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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 25, 2018 at 6:02am

Chemical additives in food for kids are highly harmful

The American Academy of Pediatrics is cautioning parents and pediatricians to avoid exposing children to eight chemicals found in food and in plastic packaging. The chemicals may be especially harmful to kids due to their small size, says the report published July 23 in Pediatrics. Pregnant women should also avoid the chemicals. And lower-income families who eat a lot of prepackaged foods could be at greater risk for exposure.

The chemicals include nitrates and nitrites, often added to processed meats as a preservative, as well as bisphenol A, or BPA, which is used to make durable plastics and has been linked to cancer, obesity and cardiovascular disease . Also listed are phthalates, which help make plastic flexible, and perfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFCs, which are resistant to stains, grease and water. These and other compounds have also been associated with endocrine disruption, obesity and insulin resistance, when cells don’t respond properly to insulin leading to an overproduction of the hormone .

Some of these chemicals may also have neurocognitive effects, such as increased hyperactivity in children, says study coauthor Sheela Sathyanarayana, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Scientists are unable to test the effects of these chemicals directly in humans, so evidence shows only that there is correlation, not causation, between exposure and disease.

To avoid these chemicals, the report suggests that parents buy fresh or frozen produce and skip processed meats packaged in plastic or food in metal cans, which can be lined with BPA. People should also avoid putting plastic containers in the dishwasher or microwave, the team says, where heat can draw chemicals out of plastic.

The researchers say that they hope the report prompts more strict regulation of these additives.

L. Trasande, R.M. Shaffer and S. Sathyanarayana. Food additives and child health. Pediatrics. Published online July 23, 2018. doi:10.1542/peds.2018-1408.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 16, 2018 at 5:39am

Bacteria survive in NASA's clean rooms by eating cleaning products
Even NASA clean rooms -- the squeaky-clean places where the agency assembles its spacecraft -- have their own microbiomes, a common community of super-hardy species that somehow withstand the rigorous disinfection procedures. The microbiomes in the clean rooms are dominated by Acinetobacter bacteria, which are typically found in soil and water. Scientists have isolated strains from the surface of the Mars Odyssey orbiter, from the floors on which the Mars Phoenix lander was assembled, from the exterior of the International Space Station and even from the station's drinking water. Now, a team of scientists led by Rakesh Mogul from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona has discovered one of Acinetobacter's survival tricks: these microbes can eat the very cleaning products that are meant to banish them. "You can clean the rooms out and sterilize them, but microbes are still there," says Mogul. "To be a bit Jurassic Park about it: life will find a way."

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 11, 2018 at 9:57am

Bacteriophage link to parkinson's disease identified ... 

In the first study of its kind, researchers from the New York-based Human Microbiology Institute have discovered the role certain bacteriophages may play in the onset of Parkinson's disease (PD). The research is presented at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, held from June 7th to June 11th in Atlanta, Georgia.

The researchers, led by George, Tetz, M.D., Ph.D., Human Microbiology Institute, showed that the abundance of lytic Lactococcus phages was higher in PD patients when compared to healthy individuals. This abundance led to a 10-fold reduction in neurotransmitter-producing Lactococcus, suggesting the possible role of phages in neurodegeneration. Comparative analysis of the bacterial component also revealed significant decreases in Streptococcus spp. and Lactobacillus spp. in PD.

Lactococcus are regulators of gut permeability and are enteric dopamine producers, which plays a primary role in PD. "The depletion of lactococcus due to high numbers of strictly lytic phages in PD patients might be associated with PD development and directly linked to dopamine decrease as well as the development of gastrointestinal symptoms of PD," said Dr. Tetz.

To explore bacterial and bacteriophage community compositions associated with PD, the researchers used shotgun metagenomics sequencing data of fecal microbiome from 32 patients with PD and 28 controls.

The results indicate that the decrease in Lactococci in the PD patients was due to the appearance of strictly lytic, virulent lactococcal phages belonging to the c2-like and 936 groups that are frequently isolated from dairy products. These results open a discussion on the role of environmental phages and phagobiota composition in health and disease.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2018 at 9:26am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 3, 2018 at 11:53am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 2, 2018 at 6:56am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 1, 2018 at 6:39am

Cars can turn coffins even if you park them in shade during high temperatures. 

Don’t count on a shady parking spot to save a child left in the back seat on a hot day.

A new analysis of temperatures inside parked cars reveals that a toddler in a sunbathed vehicle would reach lethal body temperatures faster than one left in the shade. But even in a shaded car, a child could die from overheating within a few hours, researchers report online May 23 in Temperature.

Researchers tracked temps inside three cars — a sedan, economy car and minivan — that were parked in the sun, and another three parked in the shade. Each car started at the outdoor air temperature or 29.4° Celsius, whichever was cooler. On days hotter than 38° C (about 100° Fahrenheit), it took an hour for the average ambient temperature inside the shaded vehicles to reach 38.3° C. For cars in the sun, the inside temperature hit a scorching 46.7° C in an hour, with surfaces such as steering wheels, dashboards and seat covers getting even hotter.

The researchers then simulated how the body temperature of a 2-year-old would increase under those conditions. On average, a toddler’s body would reach the potentially lethal temperature of 40° C (104° F) after about 1.4 hours in the sun and about 2.4 hours in the shade. It happened faster in some cars than others — a child left in a sunbaked sedan could die from overheating in just an hour. 

J.K. Vanos et al. Evaluating the impact of solar radiation on pediatric heat balance .... Temperature. Published online May 23, 2018. doi: 10.1080/23328940.2018.1468205.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 16, 2018 at 8:36am

Edible water walls - eco-friendly replacement for plastic water bottles.

These biodegradable water balls are composed of algae (sea weed) and are edible materials. The preparation of edible water balls is very easy, and can be prepared at home. The preparation involves mixing of sodium alginate and calcium lactate with drinking water. This forms a gelatinous membrane structure and retains the drinking water in the middle of a gelatinous structure. Sodium alginate (NaAlg) coagulates when exposed to calcium chloride (CaCl2) and forms calcium alginate (CaAlg2 ) and sodium chloride (NaCl), according to the following reaction Eq.(1). The prepared calcium alginate ball with water is considered as a refreshing edible water drink and does not require a separate vessel like a bottle or a cup to hold water.

Currently, the edible water container is not available commercially, although the developers are working to bring it to market. The prototypes have been tested in several markets and certain limitations are associated to reach the market. Majorly, thin membrane is not strong enough to withstand shipping and handling on a large scale. This product is named “Ooho” the edible bottle. Drinking water from inside a soft edible membrane made from natural seaweed extract is considered as a sustainable product in the long run.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 12, 2018 at 6:35am

Einstein proved wrong!

Physicists announced on Wednesday (9th May, 2018) the results of their unique global experiment that appear to contradict a key worldview embraced by Albert Einstein, a universe independent of human observations in which nothing can travel faster than light.

The experiment, relying on over 100,000 participants with smartphones and other Internet-linked devices, put to test and detected strong violations of Einstein's principle of "local realism," as expected from quantum physics, the laws that govern the subatomic realm.

In the test, scientists generated pairs of "entangled" atoms and photons that were sent to different locations where their properties were measured. The participants contributed to the process of how these particles were measured in 12 laboratories around the world.

If the results of the measurements on the particles agree, scientists say, the implications would be that the measurement of one particle instantly affects the other particle, irrespective of their distance, thus appearing to violate Einstein's speed-of-light barrier.

The other way to explain the results would be to assume that the properties of the particles did not exist at all until the scientists actually measured them - a bizarre idea that challenges common-sensical notions of reality.

Either way, the results contradict Einstein's worldview. The findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

In the new test, conducted for 12 hours on November 30, 2016, Morgan and his colleagues recruited over 100,000 participants who produced a large supply or random number sequences through a browser-based game called the "Big Bell Quest."

The players were challenged to create unpredictable strings of zeroes and ones that were supplied to the scientists conducting measurements in the 12 labs. The measurements' results "strongly disagree" with Einstein's worldview and once again corroborate violations of local realism.

Physicists from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US were part of the experimental consortium. Each of the 12 laboratories designed different experiments to test local realism in different ways.

In this experiment,  different people located at faraway places made random choices and fed them to a network connecting the experimental arrangements. "The choice of each human being ensures randomness, which was not possible earlier with instrumental detectors."

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 5, 2018 at 9:04am

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