Here First - Science and Technology Blog

This may seem like a line from a Spielberg movie, but after you will see this video you will understand why I have suddenly acquired microbiophobia. One can do another video on normal and pathogenic flora specifically in different parts of our body (ie, upper respiratory/lower respiratory, etc). I am sure mess will get messier. Related to this, EBCRC is developing rapid in-field diagnostic devices that will detect the presence of pathogenic organisms or chemical contamination in water in minutes. The simple-to-use system will provide results directly to portable devices via simple electronic readouts, laptops and PDAs. The system will be based on proprietary technology, which integrates sample preparation and analysis and will be applicable for the detection of a broad range of organisms for example common water borne contaminants such as faecal coliforms, E. coli, Legionella, Cryptosporidium and Giardia. The system is highly adaptable to food, environmental and point of care applicati...

There is known that the number of women begining hair loss in every city is rising. Medical experts agree that reasons for hair loss in women and men are very different! Most male hair loss based on genetic, but what is the reason for women hair loss? 1.Genetic. Women will also be hereditary hair loss. This is called Genetic baldness. 2.Excessive weight loss diet.  This is one of reason for women hair loss. Many women try to loss weight by eating less, so it's difficult to have enough protein, iron, and other nutritional supply of hair follicles and lead to hair loss. 3.Hormonal disorders.  Taking or stopping contraceptive pills can lead to hormonal disorders. And that leads to hair loss. 4.Pregnant after childbirth. Women in the end of pregnancy, their hair will enter the telogen. After delivery can grow new hair. Therefore, the new hair will be out of the original hair resulting in hair loss phenomenon. 5.Women's menstrual period. 6.Working pressure . The fatigue and pressu...

The only effective conservation approach is to protect the habitat and this is an issue of climate change. You can distort the issue any way you so desire. At the end of the day, the sea ice is disappearing. Take away the habitat and the species follows shortly thereafter (or before)."

Scientists have grown eggs from tissue taken from five-year-old girls meaning future childhood cancer sufferers could go on to have children of their own. There is known that children and young people who go through cancer are left infertile by the treatment in most of the cases. They are faced with having to use donated eggs and sperm or adopting to have their own family. The problem is very difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty. The eggs or sperm cannot be freeze at this time. But we have good news! Scientists have managed to grow eggs in the lab using samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five. Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture. The next step will be to see if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos. These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques which have proven more effective. Around 1,500 children un...

UDC is saying they have produced an ultra-thin flexible OLED display. The entire thing is less than 50 micrometer!  R.Ma from UDC says "We have chosen thin metal foils as the substrates for flexible displays because of their excellent thermal, mechanical and permeation barrier properties and good flexibility. Metal foils as thin as 25 mm have been used and planarization process has been developed. Another key challenge is to develop a flexible thin film permeation barrier. OLEDs degrade as a result of exposure to atmospheric oxygen and water. Working with Professor Wagner’s team at Princeton University, we have identified a flexible, highly impermeable barrier layer that is deposited from environmentally-friendly and inexpensive precursors in a single-chamber reactor. The lifetime of OLEDs encapsulated with the layers exceeds the industrial target of 1,000 hours and also the lifetime of conventionally sealed glass packaged OLEDs. Many materials are used in a flexible AMOLED: organ...

BMW, located in Markham, Ontario, used over the years a variety of Microsoft products for its information technology infrastructure. Now the auto dealership, with the help of an IT outsourcing consultant, has slipped a Linux appliance into the mix that has eliminated difficulties with viruses, incompatibility, and security. The dealership also uses the Reynolds and Reynolds management system, which allows the service department to access inventory and parts databases. Not only that, but a separate accounting system handles financial issues and other internal operations. "When we first approached Town and Country, they pointed out their requirement to meet BMW's corporate secure network access requirements," says John Gray of Bentor Technologies, a Canadian IT consultant. "We also had to support an open link in the customer lounge, with secure access to the Internet." That prompted Bentor to begin looking at Linux boxes for its customers. Those customers had to h...

I've been having insomnia for a long time. I was always waking during the middle of the night. The problem was that after that, I had difficulty falling asleep again.  So, I google it a few months ago hoping to find an answer to my problem. I've found this SleepPhones System (59.95$) and Natural Sleep Secrets. I've been following some guides I found in the book, but I still needed 20-30 minutes getting to sleep. After a while, I said what the hell. Let's try this Sleep Headphones for a change! The results? Sleep Earphones are the most fabulous headphones I have ever seen! The first night I've tried it, I managed to get a full night's sleep.  Now my insomnia is cured! No kidding, I no longer take my nightly dose of Ambien. I would recommend this combination of sleep headphones and  Natural Sleep Secrets to anybody who wants a comfortable solution to sleeping in bulky headphones or those ear buds that hurt when you lay on your side and fall out several times a n...

As if there weren't enough health scares over mobile phones already, heavy users were yesterday given another reason to cut down on their habit. It can bring you out in a rash. Doctors claim 'mobile phone dermatitis' is a risk for those who develop an allergic reaction to the phone's nickel surface. The British Association of Dermatologists is warning other doctors about the newly-identified allergy as it suspects many cases are going unreported or untreated. Cases reported in journals so far include an 18-year-old U.S. man, a 19-year-old woman in Austria and a 14-year-old girl in Scotland. The alert comes after scientists last month urged caution over mobile phone use saying it could take years for the health risks to emerge, although there is a consensus that children are likely to be more vulnerable. Nickel allergy is the most common contact allergy in the UK and is thought to affect 30 per cent of the population, and rising. Women have a higher risk of developing mo...

Lada is an automotive manufacturer based out of Russia. Their first vehicle was the Revolution that made its debut at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show. For this year's Paris Motor Show, Lada unveiled the third generation Revolution and it has turned more than a few heads. The first Revolution was powered by a 1.6 liter engine that was able to put 215 horsepower to the ground and motivate the vehicle to 60mph in about 6.4 seconds. That was apparently not enough for the engineers so for the Revolution 3 they went with a more powerful turbocharged 2.0 liter engine that can make 245 horses. Also available is the 3.7 liter V6, borrowed from Nissan, which makes a more than sufficient 350 horsepower. The body is mostly plastic while the chassis is made of light-weight steel. The dry weight of the vehicle is right at the 2400lbs mark. No official performance figures have been made available yet, but it's safe to say they will be close to or less than 6 seconds in the 0-60 sprint. This yea...

Scientists in Australia have discovered antibodies in the blood of sharks that could potentially prove effective in battling cancer. It has been discovered that the antibodies (molecules that fight disease) in sharks are extremely resilient and researchers hope that this quality can be isolated to help slow the spread of cancer, malaria, and other human diseases. The Australian team discovered that shark antibodies were tough and able to survive in both very acidic and very alkaline settings. This is important as it means that a “shark pill” would still be effective within the very acidic environment of the human stomach. The team found that the shark molecules can actually latch on to cancer molecules and stop them from spreading. Associate Prof Mick Foley from Melbourne’s La Trobe University said: “The cells actually grow less than where we don’t add a shark antibody or we add a completely irrelevant shark antibody. So this indicates the shark antibody that we have is binding to ...

One dose of the early-stage experimental drug protected mice and monkeys from lethal doses of radiation. Future experiments will be conducted to see if tissues in humans can, likewise, be protected during radiation treatments and as an antidote from nuclear attacks. Andrei V. Gudkov , who is chairperson of Cell Stress Biology within the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.), was the lead researcher in the study. The drug of interest has been named CBLB502, a polypeptide drug derived from Salmonella flagellin. In the past and still today, radiation is a quite useful medical tool in combating diseases such as cancer by destroying cancerous cells. However, the radiation can also adversely affect healthy tissues, bone marrow, the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and other such areas of the human body. Because of the problems caused to normal cells, the amount and number of radiation treatments must be limited. If this drug proves to be effective at protecting such healthy ...