20 Diuretic Foods to Lower Blood Pressure and Lose Weight

 

Diuretic foods can be helpful if you’re looking to lower your blood pressure, or if you’re retaining water. Some dieters also use it to help them lose weight, and purging the body of excess fluid is good for your overall health and wellbeing. One option is to take water pills in order to get your body to release extra water and salt, but before going that route it may be a better idea to make a few dietary changes and see if that helps. Here are our picks for the best diuretic foods available to keep things natural.

1. Lemon
Adding lemon to your water doesn’t just make it taste better, it can help you if you have high blood pressure, and is often one of the first foods recommended to those suffering from certain medical conditions. It’s easy enough to start getting more lemon into your life, because it’s the juice that does the trick, so you don’t actually have to eat lemon slices or wedges, just add the juice to water or other foods and you’ll get the benefits. It is also used to help treat cases of urinary tract infection.

2. Oats
Oats consistently rank as one of the best foods to eat when losing weight, and surprisingly enough they have a diuretic effect on the body. Most of the time it’s hydrating fruits and vegetables that are diuretics, and oats seem to be a food that soaks things up, the way it soaks cholesterol up. But oats can also give you relief if you’re retaining water. This is just one more reason why a bowl of oatmeal makes a great start to your day, regardless if you’re dieting or worrying about your cholesterol levels.

3. Celery
Celery contains plenty of water, and will therefore get you to go more often. It’s great for hydrating the body, and recent research has shown that it’s not just the water we drink that hydrates us, but the water we take in from foods as well. If you don’t care for the taste of celery, or don’t like having to chew it up, try adding it to a diuretic smoothie with other fruits and vegetables found on this page. You’ll be giving your body a big boost of nutrition and also make it easier to digest and process.

4. Brussels Sprouts
Perhaps you don’t enjoy the taste of Brussels sprouts, but they’re so good for you that you may just have to learn to like them, or at least tolerate them. They are just one of several cruciferous vegetables to make our list, and this is a low calorie food that has plenty of antioxidants and is great for your overall health. If you can’t stand the thought of a pile of Brussels sprouts as your side dish, try mixing them with other vegetables or incorporate them into your main dish so you’re not just eating them straight up.

5. Ginger
It’s not easy to eat a lot of ginger, and luckily you don’t have to. Using it to zest up your meal, or adding a bit of ginger root to a glass of water will give you the benefits you need from it. It has a nice cleansing effect on the body, and is often used in detox programs to help flush out toxins. It also serves as a diuretic, and will help your body get rid of any built up fluid it may have. Next time you’re grocery shopping, buy some ginger root. You’ll be surprised how often you use it when you have it handy.

6. Beets
In addition to being a diuretic, beets are also a rich source of antioxidants and have a specific antioxidant, betalain, which is only found in a few select foods. When choosing what style of beet to eat, go for fresh beets that you can either grill, boil, or steam. These are better for you than the pickled variety, and will yield more antioxidants for better overall well-being for the body. Unfortunately most beets you’ll find for sale in supermarkets and grocery stores are the pickled kind, so you may have to check out a farmer’s market or other vegetable stand to find fresh beets.

7. Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar has a number of uses, and one of those is that it’s a natural diuretic that can encourage your body to purge itself of unneeded fluids, leading to better urinary function and overall health. You can use apple cider vinegar to help purify water, and to help stir up a sluggish digestive system. You’ll also find it used in plenty of recipes, but if you’re trying to use it as a diuretic it’s best just to add it to water and drink it down. You don’t need to use very much of it in order to benefit from it.

8. Cabbage
Cabbage is a healthy food no matter how you cut it, and part of the benefits it provides is being a diuretic food. It’s also been shown to be helpful in preventing cancer, and is a vegetable that can help reduce the risk of heart disease. One great way to eat cabbage is in soup form. This entails chopping or shredding the cabbage so it’s easier to eat, and also cooking it until it’s very tender. The key is not to use too much salt when you make your cabbage soup, as that will reduce the diuretic effect of helping the body release stored up sodium.

9. Cranberry Juice
Perhaps you’ve heard that cranberry juice can be good for a urinary tract infection, and that’s partly because it acts as a diuretic. The nice feature of cranberry juice is that it leaves your potassium levels intact, and also provides extra antioxidants to help your body battle free radicals. Be sure to opt for organic cranberry juice for the most benefit, since you’ll be avoiding the use of conventional berries which most likely have been treated with chemicals during the growing and preservation process.

10. Eggplant
Eggplant acts as a natural diuretic, and there are some weight loss enthusiasts that will make a special “eggplant water” by boiling eggplants and drinking the leftover water in an effort to lose water weight. That’s a bit excessive, but you can still consume these a side dish to just about any meal and experience the side effects a diuretic provides.

11. Parsley
Not just a pretty adornment to your plate, parsley has several benefits to it, including being a natural diuretic. Parsley contains several types of antioxidants in one tiny package. You can add parsley to your water for a fresh taste, or you can use it more in your cooking if you don’t want to eat it directly. The tart taste can act to freshen your breath in the process, but it might be too strong for some palates.

12. Caffeinated Beverages
Any caffeinated beverage will serve as a diuretic, including coffee and tea. It’s best to weigh the pros and cons of the foods that you’re thinking of consuming for their diuretic effect. The caffeine in these beverages might be disadvantageous enough to the body to choose other foods and drinks that provide a similar function without the use of a chemical like caffeine.

13. Water
Even though it might sound counterintuitive, drinking water actually helps your body rid itself of excess fluid. Conversely, not drinking enough water can lead to your body retaining the water it has in order to try to keep its water levels where they need to be. If you want to increase its diuretic effect try squeezing the juice of a lemon into it, or drinking hot water with slices of ginger in it for a sort of ginger tea. These methods will amplify the diuretic effect because these add-ins are also on our list of diuretic foods.

14. Tomatoes
For the diuretic effect you’ll want to eat tomatoes raw. The best way to do this is on a salad, or blending them up for fresh tomato juice. If you don’t like the taste of plain tomato juice consider adding carrots or watermelon to it to increase the effect and improve the flavor. Tomatoes are also one of the healthiest foods you can eat, with their large amounts of the antioxidant lycopene they’ve been shown to help battle cancer and prevent heart disease of all types.

15. Cucumber
Cucumbers are made up mostly of water and are a very hydrating vegetable. This is why you’ll typically see them being used in detox recipes. They’ll get your urinary system going as well, and they are a food that can be used to help with diabetes, weight loss, and even cancer. That’s because cucumbers contain antioxidants as well as minerals the body needs daily to keep functioning at its best.

16. Watermelon
Watermelon is aptly named and contains a lot of water, and also gets you to go more, so you’ll be helping to flush your body of excessive water and salt. You’ll want to be careful not to each too much watermelon in one sitting, as it can be hard to stop eating this sweet fruit, but its sweetness can cause your blood glucose levels to spike and can negate the healthy benefits of this antioxidant-laden fruit.

17. Carrots
Carrots are often thought of for their benefit to eyesight, but they do have a host of other benefits, and being a natural diuretic is one of them. Carrots are great because they come in a few different varieties depending on how you want to use them. Baby carrots are great for having as a snack or going on top of salads. Regular sized carrots can get sliced and chopped for use in recipes or cooked up as a side dish to a meal. No matter how you go about eating them, you’ll still get all of the nutrients as well as the diuretic effect they provide.

18. Garlic
Garlic provides a cleansing effect, and also acts as a diuretic, which is all the more reason to use it in more of your cooking. It has yet to be shown that garlic pills are a diuretic as well, and it appears that eating garlic in it’s natural form, or in powder form, is the way to go if this is your goal. You don’t have to eat clove after clove of garlic to reap the benefits, and just using it as part of the cooking process should be enough to see results.

19. Artichokes
Artichokes can have a powerful diuretic effect, and can rival the effects of prescription medication in some instances. The good news is that artichokes are also good for the digestive system, so if you’re looking to lose weight it can help you on two levels. They’re also packed with vitamins and minerals, so you’re replenishing the body at the same time you’re helping it to rid itself of excess fluid.

20. Asparagus
Asparagus is one of the healthier vegetables around, so you’ll be getting plenty of nutrients in addition to the diuretic properties it has. Many have noted that eating asparagus makes their urine smell, and this is one way to see the connection between this veggie and your urinary system. The odor is caused by an acid found within the asparagus that reacts in a certain way. It’s not harmful to the body, and in fact the antioxidants found in asparagus is going to benefit you in countless ways.

10 Natural Ways to Burn Belly Fat

 

If you’re wondering how to burn belly fat and have even considered taking diet pills or fat burners, you should try to do it the all natural way before taking extreme measures. It’s not really natural for us to carry all that weight on our midsections, so getting back to a more natural state is one sure way to watch the fat go away, almost as a byproduct of our actions. It doesn’t have to be an all out war to kill your stomach fat. Just make these 10 all-natural adjustments and it should effortlessly come off.

1. Drink More Water
This is perhaps the most easiest and effortless way to lose belly fat, and it’s a problem for countless Americans. There is a dehydration epidemic going on, and if we all just drank more water, and got closer to the amount that we actually need each day, there would be less obesity, fewer digestive problems, and more people that are awake and alert throughout the day. But here’s the kicker: because it’s only involves drinking water it’s pretty easy, and easy things are easy to forget to do. If you’re conditioned to not drink enough water it can be pretty tough to make a change. But stick with it and soon you’ll reach new levels of hydration and reduced levels of belly fat.

2. Aim for Total Body Fat
Trying to spot treat your stomach fat is one sure way to drive yourself up the wall. It may be the one area that you really care about the most, but you have to trust that if you aim for overall body fat loss, the stomach fat will have to go at some point too. Fixating on a trouble spot is one way to keep it around for the long term, because what we put our focus on grows. A problem is only as hard as we make it out to be, so if you’re constantly thinking that your belly fat is the hardest thing to get rid of, you’ll prove yourself right time and time again.

Get a scale that measures your body fat percentage and aim to get that down to a level that is right for your gender. Keep this in mind: if you want to see your abs guys will have to get to around 10% body fat, while women need to get below 19% or so.

3. Get Sound Sleep
This is perhaps the easiest and hardest thing to do for most of us. Doing things in your sleep can’t get much easier, but finding the time in our busy lives to get more sleep can be a challenge. The real struggle is that your deepest and most cleansing sleep comes from getting to bed earlier in the evening. For most that is just not an option, and others are so entrenched in their late nights that they can’t fathom going to bed at 10pm or earlier. But science has repeatedly shown the link between getting deep sleep on a consistent basis and having less belly fat. You’ll be stressed out less, and you’ll wake up feeling refreshed and ready to greet the day, with more energy throughout the day. The body also repairs itself at night, so you’re helping yourself in many different ways just by snoozing.

4. Do High Intensity Interval Training
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is where you go hard out for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, followed by periods of rest where you go very low intensity. The beauty of this aerobic workout is that you spend a fraction of the time but the theory is that you’re getting results from this workout that last long into the next day. They say that if you spend 40 minutes on a stationary bike just doing a low intensity aerobic workout, you’re only burning fat during that 40 minutes. But with an HIIT workout lasting only 10-20 minutes you end up burning fat the entire day, and long after you’ve finished the workout.

The process is pretty particular, so you’ll need to study up on it. It involves getting your heart rate up to a certain level during the high intensity parts, and getting it back down during the low intensity parts, so you’ll need to get a heart rate monitor to effectively do this.

5. Mind Your Vitamins
It’s hard to make the connection between your belly fat and a vitamin deficiency, but there’s a high chance that if you’re struggling to lose fat you may be running short on several key vitamins needed for fat loss. The first of these is Vitamin D, often referred to as the Happy Vitamin. Feeling good is key to losing fat of all types, and if you don’t have sufficient amounts of Vitamin D you could be inhibiting your ability to feel good and feel like being active. The key is getting more exposure to sunlight so that your body can make its own supply. You’ll also want to make sure that you’re taking in enough natural sources of vitamins so that your body has all of the building blocks it needs to function at its best.

You should be eating foods high in Vitamin C, as well as Vitamin E if you want to give yourself the best shot at losing that stubborn fat. It’s best to get these vitamins from the foods you eat, rather than using a multivitamin, but if you find that you need to fill in the gaps go with a whole foods multivitamin, since it will be using food sources rather than using synthetic vitamins.

See the foods highest in minerals here

6. Get Healthy Fats Into Your System
Thanks to the no-fat and low-fat craze of the 90s and into the 2000s you’ll still find plenty of low and nonfat items at the grocery store. This instilled the wrong view on fats and labeled all fats as bad. But the body needs healthy fat in order to burn fat, so if you’ve taken to cutting out fat in your diet, it’s time to let some of it back in. Go for foods that contain high levels of the fats we’re after: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. The fat you want to continue to keep out is the saturated fat. Good sources of healthy fats include avocados, olive oil, salmon, and peanut butter. These foods will actually help your fat loss efforts, so don’t be afraid of them.

7. Avoid the Unnatural
Our modern world presents us with many things that just aren’t natural for the human body to have to deal with. Large portion sizes, sedentary lifestyles, high levels of stress, massive amounts of entertainment to keep us glued to our couches, and tons of pollution in many major cities all contribute to the condition we find our bodies in. The more you can fight against these unnatural items, but better. Make sure you get some daily activity, because that’s natural for us. Feed your body plenty of fruits and vegetables, because that’s a very natural thing for a human to do. Limit the amount of TV you watch, and take time to just decompress and get in touch with your inner self. Cut out unnatural substances like fast food and junk food. They don’t do you any favors and are contributing to the unnatural shape you’ve taken on.

You don’t have to become a monk or anything, but if you just unplug from the grid for a bit each day you’ll see how unnatural our world has become, and you’ll see the link between your body and the lifestyle that the masses subscribe to.

8. Cut Back on Alcohol
Alcohol of all types is full of sugar, and sugar leads to fat. If you’ve managed to cut the sugar out of your life but still indulge in regular alcoholic beverages, you could be sabotaging yourself and not even know it. You may see a study now and then that says one alcoholic drink a day is good for the body because it helps you relax, or it thins the blood. But what those studies don’t talk about is the cumulative effect that has on the body, and whether or not you’d be better off in the stomach area by not having that drink each day.

9. Drink Herbal Teas
Herbal teas are about as natural as it gets, often using spices and herbs that have been proven to speed up the metabolism, cleanse the body’s internal organs, or reduce stress. You can also consider drinking green tea, as it contains EGCG, but not as much as green tea extract, which may be a better way to go and is still considered a natural way to lose fat. Really anything that helps to calm the body is going to help you lose fat, so you can choose an array of different teas to enjoy throughout the day, and if you replace sodas, juices, and other sugary beverages with herbals teas you’re sure to notice a difference in the near future.

10. Be Persistent
Your belly fat only wins when you give up on getting rid of it. Being persistent is a very natural trait. Nature is very persistent, time keeps on going no matter what, and over time if you neglect your belly fat the problem will only get worse. That’s why it’s good to be just as persistent as nature, and take steps each day to eat the right foods, get a bit of activity, be happy, and nourish yourself. As you do these little things each day, they will accumulate as more and more time passes. It’s natural for things to take time to work, which is why you want to avoid fast track promises and gimmicks to lose belly fat, because in all likelihood it will just backfire and you’ll be back at square one trying to start all over again.

 

8 Weird Foods That Burn Fat and Won’t Kill You

 

These foods that burn fat may seem a little weird at first. But just because a food seems strange doesn’t mean that it can’t be good for the body. In the case of these oddball foods you’ll be helping your body burn fat without risking negative side effects.

1. Mangosteen

Mangosteen is a fruit that probably doesn’t make it into your shopping cart too often because it isn’t available at most grocery stores. It’s has a thick purple covering on the outside, and white succulent flesh on the inside. It tastes great, and the best part is that it can help you lose fat.

It’s the xanthones in mangosteen that produce the fat-burning effect. These are powerful compounds that are being researched as a potential anti-cancer drug due to their anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. If you can’t find fresh mangosteen you can drink organic mangosteen juice, found in most health food stores or online.

Nutritional Breakdown: A 100 gram serving of mangosteen provides you with 4% of your Vitamin C for the day, 3% of magnesium, and 7% of your daily fiber needs. So in addition to the xanthones you’re getting vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that will help click your body over to fat-burning mode.

2. Marmite

The unique mix of fiber and protein, combined with its natural fat free status, make Marmite a good food to eat to bolster fat loss. For many this will be a strange food they’ve never tried before, and maybe never heard of before either.

Originally developed in Germany, this yeast spread grew popular throughout the UK and now there are different versions of it found across the globe. It never caught on in the states, and remains a food that is a total mystery to most Americans.

While it may seem strange, it might be worth checking the international aisle of the supermarket and giving this spread a go.

Nutritional Breakdown: Eating 100 grams of Marmite provides you with an impressive 28 grams of protein. You likely won’t eat a 100 gram serving in one sitting though. However, that same size serving will get you 12% of your daily fiber. Foods that provide fiber and protein without much fat typically help you to feel satisfied and burn up fat stores.

3. Kimchi

Unless you’re Korean or a fan of Korean food you might not be aware of kimchi, and it will definitely seem weird at first. It’s fermented spicy cabbage that smells potent and provides quite a kick on the palate. You may want to acquire the taste for it though, as it can help you lose excess fat when eaten regularly.

The fermentation process loads up the kimchi with digestive enzymes that will help your body break down the foods you eat and assimilate the nutrients better. Koreans eat some form of kimchi at most of their meals, and credit it with many benefits, from keeping them healthy and trim, to preventing the spread of SARS in the country.

Nutritional Breakdown: Because kimchi is made from a variety of vegetables including cabbage, cucumbers, radishes, and onions, they are typically low in calories. They are flavored with red chili, providing capsaicin, a substance known to boost metabolism and rev up the body’s fat burning capabilities.

4. Cherimoya

This is one fruit you’ll want to seek out and add to your regular diet. It may not look like the typical fruit you’re used to eating, apples, pears, oranges, etc., but it provides quite a nutritional punch and will be a big help for fat loss.

To prepare, cut the top end of the cherimoya off, pop out the stem with a sharp knife, and begin eating the custard-like fruity insides. Be sure to avoid eating the seeds, they’re plentiful and inedible, so you can simply eat around them and place them off to the side.

Nutritional Breakdown: In a 100 gram serving of cherimoya you’ll be getting 12% of your daily fiber, 20% of Vitamin C, and 8% of potassium. All of this comes with just 75 calories making it a perfect snack between meals.

5. Insects

While insect eating hasn’t really caught on in the western world, there are many cultures where it’s a regular menu item. Because of the high protein, low calorie, and low carb count of most bugs, they make it easier for you to lose fat while feeling satisfied at the same time.

While they might not sound too appetizing, there are some insect recipes that have been developed that make it more refined than just popping a bug in your mouth. These sort of recipes show you how roasted crickets make a good snack, or how you can incorporate ant eggs into different dishes.

Nutritional Breakdown: Each insect comes with a different amount of protein, fat, and calories. One example is the grasshopper. A 100 gram serving of grasshopper will provide you with 20 grams of protein, 6 grams of fat, and 2 grams of carbs.

6. Natto

Those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine will definitely look at natto with curiosity. This is a fermented soybean dish that has a very strong odor to it, and visually looks strange because of the stringy slime that clings to the clumps of soybeans.

There’s a “natto diet” proposed that says you can lose fat just by adding a daily diet of natto. The claim is that natto acts as a natural fat blocker, but a look at its nutritional makeup shows what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Nutritional Breakdown: When you eat 100g of natto you’re loading up with plenty of fiber and minerals. The 5 grams of fiber it contains represents one fifth of the fiber you’re supposed to get, while your magnesium and potassium reserves will get a good boost of 20% or more as well.

7. Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi looks like some sort of alien hybrid vegetable, but yields impressive health benefits, including assisting you in your fat loss efforts. It tastes great, and its unique nutrients will provide you with what you need in order to boost your immune system.

If you’re lost on what to do with kohlrabi, a quick search for kohlrabi recipes turns up plenty of ideas for using it in a salad or a main dish.

Nutritional Breakdown: 100g of kohlrabi provides an entire day’s worth of Vitamin C. Your immune system plays a big role in how much fat you’re able to lose, so it makes a lot of sense to eat foods rich in Vitamin C. That same size serving also provides 14% of the fiber you need for the day.

8. Coconut Oil

OK, this food might not be that weird but most people find it strange that an oil with so much saturated fat can actually help you burn fat. But studies show that coconut oil will help you burn fat because of its thermogenic properties.

When you eat coconut oil you boost the amount of energy your body uses, and therefore you are able to burn off calories without changing anything else in your life.

Nutritional Breakdown: 100 grams of coconut oil gives you 86 grams of saturated fat, making it 86% saturated fat, and representing more than 4 days worth of your saturated fat intake. For fat loss you’ll want to take a teaspoon of the oil with meals, and two or three teaspoon a day will keep you within your daily doses of saturated fat. There isn’t just one type of saturated fat, and the saturated fat found in coconut oil is not the same as the saturated fat found in a Big Mac.

Yoga, meditation may help train brain to help people control computers with their mind

 

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New research by biomedical engineers at the University of Minnesota shows that people who practice yoga and meditation long term can learn to control a computer with their minds faster and better than people with little or no yoga or meditation experience. The research could have major implications for treatments of people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.

The research is published online in TECHNOLOGY, a new scientific journal featuring cutting-edge new technologies in emerging fields of science and engineering.

In the study, researchers involved a total of 36 participants. One group of 12 had at least one year of experience in yoga or meditation at least two times per week for one hour. The second group included 24 healthy participants who had little or no yoga or meditation experience. Both groups were new to systems using the brain to control a computer. Both groups participated in three, two-hour experiments over four weeks in which they wore a high tech, non-invasive cap over the scalp that picked up brain activity. The participants were asked to move a computer cursor across the screen by imaging left or right hand movements.

The participants with yoga or meditation experience were twice as likely to complete the brain-computer interface task by the end of 30 trials and learned three times faster than their counterparts for the left-right cursor movement experiments.

"In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on improving the computer side of the brain-computer interface but very little attention to the brain side," said lead researcher Bin He, a biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering and director of the University's Institute for Engineering in Medicine. "This comprehensive study shows for the first time that looking closer at the brain side may provide a valuable tool for reducing obstacles for brain-computer interface success in early stages."

Researchers have been increasingly focused on finding ways to help physically disabled individuals who are paralyzed, have lost limbs, or suffer from diseases such as ALS or cerebral palsy. In these cases, brain function remains intact, but these people have to find a way to bypass muscular control to move a wheelchair, control an artificial limb, or control other devices.

Professor He gained international attention in 2013 when members of his research team were able to demonstrate flying a robot with only their minds. However, they found that not everyone can easily learn to control a computer with their brains. Many people are unsuccessful in controlling the computer after multiple attempts. A consistent and reliable EEG brain signal may depend on an undistracted mind and sustained attention. Meditators have shown more distinctive EEG patterns than untrained participants, which may explain their success.

Professor He said he got the idea for the study more than five years ago when he began his brain-computer interface research and noticed one woman participant who was much more successful than other participants at controlling the computer with her brain. The woman had extensive experience with yoga and mediation, referred to by researchers as Mind-Body Awareness Training (MBAT).

The next step for He and his team is to study a group of participants over time who are participating in yoga or meditation for the first time to see if their performance on the brain-computer interface improves.

"Our ultimate goal is to help people who are paralyzed or have brain diseases regain mobility and independence," He said. "We need to look at all possibilities to improve the number of people who could benefit from our research."

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Story Source:

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Kaitlin Cassady, Albert You, Alex Doud, Bin He. The impact of mind-body awareness training on the early learning of a brain-computer interface. TECHNOLOGY, 2014; 02 (03): 254 DOI: 10.1142/S233954781450023X

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Agonizing rabies deaths can be stopped worldwide

 

September 25, 2014

Washington State University

Ridding the world of rabies in humans is cost-effective and achievable through mass dog vaccination programs, an international team of researchers says. A rabies vaccine has long existed. Even so, the disease kills an estimated 69,000 people worldwide -- that's 189 each day. Forty percent of them are children, mostly in Africa and Asia. The disease is spread primarily through the saliva of infected dogs. Once a person develops symptoms, the chance that he or she will die is nearly 100-percent.

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This image shows members of the Allen School and the Serengeti Health Initiative, who have vaccinate as many as 1,000 dogs a day in Tanzania. From left: Machunde Bigambo, asst. project manager; Guy Palmer, Allen School director, Imam Mzimbiri, project manager and veterinarian, Paulo Tembo, field Assistant and mechanic; Felix Lankester, East-Africa based researcher, Allen School

The deadly rabies virus--aptly shaped like a bullet-- can be eliminated among humans by stopping it point-blank among dogs, according to a team of international researchers led by the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health at Washington State University.

Ridding the world of rabies is cost-effective and achievable through mass dog vaccination programs, the scientists report in a paper that appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Science magazine. What's more, they write, because infections occur as a result of interactions between animals and people, a "One Health" approach is necessary, where veterinary, medical and public health professionals collaborate to eliminate the disease worldwide.

Publication of the article, "Implementing Pasteur's vision for rabies elimination" coincides with the 119th anniversary of French scientist's Louis Pasteur's death and a global campaign to wrench an ancient disease in the shadows to the forefront.

A rabies vaccine has long existed, developed by Pasteur in 1885. Even so, the disease kills an estimated 69,000 people worldwide -- that's 189 each day. Forty percent of them are children, mostly in Africa and Asia. The disease is spread primarily through the saliva of infected dogs. Once a person develops symptoms, the chance that he or she will die is nearly 100-percent.

"The irony is that rabies is 100 percent preventable. People shouldn't be dying at all," said veterinary infectious disease expert Guy Palmer, who directs WSU's Allen School and is co-author of the paper.

The disease persists, partly due to political complacency but also because of a lack of international commitment, researchers state in the article. And yet, eliminating it "meets all the criteria for a global health priority: It is epidemiologically and logistically feasible, cost-effective and socially equitable," they conclude.

The authors cite the success of mass dog vaccination clinics held in the East African country of Tanzania. Working in 180 villages, members of the Allen School and the Serengeti Health Initiative vaccinate as many as 1,000 dogs in a single day. Since the program began in 2003, the number of people killed by rabies has dropped from an average of 50 each year to almost zero, according to Allen School researcher Felix Lankester, based in East Africa, who is the paper's lead author. Vaccinating 70-percent of the dogs in the region broke the route of transmission from dogs to humans, he explained.

Though human rabies is rarely seen in developed nations that conduct mass dog vaccination programs, the disease should be viewed as a global public health problem that can be solved, writes Lankester, Palmer and co-authors from the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, the University of Glasgow in Scotland and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Washington State University. The original article was written by Linda Weiford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Felix Lankester, Katie Hampson, Tiziana Lembo, Guy Palmer, Louise Taylor, and Sarah Cleaveland. Implementing Pasteur's vision for rabies elimination. Science, September 2014 DOI: 10.1126/science.1256306

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Efficiently harvesting hydrogen fuel from Sun using Earth-abundant materials

 

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When an electrical current is applied, water splits into hydrogen and oxygen.

The race is on to optimize solar energy's performance. More efficient silicon photovoltaic panels, dye-sensitized solar cells, concentrated cells and thermodynamic solar plants all pursue the same goal: to produce a maximum amount of electrons from sunlight. Those electrons can then be converted into electricity to turn on lights and power your refrigerator.

At the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at EPFL, led by Michael Grätzel, where scientists invented dye solar cells that mimic photosynthesis in plants, they have also developed methods for generating fuels such as hydrogen through solar water splitting.

To do this, they either use photoelectrochemical cells that directly split water into hydrogen and oxygen when exposed to sunlight, or they combine electricity-generating cells with an electrolyzer that separates the water molecules.

By using the latter technique, Grätzel's post-doctoral student Jingshan Luo and his colleagues were able to obtain a performance so spectacular that their achievement is being published today in the journal Science. Their device converts into hydrogen 12.3 percent of the energy diffused by the sun on perovskite absorbers -- a compound that can be obtained in the laboratory from common materials, such as those used in conventional car batteries, eliminating the need for rare-earth metals in the production of usable hydrogen fuel.

Bottled sun

This high efficiency provides stiff competition for other techniques used to convert solar energy. But this method has several advantages over others:

"Both the perovskite used in the cells and the nickel and iron catalysts making up the electrodes require resources that are abundant on Earth and that are also cheap," explained Jingshan Luo. "However, our electrodes work just as well as the expensive platinum-based models customarily used."

On the other hand, the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen makes its storage possible, which addresses one of the biggest disadvantages faced by renewable electricity -- the requirement to use it at the time it is produced.

"Once you have hydrogen, you store it in a bottle and you can do with it whatever you want to, whenever you want it," said Michael Grätzel. Such a gas can indeed be burned -- in a boiler or engine -- releasing only water vapor. It can also pass into a fuel cell to generate electricity on demand. And the 12.3% conversion efficiency achieved at EPFL "will soon get even higher," promised Grätzel.

More powerful cells

These high efficiency values are based on a characteristic of perovskite cells: their ability to generate an open circuit voltage greater than 1 V (silicon cells stop at 0.7 V, for comparison).

"A voltage of 1.7 V or more is required for water electrolysis to occur and to obtain exploitable gases," explained Jingshan Luo. To get these numbers, three or more silicon cells are needed, whereas just two perovskite cells are enough. As a result, there is more efficiency with respect to the surface of the light absorbers required. "This is the first time we have been able to get hydrogen through electrolysis with only two cells!" Luo adds.

The profusion of tiny bubbles escaping from the electrodes as soon as the solar cells are exposed to light say it better than words ever could: the combination of sun and water paves a promising and effervescent way for developing the energy of the future.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGAqk-TXw8&feature=youtu.be

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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. Jingshan Luo, Jeong-Hyeok Im, Matthew T. Mayer, Marcel Schreier, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Nam-Gyu Park, S. David Tilley, Hong Jin Fan, and Michael Grätzel. Water photolysis at 12.3% efficiency via perovskite photovoltaics and Earth-abundant catalysts. Science, 26 September 2014: 1593-1596 DOI: 10.1126/science.1258307

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How to make stronger, 'greener' cement: New formula could cut greenhouse-gas emissions

 

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Concrete is the world's most-used construction material, and a leading contributor to global warming, producing as much as one-tenth of industry-generated greenhouse-gas emissions.

Concrete is the world's most-used construction material, and a leading contributor to global warming, producing as much as one-tenth of industry-generated greenhouse-gas emissions. Now a new study suggests a way in which those emissions could be reduced by more than half -- and the result would be a stronger, more durable material.

The findings come from the most detailed molecular analysis yet of the complex structure of concrete, which is a mixture of sand, gravel, water, and cement. Cement is made by cooking calcium-rich material, usually limestone, with silica-rich material -- typically clay -- at temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius, yielding a hard mass called "clinker." This is then ground up into a powder. The decarbonation of limestone, and the heating of cement, are responsible for most of the material's greenhouse-gas output.

The new analysis suggests that reducing the ratio of calcium to silicate would not only cut those emissions, but would actually produce better, stronger concrete. These findings are described in the journal Nature Communications by MIT senior research scientist Roland Pellenq; professors Krystyn Van Vliet, Franz-Josef Ulm, Sidney Yip, and Markus Buehler; and eight co-authors at MIT and at CNRS in Marseille, France.

"Cement is the most-used material on the planet," Pellenq says, noting that its present usage is estimated to be three times that of steel. "There's no other solution to sheltering mankind in a durable way -- turning liquid into stone in 10 hours, easily, at room temperature. That's the magic of cement."

In conventional cements, Pellenq explains, the calcium-to-silica ratio ranges anywhere from about 1.2 to 2.2, with 1.7 accepted as the standard. But the resulting molecular structures have never been compared in detail. Pellenq and his colleagues built a database of all these chemical formulations, finding that the optimum mixture was not the one typically used today, but rather a ratio of about 1.5.

As the ratio varies, he says, the molecular structure of the hardened material progresses from a tightly ordered crystalline structure to a disordered glassy structure. They found the ratio of 1.5 parts calcium for every one part silica to be "a magical ratio," Pellenq says, because at that point the material can achieve "two times the resistance of normal cement, in mechanical resistance to fracture, with some molecular-scale design."

The findings, Pellenq adds, were "validated against a large body of experimental data." Since emissions related to concrete production are estimated to represent 5 to 10 percent of industrial greenhouse-gas emissions, he says, "any reduction in calcium content in the cement mix will have an impact on the CO₂." In fact, he says, the reduction in carbon emissions could be as much as 60 percent.

In addition to the overall improvement in mechanical strength, Pellenq says, because the material would be more glassy and less crystalline, there would be "no residual stresses in the material, so it would be more fracture-resistant."

The work is the culmination of five years of research by a collaborative team from MIT and CNRS, where Pellenq is research director. The two institutions have a joint laboratory at MIT called the Multi-Scale Materials Science for Energy and Environment, run by Pellenq and Ulm, who is director of MIT's Concrete Sustainability Hub, and hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative.

Because of its improved resistance to mechanical stress, Pellenq says the revised formulation could be of particular interest to the oil and gas industries, where cement around well casings is crucial to preventing leakage and blowouts. "More resistant cement certainly is something they would consider," Pellenq says.

So far, the work has remained at the molecular level of analysis, he says. "Next, we have to make sure these nanoscale properties translate to the mesoscale" -- that is, to the engineering scale of applications for infrastructure, housing, and other uses.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by David L. Chandler. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. M.J. Abdolhosseini Qomi, K.J. Krakowiak, M. Bauchy, K.L. Stewart, R. Shahsavari, D. Jagannathan, D.B. Brommer, A. Baronnet, M.J. Buehler, S. Yip, F.-J Ulm, K.J. Van Vliet, R.J-.M. Pellenq. Combinatorial molecular optimization of cement hydrates. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 4960 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5960

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New discovery could pave way for spin-based computing: Novel oxide-based magnetism follows electrical commands

 

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Magnetic states at oxide interfaces controlled by electricity. Top image show magnetic state with -3 volts applied, and bottom image shows nonmagnetic state with 0 volts applied.

Electricity and magnetism rule our digital world. Semiconductors process electrical information, while magnetic materials enable long-term data storage. A University of Pittsburgh research team has discovered a way to fuse these two distinct properties in a single material, paving the way for new ultrahigh density storage and computing architectures.

While phones and laptops rely on electricity to process and temporarily store information, long-term data storage is still largely achieved via magnetism. Discs coated with magnetic material are locally oriented (e.g. North or South to represent "1" and "0"), and each independent magnet can be used to store a single bit of information. However, this information is not directly coupled to the semiconductors used to process information. Having a magnetic material that can store and process information would enable new forms of hybrid storage and processing capabilities.

Such a material has been created by the Pitt research team led by Jeremy Levy, a Distinguished Professor of Condensed Matter Physics in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and director of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute.

Levy, other researchers at Pitt, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison today published their work in Nature Communications, elucidating their discovery of a form of magnetism that can be stabilized with electric fields rather than magnetic fields. Working with a material formed from a thick layer of one oxide -- strontium titanate -- and a thin layer of a second material -- lanthanum aluminate -- these researchers have found that the interface between these materials can exhibit magnetic behavior that is stable at room temperature. The interface is normally conducting, but by "chasing" away the electrons with an applied voltage (equivalent to that of two AA batteries), the material becomes insulating and magnetic. The magnetic properties are detected using "magnetic force microscopy," an imaging technique that scans a tiny magnet over the material to gauge the relative attraction or repulsion from the magnetic layer.

The newly discovered magnetic properties come on the heels of a previous invention by Levy, so-called "Etch-a-Sketch Nanoelectronics" involving the same material. The discovery of magnetic properties can now be combined with ultra-small transistors, terahertz detectors, and single-electron devices previously demonstrated.

"This work is indeed very promising and may lead to a new type of magnetic storage," says Stuart Wolf, head of the nanoSTAR Institute at the University of Virginia. Though not an author on this paper, Wolf is widely regarded as a pioneer in the area of spintronics.

"Magnetic materials tend to respond to magnetic fields and are not so sensitive to electrical influences," Levy says. "What we have discovered is that a new family of oxide-based materials can completely change its behavior based on electrical input."

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Story Source:

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Feng Bi, Mengchen Huang, Sangwoo Ryu, Hyungwoo Lee, Chung-Wung Bark, Chang-Beom Eom, Patrick Irvin, Jeremy Levy. Room-temperature electronically-controlled ferromagnetism at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 5019 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6019

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On the road to artificial photosynthesis

 

Nanoscience expert Peidong Yang holds appointments with Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley.

The excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide that is driving global climate change could be harnessed into a renewable energy technology that would be a win for both the environment and the economy. That is the lure of artificial photosynthesis in which the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide is used to produce clean, green and sustainable fuels. However, finding a catalyst for reducing carbon dioxide that is highly selective and efficient has proven to be a huge scientific challenge. Meeting this challenge in the future should be easier thanks to new research results from Berkeley Lab.

Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, led a study in which bimetallic nanoparticles of gold and copper were used as the catalyst for the carbon dioxide reduction. The results experimentally revealed for the first time the critical influence of the electronic and geometric effects in the reduction reaction.

"Acting synergistically, the electronic and geometric effects dictate the binding strength for reaction intermediates and consequently the catalytic selectivity and efficiency in the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide," Yang says. "In the future, the design of carbon dioxide reduction catalysts with good activity and selectivity will require the careful balancing of these two effects as revealed in our study."

Yang, who also holds appointments with the University of California (UC) Berkeley and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley, is a leading authority on nanoparticle phenomena. His most recent research has focused on nanocatalysts fashioned from metal alloys rather than a single metal such as gold, tin or copper.

Nanoscience expert Peidong Yang holds appointments with Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt)

"By alloying, we believe we can tune the binding strength of intermediates on a catalyst surface to enhance the reaction kinetics for the carbon dioxide reduction," he says. "Nanoparticles provide an ideal platform for studying this effect because, through appropriate synthetic processes, we can access a wide range of compositions, sizes and shapes, allowing for a deeper understanding of catalyst performance through precise control of active sites."

In addition, Yang says, nanoparticle as catalysts have high surface-to-volume and surface-to-mass ratios that are advantageous for achieving high catalytic activity. For this new study, uniform gold-copper bimetallic nanoparticles with different compositions were assembled into ordered monolayers then observed during carbon dioxide reduction.

"The ordered monolayers served as a well-defined platform that enabled us to better understand their fundamental catalytic activity in carbon dioxide reduction," Yang says. "Based on our observations, the activity of the gold-copper bimetallic nanoparticles can be explained in terms of the electronic effect, in which the binding of intermediates can be tuned using different surface compositions, and the geometric effect, in which the local atomic arrangement at the active site allows the catalyst to deviate from the scaling relation."

The effects Yang and his colleagues observed for gold-copper bimetallic nanoparticles should hold true for other carbon dioxide reduction catalysts as well.

"We expect the effects we observed to be universal for a wide range of catalysts, as evidenced in other areas of catalysis such as the hydrogen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions," says Dohyung Kim, a member of Yang's research group and a collaborator in this study. "The factors we have identified are based on the solid concept of electrocatalysis."

Knowing the influence of the electronic and geometric effects makes it possible to deduce how intermediate products in the reduction of carbon dioxide, such as carboxylic acid and carbon monoxide, will interact with the surface of a newly proposed catalyst and thereby provide the means for predicting the catalyst's performance. Coupled with the exceptional structuring of active catalytic sites made possible by the use of nanoparticles, the path is paved, Yang and his colleagues believe, for unprecedented improvements in electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction.

"My group is now using the insights gained from this study in the design of next generation carbon dioxide reduction catalysts," Yang says.

A paper describing this research has been published in Nature Communications entitled "Synergistic geometric and electronic effects for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide using gold-copper bimetallic nanoparticles." Yang is the corresponding author and Kim is the lead author. The other co-authors are Joaquin Resasco, Yi Yu and Abdullah Mohamed Asiri.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Dohyung Kim, Joaquin Resasco, Yi Yu, Abdullah Mohamed Asiri, Peidong Yang. Synergistic geometric and electronic effects for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide using gold–copper bimetallic nanoparticles. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 4948 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5948

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Mechanized human hands: System designed to improve hand function lost to nerve damage

 

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Mechanical hand: A pulley mechanism developed at Oregon State University may some day be implanted into the hands of people with nerve damage and help them regain a more natural grasping ability with their fingers.

Engineers at Oregon State University have developed and successfully demonstrated the value of a simple pulley mechanism to improve hand function after surgery.

The device, tested in cadaver hands, is one of the first instruments ever created that could improve the transmission of mechanical forces and movement while implanted inside the body.

After continued research, technology such as this may offer new options to people who have lost the use of their hands due to nerve trauma, and ultimately be expanded to improve function of a wide range of damaged joints in the human body.

The findings were just reported in Hand, a professional journal, by researchers from OSU and the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. The research was supported by OSU.

"This technology is definitely going to work, and it will merge artificial mechanisms with biological hand function," said Ravi Balasubramanian, an expert in robotics, biomechanics and human control systems, and assistant professor in the OSU College of Engineering.

"We'll still need a few years to develop biocompatible materials, coatings to prevent fibrosis, make other needed advances and then test the systems in animals and humans," Balasubramanian said. "But working at first with hands -- and then later with other damaged joints such as knees or ankles -- we will help people recover the function they've lost due to illness or injury."

Initially, the OSU research will offer a significant improvement on surgery now used to help restore the gripping capability of hands following nerve damage. That procedure, called tendon-transfer surgery for high median-ulnar palsy, essentially reattaches finger tendons to a muscle that still works. But the hand function remains significantly impaired, requiring a large amount of force, the stretching of tendons, and fingers that all move at the same time, instead of separately as is often needed to grasp an object.

The new mechanism developed at OSU is not really robotic since it has no sensory, electronic or motor capabilities, Balasubramanian said. Rather, it's a passive technology using a basic pulley that will be implanted within a person's hand to allow more natural grasping function with less use of muscle energy.

"Many people have lost the functional use of their hands due to nerve damage, sometimes from traumatic injury and at other times from stroke, paralysis or other disorders," Balasubramanian said. "The impact can be devastating, since grasping is a fundamental aspect of our daily life. The surgery we're focusing on, for instance, is commonly performed in the military on people who have been injured in combat."

The new research showed, in cadavers, how the mechanism developed for this problem can produce more natural and adaptive flexion of the fingers in grasping. The needed force to close all four fingers around an object was reduced by 45 percent, and the grasp improvement on an object reduced slippage by 52 percent.

Such progress can be an important step to improve function beyond the existing surgical procedure, by providing an alternative to the suture which has been the previous mainstay. The hand, experts say, is amazingly complex, with 35-38 muscles and 22 joints all working together, innervated by three nerves between the elbow and fingertip.

The long-term potential of such mechanized assistance is profound. In some cases, Balasubramanian said, it may indeed be possible to create joints or limbs that mechanically function as well or better than they did originally.

"There's a lot we may be able to do," he said. "Thousands of people now have knee replacements, for instance, but the knee is weaker after surgery. With mechanical assistance we may be able to strengthen and improve that joint."

This work is part of a rapidly expanding robotics research and education program at OSU, in fields ranging from robotic underwater vehicles to prosthetic limbs, search and rescue missions and advanced manufacturing. New graduate degrees in robotics were just recently added at the university, one of the few institutions in the nation to have such graduate programs.