Pneumococcal vaccine reduces antibiotic-resistant infections in children by 62 percent

 

October 10, 2014

Infectious Diseases Society of America

The pneumococcal vaccine recommended for young children not only prevents illness and death, but also has dramatically reduced severe antibiotic-resistant infections, suggests American nationwide research. Pneumococcal infection -- which can cause everything from ear infections to pneumonia and meningitis -- is the most common vaccine-preventable bacterial cause of death.

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The pneumococcal vaccine recommended for young children not only prevents illness and death, but also has dramatically reduced severe antibiotic-resistant infections, suggests nationwide research being presented at IDWeek 2014™. Pneumococcal infection -- which can cause everything from ear infections to pneumonia and meningitis -- is the most common vaccine-preventable bacterial cause of death.

The 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), first available in 2010 (replacing 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, PCV7), reduced the incidence of antibiotic-resistant invasive pneumococcal disease by 62 percent from 2009 to 2013 among children under five years old. The study is the first report of the effectiveness of PCV13 to combat antibiotic-resistant infections, a vaccination recommended for children under five years old. Three-quarters of states require it for entry into daycare, and 85 percent of U.S. children have received the recommended four doses.

"We're at risk of living in a post-antibiotic world, where these miracle medications no longer work, but this vaccine is part of the solution to protecting ourselves from the growing threat of antibiotic resistance," said lead researcher Sara Tomczyk, PHN, MSc, epidemic intelligence service (EIS) officer for the Respiratory Diseases Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta. "Not only does this vaccine prevent pneumococcal infection, which means fewer antibiotics are prescribed, but it also prevents antibiotic-resistant infections."

The U.S. government's Healthy People 2020 initiative set a goal of reduction of antimicrobial-resistant invasive pneumococcal disease from 9.3 to 6 cases per 100,000 children. In the course of analyzing the data for this study, the team realized the goal had been met nine years early due to the effectiveness of the pneumococcal vaccine. Currently, the rate is 3.5 cases per 100,000 children.

PCV13 is given to children in four doses, at two, four, six and 12 through 15 months of age. The study collected data representing approximately 10 percent of the United States, which is considered illustrative of the country as a whole, said Tomczyk. PCV13 is effective against 13 strains of pneumococcal bacteria, while PCV7 was effective against seven. One dose of PCV13 also is now recommended for all adults 65 and older, followed by a dose of the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) six to 12 months later. Additionally, one dose of PCV13 is recommended for adults 19 and older with certain cancers, HIV and kidney failure, followed by doses of PPSV23.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Infectious Diseases Society of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Moms who choose to breastfeed older babies motivated by health, nutrition benefits

 

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Mothers who decide to breastfeed their children beyond 1 year of age consider their child's physical and social development to be most important, while the advice of health care professionals, family and friends are least important, according to a study to be presented Monday, Oct. 13 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition in San Diego.

To find out why some moms choose to continue nursing after a child's first birthday, researchers surveyed more than 50,000 U.S. women ages 18-50.

"The three most important reasons that mothers gave for extended nursing were the nutritional benefits of breast milk, the other health benefits of breast milk and the opportunity to build a stronger social bond with their baby," said principal investigator Alexis Tchaconas, research assistant, developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York.

The investigators designed an online survey that asked mothers to rank 15 factors related to extended breastfeeding as "very important," "important," "somewhat important" or "not important." Surveys were sent to mothers via email lists from La Leche League, an international breastfeeding support organization, as well as Facebook groups and online chat rooms dedicated to breastfeeding support.

Besides health benefits and bonding with their child, other top factors that influenced mothers to breastfeed beyond one year included enjoyment, support from spouse or partner, La Leche League support and not having to pay for formula.

"Although most women felt comfortable discussing their decision to nurse their baby beyond 1 year of age with their child's pediatrician and with their own health care providers, the recommendations of these health care professionals were not identified as being important in terms of the mother's decision to extend nursing," said senior investigator Andrew Adesman, MD, FAAP, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Academy of Pediatrics. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Brasil permaneceu na 17ª colocação no quesito desigualdade no G-20

 

Agência Estado

Publicação: 10/10/2014 17:25 Atualização:

O Brasil se manteve em 2013 entre os países mais desiguais do G-20 pelo terceiro ano consecutivo, mostrou estudo elaborado pela Associação Nacional dos Executivos de Finanças, Administração e Contabilidade (Anefac) com base em uma compilação de números da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU).
O Brasil continuou na 17ª colocação no quesito desigualdade social, à frente apenas de África do Sul e Índia. Em quatro anos de pesquisa, o melhor desempenho brasileiro foi em 2010, quando ocupava a 15ª posição. O levantamento desconsidera a participação da União Europeia e, por isso, conta com 19 países.
"Particularmente o coeficiente de Gini é um indicador importante relacionado a este ranking e mostra o Brasil em situação bastante desconfortável com relação à distribuição da renda (...). O Brasil tem melhorado neste coeficiente de Gini ao longo dos últimos anos, no entanto, ainda há um longo caminho a percorrer", alertou a Anefac. Austrália, Alemanha e Canadá aparecem como os países menos desiguais do G-20, nesta ordem.
O Brasil ocupou a 14ª colocação no ranking de pobreza, mesmo patamar do ano anterior. "Os países abaixo do Brasil nesse ranking apresentam desempenho que não ameaça a 14ª posição brasileira, porém, aliado ao indicador de desigualdade, constata-se uma distância entre a posição do Brasil como economia global em relação à posição correspondente ao desenvolvimento humano", explicou a Anefac. Abaixo do Brasil seguem México, Indonésia, África do Sul, China e Índia. A associação acrescentou que aproximadamente 10% da população brasileira vive na miséria, e 10 milhões vivem com apenas US$ 1 25 por dia.
No ranking geral, que além desses itens já citados leva em conta tópicos como IDH, Saúde, Educação, Renda e Economia, Desigualdade de Gênero e Sustentabilidade, o Brasil manteve a 15ª colocação pelo segundo ano consecutivo, à frente de Turquia, Indonésia, África do Sul e Índia. A associação explicou que a nota brasileira melhorou, subindo de 4,22 pontos para 4,45 pontos, mas ponderou que os demais países progrediram mais.
As primeiras posições do ranking geral são ocupadas por Alemanha França e Canadá. Os EUA, maior economia do mundo, estão na oitava colocação. Segundo a Anefac, esse desempenho norte-americano é explicado pelas pontuações fracas nas categorias Saúde e Educação.
O Brasil piorou nas avaliações de IDH (14 para 15), Educação (14 para 15) e Desigualdade de Gênero (14 para 17). O País apresentou estabilidade em Saúde (13) e melhorou em Sustentabilidade (3 para 2) e em Renda e Economia (15 para 11). Este último item passou por uma revisão de critério em relação ao ano anterior. Segundo a Anefac, o Brasil "não apresenta um posicionamento equivalente nos indicadores que compõem a avaliação de renda na ONU".

HTC goes into the actioncam market, with the RE

 

HTC's pipe-like RE actioncam

Image Gallery (5 images)

Although HTC is best-known for its smartphones, today the company announced its venture into another product category – actioncams. The company has announced the RE, a viewfinder-less waterproof video camera that looks sort of like something you'd find in a plumbing store.

The RE has a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, an f2.8 146-degree lens, and records 1080p/30fps video. A sensor in its hand grip automatically turns the camera on when it's picked up – there's no power switch. From there, a quick tap of its single shutter button snaps stills, with a longer press required for video.

Using the upcoming Android/iOS RE app, users can access recording features such as time-lapse, plus the app screen serves as a remote viewfinder for setting up and reviewing shots.

Footage/photos can be streamed to a paired smartphone (and onward to the cloud) via Bluetooth, and recorded on a user-supplied microSD card. One charge of the RE's 820-mAh battery should reportedly be good for approximately 1,200 photos or 1 hour and 40 minutes of continuous video recording.

As mentioned, it's also waterproof – it's rated to IPX7, meaning that it can be immersed for 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter (3.3 ft).

 

Source: HTC

 

Intracranial stents: More strokes than with drug treatment alone

 

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The risk of having another stroke is higher if patients, after dilation of their blood vessels in the brain, not only receive clot-inhibiting drugs, but also have small tubes called stents inserted. However, studies have provided no hint of a benefit from stenting, which is also referred to with the abbreviation "PTAS." This is the conclusion reached in the rapid report of the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), as published on 9 October 2014.

Stents are supposed to prevent restenosis

Blood vessels in the brain that are narrowed or blocked can cause stroke. If patients have already had a stroke or temporary ischaemia (transient ischaemic attack, TIA), there is a high risk that this occurs again. These patients therefore receive drugs that prevent blood clotting. Another option is to additionally widen the narrowed vessels.

Nowadays this is often done using a small balloon in a procedure known as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). But even after PTA and simultaneous blood-thinning medication, vessels often remain narrow (stenosis) or new narrowing occurs (restenosis). The treatment has therefore been expanded to include stenting (percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and stenting, PTAS): Small wire mesh tubes are inserted to support the widened blood vessels and prevent restenosis. This stenting has been available for approximately 10 years.

Compare PTAS with treatment alternatives

The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) had commissioned IQWiG to assess the benefit of PTAS for patients with symptoms of narrowed blood vessels in the brain (symptomatic intracranial stenosis). PTAS was to be compared with drug treatment with blood-thinning medications alone and with balloon dilatation without stenting (PTA). Like PTAS, PTA always involves administration of blood-thinning drugs.

Four studies identified

IQWiG identified a total of four randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that included patients with symptomatic intracranial stenosis. In three studies, PTAS was compared with drug treatment alone. One study tested PTAS versus PTA.

One relevant study on PTAS versus medication alone

The SAMMPRIS study was relevant for the assessment of PTAS in comparison with drug treatment alone. SAMMPRIS included a total of 451 participants and is the largest study currently available. It is also the only study to provide data both on mortality and side effects and on stroke in all areas of the brain.

The two other studies (Miao 2012 and Gao 2013) only reported strokes that occurred in the territory of the treated vessels. However, it is relevant for the patients whether strokes occur at all -- irrespective of their localization. Hence only data from the SAMMPRIS study were available for the outcome "stroke" as well.

Lack of data for important outcomes

Besides mortality (all-cause mortality and from stroke), the burden of disease in the form of stroke, TIA, and other physical or psychological impairments from ischaemia, the patient-relevant outcomes of this assessment also include side effects (e.g. bleeding events or myocardial infarction) and dependence on others or requiring care. However, these were not fully reported in any of the studies. None of the four studies provided results on further criteria that are important for patients such as health-related quality of life, hospitalization or physical endurance.

Considerably more strokes in temporal proximity to the intervention

As the SAMMPRIS data showed, a new stroke is considerably more common in patients who have received an intracranial stent than in patients who only received medication: This was the case in 59 participants (26.3%) in the PTAS group, and in only 42 participants (18.5%) in the comparator group.

Differentiated by type of stroke, these differences can be determined in haemorrhagic stroke, i.e. stroke caused by bleeding, but not in ischaemic stroke, which is caused by narrowing. The haemorrhagic strokes were often periprocedural events occurring within 30 days of the intervention. In many cases, these strokes were apparently caused by mechanical manipulation during the placement of the stent.

No differences in morbidity and revascularization

These disadvantages are not accompanied by advantages in other outcomes: There was no relevant difference between the treatment groups in mortality (all-cause mortality and cerebrovascular mortality). The IQWiG report came to the same conclusion with regard to repeated revascularization, i.e. the necessity to widen narrowed vessels again.

Results potentially biased

All the studies included by IQWiG were subject to uncertainty and their results might be biased. The main reasons were unclear issues regarding randomization and the premature unplanned termination of the studies.

This is also true for SAMMPRIS, which started in November 2008, but was ended prematurely in April 2011 because considerably more events (counting deaths and strokes) had occurred in the PTAS group. Even though this decision is comprehensible, the results can be biased because of the premature termination of the study.

Despite the uncertainty described, IQWiG overall considers there to be a hint of harm from PTAS in comparison with drug treatment alone.

Drugs were not used in compliance with their approval

The interpretation of the SAMMPRIS results was made more difficult because the drugs were not used according to the specifications in the Summary of Product Characteristics valid in Germany: The patients in both groups received a combination of two clot-inhibiting drugs, acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) and clopidogrel (dual antiplatelet therapy). This combination is used in Germany, but is not approved for stroke because it is known to increase the risk of bleeding. It can also not be excluded that there is an interaction between the drugs and stent placement (PTAS), which particularly might influence the occurrence of bleeding.

RCTs indispensable in medical devices as well

PTAS is another example that high-quality studies are needed for risk class III medical devices, which also include stents: In the United States, intracranial stents had at first been approved for treatment of a specific, relatively small group of fewer than 4000 patients affected. This approval was based on case series and on the Humanitarian Device Exemption. However, Medicare, an American health insurance for elderly and disabled people, then demanded an RCT as prerequisite for its reimbursement of stents.

So the SAMMPRIS study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was initiated. Only this RCT, i.e. a study with a higher level of evidence, revealed that more strokes occurred under the new, allegedly innovative Treatment.

Product safety is not the same as patient safety

This confirmed the conclusion already drawn in the case of antibody-coated stents inserted in coronary vessels: Not only the medical device is decisive, but also its manner of application. "The entire application including its accompanying factors has to be investigated, and not only the stents themselves, to obtain reliable knowledge about the benefit stents have for patients," concludes Stefan Sauerland, Head of the IQWiG Department of Non-Drug Interventions.

Executive Summary of the Rapid Report is available at: https://www.iqwig.de/download/N14-01_Executive-summary_Intracranial-stents.pdf

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Milky Way has half the amount of dark matter as previously thought

 

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This is an artist's impression of the Milky Way and its dark matter halo (shown in blue, but in reality invisible).

A new measurement of dark matter in the Milky Way has revealed there is half as much of the mysterious substance as previously thought.

Australian astronomers used a method developed almost 100 years ago to discover that the weight of dark matter in our own galaxy is 800,000,000,000 (or 8 x 10¹¹) times the mass of the Sun.

They probed the edge of the Milky Way, looking closely, for the first time, at the fringes of the galaxy about 5 million billion kilometres from Earth.

Astrophysicist Dr Prajwal Kafle, from The University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said we have known for a while that most of the Universe is hidden.

"Stars, dust, you and me, all the things that we see, only make up about 4 per cent of the entire Universe," he said.

"About 25 per cent is dark matter and the rest is dark energy."

Dr Kafle, who is originally from Nepal, was able to measure the mass of the dark matter in the Milky Way by studying the speed of stars throughout the galaxy, including the edges, which had never been studied to this detail before.

He used a robust technique developed by British astronomer James Jeans in 1915 -- decades before the discovery of dark matter.

Dr Kafle's measurement helps to solve a mystery that has been haunting theorists for almost two decades.

"The current idea of galaxy formation and evolution, called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory, predicts that there should be a handful of big satellite galaxies around the Milky Way that are visible with the naked eye, but we don't see that," Dr Kafle said.

"When you use our measurement of the mass of the dark matter the theory predicts that there should only be three satellite galaxies out there, which is exactly what we see; the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy."

University of Sydney astrophysicist Professor Geraint Lewis, who was also involved in the research, said the missing satellite problem had been "a thorn in the cosmological side for almost 15 years."

"Dr Kafle's work has shown that it might not be as bad as everyone thought, although there are still problems to overcome," he said.

The study also presented a holistic model of the Milky Way, which allowed the scientists to measure several interesting things such as the speed required to leave the galaxy.

"Be prepared to hit 550 kilometres per second if you want to escape the gravitational clutches of our galaxy," Dr Kafle said.

"A rocket launched from Earth needs just 11 kilometres per second to leave its surface, which is already about 300 times faster than the maximum Australian speed limit in a car!"

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Prajwal Raj Kafle, Sanjib Sharma, Geraint F. Lewis, Joss Bland-Hawthorn. On the Shoulders of Giants: Properties of the Stellar Halo and the Milky Way Mass Distribution. The Astrophysical Journal, 2014; 794 (1): 59 DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/794/1/59

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Mining big data yields Alzheimer's discovery

 

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Scientists at The University of Manchester have used a new way of working to identify a new gene linked to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The discovery fills in another piece of the jigsaw when it comes to identifying people most at risk of developing the condition.

Researcher David Ashbrook and colleagues from the UK and USA used two of the world's largest collections of scientific data to compare the genes in mice and humans. Using brain scans from the ENIGMA Consortium and genetic information from The Mouse Brain Library, he was able to identify a novel gene, MGST3 that regulates the size of the hippocampus in both mouse and human, which is linked to a group of neurodegenerative diseases. The study has just been published in the journal BMC Genomics.

David, who works in Dr Reinmar Hager's lab at the Faculty of Life Sciences, says: "There is already the 'reserve hypothesis' that a person with a bigger hippocampus will have more of it to lose before the symptoms of Alzheimer's are spotted. By using ENIGMA to look at hippocampus size in humans and the corresponding genes and then matching those with genes in mice from the BXD system held in the Mouse Brain Library database we could identify this specific gene that influences neurological diseases."

He continues: "Ultimately this could provide another biomarker in the toolkit for identifying those at greatest risk of developing diseases such as Alzheimer's."

Dr Hager, senior author of the study, says: "What is critical about this research is that we have not only been able to identify this specific gene but also the networks it uses to influence a disease like Alzheimer's. We believe this information will be incredibly useful for future studies looking at treatments and preventative measures."

The ENIGMA Consortium is led by Professor Paul Thompson based at the University of California, Los Angeles, and contains brain images and gene information from nearly 25,000 subjects. The Mouse Brain Library, established by Professor Robert Williams based at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, contains data on over 10,000 brains and numerical data from just over 20,000 mice.

David explains why combining the information held by both databases is so useful: "The key advantage of working this way is that it is much easier to identify a genetic variant in mice as they live in such controlled environments. By taking the information from mice and comparing it to human gene information we can identify the same variant much more quickly."

And David thinks this way of working will be used more often in the future: "We are living in a big data world thanks to the likes of the Human Genome Project and post-genome technologies. A lot of that information is now widely shared so by mining what we already know we can learn so much more, advancing our knowledge of diseases and ultimately improving detection and treatment."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Manchester University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. David G Ashbrook, Robert W Williams, Lu Lu, Jason L Stein, Derrek P Hibar, Thomas E Nichols, Sarah E Medland, Paul M Thompson, Reinmar Hager. Joint genetic analysis of hippocampal size in mouse and human identifies a novel gene linked to neurodegenerative disease. BMC Genomics, 2014; 15 (1): 850 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-15-850

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The mathematics behind the Ebola epidemic

 

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The Ebola epidemic in West Africa appears to be spiralling out of control. More than ever, local and global health authorities want to know how the epidemic will develop and, above all, how to prevent it from spreading further. Certain parameters help them to determine this, such as the reproductive number, which is the average number of infections caused by a single infected individual. The incubation and infectious periods are also highly relevant; i.e. the time from infection to the onset of symptoms and the time from onset of symptoms to the clearance of the pathogen.

In the current Ebola epidemic, several estimates based on official data of recorded cases of illness were used to derive these figures. A team led by Tanja Stadler, professor of computational evolution in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel, has now calculated these parameters based on the gene sequence of the virus in various patient samples, using a statistical computer programme developed by the group.

Increase in unreported cases

The virus sequences were obtained by US-American, British and Sierra Leonean researchers from blood samples taken from patients in Sierra Leone in the first few weeks after the epidemic migrated to the country from neighbouring Guinea in May and June 2014. Newer sequences are currently not publicly available, says Stadler. From the data, the researchers calculated a viral reproductive number of 2.18. This value is in the range of the previous estimated values based on the incidence and prevalence of the disease, which are between 1.2 and 8.2.

"A major benefit of our method is that we can use it to calculate unreported cases and therefore the true scale of the epidemic," asserts Stadler. Official patient figures only take into account those cases reported to the health authorities. The actual number of infected persons is generally significantly higher. Using the data made available to them, the ETH researchers were able to calculate an unreported case rate of 30% (i.e. patients of which blood samples were not taken). "However, this applies only to the situation analysed in Sierra Leone in May and June. We do not have any blood samples since June at all," claims Stadler.

Virus family tree created

The researchers were also able to calculate the incubation period for Ebola (five days -- this value is subject to significant uncertainty) and the infectious time. Patients can pass on the virus from 1.2 to 7 days after becoming infected.

To obtain these values, the researchers created a phylogenetic tree based on the gene sequences of the virus samples. "The Ebola virus changes in the body of the patient from day to day, meaning that the virus sequence varies slightly from patient to patient," explains Stadler. With the knowledge of the different sequences, the researchers were able to determine at what point in the past infection events happened between patients. From this, they were able to calculate the epidemiological parameters.

Already tested for HIV

These epidemiological values are important in developing strategies to contain the epidemic and evaluate the effectiveness of these measures. Imposing a curfew is one measure. "If the curfew lasts longer than the incubation period, then only those people who continue to show symptoms of Ebola are carriers of the disease," says Stadler. In turn, the reproductive number is one of the most important benchmarks used by health services. The most pressing aim of these authorities is to reduce the reproductive number to a value lower than 1, as this would imply that the epidemic has been contained.

The ETH researchers developed the computer programme used to calculate these figures during the past few years and applied it to data collected from HIV and hepatitis C patients. They now hope that new sequences of the currently circulating Ebola virus become available, despite the adverse conditions in the areas affected by the epidemic. As Stadler states, "our programme is ready. If we are given access to current Ebola sequences, we will be able to gain a detailed insight into the spread of the epidemic literally overnight."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by ETH Zurich. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Stadler T, Kühnert D, Rasmussen DA, du Plessis L. Insights into the Early Epidemic Spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone Provided by Viral Sequence Data. PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, October 2014

A cost-effective and energy-efficient approach to carbon capture

 

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Coal power plant in Patnow - Konin, Poland, Europe.

Carbon capture is a process by which waste carbon dioxide (CO₂) released by factories and power plants is collected and stored away, in order to reduce global carbon emissions. There are two major ways of carbon capture today, one using powder-like solid materials which "stick" to CO₂, and one using liquids that absorb it. Despite their potential environmental and energy benefits, current carbon capture strategies are prohibitive because of engineering demands, cost and overall energy-efficiency. Collaborating scientists from EPFL, UC Berkley and Beijing have combined carbon-capturing solids and liquids to develop a "slurry" that offers the best of both worlds: as a liquid it is relatively simple to implement on a large scale, while it maintains the lower costs and energy efficiency of a solid carbon-capturing material. The breakthrough method is published in Nature Communications.

The most common approach to carbon capture uses liquid amine solutions, which can absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere. On a large scale, the system uses two columns, one for capturing CO₂ and the other for releasing it from the liquid, in a process referred to as "regeneration." For amine solutions, regeneration is the most energy-consuming part because the CO₂ is so strongly bound to the amine molecules that it is necessary to actually boil them in order to separate them.

An alternative to liquids is to use solid materials known as "metal-organic frameworks" (MOFs). These are fine powders whose particles are made up of metal atoms that are connected into a 3D structure with organic linkers. Their surface is covered with nano-size pores that collect CO₂ molecules. But despite its lower cost, as this method involves transporting solids it is very demanding in terms of engineering. Berend Smit, Director of the Energy Center at EPFL, explains: "Imagine trying to walk with a plateful of baby powder. It's going to go everywhere, and it's very difficult to control."

Working with scientists from Beijing and UC Berkeley, Smit is a lead author on a breakthrough carbon-capture innovation that uses a mixture of solid and liquid in solution called a "slurry." The solid part of the slurry is a MOF called ZIF-8, which is suspended in a 2-methylimidazole glycol liquid mixture.

"Why a slurry?" says Smit. "Because in the materials that are currently used for adsorption the pores are too large and the surrounding liquid would fill them, and not let them capture CO₂ molecules. So here we looked at a material -- ZIF-8 -- whose pores are too small for the glycol's molecules to fit, but big enough for capturing the CO₂ molecules from flue gas."

ZIF-8 is a good material for carbon-capturing slurries, because it displays excellent solution, chemical and thermal stability, which is important for repeated regeneration cycles. ZIF-8 crystals have narrow pores (3.4 Å in diameter) that are smaller than the diameter of glycol molecules (4.5 Å), preventing them from entering. Even though other liquids were tested in the design of the slurry, including ethanol, hexane, methylbenzene and tetrachloromethane, their molecules are small enough to enter the ZIF-8 pores and reduce its carbon capturing efficiency. In this respect, glycerol has so far been shown to be an ideal liquid.

The concept of the slurry comes from an idea from one of Smit's former PhD students who is now a professor in Beijing, and it could be the key to large-scale implementation of carbon capture. "Pumping slurry is much easier than transporting a pile of baby powder," says Smit. "And we can use the same technologies for heat integration as the liquid process."

Because it combines the low cost and efficiency of nano-porous materials with the ease of a liquid-based separation process, the slurry successfully addresses these two main obstacles to the implementation of carbon capture in the real world. In addition, it shows exceptionally good separation from CO₂, meaning that it doesn't require excessive amounts of energy (e.g. boiling) in order to regenerate, which increases its overall energy efficiency.

The slurry represents a new template for developing similar combinations in the future. Following their successful proof-of-concept work, the research teams are now planning to test the ZIF-8/glycol slurry in the field.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Huang Liu, Bei Liu, Li-Chiang Lin, Guangjin Chen, Yuqing Wu, Jin Wang, Xueteng Gao, Yining Lv, Yong Pan, Xiaoxin Zhang, Xianren Zhang, Lanying Yang, Changyu Sun, Berend Smit, Wenchuan Wang. A hybrid absorption–adsorption method to efficiently capture carbon. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 5147 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6147

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Imagens aéreas surpreendentes

 

1: Central Park, Nova Iorque

2: Barcelona

3: Cidade do México

4: Labirinto Longleat, Inglaterra

5: Veneza

6: Amsterdam

7: Cataratas do Niágara, Canadá

8: Chicago

9: Berna, Suíça

10: Manguezais em Nova Caledónia

11: Campos de tulipas na Holanda

12: Dubai

13: Dubrovnik

14: Deserto do Namibe, Namíbia

15: Pirâmides do Egito

16: Meskendir Valley, Turquia

17: Xangai

18: Arco do Triunfo, Paris

19: Cidade do Cabo

20: Moscou

21: Atenas

22: Vancouver

23: Malé, Maldivas

24: Seattle

25: Cidade do Vaticano

26: Bac Son Valley, Vietname

27: Marina Bay, Dubai

28: Campos de Arroz, China

29: Lago em Pomerânia, Polónia

30: Rio de Janeiro

Pavlok wearable shocks you when you're bad

 

Pavlok is a wearable that shocks the user bad habits are detected

 

While some wearables such as fitness trackers are designed to help the user in bettering themselves, Pavlok takes things a little further. The device, which can be worn as a bracelet or placed elsewhere on the body, aims to break bad habits by shocking the wearer when they stray from the right path.

The concept of the Pavlok is simple, if perhaps a little extreme. When a user gets the device, a companion app is downloaded and the habits they want to kick are selected. It's then placed somewhere on the body (either worn as a wristband or attached to the skin via adhesive stickers) and it will either beep loudly, vibrate or shock wearers if they slip up and perform one of the forbidden tasks. The team behind the product claims that adding accountability to commitment can increase your chance of success by up to 80 percent.

The company provides a list of bad habit suggestions to be linked with the Pavlok, with examples including wasting time online, sitting still for too long, going into fast food restaurants or hitting the snooze button when your morning alarm goes off.

At its core, the Pavlok is an activity tracker, packing an accelerometer that keeps tabs on the user’s steps, activity and sleeping patterns. Its ability to administer a jolt to the wearer (which is apparently roughly equivalent to a static shock in intensity), is its wackiest feature, but its day to day use is designed more towards vibrations, audio alerts and LED indicators to act as behavioral indicators, steering the user away from their bad habits. Though it can also post about your bad behavior on social networks like Facebook.

The device connects to iOS and Android smartphones via Bluetooth 4.0, and the company has produced an API for the product that it hopes will get developers on board to significantly expand and refine its functionality.

 

Sources: Pavlok, Indiegogo

 

Ampy converts a half-hour jog into three hours of battery life

 

Ampy is also pocketable at 3 inches square

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The notion of capturing the energy generated by even the most casual stroll or everyday motion has been around for years now – the nPower PEG was introduced at CES in 2009 – but three Northwestern University Ph.D. candidates have improved the concept to make it smaller and more efficient in the form of a fashionable wearable.

The result is Ampy, which is roughly half the size of an average smartphone and can be strapped to an arm, leg or hip, or just carried around in a bag where it will charge via a proprietary linear inductor. Similar technologies utilize a magnet that slides back and forth through a coil, converting kinetic energy into electricity. Ampy harvests that electricity and stores it in an internal lithium ion battery for later use charging devices via its USB port.

"We came up with a new proprietary architecture for inductors that allows us to generate significant power in a small form factor," Tejas Shastry, CEO and Co-Founder of AMPY told me via email. "Inductors on the marketplace used for kinetic charging are the size of a paper towel roll (like those in the nPower PEG and Genneo). We figured out a way to make them much smaller and deliver similar power."

Ampy's creators claim that 1 hour of cycling, 30 minutes of jogging or 10,000 steps of walking in a day will produce enough of a charge to add three hours of life to your smartphone battery. Ampy has 1,000 mAh of storage, which would charge a typical smartphone from dead to about 50 to 75 percent of its total battery capacity. For smaller devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers, you should be able to fully charge the device off of a fully juiced Ampy.

Ampy's connected smartphone app will track how much energy you've generated, the amount of calories you've burned and your carbon footprint offset.

Ampy also offers a separate accessory kit that comes with a clip, sleeve and strap to wear it on your belt, limbs or in a bag. While nPower and other larger kinetic chargers targeted hikers and campers who might carry a bigger power stick into the wilderness, Ampy is clearly more aimed at the broad cross-section of consumers who would consider wearing a fitness tracker around town and to the office.

"This scale opens up a whole new realm of possibilities, and in the future, we see our technology being integrated directly into smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other wearables," Shastry said.

Ampy weighs 100 g (3.53-oz) and measures 3 inches square (7.62 cm) and .75 inches (1.95 cm) thick. A Kickstarter campaign for the product launched this week and has quickly raised about a third of its $100,000 goal. Early backers can get in line to receive an Ampy for as little as US$75 for estimated delivery in June of next year. Later on, it'll cost $95.

You can see the full Kickstarter pitch video below.

Source: Ampy

 

The Mediterranean's Most Exclusive Resort Town

 

Varosha, Cyprus is like any other Mediterranean resort town. Well, except for the fact that it's totally abandoned!.  TomasNY/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.5

When you think of the Mediterranean, you think of impossibly blue waters flanked by dramatic limestone cliffs and impossibly luxurious resorts – Club Med ones, if you want to be completely literal. It's the absolute picture of paradise, except for one factor: It's filled with crowds of tourists, whether they've infested a beach on land or a cruise ship just offshore.

One resort town that absolutely destroys this image is Varosha, Cyprus: It's completely empty, 365 days a year, and has been for nearly four decades. Varosha is a bonafide ghost town, in fact, which makes it perhaps the most exclusive destination in all the Mediterranean – a fitting title, especially when you consider Varosha's history.

Varosha's Exclusive Past

Varosha has always been an exclusive place, one way or another. Prior to being abandoned in the 1970s – and I'll get to the reasons for that in just a minute – Varosha was one of the most visited places not only in the Mediterranean region, but in the whole world. It was this tourism boom, in fact, that spurred the construction of many of the hotels and resorts that now dominate the Varosha skyline, many of which remain unfinished.

In many ways, Varosha helped to establish the image of modern Mediterranean tourist. It hosted Hollywood starlets such as Elizabeth Taylor and Raquel Welch during the early 1970s, its most renowned period, and it seemed for a time that it was only going to grow more popular.

Why is Varosha Abandoned?

Unfortunately political forces, as they often do, stepped in and changed all that. Specifically, when the Turks invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974, Varosha quickly became a casualty of the conflict. Local residents were not forced to flee, but did so out of fear when Greek and Turkish forces both appeared on the streets of their city, a situation that seemed to imply a pending massacre.

Once the Turkish forces had taken control, they quickly fenced off the abandoned city, officially prohibiting anyone from returning to live there. International bodies have made several attempts to grant former Varosha residents a right of return, but all have failed as of 2014.

How to Reach Varosha

Officially speaking, it is illegal for anyone to set foot onto the streets of Varosha itself, to the extent that Turks set up a fence around the entire area in 1974, and have authorized the military to shoot and kill anyone who attempts to enter. This is ultimately to prevent Greek Cypriots from ever returning to live there, but it is reasonable to assume that the severity of these regulations applies to tourists as well.

Nevertheless, the first step you need to take if you want to visit Varosha – and when I say "visit Varosha," I mean, look onto Varosha from behind the safety of the military fence – is to fly to Northern Cyrpus' airport in North Nicosia: Ercan International Airport, code ECN. From there, take an Itimat-operated bus to the city of Famagusta, from which the Varosha resort area is a short walk or taxi ride.

Again, and I can't stress this enough, do not under any circumstances attempt to breach the military fence around Varosha. If you do, you are quite literally taking your life into your own hands.

New look Mercedes-Benz Vito available in front, rear and all-wheel drive

 

The Mercedes-Benz Vito

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Vans may not be the sexiest rides on the road, but they are among the most practical for both businesses and consumers, so its small wonder that car makers pay so much attention to them. Mercedes-Benz has rolled out the latest generation of its Vito – a restyled, re-engineered take on the mid-size van introduced in 1996 that's aimed at a wider market, with a variety of drivetrains and lengths as well as a redesigned crew cabin.

Mercedes sees the Vito as a multi-role van ranging from a panel vans carrying light and medium cargoes to a minibuse. Reflecting this, its available in three styles in the latest iteration; the Vito Tourer PRO, the Vito Tourer BASE, and the premium Vito Tourer SELECT. These have up to 1,369 kg (3,018 lb) of cargo capacity, which Mercedes says is the highest in its class.

The three versions of the Vito also come in three lengths, each 140 mm longer than in the previous generations of the van. All heights are beneath two meters to avoid trouble in car parks, car washes, and similar small areas, and the restyled body is aerodynamically designed, with a fuel efficiency boosting Cd value of 0.32. Otherwise, the new styling reflects a desire to make the front less sharp and reallocate space to the interior.

The Vito is available in a fuel efficient front-wheel drive, a rear-wheel drive for heavier loads, and four-wheel drive for taking on rural roads. It’s powered with a choice of engines, including a transverse-mounted, 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine available in two power ratings.

• the Vito 109 CDI – 88 bhp (65 kW)
• the Vito 111 CDI – 114 bhp (84 kW)

The rear wheel drive option comes with a 2.15-liter four-cylinder engine with three ratings.

• the Vito 114 CDI – 136 bhp (100 kW)
• the Vito 116 CDI – 163 bhp (120 kW)
• the Vito 119 BlueTEC – 190 bhp (140 kW)

Behind this is a standard six-speed manual gearbox, though a 7G-TRONIC PLUS automatic with torque convertor is available as standard or optional on some versions. According to Mercedes, this is the world's only automatic transmission with torque converter and seven gears that’s available for vans.

The Vito sports an optimized suspension and there’s a precision electromechanical steering system. It also has a suite of driver assistance functions, including Attention Assist, which monitors the driver’s condition and assists accordingly; Crosswind Assist, which eliminates the effects of wind gusts hitting the van; tire pressure monitoring; Active Parking Assist, which Mercedes says is unique in vans; Blind Spot Assist; Lane Keeping Assist; and Intelligent Light System (ILS), which uses LED headlamps that adjust to road speed for best coverage on motorways or country roads.

Inside, the Vito puts a premium on ergonomics and a more upmarket feel with seating for up to eight in the passenger version.

 

Source: Mercedes-Benz

 

Programs to improve hand hygiene reduced infections, increased compliance

 

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UPMC Presbyterian Hospital's infection prevention teams have improved hand washing and sanitizing compliance at the hospital to nearly 100 percent among clinical staff through accountability and educational measures. In a separate effort at UPMC Mercy Hospital, rates of a deadly infection were reduced by educating patients about hand hygiene.

The successful techniques will be reported Saturday in presentations in Philadelphia at ID Week 2014, an annual meeting of health professionals in infectious disease fields.

"Hand hygiene compliance in health care facilities nationwide is not satisfactory, yet is the single most important way to prevent infections," said senior author Carlene Muto, M.D., M.S., medical director for infection control at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. hospital patients contract an estimated 722,000 infections each year.

Since June 2012, an initiative called Just Culture at UPMC Presbyterian, has affected behavior and changed attitudes. Through a coordinated program that includes education, videos, internal newsletter articles, posters and verbal reminders, health care personnel are held accountable for conscious disregard of patient safety, including hand hygiene. They are not held accountable for system failures. Staff who fail to wash or sanitize their hands are warned and progress through disciplinary action for continual disregard for hand hygiene.

Within four months of launching the Just Culture initiative, hand hygiene compliance rates at UPMC Presbyterian increased from 70 percent to 99 percent. Since then, the near-perfect rates have been maintained with re-education and the cultural shift to accountability.

"Hand hygiene can be increased with educational campaigns, but we've found that these gains can only be sustained when a health system makes it unacceptable to be lax on hand-washing," said lead author Ashley Querry, infection prevention coordinator at UPMC Presbyterian.

At UPMC Mercy, infection preventionists led another study to determine the effectiveness of efforts to encourage hand hygiene among patients.

Pre-packaged alcohol wipes were made available at patients' bedsides and health care staff reminded, assisted and encouraged patients to use the wipes.

Rates of C. difficile, an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that causes inflammation of the colon and can be deadly, fell significantly after the patient encouragement program was implemented.

"These results show that patient hand hygiene can be improved with easily implemented measures that have very meaningful and potentially life-saving consequences," said lead author Marian Pokrywka, M.S., infection preventionist at UPMC.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Why is educational achievement heritable?

 

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The researchers found that the heritability of GCSE scores was 62%. Individual traits were between 35% and 58% heritable, with intelligence being the most highly heritable.

New research, led by King's College London finds that the high heritability of exam grades reflects many genetically influenced traits such as personality, behaviour problems, and self-efficacy and not just intelligence.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), looked at 13,306 twins at age 16 who were part of the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded UK Twins Early Development Study (TEDS). The twins were assessed on a range of cognitive and non-cognitive measures, and the researchers had access to their GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) scores.

In total, 83 scales were condensed into nine domains: intelligence, self-efficacy (confidence in one's own academic ability), personality, well-being, home environment, school environment, health, parent-reported behaviour problems and child reported behaviour problems.

Identical twins share 100% of their genes, and non-identical twins (just as any other siblings) share 50% of the genes that vary between people. Twin pairs share the same environment (family, schools, teachers etc). By comparing identical and non-identical twins, the researchers were able to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors. So, if overall, identical twins are more similar on a particular trait than non-identical twins, the differences between the two groups are due to genetics, rather than environment.

Eva Krapohl, joint first author of the study, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's, says: "Previous work has already established that educational achievement is heritable. In this study, we wanted to find out why that is. What our study shows is that the heritability of educational achievement is much more than just intelligence -- it is the combination of many traits which are all heritable to different extents.

"It is important to point out that heritability does not mean that anything is set in stone. It simply means that children differ in how easy and enjoyable they find learning and that much of these differences are influenced by genetics."

The researchers found that the heritability of GCSE scores was 62%. Individual traits were between 35% and 58% heritable, with intelligence being the most highly heritable. Together, the nine domains accounted for 75% of the heritability of GCSE scores.

Heritability is a population statistic which does not provide any information at an individual level. It describes the extent to which differences between children can be ascribed to DNA differences, on average, in a particular population at a particular time.

Kaili Rimfeld, joint-lead author, also from the IoPPN at King's says: "No policy implications necessarily follow from finding that genetics differences influence educational achievement, because policy depends on values and knowledge. However, our findings support the idea that a more personalized approach to learning may be more successful than a one size fits all approach. Finding that educational achievement is heritable certainly does not mean that teachers, parents or schools aren't important. Education is more than what happens to a child passively; children are active participants in selecting, modifying, and creating their experiences -- much of which is linked to their genetic propensities, known in genetics as genotype-environment correlation."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by King's College London. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Krapohl, E. et al. The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence. PNAS, October 2014 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1408777111

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Reminiscências Medley.