August 5, 2010
Plumpy’nut is a peanut-based food for use in famine relief which was formulated in 1999 by André Briend, a French paediatric nutritionist. The product is a high protein and high energy peanut-based paste in a foil wrapper. It tastes slightly sweeter than peanut butter. It is categorized by the WHO as a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). Plumpy’nut requires no water preparation or refrigeration and has a 2 year shelf life making it easy to deploy in difficult conditions to treat severe acute malnutrition. It can be used as a replacement for infant formula for children who are at least 6 months old.
Plumpy‘nut was first used during the crisis in Darfur in western Sudan. There, it was fed to some 30,000 children and aid officials there say it has helped cut malnutrition rates in half. It has since been used by the UN and humanitarian organizations in Niger, Haiti, and many other countries.
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August 4, 2010
A pony bottle is a small diving cylinder, often of only a few litres capacity, which is filled from a main tank before a dive and fitted with its own independent regulator. In an emergency, such as exhaustion of the diver’s main air supply, it can be used as an alternate air source in place of a controlled emergency swimming ascent. By comparison a bailout bottle, which serves a similar purpose, is both smaller and has a regulator integrated into the cylinder. Since their introduction in the 1980s, bailout bottles have been the subject of debate within the diving community.
The argument against bailout bottles is that they do not have sufficient capacity to get a diver in many emergency situations back to the surface safely, and thus cause divers to feel a false sense of safety. A review carried out by Scuba Diving magazine attempted to give a sense of from what depth bailout bottles of various capacities could get divers to the surface under maximum safe ascent rates. The review found that a 1.7 cubic foot bottle had sufficient air to get the reviewing diver from 45 feet to the surface; a 3 cubic foot bottle from a depth of 70 feet; and a 6 cubic foot bottle from the maximum reviewed depth of 132 feet.
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August 3, 2010
The Five Tibetan Rites is a system of exercises reported to be more than 2,500 years old which were first publicized by Peter Kelder in a 1939 publication entitled The Eye of Revelation. Kelder claims to have met, in southern California, a retired British army colonel who shared with him stories of travel and the subsequent discovery of the Rites. Although the Rites have circulated amongst yogis for decades, skeptics say that Tibetans have never recognized them as being authentic Tibetan practices.
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August 1, 2010
A hypnic jerk, sleep start, or kick is an involuntary muscle twitch which occurs during hypnagogia, just as a person is beginning to fall asleep. Physically, hypnic jerks resemble the jump made when a person is startled, often accompanied by a falling sensation. It is commonly caused by irregular sleep schedules.
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August 1, 2010
Kombucha [kawm-boo-chah] is a fermented tea that is often drunk for medicinal purposes. There is limited scientific information supporting any health benefit and few studies are being conducted. Kombucha is available commercially and can be made at home by fermenting tea using a visible, solid mass of yeast and bacteria which forms the kombucha culture which is often referred to as the ‘mushroom’ or the ‘mother.’
The recorded history of kombucha began in Russia during the late 19th century. In Chinese, kombucha is called hongchajun (red tea fungus). In Japanese, the drink is known as kōcha kinoko (black tea mushroom). Some promotional kombucha sources propagate the legend that this tea-based beverage originated in ancient China or Japan centuries prior to knowledge of leaf-based teas. There is little historical evidence to support this claim.
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July 22, 2010
Golden rice is a variety of rice produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of pro-vitamin A in the edible parts of rice. The scientific details of the rice were first published in Science in 2000. Golden rice was developed as a fortified food to be used in areas where there is a shortage of dietary vitamin A. In 2005 Syngenta, a biotechnology company announced a new variety called Golden Rice 2 which produces up to 23 times more beta-carotene than the original variety.
Neither variety is currently available for human consumption. Although golden rice was developed as a humanitarian tool, it has met with significant opposition from environmental and anti-globalization activists.
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July 22, 2010
Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is a behavioral disorder characterized by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand. It is currently categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an impulse control disorder. Impulsive aggression is unpremeditated, and is defined by a disproportionate reaction to any provocation, real or perceived.
Individuals diagnosed with IED report their outbursts were brief (lasting less than an hour), with a variety of bodily symptoms (sweating, chest tightness, twitching, palpitations). Violent acts were frequently accompanied by a sensation of relief, and in some cases, pleasure, but accompanied by remorse after the fact.
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July 21, 2010
The International HapMap Project an organization that aims to develop a haplotype map (HapMap) of the human genome, which will describe the common patterns of human genetic variation. Haplotypes are contiguous strings of DNA. HapMap is a key resource for researchers to find genetic variants affecting health, disease, and responses to drugs and environmental factors. The information produced by the project is made freely available to researchers around the world.
Unlike with the rarer Mendelian diseases, combinations of different genes and the environment play a role in the development and progression of common diseases (such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and asthma), or in the individual response to pharmacological agents. To find the genetic factors involved in these diseases, one could in principle obtain the complete genetic sequence of several individuals, some with the disease and some without, and then search for differences between the two sets of genomes. This approach is currently infeasible because of the cost of full genome sequencing. The HapMap project proposes a shortcut.
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July 20, 2010
Nalgene is the main product line of Nalge Nunc International, a distributor and manufacturer of plastic laboratory containers that has diversified into the field of containers for outdoor sports. In recent years, studies have suggested that polycarbonate plastics such as the ones Nalgene used may leach endocrine disruptors like Bisphenol A (BPA). Nalgene denies that the quantity leached from their products posed a significant threat to health, but as of April 2008 they began phasing out production of any BPA containing products. All current Nalgene water bottles are made from copolyester.
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July 17, 2010
The fat acceptance movement (also known as the size acceptance movement, fat liberation movement, and fat power) is a grassroots effort to change societal attitudes towards obese people. The movement argues that overweight people are targets of hatred, discrimination, and undue social pressure. Critics worry that fat acceptance encourages obesitiy, which is linked to heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and joint problems.
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July 17, 2010
The rod of Asclepius [uh-sklee-pee-uhs] is an ancient symbol associated with astrology, the Greek god Asclepius, and with medicine and healing. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. The name of the symbol derives from its early and widespread association with Asclepius, the son of Apollo, who was a practitioner of medicine in ancient Greek mythology. Hippocrates himself was a worshipper of Asclepius.
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July 17, 2010
The caduceus [kuh-doo-see-uhs] is a herald’s staff, a symbolic object representing Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations or undertakings associated with the god. It is today typically depicted as a short staff entwined by two serpents in the form of a double helix, and is sometimes surmounted by wings. The caduceus is sometimes used as a symbol of medicine and/or medical practice, especially in North America, due to widespread confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius, which has only a single snake and no wings.
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