15, May 2014

Messenger implants to help your doctor plan his treatment soon?

What if your doctor can implant an electronic device in your body that informs him about what is happening inside your body for best-suited treatments? Researchers have now developed electronic devices that become soft when implanted inside the body and can deploy to grip 3D objects such as large tissues, nerves and blood vessels.

‘These biologically adaptive, flexible transistors can change shape and maintain their electronic properties after they are implanted in the body,’ said Jonathan Reeder, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at University of Texas at Dallas. You need the device to be stiff at room temperature so the surgeon can implant the device, but soft and flexible enough to wrap around 3D objects so the body can behave exactly as it would without the device. ‘By putting electronics on shape-changing and softening polymers, we can do just that,’ Reeder added. Shape memory polymers developed by Walter Voit, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering, are key to enabling the technology. The polymers respond to the body’s environment and become less rigid when they are implanted.  

In addition to the polymers, the electronic devices are built with layers that include thin, flexible electronic foils. The Voit and Reeder team fabricated the devices with an organic semiconductor but used adapted techniques normally applied to create silicon electronics that could reduce the cost of the devices. The rigid devices become soft when heated. Outside the body, the device is primed for the position it will take inside the body. ‘The next step is to shrink the devices so they can wrap around smaller objects and add more sensory components,’ Reeder noted. The research is now available online on the journal Advanced Materials’ website.  

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

15.05.2014

Canadians top drinkers, Indians not far behind: WHO

The bubbly flows freely among Canadians and Americans. In a latest survey released by the WHO, Canadians are drinking more alcohol than most of the rest of the world – followed by Americans. Drinking is also going up in India. ‘The amount of drinking around the world is going up, especially in India and China, where incomes are rising and alcohol marketing is active,’ the report noted. Americans drink 7.5-9.9 litres of alcohol per person per year while Canadians gulp down more than 12.5 litres each as do Russians and Australians, the data revealed.  

Africans do not drink as much as Americans and residents of Islamic countries drink the least of all. Worldwide, almost a quarter (24.8 percent) of all alcohol consumed is in the form of unrecorded alcohol, the World Health Organisation (WHO) report said.  Unrecorded alcohol is alcohol made at home, alcohol meant for other purposes (like medical) or smuggled. Around the world, just over half of recorded alcohol intake is in the form of spirits.   

Next comes beer, accounting for about 35 percent of consumption, and 55 percent of drinking in WHO’s Americas region.  Overall, wine consumption comprises just eight percent of global consumption. The WHO report also took a look at how drinkers drink and what that means for their health risk.  ‘Alcohol consumption also contributes to about 10 percent of the disease burden due to tuberculosis, epilepsy, haemorrhagic stroke and hypertensive heart disease in the world,’ the report added. Drinking with meals or drinking daily or nearly daily presented the least health risk to the drinker, the report said.  

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

15.05.2014

If you walk in the footprints of others, you wont make any of your own