Showing posts with label Medical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medical. Show all posts

Jun 12, 2009

Chocolate Lovers

Soccer players and exercise enthusiasts now have another reason to reach for lowfat chocolate milk after a hard workout. A study from James Madison University showed post-exercise consumption of lowfat chocolate milk was found to provide equal or better muscle recovery compared to a high-carbohydrate recovery beverage with the same amount of calories.

After two and four days of intensified training, chocolate milk drinkers had significantly lower levels of creatine kinase - an indicator of muscle damage - compared to when they drank the carbohydrate beverage. The results indicate that lowfat chocolate milk is effective in the recovery and repair of muscles after intense training for these competitive soccer players.

May 27, 2009

Hot Gas

True - George Gibbs, from Columbus, Ohio, suffered second-degree burns on his head. One freezing cold winter morning, he was unable to start his car. George diagnosed the problem as a frozen fuel line which he thought he could correct by running warm gas through it. He then tried to heat a two-gallon can of gas on his gas stove in the kitchen.

Teeth Jewels

Teeth with jewels and gold might seem like a new thing, but gem-studded teeth were popular among people from all walks of life in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, purely for decorative purposes.

As far back as 2,500 years ago, dentists could drill teeth using obsidian drill-like devices, which are capable of penetrating bone. They may even have used some kind of herbal anesthetic. Then they attached the gemstones using plant resin adhesive. The ancient drillers knew enough to avoid the pulp inside teeth, and so managed to avoid an infection or broken tooth. Now celebrities are starting to tattoo their teeth.

May 4, 2009

Artificial Legs

The picture is a twenty dollar prosthetic knee joint, developed by Stanford’s JaipurKnee Project team, during prototype testing last August. The knee joint was on display April 8, 2009 at the university.

The team studied the mechanics of high-end titanium knee joints in the US, which cost from $10,000 to $100,000. The team also surveyed the materials used to build cheap prosthetics for developing countries and designed a versatile knee joint made from an oil-filled nylon polymer. The self-lubricating joint has greater flexibility, demonstrating a much higher performance.

They fitted 43 of these joints to date in India, for field tests to improve the model. The plan is to produce 100,000 during the next few years. One more example of how healthcare does not have to be expensive.

Apr 25, 2009

Something to Laugh About

In a 2007 study, allergy researcher Hajime Kimata of Moriguchi-Keijinkai Hospital in Japan measured levels of the hormone melatonin in the breast milk of nursing mothers before and after the subjects watched either a comic Charlie Chaplin video or an ordinary weather report.

Melatonin regulates the sleep-wake cycle and is often disturbed in the allergic skin condition atopic eczema, which all of the 48 babies in the study had.

Kimata found that laughing at the funny film, but not hearing the weather report, increased the amount of melatonin in the mothers’ milk. In addition, the laughter-fortified breast milk reduced the allergic responses to latex and house dust mites in the infants. Thus, making a nursing mom laugh might sometimes serve as an allergy remedy for her baby. Laughter is even more important this month, because April is Humor month.

Apr 2, 2009

Scientific Myths Debunked

You heard it here.
It takes 7 years to digest gum. Not true, it digests as fast as any other food.

Hair and fingernails keep growing after death. Not true, the body dehydrates so fast that this is just an optical illusion.

Chickens can live with their heads cut off. True, because part of the brain stem is left intact when the head is chopped off.

There is no gravity in outer space. Not true, the effect of gravity diminishes with distance, but it never truly goes away. BTW space is not a vacuum, either.

Eating a poppyseed bun mimics opiates on blood tests. True, eating two of them can mimic opiates on a blood screen test.

Mar 26, 2009

More Nano

The diameter of a red blood cell is about 7,000 nanometers.

Mar 13, 2009

Life Expectancy


Which country has the lowest life expectancy and spends the most per capita? Scary isn't it.


Bionic Eyes

The artificial eyes use a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye. In turn, the receiver passes on the data via a tiny cable to an array of electrodes which sit on the retina - the layer of specialized cells that normally respond to light found at the back of the eye.

When these electrodes are stimulated they send messages along the optic nerve to the brain, which is able to perceive patterns of light and dark spots corresponding to which electrodes have been stimulated. The hope is that patients will learn to interpret the visual patterns produced into meaningful images.

The bionic eye has been developed by US company Second Sight. So far 18 patients across the world have been fitted with the device. One totally blind man, who had seen total blackness for 30 years, reports being able to sort out socks by color, see white lines on the road, and more. The technology still a long way to go, but this is major progress.