Thursday, May 1, 2008
Your Kid is Overweight? Blame The Tan-Bark
Kristen Copeland, M.D. of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital is lead author on a study that seeks to determine why kids in day-care aren't playing outside enough. A central culprit was the importance parents place on academic activities (readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmatic) over outdoor playing activities. There were some other surprising factors, as well...
Then there was the mulch factor. "The staff members who participated in the groups were really concerned about mulch in the play area," said Dr. Copeland. "Many said that the kids eat the mulch, or use it as weapons, or it gets caught in their shoes. It also requires constant upkeep. It's certainly not something that we had anticipated as an issue, but judging by the amount of and intensity of the discussions among child care teachers, it really is."Dr. Copeland said the child-care center staff recognized that they themselves could sometimes serve as a barrier to children's physical activity. "We heard reports of teachers talking or texting on cell phones instead of interacting with the children while on the playground," said Dr. Copeland. She continued, "We found that a staff member who doesn't like going outside -- maybe she's not a cold-weather person, or she thinks it's too much work to bundle up and unbundle the children on a cold day -- could act as a gatekeeper to the playground." In some cases, staff reported that their own issues with being overweight prevented them from encouraging children's physical activity.
We're assuming by "mulch" they most likely mean tan-bark or other splintery, mostly wood based ground cover stuff, as opposed to fecal matter (though some kids have been known to eat that as well).
All in all, it's unfortunate that the importance of outdoor play-time in terms of both health and social development is being overlooked.
Press release: Flip Flops, Mulch and No Coat: Study Identifies Surprising Barriers to Outdoor Activity for Kids in Child-Care Centers
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
LifeStraw Family: Cheap Water Filtration for World's Poor
Poor access to safe drinking water may be the biggest health issue for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Vestergaard Frandsen, the Swiss company that released everyone's favorite Lifestraw personal water filter, has developed a similar product for the home. Project H Design, a charitable organization, is collecting donations to sponsor the purchase of Lifestraw Family for folks living in Mumbai, India.
Features of the device:
Filters a minimum of 15,000 litres of water - provides safe drinking water for a family for more than 2 years (calculated approximately on a family's consumption of 20 litres water/day). Has a high flow rate. Removes minimum 99.9999% of all bacteria. Removes minimum 99.99% of all viruses. Removes minimum 99.9% of all parasites. Works even on highly turbid water. Complies with EPA guidelines for microbiological water purifiers. No electrical power or batteries required. No spare parts required for the lifetime of the product. No running water required. Easy-to-clean pre-filter as well as purifier cartridge. Easy-to-ship, carry and store.
Product page: LifeStraw® Family
More at Project H Design: Lifestraw Family water filters for Mumbai...
(hat tip: Core77)
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Human Placenta is Not a Nutritional Supplement
Well, that's what the FDA says at least. It seems Herbal Science International, Inc. (aka Jen-On Herbal Science International, Inc.) is recalling a number of dietary supplements for containing ephedrine alkaloids, aristolochic acid and human placenta?! From the FDA press release:
Finally, the company is recalling Seng Jong Tzu Tong Tan, a product that contains human placenta. Human placenta may transmit disease and dietary supplements that contain it may not be lawfully marketed in the United States.
In a lot of ways, this raises more questions than answers. What is placenta (basically a bloody membrane) supposed to treat? How was it processed to make into a pill? Where are they getting all of these placentae?
It's turning out to be a bad day for Asian pseudoscientific remedies.
More from the FDA...
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Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Evacusled for Efficient Hospital Evacuations
Thanks to The Des Moines Register, we learned of how some hospitals are preparing for emergencies that would require the evacuation of bed ridden patients. One relatively affordable system is the Evacusled from a company by the same name, a device that looks like an advanced patient restraint system from Guantanamo Bay, but in reality allows one person to move another by transforming the hospital bed into a hospital sled.
Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 brought the issue of hospital emergency preparedness to the forefront, with one key piece being patient evacuation, from natural disasters to terrorism attacks, say health officials in Iowa and companies who sell patient evacuation devices. According to the makers of Evacusled, the device was actually used to evacuate patients during Hurricane Katrina.It has prompted Mercy, Iowa Health-Des Moines and Broadlawns Medical Center in the last several years to build their arsenals of emergency evacuation equipment that help safely move patients quicker and more comfortably, particularly down stairways. Federal funds have helped defray the cost for the expensive gear.
The equipment is a great improvement over other techniques of transporting patients, including wrapping patients in bedsheets or blankets and carrying or dragging them, hospital officials say.Two dozen of the Evacusled devices were put into Mercy's coronary care unit about a year ago, along with a few in Mercy Capitol's rehabilitation unit, McGraw said.
She'd like to buy additional Evacusleds, including 40 that would be placed in other Mercy units where patients are bedridden. McGraw said each costs about $630.
It takes one person to deploy the Evacusled. While older methods like using backboards or sheets can also be used, McGraw said the patient can be harder to maneuver, with more workers needed to move larger patients.
McGraw said the hospitals also use a device called an Evacu-Trac. The Evacu-Trac looks like a deck chair and features a set of rubber tracks that help a person glide the patient down stairs for a smoother ride. It has a weight limit of 300 pounds. The cost for the machine itself is about $2,100.
More at the The Des Moines Register...
Video demonstrating the device...
Product page: Evacusled
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Health Care Notification Network Goes Live
The health care industry is getting a new notification service for staying up to date on the latest drug recalls, warnings, and public health emergencies. Currently, physicians receive newly discovered information about drug safety in their snail mailboxes, sent directly by the manufacturer to a list of known, relevant physicians. Health Care Notification Network, the new system created by Medem of San Francisco, California is supported by a bunch of pharmaceuticals, insurance firms, orgs, and medical centers, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, J&J, American College of Surgeons, and others (full list .pdf). The network will be using email to quickly disseminate time sensitive info to the doctors, saving precious time as well as money.
Sign up for free alerts: Health Care Notification Network...
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Mobile Flu Detection Device Unveiled
STMicroelectronics, based out of Geneva, Switzerland, and Veredus Laboratories from Singapore, have announced the launch of their portable influenza detection device. The VereFlu is touted as being the first mobile lab-on-a-chip influenza detector.
Combining STMicroelectronics’ In-Check™ lab-on-chip platform with Veredus’ bio-application capability, VereFlu is the market’s first test which has integrated two powerful molecular biological applications in a lab-on-chip the size of a fingernail. It can identify and differentiate human strains of Influenza A and B viruses, including the Avian Flu strain H5N1, in a single test.A miniature laboratory on a chip, ST’s In-Check platform allows users to accurately and reliably process and analyze minute patient samples – human blood, serum or respiratory swabs - on a single disposable thumbnail-sized chip. This approach reduces the time and complexity, as well as the risk of cross-contamination inherent in conventional analysis methods.
Press release: STMicroelectronics and Veredus Laboratories Launch Market's First Lab-on-Chip for Rapid Molecular Flu Detection at Point of Need
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
PANTHER Bioelectronic Sensor Quickly Detects Pathogens
Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory developed a portable mobile detector of airborne pathogens such as anthrax spores. The device, called PANTHER (for PAthogen Notification for THreatening Environmental Releases), is only one cubic foot in size and weighs 37 pounds. The technology behind the device is a bioelectronic sensor called CANARY (for Cellular Analysis and Notification of Antigen Risks and Yields), that utilizes genetically engineered B cells and a photon detector.
The article Rapid Sensors for Biological-Agent Identification (.pdf) by Martha S. Petrovick, et al. in November 1007 issue of Lincoln Labarotory Journal explains the biologically inspired CANARY technology:
Our technology is based on genetically engineered B cells, a type of white blood cell that binds to and recognizes pathogens quickly and assists other parts of the immune system to fight the infection. B cells are the fastest pathogen identifiers known (intrinsic response in <1 second). We have modified them to bind specifically to the pathogens of interest and within seconds emit photons to report that the binding event has occurred. Two routine genetic modifications enable engineered B-cell lines to express cytosolic aequorin, a calcium-sensitive bioluminescent protein, as well as membrane-bound antibodies specific for pathogens of interest. The crosslinking of membrane-bound antibodies by a polyvalent antigen induces a signal-transduction cascade that sequentially involves tyrosine kinases, phospholipase C, and inositol triphosphate (IP3). IP3 activates calcium channels, thereby increasing cytosolic calcium from both internal stores and the extracellular identification medium, which activates the aequorin, causing it to emit light.This sensor concept, shown in Figure 2, which we call CANARY, can detect <50 colony-forming units (cfu) of pathogen in less than 3 minutes, including the time required to concentrate the samples. In contrast, even state-of-the-art immunoassays take at least 15 minutes and have a much higher limit of detection. While the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) can be both highly specific and sensitive, most reports cite protocols that take longer than 30 minutes. An ultrafast PCR with detection of 5 cfu in only 9 minutes has been reported. However, even when coupled with the most rapid sample-preparation technology the total assay requires 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Because of its unique combination of speed and sensitivity, CANARY has important benefits for pathogen identification in medical diagnostics, biowarfare defense, and other applications.
We have developed a genetic-engineering system that allows efficient production of B-cell lines that react specifically and rapidly to a variety of pathogens. Antibody genes cloned from hybridomas (cell lines that produce a single monoclonal antibody) are inserted into expression vectors. These vectors are transfected into a parental B-cell line that expresses active aequorin, and the cells are screened for their response to pathogen. These genetically engineered CANARY cells can be used separately in a single identification assay, or as many as three can be combined to achieve a multiplexed assay. Alternatively, several antibodies can be expressed in a single cell line to provide a classification assay. It is also feasible to create B cells that emit at different wavelengths of light, enabling multiplexed assays that simultaneously distinguish among several targets.
Paper: Rapid Sensors for Biological-Agent Identification (.pdf)
MIT press release: PANTHER sensor from MIT Lincoln Laboratory quickly detects pathogens...
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
Scientists Create Map Of Hotspots of Emerging Diseases
A detailed map that provides the first scientific evidence of the main sources of emerging diseases across the world has been published in the journal Nature. The research was done by an interdisciplinary group of zoologists, epidemiologists and ecologists from US and UK.
A press statement from the Earth Institute at Columbia University explains:
An international research team has provided the first scientific evidence that deadly emerging diseases have risen steeply across the world, and has mapped the outbreaks’ main sources. They say new diseases originating from wild animals in poor nations are the greatest threat to humans. Expansion of humans into shrinking pockets of biodiversity and resulting contacts with wildlife are the reason, they say. Meanwhile, richer nations are nursing other outbreaks, including multidrug-resistant pathogen strains, through overuse of antibiotics, centralized food processing and other technologies. The study appears in the Feb. 21 issue of the leading scientific journal Nature.Emerging diseases—defined as newly identified pathogens, or old ones moving to new regions--have caused devastating outbreaks already. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, thought to have started from human contact with chimps, has led to over 65 million infections; recent outbreaks of SARS originating in Chinese bats have cost up to $100 billion. Outbreaks like the exotic African Ebola virus have been small, but deadly.
Despite three decades of research, previous attempts to explain these seemingly random emergences were unsuccessful. In the new study, researchers from four institutions analyzed 335 emerging diseases from 1940 to 2004, then converted the results into maps correlated with human population density, population changes, latitude, rainfall and wildlife biodiversity. They showed that disease emergences have roughly quadrupled over the past 50 years. Some 60% of the diseases traveled from animals to humans (such diseases are called zoonoses) and the majority of those came from wild creatures. With data corrected for lesser surveillance done in poorer countries, “hot spots” jump out in areas spanning sub-Saharan Africa, India and China; smaller spots appear in Europe, and North and South America.
“We are crowding wildlife into ever-smaller areas, and human population is increasing,” said coauthor Marc Levy, a global-change expert at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), an affiliate of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “The meeting of these two things is a recipe for something crossing over.” The main sources are mammals. Some pathogens may be picked up by hunting or accidental contact; others, such as Malaysia’s Nipah virus, go from wildlife to livestock, then to people. Humans have evolved no resistance to zoonoses, so the diseases can be extraordinarily lethal. The scientists say that the more wild species in an area, the more pathogen varieties they may harbor. Kate E. Jones, an evolutionary biologist at the Zoological Society of London and first author of the study, said the work urgently highlights the need to prevent further intrusion into areas of high biodiversity. “It turns out that conservation may be an important means of preventing new diseases,” she said.
About 20 percent of known emergences are multidrug-resistant strains of previously known pathogens, including tuberculosis. Richer nations’ increasing reliance on modern antibiotics has helped breed such dangerous strains, said Peter Daszak, an emerging-diseases biologist with the Consortium for Conservation Medicine at the Wildlife Trust, another Earth Institute affiliate, who directed the study. Daszak said that some strains, such as lethal variants of the common bacteria e. coli, now spread widely with great speed because products like raw vegetables are processed in huge, centralized facilities. “Disease can be a cost of development,” he said.
The group’s analyses showed also that more diseases emerged in the 1980s than any other decade—likely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which led to other new diseases in immune-compromised victims. In the 1990s, insect-transmitted diseases saw a peak, possibly in reaction to rapid climate changes that started taking hold then. Team members soon hope to study this possibility and its future implications.
Press release: Growing Threat Seen In Human-Wildlife Conflict, Drug Resistance
More doom and gloom from Center for International Earth Science Information Network...
Nature: The next new disease...
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
Portable Heavy Metal Detection
At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have developed a portable detector that can sample blood, saliva, or urine for presence of lead and other heavy metals. This new technology is touted to allow the development of cheaper and smaller devices that should lead to wider sampling of the population.
"We need next-generation analyzers to reduce the time and lower the costs of analysis for clinical diagnosis," said PNNL scientist and principal investigator Wassana Yantasee. "They will help us better understand the relationship between the exposure to these toxins and how the body responds, which will help in developing new strategies to reduce exposures and risks.""Our research has focused on optimizing the sensor systems to work with the biological complexities in blood, urine and saliva samples," said Yantasee. "Validation of these sensor platforms for use in biomonitoring is particularly important in developing a personalized exposure assessment strategy."
The device can use two classes of sensors for detecting lead and other heavy metals. The first is based on a flow injection system using a mercury-film electrode to analyze metals in blood, urine or saliva samples.
To eliminate the use of toxic mercury in conducting the analysis, the second class of the sensor uses a mercury-free approach of nanostructure materials developed at PNNL. This involves use of either Self-Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports - SAMMS™ technology - or functionalized magnetic nanoparticles that provide excellent detection sensitivity at a parts-per-billion level.
Press release: New sensor system improves detection of lead, heavy metals
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Scientists Developing Robotic Rats for Rescue Missions
The interdisciplinary international project called BIOTACT (BIOmimetic Technology for vibrissal ACtive Touch), that spans Europe, Middle East and the US, aims to develop a novel robotic technology based on active sensing borrowed from nature. The inspiration? Rodent whiskers.
A statement from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel explains:
Based on principles of active sensing adopted widely in the animal kingdom, the multinational team is developing innovative touch technologies, including a 'whiskered' robotic rat. The whiskered robot will be able to quickly locate, identify and capture moving objects. 'The use of touch in the design of artificial intelligence systems has been largely overlooked, until now,' says Prof. Ehud Ahissar of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Neurobiology Department, whose research team is one of the groups participating in the multinational project.'In nocturnal creatures, or those that inhabit poorly-lit places, the use of touch is widely preferred to vision as a primary means of learning and receiving physical information about their surrounding environment.' One such animal that employs this method is the rat. Several groups of the international consortium are investigating the ways in which rats use their bristly whiskers to explore their environment, and how the brain processes such information. 'If we succeed in understanding what makes an animal’s sense of touch so efficient, we will be able to develop robots imitating this feature, and put them to effective use.'
What is the whisker’s 'secret'" Why is the sense of touch through a rat’s whiskers much more efficient than that of the average person’s finger tips" The consortium’s teams have provided some insights into these questions. One explanation concerns the way in which the sensory system works: Whiskers actively sweep back and forth repetitively, accumulating information about its surrounding environment. The sensing begins in the neurons at the whiskers’ bases, which then fire signals off to the brain. Moreover, experiments have shown that the way in which a rat uses its whiskers is context-dependent. The seemingly simple act of feeling out a 3-D object, for example, requires three different types of code, each encoding a different dimension – the horizontal, the vertical, and the radial (distance from the whisker base). The horizontal plane, for instance, is encoded in the precise timing of neural signals relative to the whisking motion. The vertical, i.e., the object height, is encoded by the vertical spacing of the whiskers, which are arranged grid-like on either side of the snout. The radial plane, on the other hand, is encoded in the number of times the neurons fire: The closer an object is to the rat's snout, the higher the number of neuron-signaling spikes.The consortium’s research also suggest that the signals travel from the whiskers through parallel pathways that function within parallel closed feedback loops, constantly monitoring the signals they receive and changing their responses accordingly. The researchers believe that it is the complex interactions between the feedback loops that are responsible for the rich and accurate control of movement, but at the same time, it poses an engineering challenge when trying to build artificial systems based on this concept.
'In order to investigate the role of feedback loops further,' says Prof. David Golomb of Ben Gurion University, Israel, whose research team is one of the groups participating in the multinational project, 'consortium members will implement theoretical methods and calculations from theoretical physics and applied mathematics in order to develop and research models that describe the complicated neural processes that control active sensing'. The models are based on experimental observations, and are expected to be tested by experimental consortium teams.
Ahissar: 'The aim of this research is to help gain a better understanding of the brain on the one hand, and advance technology on the other. That is to say, researchers can use robots as an experimental tool, by building a brain-like system, step-by-step, gaining insights into the workings of the brain’s inside components. With regard to technological applications, we suggest that it is the multiple closed feedback loops that are the key features giving biological systems an advantage over robotic systems. Therefore, implementing this biological knowledge will hopefully allow robotics researchers to build machines that are more efficient, which can be used in rescue missions, as well as search missions under conditions of restricted visibility'. In this way, basic research conducted on animals can contribute to the well-being of humans, other than for medicinal purposes.
Our wild imagination already sees this technology being used for other things as well: robot-assisted physical exams or surgeries.
Press releases: Scientists from Europe, Israel and the US develop robotic rats to aid in rescue missions ...; Robot rat to lead the way in touch technology ...
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Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Smart Pill Box Developed to Combat Tuberculosis
A team of MIT professors and researchers has received a grant to continue developing the Ubox, an intelligent pill delivery system intended to increase medication compliance for rural patients suffering from TB.
Though many of the world’s worst diseases can be treated with drugs, the problem of adherence--—patients correctly following the timing and dosage of long, complex prescriptions—--remains a major challenge in public health, especially in the developing world. To combat the problem, this E-Team has created uBox, a cheap, rugged, “smart” pillbox designed for rural communities in the developing world.UBox is a palm-sized plastic container with sixteen compartments. The user rotates the top handle clockwise to expose a new compartment, and pulls down a small lid at the base of the device to retrieve medication. A simple electronic timer records each time the lid is lowered to remove pills, creating a log of when the patient takes the medication. Further, healthcare workers who are assigned to ensure patients take their pills are given a USB-like modified audio plug and insert it into a port on top of the uBox when visiting a patient. The uBox records the time and date of this action, allowing for healthcare worker tracking as well.
More at the New Scientist...
National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance E-Team Grant Profile...
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Portable Sharps Container for Addicts
Back in August, we covered the Antivirus Syringe Disposal Kit developed by Danish designer Han Pham. Now Han has taken the product design to the streets, literally, with the "Urban Needle Box" aimed at helping IV drug users dispose of their needles in a responsible manner.
Han Pham...
(hat tip: Yanko)
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Cavity-Fighting Herbal Lollipop
Sure to be hailed a hero by children everywhere, UCLA professor Wenyuan Shi has developed a cavity fighting lollipop that he recommends eating twice daily. What's the secret formula? STAMPs: specifically targeted antimicrobial peptides.
Over the years, more than 5,000 Chinese herbs have been used to create and refine more than 100,000 formulas to fight various types of infections. After determining the top 400 most commonly prescribed and effective herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, Professor Shi used an anti-cavity biological assay developed at UCLA to test them for anti-microbial effectiveness against S. mutans.Finally, he determined that an extract of licorice root (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) is effective against tooth-decaying bacteria, providing the scientific basis for the ancient practice of chewing licorice root. "This was particularly charming because in both Chinese and in Western cultures, people have been chewing it maybe for the taste, but it also has a lot of good health reasons. It stimulates saliva flows, has anti-bacterial properties and keeps bacteria from adhering to your teeth", explained Professor Shi.
C3 Jian is currently working with a candy manufacturer on the healthy lollipop's production. It is recommended to eat one lollipop after breakfast and another one before going to bed at night for a period of ten days. Then, in order to maintain the treatment's effectiveness, one should eat a lollipop about 2-4 times a year. "The difficulty there is that the support staff keeps eating them!" said Professor Shi.
Dr. Maxwell Anderson, President of C3 Jian and a dentist himself, notes that the lollipop might also be affective against strep throat caused by streptococci, the same bacterial genus. In addition, the licorice root extract is effective against Heliobacter, a bacteria associated with stomach ulcers.
"We've turned an old fashioned candy into a high technology delivery device", concluded Anderson.
As a result of Shi's study, an herbal library, useful for researches studying other diseases, was established. He also gave samples of the licorice extract to UCLA teams studying the immune system, cancer, and aging.
New lollipop may be a candy-coated solution for cavities ...
Flashbacks: Fighting Cavities with STAMPs
(hat tip: The Future of Things)
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Friday, February 1, 2008
TruDefender FT for Chemical Identification
Ahura Scientific, maker of various material detection systems out of Wilmington, MA, just released its latest field detector for sampling and identifying ingredients of chemical spills. The new system, called TruDefender FT, is based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).
FTIR spectroscopy is a widely-accepted and highly-selective technique for chemical identification that is ideally-suited for many industries, including public safety applications like hazmat response. Building on its legacy in handheld Raman spectroscopy, Ahura Scientific recognized FTIR’s promise and developed an ultra-compact, easy-to-use FTIR system designed to the same exacting standards as the company’s award-winning FirstDefender®. The launch of the FTIR platform underscores the company’s ability to leverage different molecular spectroscopy methods to support an array of applications and markets.
Designed for use in the hotzone. The lightweight and fully decon-capable system can be taken directly to an unknown substance in the hotzone, eliminating significant response time. Fast, accurate analysis you can act on. TruDefender FT returns results in seconds, rather than the hour or more required to bring a sample from the hotzone and prepare it for analysis. An onboard hazard database provides full safety and treatment information, further speeding appropriate response. Precise results. Ahura Scientific’s custom software reduces the need for scientific field support by providing clear, definitive results that don’t require user interpretation or judgment. Automatic mixture analysis enhances substance identification capability and eliminates the need for subtraction of spectra. Easy to use. Intuitive menu-driven user interface enables even novice users to be proficient with minimal training. Easy maintenance. TruDefender FT is a self-contained unit which requires no scheduled maintenance or calibration, and uses no consumables. Flexible power source. TruDefender FT can be powered using the included rechargeable battery; wall plug; or commonly available SureFireTM disposable batteries.
Press release: Ahura Scientific Launches FTIR Platform with Introduction of TruDefender FT
Product page: TruDefender FT
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Neighborhood Pollen Watch
In Japan a company called Weathernews, Inc is installing hundreds of these stationary allergen detecting "bots" around Tokyo to gather cedar and cypress pollen level data for central analysis, and to provide locals with real time status of the air around them.
(hat tip: Gizmodo)
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Nanovector Trojan Horses (NTH): Drug That May Prevent Radiation Injury
The DoD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is commissioning a nine-month study by Rice University chemists and investigators at the Texas Medical Center to "determine whether a new drug based on carbon nanotubes can help prevent people from dying of acute radiation injury following radiation exposure."
The drug, based on carbon nanotubes and two common food preservatives, has already shown huge promise in reducing the effects of radiation exposure:
The new study was commissioned after preliminary tests found the drug was greater than 5,000 times more effective at reducing the effects of acute radiation injury than the most effective drugs currently available...NTH is made at Rice's Chemistry Department and Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory in the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. The drug is based on single-walled carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of pure carbon that are about as wide as a strand of DNA. To form NTH, Rice scientists coat nanotubes with two common food preservatives -- the antioxidant compounds butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) -- and derivatives of those compounds.
"The same properties that make BHA and BHT good food preservatives, namely their ability to scavenge free radicals, also make them good candidates for mitigating the biological affects that are induced through the initial ionizing radiation event," Tour said.
In preliminary tests at M.D. Anderson in July 2007, mice showed enhanced protection when exposed to lethal doses of ionizing radiation when they were given first-generation NTH drugs prior to exposure.
"Our preliminary results are remarkable, and that's why DARPA awarded us this grant with a very compressed timeline for delivery: nine months, which is almost unheard of for an academic study of this type," Tour said. "They are very interested in finding out whether this will work in a post-exposure delivery, and they don't want to waste any time."
Feds fund study of drug that may prevent radiation injury ...
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Friday, January 18, 2008
Aquaduct, The Three Wheeled Water Filter
Specialized, a maker of bicycles, and Google teamed up to host a contest, dubbed Innovate or Die, to motivate people to invent green concepts based on the bicycle that will be helpful to the environment. The winning entry will benefit human health and the environment. Here's a video showing off the Aquaduct from a team in Menlo Park, California, a bicycle designed to haul and filter drinking water.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Basic Tools for Public Health
In today's mobile world where infectious diseases can spread across borders fast, it is important that physicians report contagious diseases to state authorities, who in turn can analyze and detect if an outbreak has actually occurred, judging on data coming from a number of hospitals and clinics. Using basic email and PDA software, Temple University researchers have conducted a study in Philadelphia to attempt to increase reporting compliance, and the results look promising.
The study involved clinicians associated with all hospitals in Philadelphia County, Pa. The study comprised a 24-week baseline period (Jan. 18, 2004-July 3, 2004) and a 24-week intervention period (Jan. 16, 2005-July 2, 2005). Researchers selected five hospitals for the intervention group, while the control group consisted of the 23 other hospitals located within Philadelphia County.The intervention group received e-mails directing readers to a web site* that listed all reportable conditions with instructions on how to report to authorities. The site also allowed doctors to download a program onto their handheld devices that would make this information easily accessible and help facilitate reporting to the Department of Public Health.
During the intervention period, the e-mails were distributed three times, each reaching in excess of 16,500 individuals. There were a total of 886 visits to the web site, 207 downloads of a poster of reportable diseases, 130 downloads of the handheld device reporting program, and 122 downloads of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health case report form. From the baseline to the intervention period, there was a mean increase of 5.6 reports in the intervention group and a mean decrease of 3.0 reports in the control group.
"The difference between the two groups was significant and supported the protocol as a way to increase reporting among clinicians," Ward said. "Using the internet had not yet been studied. Past studies have examined costly, time-intensive and unsustainable methods to increase reporting such as newsletters and mailed reminders."
In contrast to other methods studied, Ward and his colleagues believe their method is affordable and sustainable, with a format that's easily understood by today's internet-savvy clinician. They estimate that only 26 hours of person-time and $350 were used in developing the internet page, handheld computer program and e-mail memorandums, not including the cost of establishing and maintaining the underlying hospital web site.
Press release: Simple online methods increase physician disease reporting
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Plague, Tularemia Tests Approved
The FDA has just given approval to new plague and tularemia detection kits from Idaho Technologies, Inc. The kits use PCR technology (polymerase chain reaction) to provide quick on-site results on the nature of a pathogen.
While naturally occurring cases of Yersinia pestis and Francisella tularensis are rare, both of these agents are classified as Category A Select Agents by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Category A agents are high-priority organisms that pose a risk to national security because they can be used as agents of bioterrorism. Clearance by the FDA allows both reagent kits to be used to help ensure that the country is better prepared to respond to a bioterrorism attack. The two pathogen detection kits join ITI's growing portfolio of kits used in conjunction with the company's detection instruments and extend the company's leadership position in the biothreat detection market. The detection kits are intended for use by trained clinical laboratory personnel who have received specific training on the use of the JBAIDS Plague and Tularemia Detection kits, for on-site analysis of dangerous biological pathogens.
Test kits and reagents page at Idaho Technologies, Inc.
Press release: Idaho Technology, Inc. Plague And Tularemia Detection Kits Receive FDA Clearance
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» HawkEye Inebriation Detection Tool for Police (January 10, 2008)
» iDead with iPod (January 10, 2008)
» Coming Soon: Kraft Programmable Food (January 7, 2008)
» One Vaccine To Rule Them All (January 7, 2008)
» Google Algorithm to Search Out Hospital Superbugs (January 7, 2008)
» Scientists Discover Fast-Acting Cyanide Antidote (December 27, 2007)<