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Daily Archives: 20/10/2017
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Health24.com | New test may soon be available for diagnosing TB in kids
Two in 10, of the one million children with tuberculosis (TB) globally, die each year.
Speaking from the Union World Conference on Lung Health that took place in Mexico earlier this month, Dr Jeffery Starke said a staggering 96% of these deaths are in children who never received anti-TB drugs because the disease is very difficult to diagnose in kids.
A much-needed solution
An international paediatric TB expert, based at the Texas Children’s Hospital in the United States, he said the largely preventable and treatable disease causes so many deaths in children because it is often misdiagnosed as pneumonia or meningitis.
But new research coming out of the University of Cape Town (UCT), presented at the conference, may provide a much-needed solution.
TB is usually diagnosed using sputum samples: mucous coughed up from the lungs. But children often don’t have the force to cough such samples up and may be subjected to very “invasive” diagnostic methods, if at all, said Dr Paula Fujiwara, scientific director for the Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.
These can include a technique called gastric lavage where a tube is inserted through the nose and fed down to the stomach of the child to extract the contents, which are then sent to a lab to test for TB.
Tissue from the tongue
Three consecutive samples are ideally needed for a correct diagnosis, requiring three repeat trips to a health facility or for the patient to be admitted – which is labour intensive and costly to both patients and their families as well as the health system.
But for the first time, scientists are investigating whether tissue from the oral cavity, including from the cheeks tongue and gums can be used to successfully diagnose TB.
Researchers from UCT and the Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative found that tissue from the tongue was the most sensitive. They are currently involved in phase two of a trial which aims to enrol 275 patients in the Western Cape to test if these samples can successfully be used to diagnose TB – especially for patients who can’t or find it difficult to produce sputum.
So far they have “promising” results for 49 samples from TB patients, 45 of which have tested positive in the laboratory using the oral swab method, translating into a sensitivity rate of 92%.
Rapid point-of-care tool
The implications for the success of this study are significant, particularly for children, according to Dr Angelique Luabeya, one of the trial’s lead researchers.
“It would be so easy to take a sample. My daughter could do it,” she said. “Patients themselves could even take a sample – it would be as simple as brushing your teeth and nobody does that for you.”
A small brush is used to scrape the inside of the mouth, after which the brush is sealed in a small container and sent to the laboratory for testing. In contrast, sputum testing requires a patient to cough up mucus, a process that, if not done under the right circumstances, can even aid transmission of the air-borne disease.
The “long-term” vision is to translate this diagnostic method into a rapid point-of-care tool that can be used by lay health workers without the need for laboratory testing.
Said Luabeya: “The beauty of it is it’s so simple that we wonder why no-one’s done it before.” – Health-e News.
Image credit: iStock
Driverless Tech? It’s Only The Tip Of The Disruption Iceberg
When people find out I work in the auto industry they all want to ask me about driverless and electric cars. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as excited about these as the next person, but when it comes to innovation in my industry, it’s only the tip of the tech disruption iceberg.
I’ve been working with cars for most of my life. I’ve seen a lot of innovation come and go. A lot of it has already been heralded as transformative, but the advances digital technologies are bringing mean we will see more change in the next ten to 20 years than in the last century. But here’s the thing: driverless cars and lithium-ion batteries are not going to be the only disruptor. Sure, they’ll change the way vehicles are driven, and their impact on the environment, but it won’t be the technology that fundamentally changes the way the automotive industry does business; there’s far more to it than that.
Let’s think about this in terms of IoT; it’s the way cars fit into the network of connected devices that surround us (be it smartphones, vehicles or even humans) that will really change the way we (as customers), interact with individual mobility and as an industry, do business. The rise of connected technology is quite literally going to shake the core idea of car ownership to its foundations.
There are two key factors in this dynamic that are going to drive this change; economics and demographics. Economic developments in the last few decades mean that most of us will not have the desire to invest in car ownership. In terms of demographics, by 2025, 70% of the global population will be living in megacities, removing the desire to own a car simply because it will take longer to find a parking spot than it will to make a journey.
There are already some very clever tech start-ups that have identified this opportunity. We all know about Uber, but what about those who still want to drive their own car? That’s not going to change. With the rise of the sharing economy and IoT connectivity, the concept of driving your own car without having to own it is already becoming a reality. I’m not talking about leasing (and the commitment involved), or rental (expensive in the short-term), soon customers will be pooling ownership via subscription-based services.
So how is my industry responding to the opportunity, and threat, this change in customer needs is creating? How are we responding to the transformation technology is provoking? The key to this will be innovation. Serious innovation.
However, to do that, we need to disrupt the old-school corporate behaviours and practices that kill off great ideas before they get going. Innovation and adaptation is possible, but we need the right platform to make it happen. We need to harness the entrepreneurial spirit and technological expertise of others outside our corporation and open our doors to them, such as those car-sharing start-ups behind subscription-based services.
Many of our big company peers have turned to the corporate-funded incubator as their route to innovation. I think these have merit. They can inject innovation into a business by creating a way to work with agile start-ups. But if they don’t work on the core challenges faced by the sponsor, the ideas they come up with will always feel tangential, as they don’t make it to the customer. They also carry the risk of absolving the corporate from its responsibility to change its culture and become truly innovative. You can’t just outsource innovation.
In my view, for any incubator lab to work, it is essential that it focuses on what really matters, and that innovation is guided with clear priorities and goals from the start. Get this right and incubators can really help. We’re already onboarding 4 tech start-ups from 5 of last year’s winners at our Innovation Lab. We were so happy with the success of this programme we’ve extended it this year to include our employees, giving 74 teams time away from their day job to bring their ideas to life, with significant investment earmarked for those that make it past pitch day.
Although it’s early days when it comes to meeting the transformation technology brings, it’s going to be a real first-mover advantage for those who adapt to this new concept of ownership. The automotive industry is going to change forever and the car will no longer be the only star of the show (even if it is driverless and electric). Customers will be demanding much more from car companies if they are to meet their changing habits and needs. It’s time to get our thinking caps on and commit to innovation at the heart of our business. Will it work? I’ll be keeping you posted.
Tougher measures for 999 staff attacks backed
We need to stand by those who stand by us, says an MP whose bill is a step closer to becoming law.
Digital Currency – Another Tech Bubble Waiting To Burst, Or Game Changer That Will Transform Our Financial Lives?
In 2017 the cryptocurrency market has increased seven-fold in value. Surging past the $140 billion mark, industry projections have the sector on course to exceed a value of $5 trillion by the year 2022. This marked upward momentum has been driven largely by the enthusiasm of venture capital investors, eager to claim a stake in the next big thing.
The venture capital investments have been flooding into cryptocurrency via ICO’s – Initial Coin Offerings – a fundraising strategy that gives investors the opportunity to buy units of cryptocurrency early doors at pre-launch and low value. The ICO method has proved incredibly successful for some companies. Ethereum’s Ether, the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, was offered for pre-sale in 2014, and its value has increased two-hundred fold since 2015.
The boom has led to fever pitch hype surrounding the sector, and predictable comparisons with the infamous Dotcom bubble of the late 90’s. Speaking at a CNBC conference in September, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was dismissive and scathing of the recent cryptocurrency gold rush, branding it ‘a fraud’ and destined to ‘blow up’.
Is the cryptocurrency boom just another ephemeral tech bubble certain to burst?
Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean it won’t produce some enterprises that have a lasting or even revolutionary effect on the way we live our lives. The Dotcom Bubble left many shattered dreams and a trail of failed companies, but its legacy was also the birth of epoch-changing innovators, like Amazon and Google.
Naturally, the institutions who dominate traditional finance have been resistant to the spectre of change. But there are also tenative signs of a gradual acceptance of digital currency among some figures in the banking establishment. During a September WSJ discussion event, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman acknowledged cryptocurrency to be ‘certainly more than just a fad’, while Goldman Sachs is also reported to be developing trading and investment services specifically for cryptocurrencies.
Politically, some governments have begun to endorse digital currencies. In Japan, Earth’s third-largest economy, the government is supporting J-Coin, a digital currency that will coexist alongside the Yen and scheduled for launch in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Yet there are still deep-rooted problems with cryptocurrency that require remedy before it can truly breakthrough into mainstream usage and become the norm – principally, regulation and security.
It is very difficult to govern cryptocurrency flows at present because of user anonymity – cryptocurrency accounts are not tied to forms of identity used in conventional banking. They are based on numerical ID’s, allowing users to stay anonymous and open myriad accounts. Consequently, cryptocurrency is especially vulnerable to capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. On a practical level, cryptocurrency is not simple to use – translating cryptocurrency into traditional currency for use outside of the cryptosystem is still a convoluted process.
One person’s problem though is another’s opportunity, and these defects have left open a large space for innovators. In a Horowitz tech podcast “Why Crypto Tokens Matter”, VC investor Chris Dixon, and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam emphasised the demand for transgressive concepts, imaginative solutions and potential for disruptive enterprises in the cryptocurrency world. Companies such as London based startup Forty Seven Bank, who propose a new type of hybrid bank to bring fiat and cryptocurrency together under one platform, and offer all the services of traditional banking to users of both – current accounts, savings, sale and purchase, investment, trading, futures, and exchange. Central to this hybrid bank concept is a multi-asset account, through which users can access and manage crypto and fiat assets in one place.
Cryptocurrency and the programmability of money also have transformative potential at the micro level, in terms of transactions. Smart Contracts could radically alter the way we are paid, borrow, take out insurance, attract investment and invest. AI enacted contracts could make transactions more efficient, and save money by cutting out middlemen – those financial and legal intermediaries who always take a fee. There is the potential to change almost every sphere of financial activity and service.
So how will the future look in this brave new world of smart contracts, hybrid banking, and computer coded currency?
It is unlikely that private sector digital currencies such as Bitcoin will ever replace central bank issued money. But it is possible that more central banks will create their own digital currencies, just like Japan. After all, as the Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff commented last week, the history of currency shows that what the private sector creates, the state eventually appropriates. Individual cryptocurrencies will almost certainly rise and fall, and bubbles will burst, but the technology driving them will probably be here to stay.
In 1997 Scientists Detected The Loudest Sound Ever Heard Underwater, But The Cause Is Still A Mystery
For any wannabe Ernest Shackleton, it might seem that the 21st century doesn’t provide many opportunities left for real exploration, but don’t despair as there is still one place on Earth full of unanswered mysteries.
As much as 95% of the deep ocean is unexplored, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a new documentary for The Atlantic, has highlighted one of the most baffling questions of all.
mihtiander via Getty Images
In 1997, the loudest underwater sound ever recorded was detected by hydrophones set 5,000 miles apart in the Pacific Ocean.
Initially built to assist in the detection of Soviet submarines, the listening system had never heard anything like the ultra-low frequency sound emanating from a point off the southern coast of Chile, that lasted for one minute and never to be heard again.
And for the team of ten oceanographers at NOAA, lead by Dr Christopher Fox, who were left to piece the puzzle together, it was “baffling” and had no immediate scientific explanation.
Now twenty years later, the source of the sound, which has come to be known colloquially as the bloop, (as well as whistle, slowdown, upsweep and even Gregorian chant), is still a mystery.
Over the years, there were many possible theories put forward.
When it first happen, Dr Christopher Fox went to the United States Navy intelligence, to ask if it could have been a manmade sound from a bomb detonating or a submarine, but they said it wasn’t them.
PaulFleet via Getty Images
Then in 2002 reports said it was consistent with large marine animals – perhaps a many-tentacled giant squid (the largest on record at the time was 60ft long).
But Phil Lobel, Boston University, quickly dismissed this as a creature like this has no gas-filled sac that would be the way you would create a noise like this.
Then Fox and his team explored the possibility of it being a blue whale, but if so it would have been more powerful than any previous call recorded on Earth.
The bloop was also explained as being consistent with noises generated by icequakes in large icebergs, or large icebergs scraping the ocean floor
By 2012 the NOAA concluded that the noise was an icequake, and scientist Robert Dziak told Wired: “Each year there are tens of thousands of what we call ‘icequakes’ created by the cracking and melting of sea ice and ice calving off glaciers into the ocean.
“And these signals are very similar in character to the Bloop.”
But later in 2012 a documentary on the Discovery Channel said it was actually due to mermaids, dismissing the ice theory.
Today the most likely explanation is that it was ice related, but this hasn’t stopped the most bizarre explanation of all – that it is a fictional creature from H.P Lovecraft’s novel ‘The Call Of Cthulhu’.
As the roughly triangulated origin of the bloop is approximately 950 nautical miles (1,760 km) from the precisely-described location of R’lyen a sunken extra-dimensional city.
In the documentary, Dr Fox says he is happy no conclusive answer has been found: “I am glad there are still mysteries on earth and in the universe.”
Health24.com | The fastest way to build cycling endurance
For many years, we were told that if we wanted to properly build our base fitness, we needed to spend 12 to 16 weeks riding long, steady, low-intensity kilometres to strengthen our aerobic systems, so they could eventually handle harder training rides and races.
Well, this method works great if it’s your job to get up and ride your bike four to six hours a day, but for the rest of us without many free hours, a schedule-friendly method called polarised training presents a practical way to build endurance on a time budget.
As the name implies, polarised training emphasises the opposite ends of the training spectrum, so in any given week you do both really hard efforts and easy aerobic rides: the best of both worlds.
It’s a bit controversial (polarising?) in a sports science community used to half-day base slogs, but it’s backed by a body of sound research.
Read more: 6 quick and easy ways to lose fat fast
“Ultimately, your ‘base’ comes down to your mitochondrial capacity,” says exercise physiologist Paul Laursen, PhD, of the training service lab PlewsandProf.com.
“Research shows that while longer, lower-intensity exercise increases the number of mitochondria in your cells, high-intensity training makes those mitochondria more powerful.”
(Some studies show high-intensity exercise performed regularly can stimulate the production of mitochondria, too.)
Plus, when you do a set (or especially multiple sets) of high-intensity intervals, your heart rate stays elevated during your “recovery” periods, which benefits your aerobic energy systems – especially as the session progresses, says Laursen.
However you slice it, interval training undoubtedly improves endurance, even if you’re already pretty fit.
“Our research has found that when well-trained cyclists performed two interval sessions a week for three to six weeks, their VO2 max, peak aerobic-power output and endurance performance improved by 2 to 4%,” he says.
To that end, the best recipe for building endurance is blending the distribution of your training so about 80% of your rides are in those aerobic “zone 2” intensities (in terms of heart-rate zones) and about 20% are performed at high intensities or a blend of zones 3 to 5 throughout the week, says Laursen.
The ultimate endurance interval
Cyclists looking to optimise their interval training for endurance benefits should perform intervals ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, at a hard intensity.
These build your aerobic system while also being hard enough to recruit some fast-twitch sprint fibres, which makes those power-producing fibres more resistant to fatigue over time.
“Performing three to six of these leg-burning efforts, allowing one to two minutes of recovery in between, can have impressive effects,” says Laursen.
As you gain fitness, increase the number of reps and the intensity.
Aim to perform these sessions twice a week, allowing at least a day of recovery in between. Then do the rest of the week’s riding at a moderate aerobic pace.
Keep in mind, too, that if you’re planning to do a 100km ride, you still need to clock some longer days in the saddle so you can be comfortable on the bike, practise pacing, and dial in your nutrition and hydration – all things that shorter interval workouts can’t do.
Finally, remember that interval training, though beneficial, is also stressful. It’s essential that you not only include easy days and rest days in your weekly training plan, but also that you eat a balanced diet, get adequate sleep and be mindful of your general recovery.
If you don’t, “you can end up fit but unhealthy with high levels of stress hormones and inflammation that can do real damage over time,” Laursen says. “It’s all about balance.”
This article was originally published on www.bicycling.co.za
Image credit: iStock
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Virtual Reality And Immersive Tech: The Great Health And Social Policy Revolution?
Social care is, by definition, how society supports the welfare of others – the young, old and vulnerable in our society who rely on this support to keep them safe and able to manage daily life. Often intertwined with mental health services, it largely relies on the deployment of carefully trained, professionals – social workers and family workers – and the allied health workforce of clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, drug and alcohol workers etc.
But, as per the headlines, social care is bursting at the seams and unable to properly meet demand. In children’s social care the numbers of children coming into care are at an all time high and growing with a majority of local authorities providing an unsatisfactory service (as judged by Ofsted, but also a simple review of the disproportionately poor outcomes for children in care reveals the shameful performance of our “corporate parenting” of these children).
And the budget-busting challenges of a rapidly growing adult social care sector has been the subject of fervent debate but with no workable resolution in sight.
So, as with other sectors such as finance and entertainment, can the mental health and social policy sectors stand to benefit from what some claim is the 4th industrial revolution?
Arguably, these sectors are ones that stand to gain more than others because the fundamental features of VR and immersive tech are social facilitatory in nature…VR is often described as an “empathy machine” which comes from the ability to put on a pair of goggles and disappear into someone else’s shoes… this ability to perspective-take is a crucial element and goal of many social and mental health interventions.
And that means it has enormous potential ranging from training of social workers, teachers, health professionals and carers, to the treatment of eating disorders and anxiety disorders as well as addressing major trends in crime such as gang crime, hate crime and radicalisation.
In my own sector of children’s social care, it means we can help those families who are either adopting, fostering or on the edge of care to fully understand the impact of trauma and abuse on children and how that translates to a child’s challenging behaviour at home or school.
Putting adults into the child’s shoes, albeit virtually, allows us to generate empathy and deep understanding which becomes engrained in our memory to the extent that we fundamentally alter our views and with that comes behaviour change.
Accelerating behaviour change in this way means we have a chance to strengthen the bonds between children and carers enabling them to withstand the challenges that go with adoption or fostering, and crucially, to enable our children to recover from whatever trauma, abuse or neglect led them to be in the care system in the first place. And ultimately to fulfil their potential in life.
The ability to cast into the future and generate foresight is another important feature of immersive technology which has huge application – how many would-be suicide bombers might think twice about making the long hard trek to the middle East if they had the benefit of hindsight… if they had experienced the extreme fear of putting their own lives on the line and the personal responsibility of destroying so many other human lives, would they still take that step? The two teenagers in London who were recently sentenced for a gang stabbing of an innocent bystander ended up weeping for their mums in the dock… if we could project these children into those moments of deep and sincere regret surely our chances of rehabilitating are far greater than any traditional methodologies.
And further, the more subtle societal and cultural challenges that come from a failure to equate what we do today with consequences in the future are challenges that this technology could help to overcome. Tackling climate change and our collective lack of empathy for the elderly are two such cases in point where our inability to consider our own ageing or connect our environmental actions today with the type of world our grandchildren might inherit in the not too distant future are the underlying dysfunctions that lend themselves so well to the power of VR.
So how do we get to the point where the benefits of this technology are realised? Social innovators like Cornerstone are the agitators seeking to disrupt their sectors and create major transformation that will deliver a stepped changes in outcomes. The skill of spotting where and how this technology can be applied, then having the entrepreneurial gumption to lift these ideas from paper and bring them to life as pilot projects is something we pride ourselves in.
We have the ambition, drive and willingness to make changes happen by seeking out, testing and refining the best of what the tech world has to offer. And once the concept is proven, cost benefit evidenced and teething problems ironed out then scaling and evolving these early innovations will rapidly follow.
By that time though we’ll be scouring the globe for the 5th industrial revolution and harvesting the very best from our new techie BFFs so that social policy can mirror the entertainment industry in making equally big transformational leaps forward.
Health24.com | What happens to my body during an allergic reaction?
When you come into contact with an allergen, it’s your immune system that reacts to the substance you’ve eaten, inhaled or touched.
Although your immune system produces five types of antibodies, allergies usually involve the IgE antibody. When you are allergic to a substance, your body forms IgE antibodies, which can result in a nasty reaction.
When it comes to different allergies, symptoms are often quite similar. Let’s take a look at what happens to your body when you have an allergic reaction.
1. Hives
Hives appear as itchy raised areas that are red, pink or skin-coloured. They can can vary in size and shape and often appear in batches on your face, or arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet and toes.
In the case of hives, your body releases histamine as a defence mechanism. When the histamine is released, tiny blood vessels under your skin leak fluid, which accumulates and causes the reaction.
Hives usually disappear within 24 hours.
2. Runny or congested nose
Your nose has a busy job – it filters five to eight litres of air that pass through your nostrils every minute. But when an allergy affects your nose, your immune system goes into overdrive.
According to the Harvard Health Publications, mast cells in the nasal tissue release chemicals, such as histamine and leukotrines, to fight the allergen.
The blood vessels in your nasal passage may swell, which causes congestion, and mucus production increases, which causes that runny nose.
3. Digestive issues
The Cleveland Clinic says that when you’re allergic to a food, your body identifies an ingredient – often a protein – as a threat. An allergic reaction occurs when the antibodies struggle to “invade” this food.
Your digestive tract needs to “rapidly get rid of or neutralise the irritant or the allergen. Common gastrointestinal reactions are abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea,” Dr Lisa Pichney told Everyday Health.
According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, most food-related symptoms occur within two hours of ingestion, but often within minutes. In rare cases, an allergic reaction can be delayed by between four and six hours, and sometimes even longer.
4. Anaphylactic shock
In severe cases, an allergy can cause anaphylactic shock. This reaction can affect your entire body. Anaphylactic shock can cause swelling of your throat and tongue; shortness of breath; difficulty breathing; an abnormal heart rate; a drastic drop in blood pressure; digestive issues; and itchy, red skin.
The most common anaphylactic reactions are to medications, latex, food and insect stings. In extreme situations anaphylaxis can be life threatening and must be treated without delay.
First aid tips for anaphylactic shock
- Check to see if the person is wearing an allergy bracelet so you can identify the allergy. If they are not and can talk, ask them what they’re allergic to. If they are carrying an EpiPen or asthma pump, help them find it and use it.
- If the person is conscious, help them into a sitting position, which will make it easier to breathe. Encourage them to take slow, deep breaths.
- If possible, give them an antihistamine.
- If treatment doesn’t help, call an ambulance or take them to a hospital immediately.
Image credit: iStock
