World's First Scar-free Appendectomy

The world's first scar-free appendectomy has been successfully performed at University of San Diego Medical Centre, USA. Jeff Scholtz, a former U.S. marine, has recently secured his place in medical history, becoming the first patient in the world who had his appendix through mouth removed.

The operation, which is a major advance in the quest for scar-free surgery, was performed by doctors in San Diego, California, who used a flexible tube to thread miniature surgical instruments down the 42-year-old's throat to his stomach.

A tiny incision was then made in the stomach wall to get at the appendix - a small worm-like pouch attached to the large bowel.

The inflamed appendix was cut away, bagged and pulled back into the stomach - and out of the mouth.

Source: DM

Solar System's Shape Is Not Round But Dented

Scientists have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now the unprecedented founding was made by NASA's 30-year-old unmanned nuclear powered Voyager 2 [wikipedia]. The probe  has crossed into a sweeping region called the termination shock in our solar system this August. Tags: voyager 2, solar system, bent, shape, nasa, cit

Mummified Dinosaur With Clear Remains of Scales Found in North Dakota

Fossilized hadrosaur Dakota skin picture (Tyler Larson/National Geographic)

The partially mummified hadrosaur [wiki], dubbed Dakota, were found in 2000 by Tyler Lyson, then a 17-year-old boy, on his uncle's ranch in North Dakota.

The creature is fossilized, with the skin and bone turned to stone. But unlike most dinosaur fossils, tissues are preserved as well.

Scientists believed the Dakota hadrosaur should be the most complete dinosaur ever found, with intact skin where clear remains of scales were visible.

"This is not a skin impression. This is fossilized skin," paleontologist Phil Manning of the University of Manchester said. "When you run your hands over this dinosaur's skin, this is the closest you are going to get to touching a real dinosaur, ever." Source: Reuters

Sperm Donor Ordered to Pay Child Support 18 Years Later

A New York doctor who donated his sperm to help a gay colleague conceive in the late 1980s, and allowed his name to be put on the birth certificate, has been ordered to pay child support for the boy, his biological son now an 18-year-old who lives with his mother in Oregon.

For several years after the boy's birth in 1989, the doctor sent the child gifts and money and cards signed "Dad" and had regular contact with the child, the Post reported. However, when the boy moved to Oregon with his mother and her partner in 1993, regular contact stopped. Since then, the man's contact with the child consisted of seven phone calls and one brief meeting over the past 15 years.

A New York family court judge ruled last month that the man must now pay child support for the boy, now 18 and heading to college.

Source: FOX ; Liveleak Tags: Sperm Donor, Pay Child Support

First Moon Surface Picture by China's Chang-E 1 Lunar Probe

The black and white picture showing rough surface scattered with big or small pits was made public at a gala ceremony in Beijing Aerospace Control Center on November 26 by Premier Wen Jiabao, who hailed it as a major step in "the Chinese race's 1,000-year-old dream" of exploring the moon.

Wen asserted in a passionate and inspiring speech on Monday that China has joined the select group of world powers with the capabilities to engage in deep-space exploration.

The success, he said not only manifested China's rising national strength and technical innovation capability but also elevated the country's international status and cemented national cohesion.

"It showcases eloquently that the Chinese people have the will, the ambition and the capability to compose more shining new chapters while ascending the science and technology summit," Wen said.

Citing a letter from an overseas Chinese, Wen said that the farther the China-made satellite flew, the higher would the overseas Chinese hold their heads.

The area covered by the picture, about 460 km in length and 280 km in width--- about half the size of the United Kingdom, is within a location of 70 to 54 degrees south latitude and 83 to 57 degrees east longitude. Source: Chinadaily & CNN-IBN Tags: china, chang e, lunar probe, moon picture

Appendix Function Believed to Produce and Protect Good Germs for Gut

The thought that the appendix is functionless may not be correct some day, as scientists consisting of surgeons and immunologists from Duke University Medical School, were believed to have found the function of this 'useless' human organ: It produces and protects good germs for human gut.

Douglas Theobald, a biochemistry professor of Brandeis University who is not connected with the research said the Duke scientists' theory seemed by far the most likely explanation for the function of the appendix and it made evolutionary sense.

From CNN

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker, a study co-author. Its location - just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac -- helps support the theory, he said.

Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs, Parker said.

Universal Blood Type Is Type O Blood

Type O blood is the universal blood type and is the only blood type that can be transfused to patients with other blood types. Type O blood consists of O+ and O- blood. Almost 40% of the population has O+ blood, but Only about 7% of all people have Type O negative blood. So Type O blood is the most common blood type, and also the most used.

On the contrary, patients who have type AB blood are considered universal recipients because they can receive blood or blood products from any other blood type. However, these patients may only donate their blood to patients who have AB blood.

Type O blood (called type zero in some countries) has neither the A or B antigen and therefore, type O negative blood can be given to anyone. Persons with type O negative blood are referred to as “universal donors”.

Type O negative blood is the preferred type for accident victims and babies needing exchange transfusions. There is always a need for Type O donors because their blood may be transfused to a person of any blood type in an emergency.

Cutting-edge enzyme transfusion technology holds the promise that bacterial enzymes be able to safely convert A, B, and AB blood to the universally useful type O.

After sifting through more than 2,500 compounds from bacteria and fungi, biologists led by Henrik Clausen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, have found a pair of enzymes that can rapidly and efficiently break down the A and B molecules, leaving cells as type O. One came from the bacteria Elizabethkingia meningosepticum, and the other from the species Bacteroides fragilis.

I myself has the type O blood, but I am not sure if negative or positive. Six years ago when studying in a Chinese university, we are advised to donate blood as a national campaign to raise the storage of national blood bank. But an operation in one of my nostrils right before the donating date prevented me doing so.

Source: Universal Blood Type @ NewsBlogPk.com; America Red Cross

Enzymes may allow universal blood transfusions @ Cosmosmagazine

Sputnik 50-year Anniversary

At 22:28 Moscow time on October 4, 1957, humanity entered a new space age. The Soviet Union, the country that is now not exist, sent the Earth's first artificial satellite--Sputnik I into orbit.

The picture above is the first official picture of the Soviet satellite Sputnik I, which was issued in Moscow on October 9, 1957.

Sputnik, a silvery orb with four frond-like antennae and two radio transmitters whose signals could be heard around the world,  gave birth to more than mere technology. Sputnik, also helped spark the Cold War and inspire a generation of astronauts and scientists.

Link

Earth After 250 Million Years

After 250 Million years, the now separating continents on the Earth may be again clustered together (OMG! there must be many disastrous earthquakes!). From Astronomy Picture of the Day

Is this what will become of the Earth's surface? The surface of the Earth is broken up into several large plates that are slowly shifting. About 250 million years ago, the plates on which the present-day continents rest were positioned quite differently, so that all the landmasses were clustered together in one supercontinent now dubbed Pangea. About 250 million years from now, the plates are again projected to reposition themselves so that a single landmass dominates. The above simulation from the PALEAOMAP Project shows this giant landmass: Pangea Ultima. At that time, the Atlantic Ocean will be just a distant memory, and whatever beings inhabit Earth will be able to walk from North America to Africa.

China's First Solar-Powered Primary School

I think that China should build more such kind of schools, because it can not only boost students' interests in studying science,  also it may finally lower the pollution caused by the coal-burning electricity plants.

China's first solar-powered primary school was formally inaugurated on Monday (Sept. 17) in city Qingdao, east Shandong province.

Peninsula Metropolitan News reports on Tuesday that the Hushanlu primary school, integrated with solar energy heat and photovoltaic generating systems, can generate electricity to support its water supply and heating system.

With a combined generating capacity of 30 kilowatts, the photovoltaic generating system can produce150 kilowatt-hours of electricity everyday.

Meanwhile, the heat utilization system, which is able to collect sunlight in an area of 600 square meters, can convert solar energy for heating and boiling water for 30 classrooms, 860 students and teachers.

The system, which costs about 3 million yuan (around USD400,000), also less than one ninth of the total investment in building the primary school, can work even on a cloudy or rainy day because its stored electricity can support the normal need of the school for five days. There are also more than 100 solar-powered lights on campus.

Staff members of the school were quoted by the newspaper as saying that by using solar energy, the school will be able to save about 65 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and over 261tons of coal, reducing at the same time some 695 tons of carbon dioxide, 4.6 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 4.9 tons of industrial waste emissions, as well as decreasing atmospheric pollutants by 4 tons every year.

The authority of the school believes that their experiment will better help their students learn how important renewable energy resources will be in their daily life and studies.

Source: First "Solar" Primary School in E. China @ Crienglish

Alex, aka World's Smartest Parrot, 31, Dies

Alex , a randomly selected African Grey parrot from a pet shop for Dr. Irene Pepperberg's cognition and communication research of birds in 1970's, has died. It is 31 years old.

Alex, the world renowned African Grey parrot made famous by the ground-breaking cognition and communication research conducted by Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D., died at the age of 31 on September 6, 2007. Dr. Pepperberg’s pioneering research resulted in Alex learning elements of English speech to identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. He used phrases such as “I want X” and “Wanna go Y”, where X and Y were appropriate object and location labels. He acquired concepts of categories, bigger and smaller, same-different, and absence. Alex combined his labels to identify, request, refuse, and categorize more than 100 different items demonstrating a level and scope of cognitive abilities never expected in an avian species. Pepperberg says that Alex showed the emotional equivalent of a 2 year-old child and intellectual equivalent of a 5 year-old. Her research with Alex shattered the generally held notion that parrots are only capable of mindless vocal mimicry.

Alex has been featured worldwide on numerous science programs including the BBC, NHK, Discovery and PBS. He is well known for his interactions with Alan Alda in an episode of Scientific American Frontiers on PBS and from an episode of the famed PBS Nature series called “Look Who’s Talking.” Reports on Alex’s accomplishments have appeared in the popular press and international news from USA Today to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The Science Times section of the New York Times featured Alex in a front-page story in 1999.

Source: Alex the African Grey parrot and subject of landmark studies of bird intelligence dies at 31 @ AlexFoundation.org

John Kanzius Burns Salt Water Using Radio Frequencies

Just as one blogger said: no better news on the 6th anniversary of 9/11 than the possibility of ending our dependence on outside sources of [fossil] fuel.

An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

Source: Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water @ AP