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Saturday, December 16, 2006

A Toronto team of scientists have discovered a trigger for Type 1 diabetes, a breakthrough that could lead to the overall prevention of the common disease.

The team discovered that abnormal nerve endings in the pancreas’ insulin-producing cells (Islets of Langerhan) initiated a chain reaction that caused Type 1 diabetes in lab mice. However, when they removed the nerve cells, the mice did not develop the disorder.

According to Dr. Hans Michael Dosch, a senior scientist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and the study’s lead investigator, this indicates the diabetes may be a disease of the nervous system, not just an autoimmune disease.

Traditionally, research has primarily been concentrated on the immune system and the reasons why it attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, which are grouped in islets.

But Dosch, working alongside colleagues at Sick Kids, the University of Calgary in Alberta and Maine’s Jackson Laboratory, identified a control circuit between islet cells and their associated sensory nerves.

Disruption of this circuit led to inflammation around the islets and eventually to their destruction. Without these cells, the mice were unable to produce insulin.

“This control circuit is the real cause of diabetes,” Dosch said.

Experts agree the findings, reported yesterday in the journal Cell, will dramatically change the foundations of diabetes research.

“It really is a breakthrough for the diabetes community,” said Pam Ohashi, a professor of immunology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research.

Dosch plans to move quickly in transferring his tests on lab mice to human subjects. He plans to launch a clinical trial in January to figure out if human patients who have a high risk of Type 1 diabetes have the same sensory nerve abnormalities displayed by the mice.

“If they do, then we have fantastic new therapeutic strategies,” said Dosch, who is also a professor of pediatrics and immunology at U of T (University of Toronto).

Michelle Wing knows the toll diabetes takes on a family. Her 8-year-old daughter Marielle has the disorder, and her two young sons, ages 4 and 18 months, are considered high risk for developing it. Diabetes runs every aspect of their lives, she said, explaining how the family is bound by an extensive and relentless routine of blood tests, insulin injections and strict meal times. Dosch plans to invite the family to participate in the clinical trial.

Wing said she was moved to tears when she learned that researchers may have found a way to one day prevent Type 1 diabetes.

“Seeing what Marielle goes through every day of her life, to prevent other children from going through that,” Wing said. “To prevent other parents in the middle of the night worrying their child will go into a diabetic coma,” she mused. “It’s fantastic that there could be a prevention of this for other children.”

More than 200,000 Canadians suffer from Type 1 diabetes, which mostly develops in childhood or in the teen years. It is not to be confused with the more common Type 2 diabetes, where the body doesn’t make enough insulin or use the existing insulin efficiently.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the islet cells that stabilizes blood sugar levels in the body. Sufferers of Type 1 diabetes have to take regimented daily insulin injections and continuously monitor their blood sugars. The injections are not a cure, and many patients still develop side-effects of the disease like stroke, blindness, heart attack, and kidney failure.

More research will be put in motion quickly to see if the same treatment applied to the lab mice will be effective in humans for preventing Type 1 diabetes, or better still, if it will shed new light on treatment methods for Type 2 sufferers, according to Dosch.

Also, in a surprising twist, the researchers also found that injecting substance P, a chemical secreted by nerve cells, into the mice who had damaged or inflamed islet cells, not only eliminated the inflammation process, but reversed it.

“The blood glucose normalizes overnight and it stays low for weeks to months — this is with a single shot,” Dosch said.

“We now have 4-month-old mice that are non-diabetic that used to be diabetic,” he added.Dr. Ehud Ur, professor of medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and chair of the clinical and scientific division of the Canadian Diabetes Association cautioned that the research is still in its early days. Like some other experts, he is skeptical about whether diabetes can be cured, noting that these findings have no relevance to people who already have Type 1 diabetes.

“We have a whole new target for therapy,” he said. “It’s always been the pancreas or the immune system. Now we have a new player.”

Still, he knows that the discovery of nerves controlling pancreatic functions is a major step towards developing more efficient treatment for the millions affected worldwide.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

A 182-page report issued September 1 by the United States National Research Council warns that the amount of debris in space is reaching “a tipping point”, and could cause damage to satellites or spacecraft. The report calls for regulations to reduce the amount of debris, and suggests that scientists increase research into methods to remove some of the debris from orbit, though it makes no recommendations about how to do so.

NASA sponsored the study.

A statement released along with the report warns that, according to some computer models, the debris “has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures”. According to the Satellite Industry Association, there are now about 1,000 working satellites in Earth orbit, and industry revenues last year were US$168 billion (£104.33 billion,€119.01 billion).

The debris consists of various objects, such as decommissioned satellites and exhausted boosters, but the vast majority of the particles are less than one centimetre across. 16,094 pieces of debris were being tracked as of July, although estimates put the current number at over 22,000. The total number of fragments is thought to be as high as tens of millions. While most of the debris is very small, some of it is travelling at speeds as high as 17,500 mi h^-1 (28,164 km h^-1; 7,823.3 m s^-1).

The International Space Station sometimes has to dodge larger fragments, and in June its crew was forced to prepare to evacuate due to a close encounter with debris.

The UK Space Agency told Wikinews that space flight “is likely to be made more difficult” by the debris. However, communications will “[n]ot directly” be affected, “but if the GEO ring became unusable, there is no other altitude at which objects appear [‘]geo-stationary[‘] and so all antennas on the ground would then have to move in order to track the motion of the satellites”.

Donald J. Kessler, the lead researcher and former head of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, said that “[t]he current space environment is growing increasingly hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts,” and suggested that “NASA needs to determine the best path forward for tackling the multifaceted problems caused by meteoroids and orbital debris that put human and robotic space operations at risk.”

Two events are thought to be the largest individual sources of space debris. Kessler said that “[t]hose two single events doubled the amount of fragments in Earth orbit and completely wiped out what we had done in the last 25 years”.

The first of these was a controversial 2007 Chinese anti-satellite weapon test, which smashed the decommissioned weather satellite Fengyun-1C into approximately 150,000 fragments over a centimetre in size—making up roughly twenty percent of all tracked objects—537 miles above the Earth’s surface.

The Chinese government has so far failed to respond to Wikinews’s queries regarding the incident.

The other is a 2009 collision between twelve-year-old active satellite Iridium 33 and the defunct Russian Strela-2M satellite Kosmos-2251—both weighing in excess of 1,000 lbs (454 kg)—that occurred 490 miles over Siberia, the first such collision. The Iridium satellite was replaced within 22 days, according to Iridium Communications, who operated it.

In a statement released to Wikinews, Iridium Communications said that they “received no warning of the impending collision. Although commercial projections of close encounters (commonly called conjunctions) were available, the accuracy of those projections was not sufficient to allow collision avoidance action to be taken.” They also made the assurance that the Air Force Space Command and United States Strategic Command now provide them with information through the Joint Space Operations Center, and that “when necessary, [they] maneuver [their] satellites based on this information to avoid potential collisions. [They] believe this is a substantial first step in better information sharing between the government and industry and support even more robust interaction which can provide better and more efficient constellation operation.”

Iridium expressed their support for “[l]ong-term investment to improve Space Situational Awareness” and “[i]mproved information sharing between industry and the U.S. government”, as well as more “[g]overnment support for policy and processes which would permit sharing of high-accuracy data as required to allow reliable assessment and warning” and “[i]ncreased cooperation between the government and U.S. and foreign commercial operators.”

They maintained that “the Iridium constellation is uniquely designed to withstand such an event. Because of the resilient and distributed nature of the Iridium constellation, the effects of the loss of a single satellite were relatively minor”, and that “any other system, commercial or military, which experienced the loss of a satellite, would have suffered significant operational degradation for a period of months if not years.” Nonetheless, the company is “concerned over the increasing level of risk to operations resulting from the debris in space.”

The report makes more than thirty findings, and more than twenty recommendations to NASA. None of the recommendations regard how to clean up the debris. However, it does cite a report by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which suggested various possible techniques for catching and removing space debris, such as magnetic nets.

However, international law does not allow one country to collect another’s debris. George J. Gleghorn, vice chair of the committee, observed that “[t]he Cold War is over, but the acute sensitivity regarding satellite technology remains”.

The debris will, in time, be pulled into the earth’s atmosphere—where it will burn up—by gravity, but more debris is being created faster than this can happen.

The report recommends collaborating with the United States Department of State on “economic, technological, political, and legal considerations.” As already mentioned, international law does not allow one country to collect another’s debris.

According to the report, “[t]he problem of space debris is similar to a host of other environmental problems and public concerns characterized by possibly significant differences between the short- and long-run damage accruing to society … Each has small short-run effects but, if left unaddressed, will have much larger impacts on society in the future.”

A spokesperson for the UK Space Agency told Wikinews that the organisation “does not have any plans to get directly involved with [the clean-up] initiative but through its involvement with NASA in the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, it is conducting studies to identify which objects present the biggest hazard and how many objects may need to be removed and from where.” It says that the viability of such an operation is “a question of treating the symptom or the cause of the problem. Building more physical protection is costly and if the environment deteriorates too far, becomes unviable. It is best to treat the root cause, the presence of debris in orbit, and remove the large objects before they can break up into many thousands of uncontrolled fragments capable of destroying a satellite on impact.”

The spokesperson also pointed out that “[u]nder current licensing regimes (such as in the UK), countries are now obliging operators to remove satellites from crowded regions of space at the end of operational life”.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

United Arab Emirates (UAE) developer Emaar Properties has claimed that their Burj Dubai commercial and residential tower, currently under construction, has become the world’s tallest building, reaching a height of 512.1 metres (or 1,680 feet) and 141 storeys.

The current official record holder, Taipei 101 of Taiwan, has a height of 508 metres and 101 storeys, and will retain the “tallest building” title for some time to come. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat sets the criteria for achieving height records for buildings, and will not evaluate the Burj Dubai until construction is complete in late 2008. Although final height details have been kept secret by the developer, the Burj Dubai is expected to reach nearly 700 metres in height, with approximately 160 storeys.

The current record holder for the world’s tallest free-standing structure is the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. It has a height of 553 metres. The Burj Dubai, therefore, would claim both records when it is completed.

Once the Burj Dubai is completed, it will have required 330,000 cubic metres of concrete, 39,000 tonnes of steel and 142,000 square metres of glass, according to Emaar Properties. The building will have 56 lifts (elevators) that can move at a rate of speed of 1.75 to 10 metres per second.

Dubai is undergoing a construction boom currently with the Burj Dubai as the planned centrepiece of a $US20 billion project, which will eventually realize some 30,000 apartments and boast the world’s largest shopping mall.

There have been criticisms of the working conditions for construction workers in the UAE. A majority of the estimated 500,000 construction workers in the UAE are foreign workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In a 2006 report on the UAE’s treatment of migrant workers, entitled Building Towers, Cheating Workers, Human Rights Watch documented abuses in UAE such as, “extremely low wages, several years of indebtedness to recruitment agencies for fees that UAE law says only employers should pay, the withholding of employees’ passports, and hazardous working conditions that result in apparently high rates of death and injury.”

In October of last year, Human Rights Watch delivered specific recommendations to the UAE government for improvement of working conditions. The UAE government acted swiftly on the report and put in place several improvements, which were applauded by Human Rights Watch.

However, the salaries of migrant construction workers remain in the range from $106 to $250 per month, while the national average wage is over $2,000 per month. Trade unions remain illegal in the UAE.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

West Indies have beaten England by 15 runs in the first Twenty20 international of their tour of England at The Oval, London, England.

The West Indian innings started off badly by losing Gayle early, however they turned their fortunes around with some attacking and aggressive cricket and posted a huge total of 208. A bigger total could have been posted if it had not been for a late innings batting collapse. England started their reply by getting off to a flyer, but lost some early wickets that slowed down the run-rate. Leading the charge was Paul Collingwood with a fast 79 with 5 4’s and 4 6’s. In the end, England fell short by 15 runs. Had they not have lost the early wickets, England would have probably won the match to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Instead, it is West Indies that have taken a 1-0 lead in the series.

Toss: West Indies won, and chose to bat first.

Did not bat: DBL Powell

Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Gayle, 1.4 ov), 2-97 (Chanderpaul, 10.1 ov), 3-115 (DS Smith, 12.1 ov), 4-131 (Bravo, 13.2 ov), 5-190 (Ramdin, 17.3 ov), 6-199 (Samuels, 18.2 ov), 7-204 (DR Smith, 18.6 ov), 8-206 (Sammy, 19.3 ov)

Did not bat: RJ Sidebottom, JM Anderson

Fall of wickets: 1-40 (Cook, 4.2 ov), 2-48 (Prior, 4.6 ov), 3-69 (Trott, 7.5 ov), 4-78 (Pietersen, 9.1 ov), 5-90 (Shah, 10.5 ov), 6-101 (Mascarenhas, 12.2 ov), 7-192 (Collingwood, 19.5 ov)

England: A N Cook, M J Prior(wkt), I J L , K P Pietersen, P D Collingwood(capt), O A Shah, A D Mascarenhas , M H Yardy, S C J Broad, R J Sidebottom, J M Anderson

West Indies: C H Gayle(capt), D S Smith, S Chanderpaul , M N Samuels, D J Bravo, D Ramdin(wkt), D R Smith, R S Morton, D J G Sammy, Ravi Rampaul, D B L Powell

Result: West Indies won by 15 runs

Twenty20 Debutants:AN Cook, AD Mascarenhas, MJ Prior, OA Shah, RJ Sidebottom and IJL Trott (England); DBL Powell, R Rampaul, DJG Sammy, MN Samuels and DS Smith (West Indies)

Player of the match: P D Collingwood

Umpires: P J Hartley and N J LlongTV umpire: I J GouldMatch referee: M J Procter (South Africa)Reserve umpire: RT Robinson

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Members of the All India Bank Employees Association have threatened to go on nation-wide strikes to express their unhappiness with the move to privatise banks, allowing foreign direct investment in the banking sector and outsourcing of services. The exact dates of the strike will be decided at the AIBEA national general council meeting to be held in Chennai on June 13 and 14. Speaking to press persons on Friday, C.H. Venkatachalam, secretary of the association, condemned the attempts to continuously `attack the financial and banking sector.’

The AIBEA was against the government’s intention to privatise public sector banks and the disinvestment of shares up to 49 per cent. In the past decade, a number of private sector banks had folded and hence, in the best interests of the investor, banks should continue to remain in the public sector, he said. Merging public sector banks into five or six big banks in order to enable them become global institutions dealing with international trade and business was a `retrograde’ idea, he charged. The total assets of all the 27 public sector banks in the country (less than U.S. $300 billion) were well below the assets of any top global bank, he added.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Investigators examining the wreck of British Airways Flight 38, a Boeing 777 that crash landed short of the runway at London’s Heathrow Airport in the first hull loss of a 777, are examining the aircraft’s fuel system as a possible factor in the crash. No-one was killed as the scheduled flight from Beijing, China lost power during final approach on January 17.

136 passengers and 16 crew were on board when power was lost to the two Rolls-Royce engines about two miles from the runway, at a height of 600 feet. Autopilot and autothrottle were engaged at the time, the latter having just commanded an increase of thrust to the engines when power was lost. Co-pilot John Coward, in control at the time, was subsequently praised for being able to glide the disabled plane to within 1,000 feet of the runway, clearing a number of houses along the way.

Subsequent investigation has revealed that not only did the engines not fail simultaneously, but neither failed completely, contradicting initial belief. A preliminary report by the United Kingdom’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) stated that after the autothrottle commanded more thrust “The engines both initially responded but after about 3 seconds the thrust of the right engine reduced. Some eight seconds later the thrust reduced on the left engine to a similar level… Both engines continued to produce thrust at an engine speed above flight idle, but less than the commanded thrust.” This situation prevailed until impact.

On Wednesday the AAIB stated that they were examining “All possible scenarios that could explain the thrust reduction and continued lack of response of the engines.” However, it also went on to specifically mention attention to the jet’s fuel system, saying “This work includes a detailed analysis and examination of the complete fuel-flow path from the aircraft tanks to the engine-fuel nozzles.” The AAIB also ruled out the plane having completely run out of fuel, stating that there was “adequate fuel” in the tanks when the plane crashed. In addition to the fuel required to get to the target destination or emergency alternative airport – whichever is further – aircraft typically carry between thirty and forty-five minutes worth of extra fuel as a safety margin.

Possible scenarios being examined include fuel contamination, coming either from fuel taken on at Beijing or leakage from an unknown source. In particular, a heavy contaminant at the bottom of the tanks would explain a lack of earlier problems on the flight, as the fuel levels would only have become low in the final stages of the trip. Another possibility is that a central part of the fuel system developed a leak, reducing the amount of fuel available to the engines.

It is known that, according to the AAIB, “the autothrottle and engine-control commands were performing as expected prior to, and after, the reduction in thrust,” suggesting that all software in the aircraft was functioning correctly and rendering a software failure unlikely, although this possibility also remains under investigation.