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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 8:42am

Drones Are Being Sent Straight Into Volcanoes, For Life-Saving Science

With an estimated 300 active volcanoes on Earth, the challenge is how to monitor them all to send out early warnings before they erupt. Measuring volcanic gas emissions is also no easy task.

Now researchers have designed specially-adapted drones to help gather data from an active volcano in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Scientists have a few ways of forecasting when a volcano is going to blow. They can monitor earthquake activity in the area to detect tremors which almost always precede eruptions, and look out for bulging in the volcano's sloping walls as magma builds up underneath.

When clear skies allow, satellites can also rapidly detect and measure volcanic emissions of gases such as sulphur dioxide (SO2). Changes to these gas emissions can signal more activity in the volcano below.

Although volcanoes emit just a fraction of the carbon emissions humans do, researchers still want to be able to estimate what carbon dioxide (CO2) they do emit, to factor this into the carbon budget we have left to limit the effects of climate change.

Travelling to PNG, the international team set about testing two types of long-range drones equipped with gas sensors, cameras, and other devices during two field campaigns.

novel approach - that is, long-range and high-altitude [drone] operations enabling in situ measurements - is presently the only feasible means by which we can characterise gas chemistry at steep, hazardous, and highly active volcanoes like Manam," the research team concluded in their paper.

Future research will take more diligent work from scientists and flying time from drones, since the measurements from this study spanned just 10 days.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabb9103

https://www.sciencealert.com/drones-sent-into-degassing-volcanoes-f...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 8:08am

Antibiotic study wins research paper of the year

 The paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2019 and led by Cardiff University, in collaboration with Kings and the University of Oxford, has been awarded the prestigious honour from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP). The paper found a finger-prick blood test could help prevent unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The finger prick test measures the amount of C-reactive protein (CRP). This is a marker of inflammation that rises rapidly in the blood in response to serious infections. People who have a low CRP level can receive little benefit from antibiotic treatment. Testing the blood levels can safely reduce the use of antibiotics. 

https://researchnews.cc/news/3362/Antibiotic-study-wins-research-pa...

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Solving the Mysteries of Ancient Plagues DNA from bacteria and viruses, recovered from human remains, shows how pathogens helped to topple empires and change civilizations -- How Some Vaccines Protect Against More than Their Targets As researchers test existing vaccines for nonspecific protection against COVID-19, immunologists are working to understand how some inoculations protect against pathogens they weren’t designed to fend off.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 8:03am

Stentrode™: Translating thought into action

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 7:55am

Novel biomarker and modelling could help better identify lethal arrhythmias
Researchers at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at Kings College London, in collaboration with colleagues at the Royal Brompton & Hartfield NHS Foundation Trust, have identified a novel imaging-biomarker that can be used to help differentiate risk levels of lethal arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat) in patients with problematic left ventricles. For the first time, they have used detailed computational modelling to also understand why this biomarker is important, in the hopes it will help clinical translation and personalise medicine. Published in JACC: Electro Electrophysiology, the researchers also showed that patient-specific computational simulations alone could be used as a predictive tool to identify individual risk of arrhythmias.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/novel-biomarker-and-modelling-could-help...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3361/Novel-biomarker-and-modelling-cou...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 7:49am

Small brain device proves big game changer for severely paralysed patients

A tiny device the size of a small paperclip has been shown to help patients with upper limb paralysis to text, email and even shop online in the first human trial. The device, Stentrode, has been implanted successfully in two patients, who both suffer from severe paralysis due to motor neuron disease (MND) also known amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and neither had complete ability to move their upper limbs. Published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, the results found the Stentrode was able to wirelessly restore the transmission of brain impulses out of the body. This enabled the patients to successfully complete daily tasks such as online banking, shopping and texting, which previously had not been available to them.
https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/october/small-brain...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3364/Small-brain-device-proves-big-gam...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 7:35am

Skilled surgeons boost colon cancer survival by 70%

Patients of more technically skilled surgeons, as assessed by review of operative video, have better long-term survival after surgery for the treatment of colon cancer, reports a new  Medicine study. Patients whose surgery was performed by a highly skilled surgeon had a 70 percent lower risk of dying over five years compared to patients with a lower skilled surgeon, the study found.

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2020/10/skilled-surgeons-boos...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3359/Skilled-surgeons-boost-colon-canc...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 7:05am

**Studying life at the extremes

Researchers have invented methods to study microbes that thrive in the world’s most inhospitable environments.

Microbes cling to life in some of Earth’s most extreme environments, from toxic hot springs to high-altitude deserts. These ‘extremophiles’ include organisms that can survive near-boiling heat or near-freezing cold, high pressure or high salt, as well as environments steeped in acids, alkalis, metals or radioactivity.

Coercing these organisms to live in laboratories creates many challenges. Nonetheless, papers published on extremophiles have doubled in the past decade. Some scientists are drawn to the novelty of the organisms, searching for ones that are undescribed or that might harbour useful enzymes for industrial processes or antibiotics to save lives. Others simply find that the best organism for their scientific questions happens to have extreme preferences.

It’s a circumstance that has forced researchers who study extremophiles to invent new laboratory methods for handling them. To identify, culture, genetically manipulate and observe extremophiles, researchers often tweak the methods used in more run-of-the-mill organisms. Whereas some techniques can be easily transferred — from one thermophile to other heat-lovers, say — others have to be adapted for each new organism.

Each extremophile is going to have its own set of challenges. How scientists are trying to overcome them? Read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03055-0?utm_source=Natur...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 6:51am

Do I really need this crown? Dentists admit feeling pressured to offer unnecessary treatments

https://theconversation.com/do-i-really-need-this-crown-dentists-ad...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 6:40am

Put the baking soda back in the bottle: banned sodium bicarbonate ‘milkshakes’ don’t make racehorses faster

The controversial and banned practice of giving horses baking soda “milkshakes” before a race doesn’t work, according to our analysis of the available research.

Racing folklore says sodium bicarbonate milkshakes can boost racehorses’ endurance because the alkalinity of the baking soda helps counter the buildup of lactic acid in the blood when running.

But our systematic research review, recently published in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science reveals milkshakes don’t boost horses’ athletic performance.

This means any trainer still tempted to flout the ban on this tactic would be endangering their horses’ welfare and risking heavy sanctions over a practice that is basically snake oil.

https://theconversation.com/put-the-baking-soda-back-in-the-bottle-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 3, 2020 at 6:28am

**Using radar to detect foreign objects in foods

Foreign objects—glass splinters, for example—that find their way into foods can be hazardous to consumers. Established X-ray techniques detect primarily metals—glass, plastic and wood pose a challenge. SAMMI, a new prototype, fills this gap: using radar, it has already detected glass splinters in sandwich cookies, as well as missing pieces of chocolate in advent calendars.

Any number of things can go awry during manufacture and cause glass splinters, metal shavings, wood splinters or plastic pieces to end up in the product. Product recalls not only damage companies financially, they also result in a loss of consumer confidence. Manufacturers therefore have a keen interest in inspecting their products for foreign objects. Currently, they do this primarily with X-ray machines, but these do not reliably detect all foreign objects. While they can easily identify metals, they often have difficulty with plastics, wood and glass. This means that, despite inspections, there is still a certain residual risk for manufacturers.

SAMMI, a prototype developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR, can now close this gap and provide greater security in food production. "Our system is based on millimeter waves and can augment established X-ray techniques," says Daniel Behrendt, business unit spokesperson at Fraunhofer FHR. "It detects the foreign matter that X-ray techniques can easily overlook—that is, glass splinters, plastics and wood. However, it is not able to penetrate metals, which in return is detected by X-ray techniques." Another advantage of the technology is that the millimeter waves used to inspect the foods pose no health risk.

The inspection works as follows: the food is placed on a conveyor belt and transported through the machine. Above the conveyor, the transmitting antenna rotates and transmits its waves through the product; below it, the receiving antenna receives these waves. The millimeter waves are uniquely attenuated by each of the different food materials and undergo a specific delay in their transit time. This makes it possible to identify not only the structure and composition of the food, but also the slightest deviations from those—such as are caused by foreign objects, for instance. Assigning a pixel to each measurement point and encoding the changes with different colors produces an image of the investigated object on which the foreign matter is immediately evident. Even packaged goods can be inspected in this way, non-destructively and without physical contact.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-radar-foreign-foods.html?utm_so...

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