It seems as if college degrees are not that important to be an inventor rather a cause and motivation is more imperative to conquer the impossible. John Kanzius, a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy, proved the above mentioned point when he developed his own treatment, involving radio waves and nano particles.
It is not natural for a dolphin to survive without a tail. But, the year-old dolphin ‘Winter’ at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida has proved as an exception even after losing one of the very significant part of her anatomy.
Caught in a crab trap along Florida’s east coast, the rope wrapped around her tail to cut off the blood supply, which eventually fell off bit by bit over the weeks!
Prosthetic specialist Kevin Carrol invented a ‘latex tail’ for the tailless dolphin, surviving the loss of her powerful tail flukes. Amazingly, recreating nature’s this powerful swimming mechanism, it turned out to be a lot tougher than what he himself expected!
The new, one of the most powerful swimming tail made for Winter is called MacGyvering - rightly named after the TV hero Angus MacGyver, whose main asset is his practical application of scientific knowledge and inventive use of common items.
Mike Walsh, Winter’s lead veterinarian and a program manager at the University of Florida’s aquatic animal health program said,
We put together a team who doesn’t know what ‘no’ means. As long as you’re willing to try, you can make a big difference.
Not just that! Carroll also developed a ‘gel sleeve’ to stick the new prosthetic to the 18-month-old Winter’s tail, that did not irritate her sensitive skin. It is with the help of suction - similarly as a rubber surgical glove grips a human hand - the sleeve is made to stick to Winter’s tail.
Now, winter like any of her companion, can flaunt the new amputation moving like an alligator’s undulating swimming style and a shark’s side-to-side tail swipes.
Though many of us believe the whole process of hypnosis as myth and have kicked up controversy for decades, with many researchers thinking that there is really no such thing — the medical fraternity are taking hypnosis seriously!
That hypnosis has not just a therapeutic, but also medical anesthesia effects, has been revealed recently. Not just that! It can also cut the cost of administering anesthesia during the operation, as claimed by the new study.
As reported by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, hypnosis prior to even a major surgery - like breast cancer surgery - can not only reduce anesthesia-amount, but also the level of pain, nausea and fatigue as reported afterwards!
And hence, with this as the fact, hypnosis eventually can help reduce both time and cost of a surgical procedure. In the study, patients who were hypnotized before surgery required fewer anesthesias, compared to those who undergo normal surgical procedure.
Interestingly, after surgery, the hypnotized patients are found to report not just less pain, nausea, fatigue and discomfort, but also common emotional upsets.
Describing the history of hypnosis in medicine and explaining the evidence for why hypnosis could reduce pain, David Spiegel, M.D., of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif. said,
It has taken us a century and a half to rediscover the fact that the mind has something to do with pain and can be a powerful tool in controlling it ... It is now abundantly clear that we can retrain the brain to reduce pain: ‘float rather than fight.
It seems, in years to come, hypnosis will be an integral part in surgery procedures rebuffing all the age-old myths and controversies - importantly lowering medical expenditures of both the patients and the institutes.
Most of us are aware of lenses that of the cameras and our eyes, but how many of you have even heard of a lens made from your teeth or even egg shells?! Perhaps none, as such innovative thoughts can only be expected from impertinent and crazy scientists.
Scientists have found that ‘opaque materials’ - like human teeth, eggshells, or even daisy petals and white paints — can sharply focus light! Not seem to be satisfied with this discovery, they are planning to thus, turn such opaque materials into lenses, interestingly in an inexpensive way.
Thanks to the researchers at the Twente University in the Netherlands.
To come up with this finding, researchers used a daisy petal, a piece of eggshell 0.4-millimeter-thick, a layer of paint and interestingly, a 1.5-millimeter-thick human tooth.
Optimistic with the finding, they hope that all such opaque materials can match the resolution of even most perfect microscope.
So, manufacturers and consumers gear up to grab those new ‘cheap lenses’ once they are in the market - though an obvious threat to the present optical microscope lens-makers.
While creating something in the laboratory is generally expected to be mimicry, recreation of something natural immediately draws the attention of the concerned fields of application.
At times, you need to control some of your much desired activities; you otherwise would have not given a second thought for! But, how do you control it? Habit? ‘Self-control’ is not built just out of habit - but is physiologically regulated! Yes, it’s all in your brain.
It has been found that the area of the brain, which is predominantly responsible for self-control functions, is separated completely from the area linked with ‘taking action.’
Spotting of this new functioning area of the brain eventually reveals a very important brain’s aspect of controlling of behavior - i.e. the capability to control doing something even after developing the intention to do it.
The study eventually widens the horizon of understanding the ‘neural basis for decision making’ i.e. ‘free will.’ Thus, it may help explain some individuals’ being impulsive while others are distinctly found to be reluctant to act.
Martha Farah, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania said,
It is very important to identify the circuits that enable ‘free won’t’ because of the many psychiatric disorders for which self-control problems figure prominently-from attention deficit disorder to substance dependence and various personality disorders.
Can the inhibitory process operate in the brief time period from the time of conscious intention to the point of no return for motor output? To find this, scientists plan studies, which will be conducted using methods with a better time resolution like EEG.
Image: Max Planck Instiute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
The brains’ axons do jobs more than just transmitting information or electrical impulses from one brain cell to the other - it also turns the signals up or down with the right stimulation! — Does it seem to be defying what we have read in our test books?
Yes, it really does! Researchers have found this new function of axons - the hairlike nerve-cell extensions - for the first time. The new finding rightly brings hopes for patients with ‘psychiatric disorders’ like depression and schizophrenia.
The newfound function of the axons can eventually help scientists come up with new treatments for such diseases, in which different parts of the brain do not seem to communicate correctly with each other.
Raju Metherate, author of the study, associate professor of neurobiology and behavior, and director of the Center for Hearing Research at UC Irvine said,
Until now, scientists have thought that in the brain’s cortex — where most cognitive processes occur — information was only processed in the cell body. The result of our study suggests that we must consider the axons as sites of information processing - and of potential problems when things go wrong.
Though for decades the axons are thought to be like a radio-wire that conveys signals, the new finding reveals that stimulating the axon can eventually and amazingly alter the signal! - It is like turning the radio’s volume knob.
Next time you visit your physician’s clinic for diagnosis of a casual or recreational activity to serious neurological disorders - like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease - don’t be surprised if he places some small sensors on your body or cloth.
It may be the newly designed state-of-the-art wireless biosensors, a welcome radical diagnostic technique that can eventually change a variety of circumstances.
Thanks to Vijay Varadan, a distinguished professor of electrical engineering in the College of Engineering, for researching into the possible applications of biosensors continuously for last two years - leading to these new ‘diagnostic biosensors’.
So, with these new sensors, diagnostic testing will no longer be a laboratory thing, but will move out to get directly in touch with patients.
Placed in the shirt, the biosensors can measure the skin conditions and on the body, different physiological body signs — like temperature and respiration rate.
So, diagnosis of a disease or activity is no more the laboratory-thing.
In a report last month, doctors made an alarming prediction for more than 43 million Americans - they will be developing age-related eye diseases by 2020!
This disturbing statistics is prompting scientists to come up with remedies to the approaching health crisis in the United States. In a bid to find a solution, they have designed new devices that may not only stop but also reverse damages, the age-related macular degeneration may cause.
These new miniature telescope-like devices are implanted in the damaged eyes of patients, which may halt and even reverse the loss of vision! To meet the prevailing crisis, the Food and Drug Administration gives nod to the ophthalmologists for implanting the new miniature telescope-like devices in damaged eyes of patients.
The lead author Kathryn Colby, an ophthalmologist and director of the Joint Clinical Research Center at the Massachusetts
Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston rightly said, This is a good device and it offers hope for people with no other options.
Since, until this new discovery there were no known treatment for correcting macular degeneration, doctors only could reduce eye disease-risk - either by using laser treatment or eyewear with special magnifying capabilities. They also used to keep it in check with nutritional supplements, which include antioxidants and zinc.
It seems the new devices have come with the only real solution to the predicted grim future.
A team of Japanese researchers have reported success cloning world’s first fourth generation pig at Tokyo Meiji University.
The findings will solve the complexities involved in successive generation cloning. Scientists believed that genetic material in the nucleus of the donor cell degraded with each successive generation. Now, scientists have assured that this success in cloning will help in other cloning and medical researches.
Until now, cloning rate has been low and less efficient.
Cloning pig has become a scientific goal because pig organs hold the promise of possibly alleviating the shortage of human organs available for transplantation. Pig may not be genetically similar to humans, but functions of the organs are very similar.
However, the issue of using pig organs in humans is controversial, as some scientists had reported some viruses unique to pig that could infect human cell.
Akira Onishi, a geneticist with the government-affiliated Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Research Council said that the results might prove important to breeders of other large animals, such as racehorses or bulls, looking for ways to keep a prized animal in the gene pool.
With this successful cloning, researchers hope to clone large mammals for multiple generations without any loss of genetic material.
Image Credit: Crystalinks
Via: Yahoo!
