Body of Wealth

Bats use their ears as radars to receive sonic waves that help them navigate in the dark. The same method of echolocation has been pioneered to help blind children and adults to maneuver their movements. Visually impaired people are believed to be gifted with stronger hearing faculty. Visually challenged children are being trained in Glasgow to emit sound waves by clicking their tongues and form detailed images of objects in their minds by analyzing the sound of the echo.

The technique of echolocation has become very popular among the visually impaired people. Despite of lack of any scientific evidence the efficacy of the method can be gauged by the ease it has given to blind men like Dan Kish of USA, who runs a nonprofit organization, World Access for the Blind. Kish can ride a bicycle on a busy road and can distinguish between different types of fruits hanging on the trees by clicking his tongue.

Sociologists and Philanthropists need not worry about the population explosion any more; the tobacco epidemic is doing its job. If the governments across the globe do not take appropriate action, over 500 million people could die who have all the right to live and enjoy a healthy life. The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008, that examines the tobacco policies of over 179 countries for the first time ever, recommends use of a six tobacco control policies, strategically named MPOWER, that includes raising taxes and prices of tobacco, ban of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; warn people about dangers of tobacco and secondhand smoke, monitoring tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic.

Warning issued in the report claims tobacco to be the cause for death of over 100 million people in the past century and if left untamed could end up taking 8 million lives by 2030. Most of tobacco users belong to developing countries in the low and middle income groups; easy commercial targets that they are, a major income of their poor households smokes away in tobacco and they die as a result. 10 such countries have been identified, which are home to nearly two thirds of the world’s smoking population; China with 30%(over 100 million Chinese men under 30 could die due to Tobacco use), India with 10%(one fourths of the total middle aged men die because of tobacco use), followed by Indonesia, Russia, US, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.

Technology is making all efforts to ‘create’ healthy babies. From animals to humans, more discoveries are coming out in the open. Even in the formation of a human being, science is intervening to prevent deformities in fetuses. To remedy thousands of hereditary diseases that are transmitted to new borns, British scientists are looking into the possibility of creating a human embryo with three parents as a mean to correct genetic deformities within five years.

Newcastle researchers in northern England used in vitro fertilization (IVF) or test tube embryos from a male and two other females using a combined DNA and their findings were recently presented at a medical conference in Medical Research Council Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases conference in London.

If everything goes well, then days are not far away when the tool to fight Bird-flu would be there in experts’ hands. This hope sparked up after researchers at Griffith University Institute for Glycomics, in the leadership of Professor Mark Von Itzstein developed a technique to ‘crack the code’ of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus.

The problem with most prosthetic hands commonly available is lack of dexterity being of no real help to the amputees other than being ornamental in nature. This was until Touch Bionics introduced its bionic hand. This advanced prosthetic arm, dubbed i-LIMB has each individual finger of the artificial limb powered by its own motor increasing dexterity of the hand with advanced grip patterns similar to that of a natural hand.

After it was introduced in July last year, i-LIMB is expected to reach its 100 fitting by end of February this year. European countries have also expressed their interest to team up with Touch Bionics to produces prosthetic hands in their respective countries. The $18,000 i-LIMB will have many takers in America and Europe but for the amputees in developing countries especially the war ravaged Iraq, Afghanistan and African nations despite of the huge demand for prosthetics the high price will be a disadvantage.

Source & image:gizmag

When the neurologists were thinking that they had deciphered the functioning of the different parts of brain, a new discovery has now forced them to review their research. The doctors have accidentally stumbled upon a new area in brain responsible for storing memory while operating upon an obese individual, to suppress his hunger through the technique of deep brain-stimulation.

The technique of deep brain-stimulation makes use of electrodes to stimulate certain parts of the brain, thus regulating behavior. In the case of this obese patient who weighed 190 kilograms, the technique was used when all other means to suppress his hunger failed. However, when the doctors were operating upon the patient by stimulating his hypothalamus - the area responsible for hunger, different responses were shown by the patient. Though there was no change in his eating patterns which was intended, he reported having a unique experience wherein memories from the past livened up. According to him, he could see the intricate details of a scene in some park where he had been thirty years previously.

Among the various things, kids hate perhaps the needles used to vaccinate them against flu top the list. However, parents are helpless just like the medical communities while administering the flu vaccine and pushing the sharp needles into their tender skin. Various methods had been tried to deliver the vaccine painlessly to the body that includes both oral administration of the vaccine and nasal sprays. Both these methods of vaccination though painless have certain side effects. While the oral doses lose their efficacy when subjected to the harsh digestive enzymes as they enter the stomach, the nasal sprays can adversely affect the body’s central nervous system.

Can you imagine a lunch with dishes none of which have traces of salt? Possibly you can’t. Salt is precisely one ingredient without which most of the food we eat seems very drab and tasteless. But some info that I’m just about to convey you is surely going to bring a curve on your forehead the next time you sit to eat or see your child chewing the crumbs. Recent researches have unleashed some very shocking news about the nourishing qualities of preserved and ready-made foods, vis-à-vis the amount of salt content. Common fast foods like baked beans, beefburgers; sausages, pizzas, pitta breads and even cereals, the most common items that we grab on every trip to the market have been tested.

These items are very popular among the erstwhile nagging kids, unfortunately, the salt level in all of these processed foods are negatively effective to the kids’ and our health. The fast foods popular with children are loaded with salt which works as a silent, insidious killer. Studies have revealed that young children consuming half a tin of baked beans along with two sausages would exceed the suggested salt intake for a whole day in just a single garb.Children eat two-thirds more than what they should. Each time they chew into a sandwich or a packet of waffer or even cheese , there is a good chance that the little ones are raising their blood pressure. And a high pressure since childhood increases the risk of a heart attack when adult.

If you want to look younger and reduce those wrinkles that appear with age, then perhaps a visit to the plastic surgeon or applying Botox is no more required. Simply visit the gym regularly and remain physically active. Researchers of King’s College London have found a link between physical activity and progression of aging.

In the study that had 2,401 white twins, the researchers found that the length of telomeres, a vital part of DNA shortened more quickly in inactive people. As telomeres shortened, the cells became more susceptible to disease and death. It has always been known that by remaining physically active one can reduce chances of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even certain cancers. It now appears that the telomere in the DNA does the biological tricks.

An evolutionary change in field mice may revolutionize the treatment of human infertility, say scientists at the University of Liverpool. The group of scientists have found that field mice have evolved a unique way of sacrificing some of their immunity protection in favor of a more rapid fertilization process.

The mice that were researched traded the production of an immunologically important protein CD46 in favor of this faster fertilization process in order to compete with other mice more successfully, say the team. CD46 is present in both humans and animals. As such, this is a good news for those trying to overcome human infertility. CD46 is a protein that helps in the protection of a body’s cell from any attack by the immune system. It was noticed that over time, the mice lost that protein, causing the body to reach a state of instability. It is during this period of instability that fertilization takes place.