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Iranian Invents Device for Heart Disorder
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Those patients who suffer from weakness of heart muscle or face problems in wake of a heart transplant can use the new device.
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Secretary of the 10th National Congress on Cardiovascular Update gave word of invention of a device to treat cardiovascular disorder by Iranian scientist.
According to a fax sent to Iran Daily, Mohammad Reza Mohammad-Hasani, who is a physician, added, “This unique device was invented by Mahmoud Mir-Hosseini, a distinguished heart surgeon and a top researcher, and patented in the US.“
Emphasizing that the device can create new hopes for people who suffer from heart ailments, he noted, “Those patients who suffer from weakness of heart muscle or face problems in wake of a heart transplant can use the device.“
The physician recalled that the main advantage of the device is that it does not have to do with the patient’s blood and its battery can be recharged from outside the body through radiofrequency waves.
“When the device reaches mass production, the cost of installing the device in human body will be equivalent to a heart surgery,“ he noted.
Mohammad-Hasani went on to underline that the device has so far been successfully tested on animals and testing it on humans requires more investments and complimentary research.
He expressed hope that in addition to official institutions, people interested in inventions of the sort will provide funds for related research.
The congress aims to present the latest cardiovascular technological advances. The event runs during June 11-14.
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Cane May Delay Osteoarthritis Progression
Using a cane may help reduce the risk of knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression, according to a study by researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The study included 16 men and 24 women, mean age 65, with knee OA, an incurable joint disease that’s the leading cause of disability in elderly people, HealthDay said.
All the participants walked in their bare feet and then in their own shoes. Then, 20 of the participants walked wearing their own shoes and using a cane in the hand opposite to the knee with OA.
During these tests, the participants walked over sensors that recorded ground impact. The researchers also gathered data on limb movement.
Overall, the peak knee adduction moment--an indication of weight placement while walking--was 7.4 percent higher when wearing shoes than when walking barefoot. Use of a cane resulted in a 10 percent average decrease in the knee adduction moment. Some of the participants had a more than 20 percent decrease when using a cane.
While the participants tended to walk more slowly while using the cane, they had greater stride length and improved pelvis control, which alleviates the damaging load on the knee with OA.
While canes are already widely recommended for patients with knee OA, this study confirms their therapeutic value, at least in the short-term, the researchers said.
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Antipsychotics Dangerous for Elderly
Elderly people with dementia who are given antipsychotics, even for a very short period of time, are more likely to end up in the hospital or even die, new research shows.
However, the problems underlying the need for such medications, behavioral problems such as aggression and agitation, are very real, and the alternatives to antipsychotics are limited, the researchers added, HealthDay wrote.
“A misreading of the findings would be we don’t need to do something for these nursing home residents,“ said study author Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, head of geriatric psychiatry for Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. Many experts feel behavioral interventions should be tried first and antipsychotics used as a last resort, “when the behavior or the psychiatric symptoms are really out of control and causing complete distress not only for the person suffering from Alzheimer’s, but for caregivers all around them,“ said Maria Carrillo, director of medical and scientific affairs at the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago.
“It’s important to work these things out with the physician and, of course, do follow-up very closely together, so you can make sure these antipsychotics are having the effect you want.“
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New Generation Explosives Coming
Scientists in Germany are reporting development of a new generation of explosives that is more powerful than TNT and other existing explosives, less apt to detonate accidentally, and produce fewer toxic byproducts.
Their study of these more environmentally friendly explosives is scheduled for the June 24 issue of ACS’ Chemistry of Materials, a bi-weekly journal, ScienceDaily said.
In the new study, Thomas M. Klapotke and Carles Miro Sabate point out that conventional explosives such as TNT, RDX and HMX, widely-used in military weapons, are rich in carbon and tend to produce toxic gases upon ignition. In addition to polluting the environment, these materials are also highly sensitive to physical shock, such as hard impacts and electric sparks, making their handling extremely dangerous. Greener, safer explosives are needed, the researchers say.
To meet this need, Klapotke and Sabate turned to a recently explored class of materials called tetrazoles, which derive most of their explosive energy from nitrogen instead of carbon. They identified two promising tetrazoles: HBT and G2ZT. The researchers developed tiny ’bombs’ out of these materials and detonated them in the laboratory. The materials showed less sensitivity to shock than conventional explosives.
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Leukemia Stem Cells
Stem cell researchers at UCLA have identified a type of leukemia stem cell and uncovered the molecular and genetic mechanisms that cause normal blood stem cells to become cancerous.
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Crash-Predicting Car Can Brace Itself for Impact
A car that protects those inside by strengthening its frame just before a side-on collision has been crash-tested by European engineers.
According to NewScientist, the system is the latest demonstration of car safety devices that take action before a crash, not just afterwards. Even established safety features like airbags and seatbelts could be much more effective if they took pre-emptive action just milliseconds before an impact.
The prediction systems that are needed to prepare for an impact are becoming possible due to improvements in sensors and computing, and side impacts may be where they offer the greatest benefit.
Evidence from both real and simulated crashes shows that drivers rarely manage to react to a typical 30 to 40 kilometers per hour side impact, and there is very little distance between passengers and the object that strikes the car.
The system recently crash-tested uses radar and cameras to anticipate an impact just a fraction of a second before it occurs. When activated, a metal bar slides into place to create a temporary brace that makes the car’s frame significantly stronger. The bar bridges a gap between the front door and another bar running across the car and anchored on the chassis.
“The energy of the impact is transferred to the ’unstruck’ side of the vehicle,“ says Joachim Tandler, an engineer at car maker Continental, which is leading EU-funded project APROSYS. “Normally that connection could not be complete,“ Tandler adds.
Gaze-Tracking Shop Windows Designed
Eye tracking software has become a mature technology that works effectively in many real situations. So the consumer electronics company Philips hopes to apply it to displays in shop windows.
According to NewScientist, the company’s idea is to track the gaze of window shoppers to determine which items in the window they are staring at, then to display enlarged pictures, a slide show or other information about those items on nearby computer screens.
Philips says that the system could also be used in museums and art galleries to provide visitors with extra information as they need it.
Scalable Wind Turbines Might Fit on Roofs
When you think of wind power, you probably picture gigantic wind turbines spinning gracefully in the middle of large open areas.
But an entrepreneur from Fullerton, California, has invented a new wind turbine design that is smaller, scalable, and could potentially fit on the roofs of homes like a long satellite antenna, Physorg reported.
Rather than a single giant rotor with 50-foot-long blades, Doug Selsam’s “Sky Serpent“ design uses several small rotors attached to a single shaft. By placing the rotors in precise positions and angles, each rotor can harvest its own wind, and avoid simply stealing the wake from the adjacent rotor. The entire turbine is hooked up to a single generator, which produces about the same amount of power as a turbine that uses 10 times as much blade material, Selsam says.
The shaft that holds the rotors can vary in length, and use any number and size of rotors, depending on its application. The rotors can even be mounted on poles that are light enough to be hand-held or attached to the roof of a house. Using ten 18-inch rotors, for example, one Sky Serpent model can generate between 100 and 400 watts, depending on wind speed.
Sterile Nano Cosmetics May Soon Be Reality
The pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry is hugely interested in ’nanoemulsions’--oil-in-water emulsions in which the particles of one liquid are just a few nanometres across.
The idea is that drugs or nutrients in nanoemulsion form should be much easier for the body to absorb. The conventional way to make a nanoemulsion is to grind a mixture to make particles successively smaller, NewScientist said.
Now Robert Nicolosi and a colleague from the University of Massachusetts, in Lowell, US, claim to have developed a better method.
Their idea is to pass the mixture of liquids through a kind of atomiser at a pressure of over 1700 atmospheres. This creates turbulence that rips large bubbles of liquid to into smaller, nano-sized bubbles.
Curiously, the resulting nanoemulsions also turn out to be sterile. Nicolosi thinks the turbulence rips apart any bacteria that might be present. This would be a boon to manufacturers because any product made from this kind of nanoemulsion should have a much longer shelf life than a non-sterile equivalent.
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