Dedicated to Smokers.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France.

The research team describes the study as the first to show that “cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke.” Still, the researchers caution that the public health implications are unclear and urge further research.
“We were quite surprised to identify such a wide variety of human bacterial pathogens in these products,” says lead researcher Amy R. Sapkota, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.
“The commercially-available cigarettes that we tested were chock full of bacteria, as we had hypothesized, but we didn’t think we’d find so many that are infectious in humans,” explains Sapkota, who holds a joint appointment with the University’s Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and the department of epidemiology and biostatistics.
“If these organisms can survive the smoking process — and we believe they can — then they could possibly go on to contribute to both infectious and chronic illnesses in both smokers and individuals who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke,” Sapkota adds. “So, it’s critical that we learn more about the bacterial content of cigarettes, which are used by more than a billion people worldwide.”
http://digg.com/d31Aa6o

Diabetes can affect the health of your eyes

An estimated 17.9 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes and another 57 million people are at risk of getting the disease. Diabetics also are at risk for diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of vision loss among adults in the United States. In fact, people with diabetes are 25 times more likely to lose their vision than those without the disease.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month and EyeCare America is asking diabetics to learn the ABCs of diabetes and eye health.

A: Alert your eye doctor if you have been diagnosed with diabetes.

B: Be sure to have your eyes examined regularly.

As your neighborhood optometrist I take great pride in making sure you have the best care and service. We have an array of frames ranging from Ray Bans, Armani,Oakley, and Versace. Please stop by and check out our selection.

Junk DNA Mechanism That Prevents Two Species From Reproducing Discovered

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091026220018.htm

ScienceDaily (2009-10-27) — Researchers have discovered a genetic mechanism in fruit flies that prevents two closely related species from reproducing, a finding that offers clues to how species evolve.

(Edit: Or how they stop evolving and thus create a new type of species altogether. Someone get me a copy of On The Origin of Species, please…) Have you ever seen a bully knock over some kids play blocks when you were young? Just when we believed that the bully had no equal, here comes someone bigger reminding them that they need to play fair with each other. Will this article ever make it to the mainstream. Sorry. Only those who evolved from the gooey mass (media) will come to this realization. Where’s my eraser?…

Keep in mind, folks, that there is purpose for everything. To believe that you were born to exist only reduces your talent by those who don’t want you to succeed. Do you allow that to be said of you or do you agree with that of others you feel are inferior to you? Are there ants in the colony that just stand around and do nothing? Do worms just live in the ground because they couldn’t grow wings? Show me something that has no purpose and I’ll show you an inability to look deeper into the mysteries of life.

Take a look at the potential advancement of the contact lens in Singapore. Only time can tell if this is ready for mainstream use.
SINGAPORE, Nov.3 (Xinhua) — Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) has created the “photochromic” contact lens that darkens under sunlight, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to local TV broadcaster Channel NewsAsia, the contact lens might look like any other ordinary lens but are able to change colour to protect eyes against harmful ultraviolet radiation and glare. The dyes within the nano structure of the lens are able to respond faster to light changes [READ FULL ARTICLE]

Una nueva retina artificial, consistente en un conjunto de electrodos implantados en la parte posterior del ojo, ha conseguido restaurar la visión de forma parcial en personas totalmente ciegas.

Un estudio realizó un seguimiento de al menos tres meses a quince pacientes ciegos a los que se realizó el implante. Diez de ellos terminaron por ser capaces de identificar la dirección de los objetos en movimiento.

La investigación fue presentada en Neuroscience 2009, la reunión anual de la Society of Neuroscience y el mayor escaparate mundial de novedades sobre ciencia cerebral, informa Science Daily.

Foto: retina

“Estos resultados dan una nueva esperanza a muchas personas con enfermedades retinarias degenerativas”, declaró Jessy Dorn, de Second Sight Medical Products, autor principal del estudio. Más de dos millones de estadounidenses sufren de enfermedades en los ojos como la retinosis pigmentaria y la degeneración macular asociada a la edad, lo que les lleva a perder lentamente su visión a medida que las células nerviosas que detectan la luz resultan destruidas, debido al paso de la edad o de la enfermedad. No existe cura conocida.

En este caso, los investigadores trabajaron sobre las células destruidas. Cada participante recibidó unas gafas con una pequeña cámara de vídeo, y un cinturón con un pequeño ordenador conectado. Este ordenador proceso las imágenes de la videocámara y transmitió los datos a los electrodos implantados en la retina. Cuando los usuarios “miraron” a un monitor con una barra blanca moviéndose a través de una pantalla negra, los electrodos que correspondían con el movimiento de la barra estimularon las células en el ojo, crenado puntos de luz en sus campos de visión,

“Encontramos que la mayoría de los participantes en estudio fueron capaces de determinar la dirección de la barra cuando usaban el sistema de prótesis”, declaró Dorn. “En otras palabras, el nuevo sistema dió a la mayoría de pacientes la capacidad de identificar la dirección del movimiento de un objeto, algo que no podrían hacer sin el mismo”, explicó. Un ensayo clínico internacional está probando el sistema protésico. Hasta ahora, 32 personas ciegas han recibido el implante.

Fuente: EuropaPress. Una prótesis de retina permite recuperar visión a ciegos totales

Albert Einstein

It’s been said, by Science Daily, that the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics has ‘helped to shape the foundations of today’s networked societies.’ The scientists involved used former Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein’s theory to develop their own.

Well that’s good! We all use social networking, right? Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, the majority of the population can be found on one of them. Even President Obama, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, used Facebook in his Presidency campaign!

The Physics Nobel Prize has been awarded, by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, to two scientific achievements. One half of the prize was awarded to Charles K. Kao of Standard Telecommunication Laboratories “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication”, and the other half going jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith of Bell Laboratories “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor”.

This is all ground-breaking stuff I’m sure you’ll agree, but what is it exactly? If we strip the stories and news coverage of all its scientific jargon, what’s left?

So the fibre-optic communication and the CCD sensor (Charge-Coupled Device) contribute to our everyday virtual lives as well as helping scientific exploration! Nifty! We can catch up with our friends using the same discovery that created ‘new tools’ for scientific expansion.

Now for a little bit of history. Charles K. Kao made a significant breakthrough in 1966 in the area of fibre optics. He calculated how we could transmit light over a distance of 100 kilometres using optical glass fibres, compared to just 20 meters of the earlier 1960’s.

Sound complicated? Well, it is, that’s why he won part of The Nobel Prize. But here’s why this discovery is important to us:

The fibre-optics aid global broadband i.e. the Internet! The light travels through thin threads of glass and can transport data like videos, music and pictures anywhere you tell it to go at the touch of a button and at incredible speed. Lots of Internet traffic is made up of digital pictures, which brings us to the second part of the Nobel Prize.

More history….

In 1969 Boyle and Smith came up with the idea of imaging technology that used a digital sensor, or a CCD. They used none other than Albert Einstein’s theory of ‘the photoelectric effect’ that he won the Nobel Prize for way back in 1921. This magical ‘effect’ simply transforms light into electrical signals that huddle together in big groups; we know this more commonly as pixels.

Loads of people take their camera with them on a night out and distribute the oh-so embarrassing pictures all over their favourite social networking site the next day…well, it’s thanks to Boyle and Smith! The CCD they invented is the digital camera’s viewing system. Science Daily said: “It revolutionized photography.” This is because you can now take photos electronically instead of having to buy films for your camera! The same goes for a camcorder. 

Taking photos electronically is much easier in terms of putting them online or even just getting them developed! You can just print them off or upload them onto your laptop or PC in your own home. Gone are the days of taking the camera film down to the shops to be developed and picking them up a few hours later only to discover your thumb had been covering most of the lens!

Did you know: ‘CCD technology is also used in many medical applications, e.g. imaging the inside of the human body, both for diagnostics and for microsurgery.’ (Science Daily)

Digital images have since become extremely important in almost all walks of life. For example, CCTV footage can now be enhanced and new, more powerful technology allows researchers to see ‘distant places in our universe as well as the depths of the oceans.’

The possibilities are mind-blowing! The fact that something so taken-for-granted in today’s society has had such a huge effect on the world is extraordinary.

(Don’t know why I didn’t post this a year ago, when I wrote it, but better late than never. Seems newly relevant in light of the launch of Futurity.org, which, you guessed it, is just more regurgitated press releases.)

Did you know that the most-visited source of science news on the internet, Science Daily, is basically 100% unedited press releases?

It’s a great business model: no reporting costs, but plenty of free traffic – just check out how often Science Daily “stories” make it to the front page of Digg.

Should we be surprised, then, that a recent survey by the Columbia Journalism Review has discovered an unfortunate trend — that more and more science “reporting” at mainstream outlets is in fact uncritical regurgitation of press releases?

“The trend is that more and more media use press releases not just as fodder but as the source of whole explanatory segments and quotes in their stories,” said Dennis Meredith, the former head of Duke University’s science press office. He, too, has seen a number of reporters lift quotes directly from press releases and plug them into stories without attribution, a practice he called “absolutely unethical.”

Unethical or no, this is simply market forces at work. Bad money drives out good, as they say, and as long as press releases are good enough for the public, their influence will only increase.

It’s a shame when you consider that headline-grabbing findings are often the most likely to turn out wrong.

An optometrist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests blinking frequently while sitting in front of your monitor to reduce the risk of dry eyes from prolonged computer use. See some of the suggested ways to avoid computer vision syndrome.

As a Doctor of Optometry, part of my commitment to my patients is ongoing professional education. As technology and the world around us changes, I have to keep up-to-date, because I have to provide the best care possible for your eyes. I am a member of the the American Optometric Association.

The Japanese white-eye is a cute little bird introduced to Hawaii in the late 1920s to control bug populations. There wasn’t much thought into introducing a new, unusual species to a new habitat and even since then there hasn’t really been a problem. However, researchers have recently noticed that the populations of white-eyes have increased over the years and that some native birds are declining. The researchers noticed that the native bird’s offspring were smaller and malnutrition where white-eyes were in greater numbers. The native birds also suffer from shorter beaks and cannot get food properly. The malnutritioned birds are more susceptible to other threats, such as parasites and disease.

It really seems that Hawaii’s birds cannot catch a break. Not only do they have decreasing habitat, a multitude of other invasive species, and parasites – they have a fellow bird that’s slowly killing them off. I really wish something could be done about such things, but its easier said than done.

Pictured: Japanese white-eye, the offender

Click here for the full article from Science Daily.

‘Till next time – enjoy!

Ah the olive and its derivatives.  Most notably olive oil.  In this case a compound found in extra-virgin olive oil that may help us understand better ways to treat Alzheimer’s disease (AD).  AD continues to be a scourge of current American public health and any breakthroughs that will lessen its effects, indeed reverse them, would be most welcome.  As research continues, this study would seem to continue to lend emphasis to the so called “Mediterranean diet” as a means to general good health.  As no current cure or definitive prevention for AD exists, adding EVOO to your diet on a regular basis certainly could not hurt.  Pass the olive oil please . . . ben kazie md

Oleocanthal, a naturally-occurring compound found in extra-virgin olive oil, alters the structure of neurotoxic proteins believed to contribute to the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease. This structural change impedes the proteins’ ability to damage brain nerve cells.

Known as ADDLs, these highly toxic proteins bind within the neural synapses of the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and are believed to directly disrupt nerve cell function, eventually leading to memory loss, cell death, and global disruption of brain function. Synapses are specialized junctions that allow one nerve cell to send information another.

“If antibody treatment of Alzheimer’s is enhanced by oleocanthal, the collective anti-toxic and immunological effects of this compound may lead to a successful treatment for an incurable disease. Only clinical trials will tell for sure.”

In earlier work researchers used the sensory properties of extra virgin olive oil to identify oleocanthal based on a similar oral irritation quality to ibuprofen. Oleocanthal and ibuprofen also have similar anti-inflammatory properties, and ibuprofen – like extra virgin olive oils presumably rich in oleocanthal – is associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s when used regularly.

Natural Compound In Extra-virgin Olive Oil — Oleocanthal — May Help Prevent, Treat Alzheimer’s – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929133123.htm

Alzheimer’s-associated Aβ oligomers show altered structure, immunoreactivity and synaptotoxicity with low doses of oleocanthal – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXH-4WV15KG-1&_user=10&_coverDate=10%2F15%2F2009&_rdoc=11&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%237159%232009%23997599997%231515110%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=7159&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=26&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a8bcc880d7918530400600554de2c770

www.condron.us

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If there are the resources to do studies that determine that binge drinking is a problem at colleges, there certainly must be the resources to create preventive measures.

We need to be creating tomorrow’s leaders – not tomorrow’s alcoholics.

Narconon drug and alcohol treatment 877-413-3073

“Frequent binge drinking has increased over the last decade at colleges with the biggest drinking problems, demonstrating the lack of progress these schools have made in addressing underage and excessive alcohol use, Science Daily reported Sept. 11.

Researchers focused on 18 colleges identified in 1993 as having especially bad problems with student drinking. A 2005 followup found that frequent binge drinking at the schools rose from 28 percent of students in 1993 to 32 percent in 2005. Overall binge-drinking rates declined over the decade, but only slightly — from 58 percent to 56 percent.

In both 1993 and 2005, the overwhelming majority of students said they drank alcohol, and rates of consumption, drunk driving, unprotected sex after drinking, and alcohol-related injuries barely budged over the study period.

The findings appear in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.”

http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2008/uk-study-shows-addiction.html

Fellow men, it’s official: women are definitely the smartest. Yes, we’re better at driving. Yes, we do know how to read a map. No, we don’t cry three times a week. But research has shown that when we meet pretty women, we’re lost. Psychologists at Radboud University have proven that men preform less well in standard memory tests after they have chatted with a woman they want to impress. And what happens to the intelligence of a woman when she has spoken to a man she finds attractive? Nothing, actually. A British psychologist reflected on these results by saying that men are programmed be “reproductively focused”, whereas women think of more than passing on their genes, writes the Telegraph.

But not all is lost. Science Daily writes that a neuroscientist in Switzerland believes that within ten years it will be ‘technically and biologically’ possible to replicate the human brain. Maybe we will also be able to fix this reproductivity obsession by then?

Here’s a press release on Science Daily with the whimsical headline “Neurons found to be similar to US Electoral College.”  The key paragraph, both in summarizing the research and in explaining the analogy, is this:

In this model, each dendritic branch of a neuron receives and integrates thousands of electrical inputs, deciding on just one signal to send to the axon. The axon then receives signals from all the dendrites, much like electoral votes coming in from state elections, and a final decision is made. The result could be an output in the form of an impulse, or action potential, or no action at all.

In consequence,

Output from each branch, rather than each synapse, is sent to the axon. This design of the neuron implies that local integration is very important to the cell. After information is integrated locally within a branch, there is a global integration within the axon.

Of course the comparison with the Electoral College is far-fetched, but it might be fruitful nonetheless.  After all, defenders of federalist political structures like that laid out in the US Constitution like to argue that they respect and defend the integrity of small-scale communities that might lose their character under a centralized system.  The integrity of those communities is supposed to allow for face-to-face human interaction, as opposed to the depersonalization of mass society.  So every time we find a process elsewhere in nature where a larger structure depends on local integration, federalists have another analogy from which to argue.

Hospitals are generally thought of as a place where you to go to feel better. And yes, they usually do succeed in that regard, despite stealing your paycheck and the rights to your first-born child in the process. But what you probably didn’t know, is that hospitals create a large amount of business for themselves; and that’s not a good thing.

Close to 2 million people acquire infections from hospitals each year and more than 250 related deaths occur each day in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is why professors at the University of Florida have developed a new technology to monitor health-care workers’ hand hygiene by detecting sanitizer or soap fumes given off their hands.

The trademarked system, called HyGreen, logs, down to the second, the frequency of hand cleaning and contact with patients in a database that clinical supervisors can review immediately.

Is this big brother? “No,” says Richard J. Meiker, M.D., Ph.D., and UF College of Medicine anesthesiology professor who helped develop the technology. “This is just another tool.”

“A hospital worker never wants to be responsible for someone getting sick or dying from an infection acquired in the hospital.”

Read more from Science Daily.

An apple a day...

In line with behavioral theory, a researcher from Harvard University found that when individuals are given rewards for group cooperation, they respond more effectively than when they are punished for ineffective behaviors.  This study has many implications for any time that groups of humans interact for a common goal.  One of the implications I thought of was for America’s current insurance model.  Doctors get paid when people are sick.  What would happen if physicians were paid on the basis of their client’s wellness?  Although many Americans seem to have a laissez faire approach to wellness and that would certainly provide an extenuating circumstance for doctors paid under my purposed model, I think that the systemic change brought about by rewarding wellness instead of sickness would make the change worthwhile.  Preventative care would be at the forefront of our health model.  In addition to promising care in the case of emergency situations, hospitals would guarantee a yearly medical exam and biannual teeth cleanings.  How would our healthcare system change if we rewarded healthy behaviors as opposed to heaping additional punishment on unhealthy ones?

Harvard University (2009, September 4). Carrots Are Better Than Sticks For Building Human Cooperation, Study Finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/09/090903163550.htm

Yet another major article extolling the virtues of the Mediterranean Diet – in the Science Daily 1/23/09:

A research group from Spain has studied the dietary patterns associated with a high intake of fruits and vegetables in Mediterranean populations. They have analysed the associations between fruit and vegetable intake and weight gain over a 10-year period in an adult Mediterranean population.
Despite the alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity, epidemiologic studies that prospectively examine the fruit and vegetable consumption and other lifestyle factors in relation to weight gain (WG) are still insufficient. For that reason, a research group composed by J Vioque, T Weinbrenner, A Castelló, L Asensio and M Garcia de la Hera, of the Department of Public Health, Science History and Gynaecology of the “Miguel Hernández” University Elche-Alicante, Spain, explored the associations between fruit and vegetable intake and weight gain (WG) over a 10-year period in an adult Mediterranean population.

Read the full article here.

SCIENCE DAILY: A combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy given before prostate removal is safe and may have the potential to reduce cancer recurrence and improve patient survival. READ MORE>

SCIENCE DAILY: The size and shape of the blood vessels visible within a prostate cancer tumour may be a useful clue to how the cancer will behave and how it needs to be treated. READ MORE>

A diagnosis of prostate cancer raises the question for patients and their physicians as to how the tumour will behave.

Will it grow quickly and aggressively and require continuous treatment, or slowly, allowing therapy and its risks to be safely delayed?

The answer may lie in the size and shape of the blood vessels that are visible within the cancer.

Interesting article from Science Daily about ocular oncologists adopting a drug originally intended to treat colon cancer as a treatment for cancers in the eye:

Saving Eyes article from Science Daily