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Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market: Supplier Shares and Sales …

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/dztlbt/future_horizons_in) has announced the addition of the "Future Horizons in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 Tests by Country" report to their offering.

This comprehensive seven-country report is designed to assist diagnostics industry executives, as well as companies planning to diversify into the dynamic and rapidly expanding microbiology testing market, in evaluating emerging opportunities and developing effective business strategies.

The report provides market segmentation analysis of over 90 diseases and viruses in seven countries, assessment of emerging technologies, review of current instrumentation, as well as strategic profiles of leading suppliers and recent market entrants with innovative technologies and products.

Rationale:

The microbiology testing market is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the in vitro diagnostics industry, and the greatest challenge facing suppliers. Among the main driving forces is continuing spread of AIDS, which remains the world's major health threat and a key factor contributing to the rise of opportunistic infections; threat of bioterrorism; advances in molecular diagnostic technologies; and wider availability of immunosuppressive drugs.

Although for some infections the etiology is still a mystery, while for others the causative microorganisms are present in minute concentrations long before the occurrence of first clinical symptoms, recent advances in genetic engineering and detection technologies are creating exciting opportunities for highly sensitive, specific and cost-effective products.

Geographic Coverage:

- France

- Germany

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Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the Global Infectious Disease Testing Market: Supplier Shares and Sales ...

Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the German Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 …

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d23jv9/future_horizons_in) has announced the addition of the "Future Horizons in the German Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 Infectious Disease Tests by Market Segment" report to their offering.

Highlights:

- Comprehensive 983-page analysis of the German microbiology testing market.

- Major issues pertaining to the German microbiology laboratory practice, as well as key economic, regulatory, demographic, social and technological trends with significant market impact during the next ten years.

- Current scientific views on the definition, epidemiology, and etiology of major infectious diseases and microorganisms.

- Ten-year test volume and sales forecasts for nearly 80 microbiology tests performed in German hospitals, blood banks and commercial laboratories.

- Instrumentation technologies and feature comparison of leading analyzers.

- Sales and market shares of leading suppliers.

- Emerging diagnostic technologies and their potential market applications.

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Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the German Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 ...

Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the Global Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 …

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/glb7m3/future_horizons_in) has announced the addition of the "Future Horizons in the Global Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 Infectious Disease Tests by Country" report to their offering.

Rationale

Geographic Coverage

- France

- Germany

Read the rest here:
Research and Markets: Future Horizons in the Global Microbiology Market: Supplier Shares and Sales Forecasts for 100 ...

Under-twisted DNA origami delivers cancer drugs to tumors

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2012) Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden describe in a new study how so-called DNA origami can enhance the effect of certain cytostatics used in the treatment of cancer. With the aid of modern nanotechnology, scientists can target drugs direct to the tumour while leaving surrounding healthy tissue untouched.

The drug doxorubicin has long been used as a cytostatic (toxin) for cancer treatment but can cause serious adverse reactions such as myocardial disease and severe nausea. Because of this, scientists have been trying to find a means of delivering the drug to the morbid tumour cells without affecting healthy cells. A possible solution that many are pinning their hopes on is to use different types of nanoparticles as 'projectiles' primed with the active substance.

In the present study, which is published in the scientific journal ACS Nano, scientists at Karolinska Institutet show how DNA origami can be used as such a projectile (or carrier) of doxorubicin. DNA origami is a new technique for building nanostrucutres from DNA, the hereditary material found in the cell nucleus. Using this technique, researchers can produce highly complex nanostrucutres with surfaces to which complex patterns of proteins and many other molecules can easily be attached.

What the researchers did on this occasion was to package the doxorubicin in a DNA origami configuration designed in such a way that relaxed the degree of twist of the DNA double helix. This allowed the drug to be released more slowly and operate more effectively on the cancer cells at lower concentrations than is otherwise possible.

"When the DNA has a lower degree of twist, there's more room for the doxorubicin to become attached, which leads to its slower release," says group leader Dr Bjrn Hgberg. "Another advantage to using DNA origami is that we will quickly be able to develop the targeted protein system. This will enable us to deliver drugs in a way that is even more sparing of healthy cells."

The study has been financed with grants from several bodies, including the Swedish research Council, Vinnova (the Swedish governmental agency for innovation systems), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Falk Foundation, the Jeansson foundations, Carl Bennet AB and the Axel and Eva Wallstrm Foundation.

Publication: 'A DNA Origami Delivery System for Cancer Therapy with Tunable Release Properties', Yong-Xing Zhao, Alan Shaw, Xianghui Zeng, Erik Benson, Andreas M. Nystrm & Bjrn Hgberg, ACS Nano, online first 5 September 2012.

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Under-twisted DNA origami delivers cancer drugs to tumors

LBNL Seeks Licensees for Highly Specific and Sensitive DNA Extraction Method

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Sequenom has appointed Myla Lai-Goldman to its board of directors and to the board's science committee. Lai-Goldman is a managing partner at Personalized Science and CEO of GeneCentric Diagnostics. Previously, she served as executive vice president, chief medical officer, and chief scientific officer at Laboratory Corporation of America.

Aushon BioSystems has appointed Martin Verhoef to be company CEO and to serve on its board of directors. Verhoef takes over the position from company Founder Peter Honkanen, who will assume the post of COO and will continue as a board director.

Verhoef has spent 25 years in the life science research tools and molecular diagnostics business. He formerly was CEO at MiraDx and PrimeraDx, he led Ciphergen's Biosystems Division, and he held senior management jobs at Agilent in Germany and in the US.

The New York Genome Center has appointed Dirk Evers and Kevin Shianna to its leadership team. Evers, who will serve as senior vice president of bioinformatics, joins NYGC from Illumina, where he led the company's computational biology efforts in the UK. Previously, he served as managing director of the International Graduate School in Bioinformatics and Genome Research at the Center for Biotechnology at Bielefeld University. Shianna will serve as senior vice president of sequencing operations at the NYGC. He joins from Duke University, where he was an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, director of operations for the Center for Human Genome Variation, and founding director for the Genomic Analysis Facility.

DNA ‘junk' contains a treasure of information about disease

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Among the many mysteries of human biology is why complex diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and psychiatric disorders are so difficult to predict and, often, to treat. An equally perplexing puzzle is why one individual gets a disease such as cancer or depression, while an identical twin remains perfectly healthy.

Now scientists have discovered a vital clue to unraveling these riddles.

The human genome is packed with at least 4 million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as junk but that turn out to play critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave.

The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health because many complex diseases appear to be caused by tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.

The findings are the fruit of an immense federal project, involving 440 scientists from 32 labs around the world.

As they delved into the junk parts of the DNA that are not actual genes containing instructions for proteins they discovered it's not junk at all. At least 80 percent of it is active and needed.

The result is an annotated road map of much of this DNA, noting what it's doing and how.

It includes the system of switches that, acting like dimmer switches for lights, control which genes are used in a cell and when they are used, and determine, for instance, whether a cell becomes a liver cell or a neuron.

The findings have immediate applications for understanding how alterations in the nongene parts of DNA contribute to human diseases, which may in turn lead to new drugs.

They also can help explain how the environment can affect disease risk.

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DNA ‘junk' contains a treasure of information about disease

Three reasons why junk DNA makes evolutionary sense

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

ENCODE (Image: Ed Yong)

The recent dustup over the ENCODE project and its confusing finding that 80% of DNA is functional surprises me greatly. What surprises me especially is that people are surprised by junk DNA. Unfortunately this time the scientists are also culpable since, while the publicity surrounding ENCODE has been a media disaster, the 80% claim originated in the scientific papers themselves. There is no doubt that the project itself which represents a triumph of teamwork, dogged pursuit, technological mastery and first-rate science has produced enormously useful data, and there is no doubt it will continue to do so. What is in doubt is how long it will take for the public damage to be repaired.

Theres a lot written about the various misleading statements about the project made by both scientists and journalists and I cannot add much to it. All I can do is to point to some excellent articles:Larry Moran has waged a longstanding effort to spread the true wisdom about junk DNA for years on his blog. Ed Yong exhaustively summarizes a long list of opinions, links and analysis. T. Ryan Gregory has some great posts dispelling the myth of the myth of junk DNA. And John Timmer has the best popular account of the matter. The biggest mistake on the part of the scientists was to define functional so loosely that it could mean pretty much all of DNA. The second big mistake was not in clarifying what functional means to the public.

But what I found astonishing was why its so hard for people to accept that much of DNA must indeed be junk. Even to someone like me who is not an expert, the existence of junk DNA appeared perfectly normal. I think that junk DNA shouldnt shock us at all if we accept the standard evolutionary picture.

The standard evolutionary picture tells us that evolution is messy, incomplete and inefficient. DNA consists of many kinds of sequences. Some sequences have a bonafide biological function in that they are transcribed and then translated into proteins that have a clear physiological role. Then there are sequences which are only transcribed into RNA which doesnt do anything. There are also sequences which are only bound by DNA-binding proteins (which was one of the definitions of functional the ENCODE scientists subscribed to). Finally, there are sequences which dont do anything at all. Many of these sequences consist of pseudogenes and transposons and are defective and dysfunctional genes from viruses and other genetic flotsam, inserted into our genome through our long, imperfect and promiscuous genetic history. If we can appreciate that evolution is a flawed, piecemeal, inefficient and patchwork process, we should not be surprised to find this diversity of sequences with varying degrees of function or with no function in our genome.

The reason why most of these useless pieces have not been weeded out is simply because there was no need to. We should remember that evolution does not work toward a best possible outcome, it can only do the best with what it already has. Its too much of a risk and too much work to get rid of all these defective and non-functional sequences if they arent a burden; the work of simply duplicating these sequences is much lesser than that of getting rid of them. Thus the sequences hung around in our long evolutionary history and got passed on. The fact that they may not serve any function at all would be perfectively consistent with a haphazard natural mechanism depending on chance and the tacking on of non-functionality to useful functions simply as extra baggage.

There are two other facts in my view which should make it very easy for us to accept the existence of junk DNA. Consider that the salamander genome is ten times the size of the human genome. Now this implies two possibilities; either salamanders have ten times functional DNA than we do, or that the main difference between us and salamanders is that they have much more junk DNA. Wouldnt the complexity of salamander anatomy of physiology be vastly different if they really had so much more functional DNA? On the contrary, wouldnt the relative simplicity of salamanders compared to humans be much more consistent with just varying degrees of junk DNA? Which explanation sounds more plausible?

The third reason for accepting the reality of junk DNA is to simply think about mutational load. Our genomes, as of other organisms, have undergone lots of mutations during evolution. What would be the consequences if 90% of our genome were really functional and had undergone mutations? How would we have survived and flourished with such a high mutation rate? On the other hand, its much simpler to understand our survival if we assume that most mutations that happen in our genome happen in junk DNA.

As a summary then, we should be surprised to find someone who says they are surprised by junk DNA. Even someone like me who is not an expert can think of at least three simple reasons to like junk DNA:

1. The understanding that evolution is an inherently messy and inefficient process that often produces junk. This junk may be retained if its not causing trouble.

Continued here:
Three reasons why junk DNA makes evolutionary sense

DNA with a Twist

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Researchers show that DNA supercoils are dynamic structures that can hop long distances, a phenomenon that could affect gene regulation.

Scientists understanding of how long strings of DNA are packaged into tiny spaces just got a little more complicated. New research on single molecules of DNA show that supercoilssegments of extra-twisted loops of DNAcan moving by jumping along a DNA strand. The results, published today (September 13) in Science, give researchers new insights into DNA organization and point to a surprisingly speedy mechanism of gene regulation inside cells.

This is the first study that addresses the dynamics of DNA supercoils, said Ralf Seidel, who studies movement of molecular motor proteins along DNA at the University of Technology Dresden, but was not involved in the research. This supercoil hopping motion allows DNA strands to transmit supercoiling, bringing sites together in very fast manner.

DNA, being a double helix, is naturally twisted. In vivo, its packaged with proteins called histones that help condense the millions or billions of nucleotides into the small space of a cells nucleus. Constant interaction with proteins moving along the strand, like transcription factors that need to open the helix to read the DNA sequence, can affect both the double helixs twist, and the strands writhethe coiling of the strand around itself. These extra-twisted coils, called plectonemes or supercoils, form not unlike coils in phone cords. By bringing together distant segments of DNA, such as regulatory elements and the genes they control, supercoiling can affect expression.

In order to get a better sense of how supercoils behave, Cees Dekker at Delft University of Technology and his colleagues induced supercoils in single strands of DNA molecules, labeled with fluorescent dye. One end of the DNA was anchored to the side of a glass capillary tube and a magnetic bead was attached to the other end. This allowed the researchers to use miniscule magnets to twist the DNA and induce supercoils, and watch their movement using fluorescence microscopy.

Unexpectedly, the team found that supercoils move along DNA strands in one of two ways. Sometimes they slowly diffuse along the strand; other times, the supercoils hoppeddisappearing suddenly from one location while simultaneously appearing at a distant location further down the strand.

This is far more complicated than diffusion of supercoils down the DNAs length, said Prashant Purohit, who studies DNA behavior at the University of Pennsylvania, but was not involved in the study. The DNA is behaving non-locally, he noted. It shows that writhethe coiling of the DNA strandis a global, not local quantity [of the strand].

So far the intriguing phenomenon has only been observed on single strands of naked DNA, Seidel cautioned, so its unclear how supercoils might act in vivo, when the DNA is well-packaged and studded with proteins. It may be that such behavior is more important for DNA in prokaryotic cells, which have less packaged DNA than eukaryotic cells, noted Bryan Daniels, who models biological systems at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The ionic environment of the cell is also likely to influence supercoiling behavior. DNA is more likely to condense in the presence of multivalent ions (3 or more positive charges), for example, than in an environment of singly-valent ions. And Dekker and his colleagues, who used singly-valent ions in their experiments, found that more supercoils formed at lower concentrations of ions.

Dekker and his team are now looking at how different DNA sequences and the presence of DNA-binding proteins can influence supercoil formation and motionthe first step toward understanding supercoil movement in vivo.

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DNA with a Twist

MARC travel awards announced for the 2012 APS Integrative Biology of Exercise meeting

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Public release date: 13-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Fran Yates fyates@faseb.org 301-634-7109 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Bethesda, MD FASEB MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) Program has announced the travel award recipients for The American Physiological Society (APS) Integrative Biology of Exercise Meeting in Westminster, CO from October 10-13, 2012. These awards are meant to promote the entry of underrepresented minority students, postdoctorates and scientists into the mainstream of the basic science community and to encourage the participation of young scientists at the 2012 APS Integrative Biology of Exercise Meeting.

Awards are given to poster/platform presenters and faculty mentors paired with the students/trainees they mentor. This year MARC conferred 4 awards totaling $7,400.

The FASEB MARC Program is funded by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health. A primary goal of the MARC Program is to increase the number and competitiveness of underrepresented minorities engaged in biomedical and behavioral research.

FACULTY/MENTOR & STUDENTS/MENTEES (FASEB MARC PROGRAM)

Dr. Vernon Bond, Howard University [ACSM member] Nicole McLean, Howard University [ACSM member] Dr. Rajagopalan Sridhar, Howard University Donte Pennington, Howard University

###

FASEB is composed of 26 societies with more than 100,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Celebrating 100 Years of Advancing the Life Sciences in 2012, FASEB is rededicating its efforts to advance health and well-being by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.

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MARC travel awards announced for the 2012 APS Integrative Biology of Exercise meeting

Cell death mystery yields new suspect for cancer drug development

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Public release date: 13-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ellen de Graffenreid edegraff@med.unc.edu 919-962-3405 University of North Carolina Health Care

A mysterious form of cell death, coded in proteins and enzymes, led to a discovery by UNC researchers uncovering a prime suspect for new cancer drug development.

CIB1 is a protein discovered in the lab of Leslie Parise, PhD , professor and chair of the department of biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The small calcium binding protein is found in all kinds of cells.

Cassandra Moran, DO, was a pediatric oncology fellow at UNC prior to accepting a faculty position at Duke University. She is interested in neuroblastoma, a deadly form of childhood brain cancer. While working in the Parise lab at UNC as a resident, she found that decreasing CIB1 in neuroblastoma cells caused cell death.

Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth, so the ability to cause cancer cell death in the lab is exciting to researchers but the UNC team couldn't figure out how it was happening.

Tina Leisner, PhD, a UNC research associate in biochemistry, picked up where Dr. Moran left off when she returned to her clinical training.

"It was a mystery how loss of CIB1 was causing cell death. We knew that it wasn't the most common mechanism for programmed cell death, called apoptosis, which occurs when enzymes called caspases become activated, leading to the destruction of cellular DNA. These cells were not activating caspases, yet they were dying. It was fascinating, but frustrating at the same time," said Leisner.

What Dr. Leisner and her colleagues found, in the end, is that CIB1 is a master regulator of two pathways that cancer cells use to avoid normal mechanisms for programmed cell death. These two pathways, researchers believe, create "alternate routes" for cell survival and proliferation that may help cancer cells outsmart drug therapy. When one pathway is blocked, the other still sends signals downstream to cause cancer cell survival.

"What we eventually discovered is that CIB1 sits on top of two cell survival pathways, called PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK. When we knock out CIB1, both pathways grind to a halt. Cells lose AKT signaling, causing another enzyme called GAPDH to accumulate in the cell's nucleus.Cells also lose ERK signaling, which together with GAPDH accumulation in the nucleus cause neuroblastoma cell death. In the language of people who aren't biochemists, knocking out CIB1 cuts off the escape routes for the cell signals that cause uncontrolled growth, making CIB1 a very promising drug target," said Dr. Parise.

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Cell death mystery yields new suspect for cancer drug development

Professor appointed as new director to help courses via technology

Posted on September 14, 2012 by ev1

Professor appointed as new director to help courses via technology

Center for Teaching Excellence: a program whose goal is to assist faculty with implementing technology-driven course enhancements and advanced features of the electronic course management system.

Source: OU Public Affairs

A new director has been appointed to a program at OU that is designed to help faculty improve courses with new technology.

Teaching strategies expert Mark Morvant, a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry, will be appointed Oct. 1 as the executive director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, as long as the OU Board of Regents approves his appointment in its September meeting, according to an OU press release.

Morvant will work with Michele Eodice, associate provost for academic engagement, to embed writing strategies within disciplines across the campus and increase the use of other high-impact instructional techniques, according the press release.

I think the future for the University of Oklahoma is very bright I think theres an excitement among the faculty about improving the educational experience for our students, and Im honored to lead our faculty in improving the students education, Morvant said.

In 2006, Morvant began teaching at OU as a chemistry professor and was named assistant chairman of the chemistry and biochemistry department in 2011, according to the press release.

He will step down from teaching for a few years to build the Center for Teaching Excellence program but plans on eventually returning to limited teaching on a routine basis, Morvant said.

Morvant also will be stepping down from his position as assistant chairman of the chemistry and biochemistry department but will continue to have a faculty appointment in the department, he said.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’: When did my friends stop watching?

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

Image Credit: Ron Tom/ABC

Apparently, at some point, my friends stopped watching Greys Anatomy and failed to inform me.

I discovered this last week when I was gushing to my friend Amy* about how excited I was for the show to return. Her response? Oh, I stopped watching that a long time ago. To be clear: I am NOT okay with this.

I sort of blame myself, actually. We used to bond over Greys Anatomy, and when I moved away, it became harder for us to have our weekly post-episode chat session. But Im now on a personal mission to get her and my other friends who have fallen off the McSexy wagon to start watching again. Because I think its too good for Greys fans (past and present!) to be missing.

When I tried to convince Amy to join me in this season, naturally, she whined: I want to! But I havent watched in forever! (To be specific, she estimated it was around the time George and Izzy happened.)

Normally, Id tell her to man-up and catch up using Netflix or (barf) read Wikipedia. But since were just about two weeks shy of the premiere, I recognize that not everyone can make it through several seasons of a TV show in that amount of time. (Some people sleep!) And, again, reading about several seasons of a show at one time is not satisfying. So, Im trying to prep a mini-marathon for her one that I plan on sharing with you very soon, too!

But to do so, I need to know the answer to the question below. I need a solid starting point. So, if you could, would you mind weighing in?

*Name changed to protect the innocent

Related: Private Practice scoop: True Blood star to play Taye Diggs mom EXCLUSIVE Greys Anatomy doc Jesse Williams marries

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‘Grey’s Anatomy’: When did my friends stop watching?

Raspberry Pi Supercomputer – This is why the Raspberry Pi is Sold Out

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

A team led by Professor Simon Cox at the University of Southampton built a super computer using 64 Raspberry Pi computers. The rig housing is made with Lego blocks. It doesn't get more geeked-out... Drop to Full Story below

Update: 13

Source: Freshnews.com

Professor Cox says As soon as we were able to source sufficient Raspberry Pi computers we wanted to see if it was possible to link them together into a supercomputer. We installed and built all of the necessary software on the Pi starting from a standard Debian Wheezy system image and we have published a guide so you can build your own supercomputer.

About theIridis-Pi:

The racking was built using Lego with a design developed by Simon and James, who has also been testing the Raspberry Pi by programming it using free computer programming software Python and Scratch over the summer. The machine, named Iridis-Pi after the Universitys Iridis supercomputer, runs off a single 13 Amp mains socket and uses MPI (Message Passing Interface) to communicate between nodes using Ethernet. The whole system cost under 2,500 (excluding switches) and has a total of 64 processors and 1Tb of memory (16Gb SD cards for each Raspberry Pi).

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Raspberry Pi Supercomputer - This is why the Raspberry Pi is Sold Out

Connecting religion and spirituality with medicine

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

Question: Religion, spirituality and medicine: Is there a connection?

Answer: A growing body of scientific research suggests connections between religion, spirituality, and both mental and physical health. Recent studies indicate that religious beliefs influence medical decisions, such as the use of chemotherapy and other life-saving treatments.

Even though religion typically involves connections to a community with shared beliefs and rituals while spirituality is more individualistic and self-determined, nearly 90 percent of medical patients consider themselves both religious and spiritual. When it comes to discussing such matters with patients, it is probably best to use spirituality because of its broad and inclusive nature.

The area of spirituality can make many physicians uncomfortable because they are worried about overstepping ethical boundaries or interfering with private business. They also worry about having to spend more time with the patient and some may not see the value in spirituality as it relates to health.

Spirituality/religiosity tends to increase with increasing age as does serious or chronic health problems. Also, as people become ill, they experience stress related to the changes in their life that the illness causes. Many turn to spiritualism for comfort by involving themselves in activities such as prayer and meditation, scripture reading and looking for support from members of their faith community.

More than 60 studies have now examined the role that religion plays in helping patients cope with cancer, asthma, arthritis, heart disease, lung disease, HIV/AIDS, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, chronic pain and Lou Gehrigs disease. Patients in these studies report that spiritual/religious beliefs are powerful sources of comfort, hope, and meaning, particularly in coping with medical illness. The population for whom religion is especially relevant is the elderly, women, and ethnic minorities (blacks and Hispanics).

More than 700 studies examined the relationship between religion, well-being and mental health. Not only were religious beliefs and practices associated with significantly less depression and faster recovery from depression, lower suicide rates, less anxiety, and less substance abuse but they were also associated with greater well-being, hope, optimism, and more purpose and meaning in life, greater marital satisfaction and stability and higher social support.

If increased religiosity/spirituality reduces stress levels and enhances social support, then it ought to also affect physical health. A summary of research on physical health outcomes produced the following: religious beliefs/spirituality have been associated with better immune function; lower death rates from cancer; less heart disease or better cardiac outcomes; lower blood pressure; lower cholesterol; less cigarette smoking; more exercise and better sleep. Religious/spiritual people were also found live significantly longer!

Given the role religious/spiritual beliefs play in successful coping and recovery, and the effects of beliefs on medical decisions and willingness to receive treatment, there are plenty of reasons why doctors should know about their patients religiosity or spiritualism and its effect on their health and medical care. Physicians should take a brief spiritual history and ask which beliefs are a source of comfort and which a cause for stress; which beliefs are in conflict with medical care; do they have a supportive faith community that will be able to assist them during treatment and recovery and are there beliefs that might influence medical decisions.

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Connecting religion and spirituality with medicine

LIVE from the Space Station: Gotta-See Video

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

YouTube is increasingly important outside the world of cat videos and people injuring themselves, and today they'll be streaming live from space.

YouTube had a call out to the youth of our planet to create an experiment that could be performed on the International Space Station (ISS). Thousands of teams entered, posting video of their experiments on YouTube. From the entries, six were chosen from various regions of Earth and then those six were narrowed down to two experiments.

In a partnership with NASA, JAXA, and the ESA as well as Space Industries and Lenovo the experiments were sent to the space station. They were launched on a Japanese rocket and transported to the ISS where they will be will be carried out TODAY.

Tune into the YouTube channel above for live video from the International Space Station at 10:50 am EST. via YouTube Space Lab

Want to recommend a video? Tweet it to @Discovery_News with the hashtag #GottaSeeVideos.

Don't miss today's Must-Read News Nuggets too!

Watch Discovery Curiosity video!

Link:

LIVE from the Space Station: Gotta-See Video

Neil Armstrong Inspired Canadian Astronaut's Giant Leap

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

Late astronaut Neil Armstrong's historic 1969 moonwalk put dreams of spaceflight in the heads of countless kids around the world — including one Canadian nine-year-old who would grow up to become his nation's first International Space Station commander.

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Neil Armstrong Inspired Canadian Astronaut's Giant Leap

Don't miss: The last flight of space shuttle Endeavour

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

WHAT: Space shuttle Endeavour will make its final flight from Florida on Monday. It will be aboard a special 747 that will transport the craft to Los Angeles, where eventually it will be on display at the California Science Center. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is offering a couple of options to watch Endeavour fly off, including "front row" seats as it departs from the Shuttle ...

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Don't miss: The last flight of space shuttle Endeavour

NASA seeks extreme weather photographs

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

Published: Sept. 13, 2012 at 4:42 PM

GREENBELT, Md., Sept. 13 (UPI) -- NASA has announced a competition to select the best user-submitted pictures of extreme weather to display on its mission websites.

The best pictures of thunderstorms, tornadoes and other extreme weather condition will be featured on the NASA Precipitation Measurement Missions websites at pmm.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/GPM, the space agency said.

Images should be in JPEG (.jpg) format in as high a resolution as possible with as much accompanying data as the user is comfortable providing, NASA said, including possibly name, affiliation (school, community group, etc.), location where the photo was taken and any other interesting details about the photo.

NASA is reminding entrants to be safe and not take extreme chances when shooting extreme weather.

Submissions of photos, which can be from any time period, will be accepted through Sept. 18.

Submissions can be made at the competition website, http://www.flickr.com/groups/gpm-extreme-weather/.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission is an international satellite mission that studies Earth's water and energy cycles.

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NASA seeks extreme weather photographs

NASA: Manned Mars mission still on track

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

by Ledyard King, Gannett Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A top NASA official told lawmakers Wednesday the agency is on track with its next crewed mission into deep space: a trip to an asteroid and then to Mars.

NASA and its team of private contractors are "making excellent progress" toward launching an unmanned test flight in 2017 in preparation for the real mission, Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development, told members of a House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee.

Tests measuring water impact, acoustics, vibrations and parachute landings of the Orion crew vehicle are either under way or nearly complete, and the manufacturing of a "state-of-the-art" heat shield has begun, he said. Design work is underway on the $30 billion "heavy lift" rocket known as the Space Launch System that will carry Orion, Dumbacher said.

His comments Wednesday came nearly a year after NASA unveiled the design of the rocket, which will be longer than a football field and is billed as the most powerful U.S. rocket since the Saturn V that took Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

If the time line holds, a manned test flight of the Space Launch System and Orion capsule will take place in 2021. If that's successful, an asteroid landing would be feasible by 2025, followed by a landing on Mars sometime in the 2030s.

A 20-year wait to reach Earth's neighbor sounds agonizingly distant given the successful Mars landing earlier this year by Curiosity, a car-sized science lab currently roving the Martian surface for clues to life.

But space exploration remains delicate and expensive, and NASA has had to navigate the priorities of changing administrations. President Barack Obama called for the Mars mission after scrapping a moon mission sought by President George W. Bush.

Even if the engineering goes well, there's a question of money. At a time when Congress is contemplating deep cuts in discretionary programs such as space exploration, NASA might not have the budget it needs over time to sustain the program as currently designed.

The project's requested fiscal 2013 budget alone is nearly $2.8 billion: $969 million for Orion, $1.3 billion for the Space Launch System, and $405 million for Kennedy Space Center to prepare for the eventual launch.

NASA: Manned Mars mission still on track

Industrial Nanotech, Inc. Continues India Expansion Plan with Trade Visit

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Danzig

NAPLES, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Industrial Nanotech, Inc. (Pink Sheets:INTK), an emerging global leader in nanotechnology based energy saving and sustainable solutions announced today that the Company has planned a trade visit to India in late October as the next step in their plan to significantly increase sales and availability of their energy saving and protective Nansulate(R) coating line. The visit will coincide with the International conference on Nanotechnology, Nanocon012, at which their coatings will be presented.

The efforts we have made to expand into India have laid the groundwork for this trade visit, stated Francesca Crolley, VP of Business Development for Industrial Nanotech, Inc. We have secured support in the region for application and local availability of our insulation and protective coating line, and have seen an increasing number of requests for factory visits coming in. As manufacturers and other energy users learn of our innovative and affordable technology for insulating and protecting from corrosion equipment and buildings, they are eager to learn how they can implement our solutions in their facilities. We have received visit invitations from several manufacturers, which range from the textile, pulp and paper, plastics, chemical, and electronics industries as well as clients for real estate construction and institutional related building applications. The response to our marketing plan in India has been remarkable in terms of sales inquiries and additionally the invitation to submit product information and a full length article to leading chemical industry publications in that country, which we expect to see in the upcoming September and October issues. We have additionally built strong relationships there with local companies to increase on the ground support, and look forward to cementing those relationships and bringing further new business for increased market share in India during our visit next month.

India's energy demand continues to grow significantly and at a faster pace than countries such as the United States. According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), Indian diesel demand soared to massive levels in late July after flooding and the collapse of three national grids blacked out more than half the country. Opec increased their 2012 oil demand forecast following a small increase in US consumption and a drastic rise in Indian demand.

About Nansulate(R)

Nansulate(R) is the Company's patented product line of award winning, specialty coatings containing a nanotechnology based material that provides the combined performance qualities of thermal insulation, corrosion prevention, resistance to mold growth, chemical resistance and lead encapsulation in an environmentally safe, water-based, coating formulation.

About Industrial Nanotech Inc.

Industrial Nanotech Inc. develops and commercializes new and innovative applications for sustainable nanotechnology which are sold worldwide.

Safe Harbor Statement

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, the impact of competitive products, the ability to meet customer demand, the ability to manage growth, acquisitions of technology, equipment, or human resources, the effect of economic and business conditions, and the ability to attract and retain skilled personnel. The Company is not obligated to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

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Industrial Nanotech, Inc. Continues India Expansion Plan with Trade Visit

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