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Fruit Smoothies Can
Damage Teeth
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While fruit smoothies can be a good way to get people to consume more fruit, the high concentration of sugar and acids means that they can do real damage to the teeth if sipped throughout the day.
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Dentists have warned the current popularity of fruit smoothies could lead to widespread tooth damage.
It was claimed last week that fruit drinks could be twice as healthy as first thought, BBC said.
But dentists warn that the beneficial effects of boosting consumption of fruit are likely to be far outweighed by damage the drinks cause to teeth.
They warn that the high levels of sugar in the drinks can promote decay without good dental hygiene.
Dr. Nigel Carter, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, said, “Fruit smoothies are becoming increasingly popular and the fruit content can make them seem like a good idea.
“However, they contain very high levels of sugar and acid and so can do a lot of damage to the teeth.“
Dr. Carter said research had linked poor dental hygiene and tooth decay to a range of serious health conditions, such as heart disease, respiratory disease, and diabetes.
However, a survey of 1,000 people conducted by the British Dental Health Foundation and the company Oral B found more than 30 percent of people think fruit smoothies are actually good for the teeth.
Dr. Carter said, “While fruit smoothies can be a good way to get people to consume more fruit, the high concentration of sugar and acids means that they can do real damage to the teeth if sipped throughout the day.
“Every time you sip on a fruit smoothie your teeth are placed under acid attack for up to an hour, so constantly sipping on these drinks can cause the protective enamel to erode, causing pain and sensitivity. It can also lead to decay.“
Dentists advise the best policy is to brush your teeth before drinking fruit juice, as this helps protect against the damaging effect of the acid contained in the juice.
Brushing immediately after drinking juice can cause damage as the tooth enamel can be weakened by the acid content.
The survey found that many people engage in very poor dental habits, with a significant number admitting to using every day items such as hammers, screwdrivers, scissors and lollipop sticks to pick food from between their teeth--risking cuts and infection.
More than a quarter (27 percent) of respondents said they had opened a bottle with their teeth.
More than one in ten (13 percent) of respondents admitted to flossing their teeth while driving.
Dr. Carter said, “People are putting themselves at risk with these shocking habits--yet around 85 percent of people are completely unaware of the link between the health of the mouth and the health of the body.“
“Gum health, in particular, is very important and has been linked to a range of conditions. However, people are risking their gum health by picking and flossing without paying the necessary care and attention.“
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Wallpaper Functions As Speakers
Microphones and speakers use piezoelectric materials that move in response to voltage, or create voltage from movement. But common piezoelectric materials are expensive, heavy and brittle.
Now materials scientist Michael Yu at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and colleagues say they have made a rubbery plastic-based material that could help place piezoelectric devices in previously impractical areas, NewScientist wrote.
The team’s invention is based on a polypropylene foam with piezoelectric properties that was discovered in 2004. The plastic is flexible and has entirely different mechanical properties to most other, often crystalline or ceramic, piezoelectric materials. By adding silicone rubber to that material, Yu and colleagues have made it possible to separately control the material’s piezoelectric mechanical properties.
Until now changing the flexibility, say, of a piezoelectric material would always impact its electrical properties. That made it near-impossible to design materials with certain combinations of physical and piezoelectric properties.
Combined with the ease with which polymers can be processed, the new material should open up novel applications: wallpaper that functions as speakers, lightweight devices to scavenge movement energy, and foldable speakers, are just some of their ideas.
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Iranians Produce New Anti-Drug Injection
Researchers at Tabriz University have succeeded in producing an injectable polymer for treating drug addiction by using smart polymer hydrogels.
“Design and synthesis of hydrogels and smart nanoparticles sensitive to temperature and PH based on co-polymers of N-isopropyl acrylamide for use in naltrexone injectable implant for treating drug addiction is the main target of this project,“ a professor of chemistry at Tabriz University, Ali Akbar Entezami said, Mehr News Agency reported.
He recalled that smart polymer hydrogels have various applications the most important of which is release of drugs.
The professor emphasized that naltrexone has a long duration in the human body and does not have the undesirable side-effects of similar drugs.
The research project took one year to be completed and cost more than five million rials.
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Preventing Alzheimer’s
A vaccine created by University of Rochester Medical Center scientists prevents the development of Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology in mice without causing inflammation or significant side-effects.
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Herbal Medicine Kills Cancer Cells
An herb used in traditional medicine by many Middle Eastern countries may help in the fight against pancreatic cancer, one of the most difficult cancers to treat.
Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer at Jefferson in Philadelphia have found that thymoquinone, an extract of nigella sativa seed oil, blocked pancreatic cancer cell growth and killed the cells by enhancing the process of programmed cell death, ScienceDaily reported.
While the studies are in the early stages, the findings suggest that thymoquinone could eventually have some use as a preventative strategy in patients who have gone through surgery and chemotherapy or in individuals who are at a high risk of developing cancer.
According to Hwyda Arafat, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, nigella sativa helps treat a broad array of diseases, including some immune and inflammatory disorders.
Facial Implants Unsafe
An injectable gel used to improve the appearance of lips, cheeks and other facial features may cause swelling, nodules and other problems, researchers in Spain said.
According to Reuters, the compound, called polyalkylimide, has been used primarily in Europe, said Dr. Jaume Alijotas-Reig, and colleagues at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Autonomous University in Barcelona, Spain.
Early reports on polyalkylimide injections indicated there were no significant signs of rejection of the material or adverse reaction to introduction of a foreign substance, the researchers said.
“However, more recent evidence refutes these statements, and so the complete safety of polyalkylimide implant gels can no longer be assured,“ they added in a small study.
Their findings were based on 25 patients, eight of whom had a previous implant of one kind or another.
The group developed a variety of problems including swelling, hardening and swollen or tender nodules near the injection site, as well as fever, arthritis and dry eyes or mouth a year or more after the treatment.
After nearly two years, 11 of the group appeared to be free of adverse effects but 10 still had recurrent problems, the study found.
Bird-Killing Foam Designed
Since 1999, there have been 26 avian influenza outbreaks in 25 countries, which resulted in the slaughter of more than 132 million birds.
With more outbreaks likely, killing such large numbers of poultry in a humane and efficient way that prevents any further spread of the disease is a significant problem, NewScientist said.
One common method is to flood the birds’ living areas with carbon dioxide. But although it is an avian anesthetic, CO2 also endangers humans. Now Eric Benson and colleagues at the University of Delaware in Newark have a potential answer.
They say that covering the birds with a blanket of CO2-infused foam should quickly and humanely kill the birds with a minimal amount of manpower. And since the CO2 is trapped within the foam, it should be relatively safe for humans.
What Creates Fjords?
Fjords form when ice sheets gouge out a valley below sea level--but what makes the ice bite so deep?
A variety of factors was thought to be behind the rapid and deep incisions made as ice sheets flow down from the mountains, Nature reported.
For example, if the sheet moves from a region where it is frozen to the bedrock to a region where the rock surface is slightly warmer, the ice might start to slide against the rock, eroding it more rapidly.
Mark Kessler of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues now reckon the process is simpler than that. The team built a computer model of a mountain range, with saddles representing valleys cut by rivers.
This showed the ice sheets that covered the mountain range moving towards the sea via the saddles with the steepest slope. Erosion by the ice made these valleys deeper and steeper, encouraging even more ice to flow along that route, causing further erosion. This well-known positive feedback mechanism was enough to explain how fjords get so deep, Kessler says.
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