Prosthetics

This is the last blog so let's end it with a bang! This story actually was published a couple of weeks ago, but the topic is just so fascinating, that I couldn't let it go. A dog from Loveland, Colorado, received an operation which gave him quadruple prosthetic limbs. 

Prosthetic body parts have always fascinated me. I always knew that these things existed but my first major notice of it was during the 2012 London Olympics when Oscar Pictorius competed.

He may as well have been one of the most inspirational athlete of all time, if he hadn't murdered his girlfriend. Despite this setback, Oscar has managed to inspire many people and show everyone that disabilities cannot keep people down. As long as the person has soul, he/she can accomplish anything.

Prosthetics have such a diverse range of uses but how are these things actually made?

 

Nowadays, a prosthetic body part is made from a carbon fiber outer shell and a plastic inner shell. The plastic is usually molded with the specific body part and is flexible so that it moves with the person and provides comfort to the user. The plastic is attached to the carbon with glue and wherever it is connected to the person's joint, there are two screws. The joints (the ankle or the elbow) are usually composed of flexible aluminum fiber and more screws are found in this region to change the angle of the joint. 

The prothetic is usually attached to the person with a pin, which is then screwed into a liner which is then put around the specific body part. A prosthetic leg can be easily moved and removed, however, the challenge comes when an important body part such as the arm is involved.

I'm not saying that the leg isn't just as important, but the prothetic arm involves brain power. It is very hard to work a prosthetic arm in that an arm is connected to the nervous system of the body which is then connected to the brain, in other words, the movement are created through mind control. Scientists are working to figure out how to give people the ease of comfort such as that of the prosthetic leg, but the road is long and difficult.

The current arm systems work through the release of electrical currents from the body as well as muscle contractions, but now, the new arms that are being made to move with the release of more specific electrodes that are directly connected with the muscles and cause the muscle's movement in the first place.  

Prosthetics have taken new bounds and with technology rapidly advancing, prothetics will soon achieve new heights.

 

I am grateful to all of those who have read my blog this entire year and I wish the best of luck to all of you and your future endeavors :)

~Maisha 

The New Battery

Imagine that there is a battery that can charge a phone form 0% to 100% in the span one minute. Well, this can be possible with the creation of the aluminum battery by Stanford University students.

It's long-lasting, fast charging and inexpensive. It has a high-charged storage capacity and low flammability. With the introduction of curved and bendy technology, this battery is perfect replacement to the lithium powered batteries.

What makes these batteries different from regular lithium batteries? Lithium batteries in their own right were a breakthrough in technology during the early 90s. Never had there been a battery that contained so much energy in very little density, and with the improvement of technology overtime, research on ways to create batteries which can hold even more energy were underway and with people being more and more dependent and interlocked with technology, the pressure on scientists to find a solution to this increased drastically. The problems that are faced with batteries now is that the lithium batteries are not long lasting and tend to decay overtime. A regular battery can recharge an appliance over 1000 times before it starts to decay. If a person charges a phone once a day, then the charger will last a little under 3 years and this is if the person charges the phone and immediately unplugs it after the phone reaches 100%. Some people are prone to charging their phone all night or forget that they are charging their phone and are oblivious to the fact that they are reducing the capacity significantly of the 1000 full charges, losing the life of the charger significantly. With the aluminum batteries, the appliances can be charged over 7500 times, before it starts to decay. Due to the fact that the phone will take about a minute to charge, people are more likely to remember to unplug it, because, let's be honest here, people have very short attention spans (have you heard of vine?).

So how do these batteries work? In scientific terms, this battery uses an aluminum metal anode and a three-dimensional graphitic-foam cathode, which operates through the electrochemical deposition and dissolution of aluminium at the anode, and intercalation/de-intercalation of chloroaluminate anions in the graphite, using a non-flammable ionic liquid electrolyte. 



In simple terms, the battery uses carbon based graphite as the base and when reacting the graphite with aluminum and a salty ionic liquid, it formed and electric current which is then converted into energy. For all the chemical enthusiasts out there, when a salt combines and reacts with certain liquids, it is separated into its component parts and the energy that is used to separate it is then forms into an electric current. For example, table salt's formula is NaCl or sodium chloride. Sodium chloride is separated into Na+1 and Cl-1 and because it separates, or disassociates, completely, a strong electric current is formed. Because many compounds don't separate completely, like sugar, a very weak electric current is formed. Going off of this principle, batteries are made, but the formula to create the most long-lasting, durable and cheap battery is still underway as the aluminum battery is not perfect as of yet. There are still lots of research being conducted but as of now, it isn't set to hit the markets.   

Sweat=Sweet

I am pretty sure that most of us have that day in our life where we sweat so profusely that even with the amount of deodorant we put on, we can still smell our odor. Perfume and deodorant have existed from long ago as a way to tackle these horrifying smells. Companies have been advertising these products for many decades and the practice still continues today. Some notable companies include Secret, Axe and Old Spice.

The notable difference nowadays is that the type of application of the product changes overtime. For women in particular, at first, sprays were used as a cheap alternative to perfumes, while giving off the vibe of perfumes, however, the sprays were not powerful enough, so deodorant sticks were created.  While, the purpose of deodorant and perfumes are to eliminate body odors, it is important to hide the fact that one is using it. Whether it is make-up or anything else, being natural is the new form of beauty. This concept applies with deodorant particularly. As bad as a pit stain can be, a white stain can be just as bad.

Because I exercise regularly, body odor is a problem that happens to me often and I get very self-conscious, however, a new invention may change this. Scientists from Queens have developed a new perfume that makes you smell better the more you sweat.

So what actually happens to your body when you were deodorant? How does it work? Deodorant makes you smell good because when applied, it breaks down the bacteria cause by perspiration and another subgroup within the formula of the deodorant called antiperspirants, go directly to the sweat glands to prevent more sweat from forming, but this process can only last for so long.

The way I see it, this new deodorant is just like a Febreze, but for bodies. So how does this new perfume work? The perfume is composed of an ionic salt which reacts to water, meaning that the sweat produced creates moisture which reacts with the ionic salt and produces an aroma. The more water that was mixed with the perfume, the stronger the smell of the perfume was produced. Another perk to this perfume is that it is long-lasting. The reaction that happens not only makes a fine aroma, but it also breaks down the chemicals behind the smell of sweat, attracting many perfume and deodorant manufacturers and companies.

This product has the potential to change the cosmetic industry. Because using this ionic salt has been proven to be safe, many skin care products and health care products may adopt using a method similar to this (b/c  the similarity in smells may confuse the purchaser. The way to attract the customer is by formulating a different smell. This helps the company stand out from the competition).  There are no signs on when a product like this will be on the market, but more research is being done to create other fragrances and test the prototype to various situations/chemical reactions.

Iceland's Genetic Project

It is most likely that you have heard or are somewhat familiar with the Human Genome Project (HGP). This project started in 1984, and through the course of it, over 3 billion dollars have been spent. With over hundreds of scientists and in the period of twenty years, by 2003, the project became completed, but this is where the real work starts. What was written from this research is a encrypted series of letters and since 2003, scientists are working tirelessly to translate what these letters mean. The goal of the HGP is to trace back human evolution and its link and root to disease.

So, what exactly is a genome? It is the vast collection of genes inside of you that make you, you. Everybody's genetic makeup is unique from one another, but at the same time, our DNA with other human beings is 99% alike. Genes are made up of DNA, which are then made up of paired strains of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine nucleobases. Adenine always pairs with thymine and cytosine always pairs with guanine, forming the shape of the double helix.

This formula is started the moment the egg is fertilized and pretty soon, this formula will be found within every cell of the body, These cells then form tissues, tissues form organs, and organs form an organism. The HGP has opened various opportunities across the world, especially the creation of ancestry and genomic companies and the creation of specialized jobs such as genetic engineering and genetic counselling. Genetic engineers find specific genes that like to disease and genetic counselors help people understand and become aware of the disease, and provide ways to treat it. Down syndrome, for example, occurs when there is an extra number 21 chromosome, rather than the usual two chromosomes. The mutation of this gene causes poor fertility, physical characteristics such as a short neck and a short stature, poor muscle tone, potential to come in contact with various life- threatening diseases, and a shorter life span. Due to technology, Down syndrome can be detectable during a mother's pregnancy. If the mother chooses to give birth to the child, the child is then screened constantly the first few years of his/her life (for heart disease and cognitive development).  

This week's headline takes place in Iceland. Because each population of the world has a distinct set of genetic disorders (Africa, for example, suffers from sickle-cell anemia), Iceland is able to piece  together a genetic picture that has helped scientists identify rare gene variants associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other medical problems. There were four studies conducted. The first study involved 106,856 people to identify over 20 million genetic variants and it was found that the ABCA7 gene is directly related to liver disease. The second study involved examining this gene even further and it was found that six out of the eight mutations caused from this gene exists in populations of Europe and America. The third study examined 8,041 people who have a recessive ABCA7 gene, with 1,171 of the participants having a "knock-out" genes. This is important to note because if genes are knocked out, especially those in the brain, it can cause sever repercussions such as color blindness. The final study  included 753 men from 274 related backgrounds, and from examining their genetic makeup, it was concluded that the most common human ancestor of Y chromosome, existed approximately 174,000-321,000 years ago, getting scientists closer to discovering the origins of humans.   

3D Printing Takes New Heights

For those who have not heard or experienced 3D printing, be prepared to have your mind blown. 3D printing is a simple (and expensive) way to make a solid three dimensional object from a digital file. The printer will make the object by using a layering system coupled with a filling system. The time-lapse video presented will demonstrate this system by creating the solid of Yoda using the honeycomb filling system:

So how does this get done from digital file to 3D? A 3D printing will use a CAD (Computer Aided Design) software partnered with a scanner to create a digital model of an object, and then convert it into a solid. There are actually different technologies used in compiling the object into a model such as The Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), where  tiny particles of plastic, ceramic or glass are fused together by heat from a high-power laser, the Stereolithography (SLA), in which liquid solidis converted to the solid object, and the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), where a thermoplastic filament, which is heated to its melting point and then extruded, layer by layer. 

3D printing is used for a variety of things, such as transplants and modeling, but this week there was a game changing event. A new company called Carbon3D thrives off of this new technology in what the company calls "new paper." Inspired by Terminator 2, introducing the newest method of 3D printing, the "continuous" method:

This method forgoes the layering system and instead uses a pool of resin, with an attached UV light inside, to create a series of images which then forms the object. A concern to this is how to keep the liquid fresh and to do this, the engineers and scientists designed a "dead zone" of desired oxygen so that it would prevent the resin from sticking to the bottom surface.

This device is very precise (to the .1 mm) and is very expedient in its process. It's still in its prototype stage and is set to hit the market sometime this year. With it, we can create more. With many high-quality products becoming more abundant, cheaper and affordable, people may be able to "play around" with this technology and create something super incredible and necessary for our world!

Tobacco Kills

I am pretty sure that if you grew up in this country, you learned from an early age that drugs are bad for you. Whether it be through a DARE program or from the media, we have been told at least once in our life that smoking is detrimental to our health, but just how bad has it gotten?

As mentioned by John Oliver, the popularity of tobacco is overwhelmingly negative; however, the profits that are made by tobacco farmers and cigarette companies are the highest it has ever been. This may be due to the fact that the smoking trend may have decreased in America; however, it may have increased around the world due to the increase in population. Third world countries' population, for example, is unevenly distributed among the population of developed countries. Sociological factors affect this disproportion, but the reality is even more terrifying. People in third world countries drink, smoke and take on illicit drugs in order to escape their poverty stricken lives. The drug use increases further as people realize that a hefty profit can be made. This encourages drug use and then creates the never ending cycle of destruction.

A study, that came out on March 4th, 2015, states that 2 out of every 3 smokers die due to tobacco related causes. It was previously assumed that 50% of smokers die due to smoking, but recent death from underdeveloped countries suggest otherwise bring the total from 50% to around 66%. At first, sociologist and statisticians analyzed deaths from first world countries, because it was hard to keep track of all of the deaths occurring in the third world, but as recording and treatments got better, deaths and illnesses became easier to document. Unfortunately, this may not even be the real number, it may be even up to 75% but the data so far hasn't supported this claim.
So, what is the way to stop this from occurring? Just avoid smoking. Life may be stressful or you may want to look cool, but if it affects your health, why even bother? Another thing, e-cigs do not work. Try to be addicted to something else and hopefully you will benefit :)

Older Mothers and Link to Disease of Newborns

In light of THON occurring at Penn State from February twentieth to the twenty-second, I decided to search up stories that would benefit families medically. For a while, I couldn't find this particular type of story until today. Researchers may have found the solution to why older mothers have a higher risk of giving birth to children with birth defects.

Older mothers are prevalent in our society, and will continue to dramatically increase as time goes on. Women are nowadays encouraged to focus on their careers first before starting a family. The career I want to pursue, for example, requires me to dedicate at least a minimum of tens years after college to work on getting the degrees I need in order to be qualified for this job. With this alone, I would be at least thirty-two years old. In the news we always hear of either very young women  giving birth or older women giving birth but how old exactly is too old?

Most women give birth at around their mid-twenties to their early thirties because this is considered the "healthy age" to give birth to children, but what if a mother wants children when she gets older? Why does she have to worry about other factors when involving the birth of her child as opposed to young mothers? There has to be something related to age to have this phenomena occur and researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University may have found the answer.

The group of families who participated in this research was families who went through genetic counseling through 23andMe. The disease in particular that was the pinpoint of the study was Down syndrome. Down syndrome is a common disorder when a person has an extra number twenty-one chromosome. In turn this individual may face many physical disabilities compared to a person with a regular set of 46 chromosomes.

With the data conducted it was seen that as maternal age increases, regulation of chromosomes becomes weaker, thus older mothers tend to give birth to children with genetic defects. With this research in the works, a greater understanding is achieved and scientists will be able to work  on medications to help older mothers have a higher chance to giving birth to a healthy child. If it can work with Down syndrome, maybe other diseases such as pediatric cancer may be detectable in its early stages for many children.


 

Supernova

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life is a supernova.

Forget fireworks, these things produce more colors than the colors found in a one hundred and twenty crayons in a Crayola crayon box. These supernovas can come in many shapes and sizes but when a cool explosion happens, it is a circular shape.


So what exactly is a supernova and how is it formed? A supernova is a stellar explosion that briefly outshines an entire galaxy, radiating as much energy as the Sun or any ordinary star is expected to emit over its entire life span, before fading from view over several weeks or months. Because our knowledge of space is so limited, scientists and physicists don't exactly know how supernovas are formed, however, a theory called the "Supernova Nuleosynthesis" theory is currently being used to broaden our understanding. 

This theory, proposed by Fred Hoyle in nineteen fifty-four, states that with the fusion of lighter elements, such as hydrogen, helium and carbon, with the fusion of heavier elements such as titanium, iron and chromium, and the burning of oxygen and silicone, can create these beautiful explosions.
This theory also highlights a couple of things:

1) Every time an explosion occurs, we can observe all of the elements present. For example, when sulfur burns, it produces a blue color. Hydrogen produces an orange color when burning and mercury, depending on its chemical formula, will burn black for HgO and red for HgO 2+. By knowing the colors of each element present, we can accurately determine the amount of each element present in that certain area of the universe.

   
2) By following this theory, enough type of each metal and gas needs to be present in order to create planets such as Earth and Mars. This process can take a couple million to over a billion years to make happen in the fact that massive objects in space are formed from the deaths of generations of stars which then collect a decently sizable cloud to create an even bigger stars, which then forms into a "rock." This process continues to repeat itself endlessly.


So what do supernovas have to do with the news today? Astronauts, scientists and physicists are always on the lookout for supernovas, but they cannot accurately predict the timing and place of a supernova, thus, most of the time, they miss it. This past week, scientists and astronomers from NASA were able to pinpoint a supernova occurrence, due to the positions of the two stars, and are patiently waiting to record every single detail and they will be one step closer to solving the origins of the universe.   

The SMARTest App for a SMARTphone

Iphones and any type of smartphones are known for its unlimited wealth of myriad knowledge. It can tell you the weather, keep track of what you eat, give you ratings of the near gas prices, and can keep you entertained for several hours on end. What is interesting about smartphones is the eclectic amount of apps it has, and day by day the numbers keep increasing, however, by remodeling an accessory to it, a smartphone can be turned into a gadget that can detect HIV and syphilis in just fifteen minutes!

This is the remodeled device

Developed by a research team from Columbia University, this device can effectively track if one has HIV or syphilis with the indication of specific biological markers derived from a single drop of blood. It performs a triplexed immunoassay not currently available in a single test format: HIV antibody, treponemal-specific antibody for syphilis, and non-treponemal antibody for active syphilis infection. Compared to the original test called the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), this new ELISA test performs the same functions but at a significantly lower price. The equipment needed for the original ELISA test can cost over twenty thousand dollars, but the makeshift test can cost just thirty four dollars.


The amazing thing about this test is that it is powered by the smartphone. There is no stored energy being used and it requires minimal power to operate. When first starting the creation of this test, lots of power was needed to operate the ELISA. The first job of the engineers was to elimination the power-consuming source which was a vacuum of some sort. The goal of this test is to make it cheap and affordable to many people as possible. At first, this test was aimed to reduce the current price of the ELISA to something that Americans can afford, but after seeing that reducing the power proved to be successful to projected predictions, the test then aimed to be affordable enough to help people in third-world countries, specifically countries in Africa such as Rwanda, where there has been an ongoing battle with HIV for centuries.

The test trials were first tried on by ninety-six patients and when it was proved to be successful, the next trials were then planned for one-hundred patients in Rwanda. The goal of this test is to prevent HIV transfer from mother-to-child by means of early diagnosis and with the affordability of this test, this idea may become reality for many people in third world countries.  

This test is small,portable, easy to use, cheap and can produce results fast. Why wouldn't anyone want such a handy and useful tool? It's better than any app a phone has to offer and I think that it is a great investment for anyone in the near future.




   

The Mummy Mystery

What is the first thing when think of the word "mummy?" The probability of a shriveled up corpse wrapped in bandages found inside an ancient tomb may be one of the first things that may come to your mind, however, there is more to mummies. The mummy that I just described is known as a "dry mummy." The age of these mummies can date back thousands of years. Dry mummies tend to have no bodily fluids upon being found and the cause of their deaths tend to be relatively unknown either because there is no evidence of scriptures or because there is not much information and evidence to support the reports of an autopsy.

Whenever people die, they are most likely sent to a funeral home or are cremated; however, if the body is just laying out in a field, due to war or some other cause, upon dying, the dead body will immediately start to produce cell-eating bacteria. After some time, this process gives off gas and acid that will eventually kill the plants around it. Bacteria and bugs will eat the body until it turns into a skeleton. This process can take from about a month to a year depending on the climate of where the body is placed. The point is that according to the natural ecosystem, corpses will be decayed into skeletons sooner or later; however, there are a few special exceptions to this rule.

Meet the Lady of Dai, Xin Zhui. She was the wife of an upper merchant class man and she is also the world's most perfect mummy. She has most of her bodily fluids retained in her body to the point that her blood type can be identifiable. All of her joints can be moved, which is rare because dead bodies become stiff hours upon dying, and also she is over two-thousand years old.

This mummy is known as a "wet mummy." Despite being thousands of years old, mummies such as this one have withstood through the test of time and have yet to decompose into a skeleton. The secrets to the preservation techniques have yet to be identifiable, however, more importantly, the cause of death can be determined when working with wet mummies, because their bodies have enough fluid to go through an autopsy and provide evidence as to the cause of death. In the case of Xin Zhui, she died from a blocked artery which then caused her a heart attack, but not before the immense pain of her kidney stones caused her to topple over.

So what is up with mummies in the current news? Well, recently, the 29th of January to be exact, a mummy in a meditating position was found in Mongolia. It appears to be over two hundred years old and may be the body of a Buddhist monk who conducted self-mummification. According to the ancient scripts, when conducting self-mummification, the ultimate enlightenment and pathway to Heaven is achieved.

This blog will be about the amazing achievements that has been accomplished by science over the past /current week.