other, more experienced cells.
The findings could help explain why babies and small children are so susceptible to infectious diseases. They haven't been exposed to enough ever-present, mostly harmless pathogens yet, and it's the constant scuffle with these bugs that gives adult T cells a sort of cellular precognition. “It may even provide an evolutionary clue about why kids eat dirt,” said the study’s lead author, Stanford microbiologist and immunologist Mark Davis. Kids are drawn to dirt because they’ve got to expose their fledgling immune systems to something, to help build up their defenses.
Davis and his coauthors studied a group of T cells called CD4 cells, which are the same ones targeted by HIV. CD4 cells hang out in our bloodstreams and stand sentinel, sounding the cellular alarm when they spot something that doesn’t belong. There are two basic classes of CD4 cells: Naive cells, which haven’t been exposed to a particular bug and might take a while to mount a response, and memory-type cells, which have done battle with a pathogen and are on the lookout for it again. The memory cells can prompt action within a few hours, while naive cells might take days or even weeks--meanwhile, we’re sick.
Decades ago, Davis discovered that CD4 cells reshuffle their DNA when they divide, which basically creates an army of T cells that have very specific pathogen-recognizing abilities. According to this new paper, this ability might also help them recognize pathogens they haven't even seen yet.
The researchers looked at blood samples from 26 healthy adults and figured out which T cells were responsive to which pathogens. About half of the cells looked like they were in the memory state, meaning they would have encountered a particular pathogen in the past. But then Davis and his colleagues did some tests and found out those people were never exposed to those diseases. They also tried this on newborns, using umbilical cord blood, and found the babies' cells were naive.
To test this further, the researchers took two adults who hadn’t had a flu shot in five years and gave them the vaccine. After this dead-virus invasion, which is designed to give CD4 cells a new memory, the patients’ CD4 memory cells proliferated. But interestingly, some of them were awakened to “remember” different bacterial and protozoan cell structures, which had nothing to do with the flu.
How do naive cells accomplish this microbial memory generation? It’s all about the environment. People are constantly exposed to countless bacteria, fungi and viruses, everywhere all of the time. T cells might act like they're reacting to something they've seen before--maybe the bacteria's proteins look similar to that of a harmless bug, and the cell is fooled. Or maybe the actual memory cells reshuffle their DNA when they replicate, which gives new cells specific properties.
“The pre-existing immune memory of dangerous pathogens our immune systems have never seen before might stem from our constant exposure to ubiquitous, mostly harmless micro-organisms, in soil and food and on our skin, our doorknobs, our telephones and our iPod earbuds,” Davis explains.
So maybe drop that Purell habit and don’t worry about the billions of bugs, most of which aren’t harmful, that surround us all the time. They might be giving our immune systems a head start.
The research appears this week in Immunity.

UK drug that boosts immune cells could halt childhood diabetes

A drug that could stop children from developing diabetes is being tested by British scientists.
In future, youngsters could be screened for vulnerability at school, then given the drug to keep them healthy.
Even delaying the onset of childhood, or Type 1, diabetes could have huge benefits in terms of long-term health.
Charities said the pioneering work could bring us a ‘step closer to a world without diabetes’.
Britain’s 400,000-plus Type 1 diabetics rely on multiple injections of insulin a day to keep them alive, and face complications in later life ranging from amputations to blindness.
The condition is caused when the immune system kills cells in the pancreas which make insulin, the hormone which converts sugar into energy. It can take 20 years off life and the number of sufferers is soaring.
Its causes are not clear, but unlike Type 2 diabetes, which is also on the rise, it is not linked to poor diet and obesity.
The drug, which is being developed at King’s College London and Cardiff University, tries to bring the immune system back under control by boosting numbers of a second, protective type of immune cell.
In a trial that is under way, 24 diabetics will be given vaccination-type injections every two weeks for six months.
An earlier trial found the drug to be safe and to produce ‘encouraging’ changes in the immune system.
King’s researcher Mark Peakman said: ‘With prevention there is everything to play for.’ Another option would be to slow or delay progression of the condition in those who have recently been diagnosed.
Much more research is needed, however, meaning the treatment is five to ten years away from widespread use.
The treatment is not expected to help those who have had the condition for years and will be of no benefit to sufferers of Type 2 diabetes.
Professor Peakman, who is collaborating with Colin Dayan, of Cardiff University, said: ‘We are facing something of an epidemic of Type 1 diabetes.
‘Once you have it as a child, you have got it for life and it leads to complications and obviously it is not a very nice thing to live with.’ He added that more volunteers are needed for the trial. They should be aged between 18 and 40 and have recently been diagnosed with the condition.
Sarah Johnson, of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which is part funding the study, said: ‘If this drug works, it would mean that there will be a future generation for whom Type 1 diabetes is no longer a risk.
‘But it is early days. This is not something that is going to happen tomorrow.’
She said understanding how to prevent the condition will aid the search for a cure for those who already have it.
Although Type 1 diabetes most commonly develops in childhood, it can strike at any time. The exact causes are unknown but genes are thought to play a part, as well as perhaps viral infections.

Scientists discover how owls rotate their heads without cutting off blood supply

It always appeared to fly in the face of logic.
But now, the biological secrets that allow owls to rotate their heads without cutting off their blood supply have finally been unravelled.
Scientists discovered four major adaptations in owls designed to prevent injury when the animals rotate their overly large heads by up to 270 degrees.
The study found that the birds' unique bone structures and vascular systems let them move with increased flexibility. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US studied snowy, barred and great horned owls after their deaths from natural causes.
They found that the vertebral artery enters the neck higher than in other birds, creating more slack.
Unlike humans, owls were found to have small vessel connections between the carotid and vertebral arteries, allowing blood to be exchanged between the two blood vessels.
This creates an uninterrupted blood flow to the brain, even if one route is blocked during extreme neck rotation.
The adaptation gives the birds a huge range of vision without having to move their bodies and arouse detection by prey.
The lack of similar adaptations in humans could explain why humans are more vulnerable to neck injury, the experts concluded.
Study senior investigator Doctor Philippe Gailloud, said: 'Until now, brain imaging specialists like me who deal with human injuries caused by trauma to arteries in the head and neck have always been puzzled as to why rapid, twisting head movements did not leave thousands of owls lying dead on the forest floor from stroke.
'The carotid and vertebral arteries in the neck of most animals - including owls and humans - are very fragile and highly susceptible to even minor tears of the vessel lining.'
To solve the puzzle, the researchers studied the bone and blood vessel structures in the heads and necks of the birds.
An injectable contrast dye was used to highlight the birds' blood vessels, which were then dissected, drawn and scanned to allow detailed analysis. The most striking finding came after researchers injected dye into the owls' arteries, mimicking blood flow, and manually turned the animals' heads.
Blood vessels at the base of the head, just under the jaw bone, kept getting larger and larger, as more of the dye entered, and before the fluid pooled in reservoirs.
This contrasted starkly with human anatomical ability, where arteries generally tend to get smaller and smaller, and do not balloon as they branch out.
Researchers say these contractile blood reservoirs act as a trade-off, allowing owls to pool blood to meet the energy needs of their large brains and eyes, while they rotate their heads.
The supporting vascular network, with its many interconnections and adaptations, helps minimise any interruption in blood flow. Dr Gailloud added: 'Our new study results show precisely what morphological adaptations are needed to handle such head gyrations and why humans are so vulnerable to osteopathic injury from chiropractic therapy.
'Extreme manipulations of the human head are really dangerous because we lack so many of the vessel-protecting features seen in owls.'
Medical illustrator Fabian de Kok-Mercado said: 'In humans, the vertebral artery really hugs the hollow cavities in the neck. But this is not the case in owls, whose structures are specially adapted to allow for greater arterial flexibility and movement.'
The team's findings were published in the journal Science.

GOLD-LOVING BACTERIA show superman strength

At a time when the value of gold has reached an all-time high, Michigan State University researchers have discovered a bacterium’s ability to withstand incredible amounts of toxicity is key to creating 24-karat gold.“Microbial alchemy is what we’re doing – transforming gold from something that has no value into a solid, precious metal that’s valuable,” said Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics.

He and Adam Brown, associate professor of electronic art and intermedia, found the metal-tolerant bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans can grow on massive concentrations of gold chloride – or liquid gold, a toxic chemical compound found in nature.

In fact, the bacteria are at least 25 times stronger than previously reported among scientists, the researchers determined in their art installation, “The Great Work of the Metal Lover,” which uses a combination of biotechnology, art and alchemy to turn liquid gold into 24-karat gold. The artwork contains a portable laboratory made of 24-karat gold-plated hardware, a glass bioreactor and the bacteria, a combination that produces gold in front of an audience.

Brown and Kashefi fed the bacteria unprecedented amounts of gold chloride, mimicking the process they believe happens in nature. In about a week, the bacteria transformed the toxins and produced a gold nugget.

“The Great Work of the Metal Lover” uses a living system as a vehicle for artistic exploration, Brown said.

In addition, the artwork consists of a series of images made with a scanning electron microscope. Using ancient gold illumination techniques, Brown applied 24-karat gold leaf to regions of the prints where a bacterial gold deposit had been identified so that each print contains some of the gold produced in the bioreactor.

“This is neo-alchemy. Every part, every detail of the project is a cross between modern microbiology and alchemy,” Brown said. “Science tries to explain the phenomenological world. As an artist, I’m trying to create a phenomenon. Art has the ability to push scientific inquiry.”

It would be cost prohibitive to reproduce their experiment on a larger scale, he said. But the researchers’ success in creating gold raises questions about greed, economy and environmental impact, focusing on the ethics related to science and the engineering of nature.

“The Great Work of the Metal Lover” was selected for exhibition and received an honorable mention at the world-renowned cyber art competition, Prix Ars Electronica, in Austria, where it’s on display until Oct. 7. Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important awards for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital and hybrid media, Brown said.

“Art has the ability to probe and question the impact of science in the world, and ‘The Great Work of the Metal Lover’ speaks directly to the scientific preoccupation while trying to shape and bend biology to our will within the postbiological age,” Brown said.

Make your work life easier!!

Job stress can be a physical or emotional response related to high expectations at work. According to a survey by Northwestern National Life, 40 percent of workers state that their jobs are “extremely stressful.” About 25 percent of employees view their job as the main cause of stress in their lives. We all know that being stressed out by one thing causes us to stress out over everything. Too much stress can cause disturbances in sleep and have other harmful effects on our health. It’s time to simplify your work life now and start living a healthier, more carefree life! Use a calendar We can’t emphasize this enough — using a calendar (and sticking to it) is the best way to reduce stress in the workplace. Whether you work in an office or from home, plan your day out and prioritize.

Allow yourself extra time to complete more difficult tasks and schedule time for breaks. Schedule the most important things first, and then fill in the gaps with the more mundane tasks, like sorting through emails or checking voicemails.

A calendar is there to keep you organized and keep you on task. It prevents you from having to remember everything and keeps you focused. Eliminate clutter How you manage your work space has a huge effect on how much you accomplish throughout the day. Just like a calendar, you want your work space to assist you.

Keep it as clutter-free as possible and eliminate all distractions. Keep it clean and well lit. We recommend spending the last 10 minutes of your day organizing all your papers, throwing away anything that’s unnecessary and wiping down your desk. Working in a clutter-free area will not only help you stay focused, it will also help diminish stress and have a positive effect on your well being. Learn to say no As great as it is to go above and beyond your workload duties, it’s totally acceptable to just say “no” from time to time. If your coworkers are constantly asking for your assistance and it’s making it hard to complete your own work, tell them that you're sorry but that you just don’t have the extra time.

If you’re always lending a helping hand, people may begin to expect it and may take advantage of you. Saying “no” isn’t a bad thing — it teaches you how to balance your own needs and take care of yourself. Leave work at work
Finally, to simplify your work life, try your best not to take your work home with you. This includes both actual work and work problems. If you work outside of the home, use your drive home as a way to unwind and relax. Try not to think about work until you’re back at the office the next day. If you work from home, set a specific time to stop working and stick to it. Just because you work at home doesn’t mean you can never leave the office. Both of these take discipline, but they'll make for a happier, healthier, more balanced you!

Scientists 3-D Print Human Embryonic Stem Cells

They hope to create 3-D tissues and organs using stem cells as the "ink."

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more, but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human embryonic stem cells.
Using stem cells as the “ink” in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern.
The cells were floating in a “bio-ink,” to use the terminology of the researchers who developed this technique. They were able to squeeze out tiny droplets, containing five cells or fewer per droplet, in a variety of shapes and sizes. To produce clumps of cells, the team printed out cells first and then overlaid those with cell-free bio-ink, resulting in larger droplets or spheroids of cells. The cells would group together inside these spheroids. Spheroid size is key, because stem cells need certain conditions to work properly. This is why very precisely controlled 3-D printing could be so valuable for stem cell research.
After being squeezed out of a thin valve, the cells were still alive and viable, and able to transform into any other cell in the body, the researchers say. It’s the first time anyone has printed human embyronic stem cells, said lead researcher Will Wenmiao Shu, a professor at Heriot-Watt. But ... why?
Eventually, they could be used to print out new tissues, or as filler inside existing organs, which would be regenerated. It could even serve to limit animal testing for new drug compounds, allowing them to be tested on actual human tissue, said Jason King, business development manager at Roslin Cellab, one of the research partners. “In the longer term, [it could] provide organs for transplant on demand, without the need for donation and without the problems of immune suppression and potential organ rejection,” he said in a statement.
The team took stem cells from an embryonic kidney and from a well-studied embryonic cell line, and grew them in culture. They had to build a custom reservoir--let’s call it an inkwell--to safely house the delicate cells, and then they added some large-diameter nozzles. A pressurized air supply pumps the cells from the inkwell into the valves, which contain pressurized nozzles on the end. The team could control the amount of cells dispensed by changing any of the factors, including the pneumatic pressure, nozzle diameter or length of time the nozzle stayed open.
At first the researchers printed droplets, but ultimately, they were so precise that they made cell spheroids in a variety of shapes and sizes, like the university logo above. One interesting wrinkle: The cells also formed spheroids in the inkwells. More work needs to be done to explain that.
The researchers also took several steps to make sure the cells survived the printing process. Examining the results of several experiments, they found 99 percent of the cells were still viable after running through the valve-based printer. “This confirms that this printing process did not appear to damage the cells or affect the viability of the vast majority of dispensed cells,” they write in their paper, which is being published in the IOP regenerative medicine journal Biofabrication.
Stem cells are powerful because they can develop into any cell in the body. Embryonic stem cells, which are taken from human embryos in the earliest stages of development, can be developed into stem cell lines that can be grown indefinitely. This is kind of controversial, especially in this country. But medical researchers think they could be hugely promising for a whole host of human ailments--stem cells could differentiate into neurons, potentially replacing the ones lost in degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s; or they could differentiate into pancreatic cells, curing diabetes; and so on.
Using a 3-D printer to produce gun parts has been pretty controversial, especially during the ongoing post-Connecticut-shooting gun debate. But that may be nothing compared to this.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

I URGE ALL MY FRIENDS TO READ & SHARE THIS; YOU COULD SAVE A LOVED ONES LIFE BY KNOWING THIS SIMPLE INFORMATION!!!

Stroke has a new indicator! They say if you forward this to ten people, you stand a chance of saving one life. Will you send this along? Blood Clots/Stroke - They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue:

During a BBQ, a woman stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) ...she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Jane went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Jane's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 PM Jane passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Jane would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this.

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR. Read and

Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.

T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A

SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. Chicken Soup)

R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue. If the tongue is

'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

I have done my part. Will you?

World’s First Electronic Fingertip Paves Way for “Smart” Surgical Gloves

Surgeons may be known for their incredible precision, but even the most talented practitioners have their limits. An electronic “fingertip” that heightens one’s sense of touch, however, could pave the way for a new breed of high-tech surgical gloves designed to trick the brain into feeling everything from pressure to temperature. A joint effort by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and China’s Dalian University of Technology, the device consists of ultra-flexible silicon-based electronics and soft sensors mounted onto artificial skin. The smart appendage is molded to fit the wearer’s fingertips, facilitating the transmission of electronic signals—which produce a mild tingling sensation—that could eventually recreate the feeling of heat, texture, motion, and resistance. “Imagine the ability to sense the electrical properties of tissue, and then locally remove that tissue, precisely by local ablation, all via the fingertips using smart surgical gloves,” says John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois and a co-author of the study, which appears in the August 10, 2012 issue of Nantotechnology. “Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, ultrasound imaging could be possible.”

The technology could lead to surgical robots that interact with their surroundings through soft touch.

The technology could also open up possibilities for surgical robots that interact with their surroundings through soft touch. But fingers aren’t the only body part that could benefit from the device. The engineers are now working on a device that would envelop the entire three-dimensional surface of the heart—much like a sock—to allow surgical and diagnostic devices to monitor cardiac arrhythmias. Another possibility? Electronic skin, which could restore sensation to burn victims and amputees who have lost their natural skin.

Future research will delve into providing the device with wireless data and power.

Bacteria In Earth's Atmosphere May Affect Cloud Formation And Climate

Bacteria From Space Georgia Tech graduate student Natasha DeLeon-Rodriguez shows an agar plate on which bacteria taken from tropospheric air samples are growing. Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek
Weather can transport microbes long distances, and they can promote the formation of ice and cloud droplets.
Vast populations of microbes live between four and six miles above the Earth's surface in the upper troposphere, an atmospheric zone considered at best a pretty lousy location for life. They might be living at those altitudes and feasting on carbon compounds that are helping warm the planet, or perhaps they were lofted up there by air currents, according to a new study.

Scientists don't know yet how they got there, but they know there are a lot of microbes--and a lot of different kinds, too. "For these organisms, perhaps, the conditions may not be that harsh," explains Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "I wouldn't be surprised if there is active life and growth in clouds, but this is something we cannot say for sure now."

The bacteria came from air samples taken on numerous flights as part of NASA's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes experiment, or GRIP, which examined how hurricanes form and grow. Accompanied on their missions by a Global Hawk drone and a converted WB-57 bomber, scientists flew aboard a modified DC-8 to collect samples of air in cloudy and cloud-free air before, during and after the major 2010 hurricanes Earl and Karl. Air filters collected samples from the atmosphere, which included dust particles and apparently lots of microbes.

Researchers from Georgia Tech analyzed the samples using gene sequencing techniques, and found 17 different bacterial taxa. On average, 20 percent of the small particles in the upper atmosphere are living bacterial cells, according to their findings. Bacteria greatly outnumber fungi in the atmosphere, and the bugs in the air seem to mirror the type of bugs on the surface--when the aircraft flew over the ocean, the filters caught marine bacteria, and when they were over land, they found terrestrial microbes. The bacteria likely reach such great heights through the same processes that send sea salt and dust into the air, according to the researchers.

Some of the bacteria use carbon compounds that exist in the atmosphere, suggesting they might be able to survive there long-term. But what's especially interesting about this is the potential impact microbes may have on our weather. Clouds are collections of liquid or frozen droplets that condense around a nucleus, usually a piece of dust or a grain of salt. But nuclei could be made from bacteria, too. Some types of bacteria promote the formation of ice droplets or of freezing, according to the researchers. That means airborne microbes might be more important for cloud formation than anyone thought.

The paper describing the microbes will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.