Climate Change Is Outpacing Earlier Estimates, Researchers Say

Climate Change Is Outpacing Earlier Estimates, Researchers Say: "Climate change is happening faster and on a broader scale than the world's scientists projected in 2007, according to a new report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.



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Play Video Games to Improve your Brain Functions

Play Video Games to Improve your Brain Functions: "

Here is good news for those video game lovers! According to a research conducted on the effects of video game playing on brain reveals that the brain functions more efficiently after playing video games for three months. This research was conducted earlier in the year 1992 by Richard Haier, a neurologist at the University of California in Irvine. Recently, Haier now working as a consultant with Blue Planet Software, the company that markets ‘Tetris’ asked him to follow up on his 17 year old research.

In the earlier research, Haier looked at how it changed the player’s brain functions after frequent sessions with the Tetris video game. He believed that video game training could enhance brain functions. In the most recent research conducted by Haier along with three new colleagues came up with an experiment that cost $100,000.

The team conducted the research on a group of 26 adolescent girls aged between 12 and 15. Apparently, adolescents were selected as their developing brains tend to reflect changes often. Girls were particularly selected as they have less experience with video games as compared to the boys. Both the groups were monitored for changes in brain function as well as brain structure. They were however, divided into ‘experimental group’ and the ‘control group’.

The researches found that the former group’s brains function more efficiently in areas linked to critical thinking than the latter group’s. This is quite an interesting thought. Haier states that he is also interested in finding out how the different areas of the brain interact during the mental training on a time scale of milliseconds.

Via: CosmicLog

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The perfect cup

The perfect cup: "

Researchers of the Fraunhoffer Institute, in Germany, developed a new cup type that can revolutionize the ritual of savoring a coffee cup, indispensable in our day by day.

The utensil was projected to maintain the drink in the ideal temperature for the consumption for the largest possible time. The secret is in the use of Phase Change Materials (PCM), substances that change of physical (of solid for liquid, for instance) state under certain temperatures.

The researchers established that the ideal temperature for the consumption of hot drunk, as coffee or tea, it is of 58 degrees Celsius. Therefore a hollow mug of porcelain was built and the interior of their walls covered with a beehive of aluminum filled out with PCM that is liquefied exactly this temperature.

When putting the hot drink in the mug, PCM begins to absorb heat, cooling the drink until that arrives to the point of liquefaction of 58 degrees. Since then PCM stops of absorbing the heat and it begins to liberate it slowly back to the drink. With that, the temperature stays stable and the coffee is in the point for consumption for more time.

In agreement with Klaus Sedlbauer, boss of the department that drove the research, in ideal conditions the temperature can be maintained by a period among 20 to 30 minutes. The researcher informs that the technique can also be used for cold drunks.

The institute is already working with companies interested in marketing the invention that still doesn’t have date to arrive to the market nor an estimated price.

Via: Spiegel.

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Genescient Will Have will have Nutrigenomic Products, fully lab tested, by end of 2009

Genescient Will Have will have Nutrigenomic Products, fully lab tested, by end of 2009: "Gregory Benford will be presenting an update of Genescient's work at the Singularity Summit in New York on October 3rd and 4th, 2009.

Our laboratory animals live for 5 times the normal lifespan. They have health and vigor. We use their genetic properties to find what works similarly in humans.

Genescient applies 21st century genomic technology to identify, screen and develop benign therapeutic substances to defeat the diseases of aging. Genescient's singular approach addresses the complex genomic networks that underlie aging and aging-associated diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. We will have nutrigenomic products, fully lab tested, by end of 2009

Genescient has released a research paper detailing their study of two common stimulants (caffeine and the stimulant in chocolate) and two common sedatives (valproic acid and lithium).

Genescient has found that caffeine consistently impaired mating success in experiments. By contrast, at normal doses theobromine (the chief stimulant in chocolate) was benign. Worse still, caffeine impaired survival and female reproduction. Again, theobromine proved relatively benign for survival and reproduction.




Genescient corporate overview

Our focus is to extend healthy human lifespan by using advanced genomics to develop therapeutic substances that attack the diseases of aging. We are the first company founded to exploit artificial selection of animal models for longevity.

Our extremely long-lived animal models (Drosophila melanogaster) have been developed over 700 generations. They are an ideal system for the study of aging and age-related disease because Drosophila metabolic genetic pathways that are highly conserved in humans.

Our sophisticated analysis cross-links gene function in Drosophila with their human orthologs, thus revealing the targets for therapeutic substance development. To date we have discovered over 100 of these genomic targets, all related to the primary diseases of aging.

This large library of targets, enables Genescient to effectively select and test therapeutic drug candidates. To date, Genescient’s “proof-of-concept” testing program has yielded a number of very promising therapeutic substances.

Genescient’s screening platform also enables us to partner with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to test and rapidly move forward promising drug candidates. In an era where drug failure at a late clinical trial phase can cost a company hundreds of millions of dollars, Genescient’s unparalleled screening technology helps pharmaceutical companies to rapidly eliminate poor candidates.

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Venter Hopes Synthetic Life Will Be Possible in One Month

Venter Hopes Synthetic Life Will Be Possible in One Month: "It is report in New Scientist that if the ability to build a synthetic genome can be combined with this technique to transplant it, then the dawn of synthetic life could be close. Indeed Venter hopes this biological milestone will be possible in just a month or so.

Bloomberg News has coverage of the work by Venter and his team on synthetic life.

When the transplanted bacteria in their previous effort failed to function, Venter’s team realized that the restriction enzymes might be interfering. By transplanting the DNA of the first bacteria, Mycoplasma mycoides, into yeast, whose genetics are easier to manipulate, they were able to modify the bacterial chromosomes in two important ways.

First they changed its properties in ways that could be beneficial for creating new products. Second, they converted pieces of the bacterial DNA to keep them from being recognized and attacked by the restriction enzymes. This allowed them to transplant the modified bacterial DNA into a second bacterium and bring the new form to life.

This most recent work edges Venter one step closer to creating synthetic life. He has already shown that genomes can be built from scratch, by taking the gene sequence of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium and constructing it in the lab.

The next step will be to insert a lab-built genome into a bacterial cell, creating a brand new living organism. Avoiding recognition and destruction will be a very important part of this process.

If the ability to build a synthetic genome can be combined with this technique to transplant it, then the dawn of synthetic life could be close. Indeed Venter hopes this biological milestone will be possible in just a month or so.

Venter's quest for synthetic life ultimately aims to create purpose-built organisms that can carry out specific roles, such as producing biofuels or even making hydrogen.

'The advantage of synthetic DNA is that it allows even more radical changes than an engineered genome,' says geneticist George Church of Harvard medical school. 'The key advances in this paper seem to be the transfer of DNA derived from Mycoplasma from yeast into a different Mycoplasma strain.'

FURTHER READING
Journal Science abstract: 'Creating Bacterial Strains from Genomes That Have Been Cloned and Engineered in Yeast'

We recently reported the chemical synthesis, assembly, and cloning of a bacterial genome in yeast. To produce a synthetic cell, the genome must be transferred from yeast to a receptive cytoplasm. Here, we describe methods to accomplish this. We cloned a Mycoplasma mycoides genome as a yeast centromeric plasmid, and then transplanted it into Mycoplama capricolum to produce a viable M. mycoides cell. While in yeast, the genome was altered using yeast genetic systems, and then transplanted to produce a new strain of M. mycoides. These methods allow the construction of strains that could not be produced with genetic tools available for this bacterium

Science Magazine article 'Two Steps Forward for Synthetic Biology' by Elizabeth Pennisi

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Avoidable Deaths Worldwide -Scope of issues and What can and is being done

Avoidable Deaths Worldwide -Scope of issues and What can and is being done: "
WHO estimates that better use of existing preventive measures could reduce the global burden of disease by as much as 70%.

2008 World Health Report.

Accelerating the improvement in lowering deaths from infectious disease. The top chart shows that acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal disease, Malaria, HIV/Aids and Tubercolis kill about 9 million people in 2009. Progress in developing vaccines to treat Malaria is helping. Infectious disease is an area where a lot of deaths could be avoided.

In the year 2000, indoor air pollution from solid fuel use was responsible for more than 1.6 million annual deaths and 2.7% of the global burden of disease (in Disability-Adjusted Life Years or DALYs). This makes this risk factor the second biggest environmental contributor to ill health, behind unsafe water and sanitation.Every year, indoor air pollution is responsible for nearly 800 000 deaths due to pneumonia among children under five years of age. The solution is to make burning solid fuel indoors less deadly or to avoid it all together.

Outdoor air pollution was found to account for approximately 1.4% of total mortality, 0.5% of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and 2% of all cardiopulmonary disease (World Health Report 2002). This is mainly from 2.5 to 10 micron particulates from the burning of coal and oil.

Newly Identified Persistent Free Radicals

Scientists have long known that free radicals exist in the atmosphere. These atoms, molecules, and fragments of molecules are highly reactive and damage cells in the body. Free radicals form during the burning of fuels or in photochemical processes like those that form ozone. Most of these previously identified atmospheric free radicals form as gases, exist for less than one second, and disappear. In contrast, the newly detected molecules — which Dellinger terms persistent free radicals (PFRs) — form on airborne nanoparticles and other fine particle residues as gases cool in smokestacks, automotive exhaust pipes and household chimneys. Particles that contain metals, such as copper and iron, are the most likely to persist, he said. Unlike other atmospheric free radicals, PFRs can linger in the air and travel great distances.

Once PFRs are inhaled, Dellinger suspects they are absorbed into the lungs and other tissues where they contribute to DNA and other cellular damage. Epidemiological studies suggest that more than 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiopulmonary disease linked to breathing fine particle air pollution, he says. About 10 to 15 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed in nonsmokers, according to the American Cancer Society. However, Dellinger stresses additional research is necessary before scientists can definitely link airborne PFRs to these diseases.

If the connection is made between airborne PFRs and disease, the solution is still to stop burning coal and oil.


Poor water quality continues to pose a major threat to human health. Diarrhoeal disease alone amounts to an estimated 4.1 % of the total DALY global burden of disease and is responsible for the deaths of 1.8 million people every year (WHO, 2004). It was estimated that 88% of that burden is attributable to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene and is mostly concentrated on children in developing countries.

The millenium goals for 2015:

* halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to improved water supply;
* halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to both improved water supply and improved sanitation.

The results of this analysis point out that achieving the target for both water supply and sanitation would bring economic benefits; US$1 invested would give an economic return of between US$3 and US$34, depending on the region. Achieving this target would require an estimated additional investment of around US$11.3 billion per year over and above current investments. The benefits would include an average global reduction of diarrhoeal episodes of 10% and a total annual economic benefit of US$84 billion

* Access for all to improved water and sanitation services would cost around US$22.6 billion per year.
* Household water treatment using chlorine and safe storage would cost an additional US$2 billion on top of improved water and sanitation costs, taking the global cost to US$24.6 billion.
* Access for all to regulated in-house piped water supply with quality monitoring and in-house sewerage connection with partial treatment of sewage would require a total investment of US$136.5 billion per year

6 million deaths could be avoided by stopping the use of Tobacco.






Technology for helping Reduce Deaths

A set of 15 proteins found in urine can distinguish healthy individuals from those who have coronary artery disease (CAD), a new study has found. Coronary artery disease is the most common type of cardiovascular disease, occurring in about 5 to 9% (depending on sex and race) of people aged 20 and older.


Researchers from Imperial College in London, England, isolated the receptor in the lungs that triggers the immune overreaction to flu.

With the receptor identified, a therapy can be developed that will bind to the receptor, preventing the deadly immune response. Also, by targeting a receptor in humans rather than a particular strain of flu, therapies developed to exploit this discovery would work regardless of the rapid mutations that beguile flu vaccine producers every year.

The flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in an average year with epidemics reaching 1 to 2 million deaths (other than the spanish flu which was more severe

Cost effective disease prevention

Iron deficiency: Iron fortification is very cost-effective in areas of iron deficiency. It involves the addition of iron usually combined with folic acid, to the appropriate food vehicle made available to the population as a whole. Cereal flours are the most common food vehicle, but there is also some experience with introducing iron to other vehicles such as noodles,rice, and various sauces.

The most cost effective strategy to reduce under-nutrition and its consequences combines a mix of preventive and curative interventions. Micronutrient supplementation and fortification - Vitamin A, zinc and iron – is very cost-effective. It should be combined with maternal counselling to continue breast feeding, and targeted provision of complimentary food as necessary. In addition, routine treatment of diarrhoea and pneumonia, major consequences of under-nutrition, should be part of any health improvement strategy for children. Childhood and maternal underweight was estimated to cause 3.4 million deaths in 2000, about 1.8 million in Africa. This accounted for about one in 14 deaths globally.

1.3 million people die each year from traffic accidents. Automation (robotic driving) even partial automation could help a great deal in reducing these deaths and injuries. Partial Automation: detection of imminient crash and auto-avoidance or reduction of crash severity (auto-brake), automation at intersections where disproportionate accidents occur.

Near term possibilities

Changes in driver behaviors are key, Degutis said. In many countries, truck, bus and other transport employees drive recklessly due to economic pressures, with little policing to restrain them. 'The quicker they can do a route, the faster they can get there, the more money they make,' she said. 'There's just not that incentive to be safe. We have to create those incentives for safety.'

Certain measures have successfully reduced traffic deaths in the United States and should work elsewhere, experts said.

According to Rosenberg, these interventions include simple, low-cost steps such as installing barriers along the median to prevent head-on collisions; converting four-way intersections into safer traffic circles; and installing speed bumps.

Encouraging governments to beef up policing of reckless or drunk drivers, as well as improving driver training, can also help decrease the carnage

Make roads safe is an action plan being promoted now

Road injury is conspicuous by its absence from the international development agenda. That is – quite literally - a fatal failure of political leadership. Measured on a narrow economic calculus, the costs of business-as-usual are enormous. Road injuries are costing many of the world’s poorest countries 1-3 per cent of the GDP, acting as a brake on economic growth. Simple cost-benefit analysis makes its own case for action. As this report documents, every $1 invested in road safety can save as much as $20 in lost earnings, reduced productivity, and health costs. Instead of asking themselves whether their country can afford to invest in road safety, finance ministers might ask themselves whether it can afford not to.

48 page world Health Organization study on current technology interventions to reduce road deaths and injury

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Hanazono House: An Edifice of Rusting Steel

Hanazono House: An Edifice of Rusting Steel: "

Hanazono House is a unique residential enclave which has been built completely in steel. The house is located on the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the facade has already developed the trademark reddish rust, but the owner Peter Grigg feels it protects the surface. The Hanazono house is plastered with kaiso do which absorbs odours and is thus one of the best ways to do a house.

The house is also covered with many woods like walnut, oak and rosewood. Japanese architectural trends have bordered on being bizarre t crazy, and this time around, the foreigner in Japan Mr. Peter Grigg has taken the architectural endeavour to a different level.

The house consists of open living room, kitchen and a total of five bedrooms. The house is built of steel and it remains to be seen what might happen in case of a strong earthquake as Japan is prone to tremors. Nevertheless, it is a novel and great idea to build a house in steel and wood combined. It also keeps the inhabitants warm in winter and cool in the summer.

Via: NY Times

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