The Spectrum of Color Response: Take Your Medicine - The color of your pills matters. So does the color of your editing pen, of your hockey jersey, of your clothes… New research finds that when generic pills don’t share the colors given them by their original makers, patients stop renewing their prescriptions at a higher rate than if they just kept taking the old-style, brand-name medicine. Given that generics are cheaper than OEM pharmaceuticals, and that presumably the patients has gotten in the habit of both taking their medicine and renewing their prescriptions, the change in color (and shape, to a much lesser extent) seems a bit counterintuitive. Green can spark creativity. Color is a less-than-subtle indicator in human interaction and for life in general—think honey bees and coral snakes signaling their cantankerousness. In the pill study, reported in Archives of Internal Medicine, for example, the patients were drawn from more than 60,000 people taking an epilepsy medication.
Le mirage du gaz de schiste - 3 questions à Thomas Porcher Le livre "Le mirage du gaz de schiste" publié aux éditions Max Milo sort aujourd'hui. Ce livre nous propose une étude inédite sur les conséquences qu'aurait l'ouverture législative aux gaz de schiste aux gaz de schiste en France. Nous avons posé 3 questions à son auteur, Thomas Porcher, docteur en économie et professeur en marché des matières premières à l'ESG-MS et chargé de cours en économie internationale à l'université Paris Descartes. Vous sortez aujourd'hui un livre intitulé "Le mirage du gaz de schiste", quel est l'objectif de ce livre?Depuis que la France a refusé l’exploitation du gaz de schiste, les lobbies pro gaz de schiste ont orienté le débat sur les gains économiques qu’engendrerait l’exploitation. Hormis les dommages sur l'environnement et la santé, pourquoi l'exploitation du gaz de schiste n'est pas non plus économiquement viable? Prenons l’exemple de l’emploi qui est un argument fort en période de crise économique.
Melanoma crushed by the body’s defence A new method for treating melanoma is showing great promise in a Danish hospital. By treating patients with their own T-cells, researchers can kick-start the patients’ immune system and make it destroy the cancer cells. (Photo: Colourbox) Melanoma is a type of skin cancer and is the leading cause of death from skin disease. So far, the disease has been regarded almost as a death sentence when it has started to spread to other parts of the body. However, a new hospital study using a treatment form known as cell-based immunotherapy may offer hope for melanoma patients. By treating patients with their own T-cells, the defence forces of our immune system, researchers can kick-start the immune system and make it destroy the cancer cells. The new method could potentially offer hope and be an effective treatment against several forms of cancer. “Most types of cancer contain T-cells, so in principle, T-cell therapy could potentially become a form of treatment for many types of cancer.” Melanoma
Shell Nigeria oil spill '60 times bigger than it claimed' | Environment Several years on ... fishing boats lie abandoned in oil-polluted water near Bodo, Nigeria. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty A Shell oil spill on the Niger delta was at least 60 times greater than the company reported at the time, according to unpublished documents obtained by Amnesty International. According to Shell, the 2008 spill from a faulty weld on a pipeline resulted in 1,640 barrels of oil being spilt into the creeks near the town of Bodo in Ogoniland. But a previously unpublished assessment, carried out by independent US oil spill consultancy firm Accufacts, suggests that a total of between 103,000 barrels and 311,000 barrels of oil flooded into the Bodo creeks over the period of the leak. "The difference is staggering: even using the lower end of the Accufacts estimate, the volume of oil spilt at Bodo was more than 60 times the volume Shell has repeatedly claimed leaked," said Audrey Gaughran, director of global issues at Amnesty International.
Researchers restore hearing in mammals by regenerating auditory hair cells There is new hope for those of us who have overindulged in loud bands and dread the prospect of old age spent with an ear trumpet clamped to the sides of our heads. Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School have been able to stimulate resident auditory hair cells to become new ones, resulting in partial hearing recovery in mice whose hearing has been damaged by noise trauma. Auditory hair cells are located in the cochlea of the inner ear and are responsible for translating auditory stimuli into electrical signals that are passed to the brain via the auditory nerve. In mammals, (unlike birds and fish), once these cells are damaged, whether by excessive noise exposure, aging, infections, toxins, or certain antibiotics and cancer drugs, they do not regenerate naturally. This causes what is known as sensorineural hearing loss, the most common form of hearing loss.
MIT developing self-healing materials that act like blood clots Blood clots are one way in which the body heals itself after injuries on even the tiniest level. The process is fast, reliable and goes on every minute of the day without our being aware of it. Now, a team led by MIT assistant professor of materials science and engineering Alfredo Alexander-Katz is studying blood clots as a new model for producing self-healing materials. Blood clotting seems simple. Clotting or coagulation uses a squad of molecules present in the tissues and bloodstream. What they discovered was the opposite of what one would expect. The process that the team studied involves platelets and a biopolymer molecule called Willebrand factor (vWF). When coiled up the vWF just rolls by, but when stretched, the exposed sticky surfaces start to catch hold of the platelets and entangle them. The upshot of all this is a new model for a self-repairing material. These properties make clots very interesting to engineers. In the video below, Alexander-Katz describes the process.
Synthetic supermolecule to fight cancer, arthritis and herpes A dendrimer is an artificially created molecule, which has a structure resembling a tree with a crown and roots. Dendrimers have a wide variety of possible uses and are currently being used in shampoos, cosmetic products, printer ink and flat-screen technology. (Illustration: Department of Chemistry, Copenhagen University) Although you may never have heard of dendrimers, you’re likely to have come across these little molecules in one way or another. They can be found in some types of shampoo, cosmetics, dental fillings, printer cartridges and many other materials that we’re in contact with every day. And it appears that we can expect to encounter even more of these dendrimers. “What’s really clever about detrimers is that we can design the molecules almost entirely as we wish. Christensen has co-authored a new book about the special dendrimer molecules, which has just been published by Cambridge University Press. A miniature tree So what kind of molecule is a dendrimer?
Crush syndrome Typically affected areas of the body include lower extremities (74%), upper extremities (10%), and trunk (9%). They typically are caused by building collapse from explosives, or earthquake and other natural disasters, or construction accidents. They also can be caused by cave-ins. Victims of crushing damage present some of the greatest challenges in field medicine, and may be among the few situations where a physician is needed in the field. Pathophysiology[edit] The syndrome was discovered by British physician Eric Bywaters[dead link] in patients during the 1941 London Blitz.[2][3] It is a reperfusion injury that appears after the release of the crushing pressure. The specific action on the kidneys is not understood completely, but may be due partly to nephrotoxic metabolites of myoglobin. Seigo Minami, a Japanese physician, first reported the crush syndrome in 1923.[4][5][6] He studied the pathology of three soldiers who died in World War I from insufficiency of the kidney.
The Pope’s scientists study miracles The miracle commission uses the latest scientific methods when it investigates whether a potential miracle can be explained rationally or scientifically. The Catholic Church can only establish a mysterious healing as a sign from God if the healing cannot possibly be explained scientifically. (Photo: Colourbox) Since the 16th century, the Pope’s cardinals have been using a so-called miracle commission. This is a special task force consisting of medical scientists who investigate whether alleged saints can really cause miracles. ”There has been talk of the Vatican having a kind of ’CIA’, which investigates alleged miracles. ”The miracle commission canonises saints in the Catholic Church. Can science spot a miracle? To determine whether it’s really a miracle, the commission collects evidence and examines the healed person. ”The miracle commission consists of doctors who use the latest equipment to find an explanation to why a person has been healed,” he says. External specialists called in
Sonic "invisible scalpel" could be used for non-invasive surgery A confetti-sized artificial kidney stone, with a sub-150-micrometer hole bored into it using the focused sound beam First of all, how can non-invasive surgery even be possible? After all, even in the case of minimally-invasive laparoscopic surgery, small incisions are still made in the skin. Nonetheless, that’s just what scientists from the University of Michigan are proposing. Focused sound waves are already used in the field of medicine, for doing things such as non-invasively shattering kidney stones and prostate tumors. By contrast, the U Michigan sound beam can be focused down to a point measuring just 75 by 400 micrometers. To create the beam, the researchers used an optoacoustic lens, that converts pulsed laser light into high-amplitude sound waves. Those waves have a frequency 10,000 times higher than that which humans are able to hear. A paper on the research was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. Source: University of Michigan About the Author