The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Australians develop ‘smart’ bandage Posted: 09 Jun 2011 03:22 AM PDT  A smart bandage by Louise van der Werff. The fibres change colour when exposed to heat. Lead inventor Louise van der Werff, a materials scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, said the dressing would change from red to blue depending on the temperature of the wound. "If the wound becomes infected then it typically gets warmer. It would get cooler if there were, for example, a compromised blood supply," she said recently. Van der Werff said wound changes were not always obvious and the fibre she helped devise, using liquid crystals which react to different temperatures, could show changes of less than half a degree Celsius. "A temperature is sort of an obvious indication – if they can see that through a colour change then hopefully it can help a lot," she said. Van der Werff, who is completing her doctorate at Monash University in Melbourne, said plans were underway to incorporate the colour-changing fibre into a textile which could then be woven or knitted into a wound dressing. "Our main target is for chronic wound care – the elderly, obese and people with diabetes who can get wounds like leg ulcers and pressure ulcers and things like that which can really last a long time without healing properly," she said. – AFP Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Posted: 09 Jun 2011 01:29 AM PDT  Geophagy, or the act of eating dirt, stems from a biological need to protect oneself from toxins and pathogens, says a new study. – Shutterstock After sifting through 480 reports compiled by missionaries, plantation doctors, explorers and anthropologists from around the world, researchers at Cornell University concluded that human geophagy – the act of eating dirt – is most likely driven by the belief that earth and clay absorb dangerous toxins and act as a shield against pathogens. Their review was published in the June issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology and explores a range of possible theories to explain why people in areas outside the Western world crave dirt. After exploring other possible theories – that geophagy is driven by hunger and food shortages, or for its nutrients like iron, zinc or calcium – researchers found that protection against toxins and pathogens was a recurring pattern within the mountain of data. While it may sound counterintuitive, the report points out that geophagy is documented most commonly in women in the early stages of pregnancy and in pre-adolescent children – both of whom are especially sensitive to parasites and pathogens. In parts of Africa, rural areas of the US, and remote villages in India, for instance, clay is used to eliminate nausea, as it coats the gastrointestinal tract and is believed to absorb dangerous toxins. The eating of clay is also common among people suffering from gastrointestinal stress, the report pointed out. Because the dirt itself is usually taken from deep below the surface of the ground and is usually boiled before consumption, it also acts as an antidote to parasites, researchers said. For Western societies, however, the act of eating dirt – typically considered impure and contaminated – is treated as a pathology and abnormal behaviour, a stigma lead author Sera Young hopes to demystify. It's also been associated with pica, an eating disorder characterized by the abnormal cravings for nonfood items. "We hope this paper stimulates research," Young and her colleagues wrote. "More importantly, we hope readers agree that it is time to stop regarding geophagy as a bizarre, non-adaptive gustatory mistake." Currently, countries like Haiti, the poorest economy in the Western Hemisphere, eat "bonbons de terre," sun-dried cookies or pancakes made from earth. But as the report points out, the first written account of human geophagy came from Hippocrates more than 2,000 years ago and since then has been reported on every inhabited continent in almost every country. Meanwhile, another study published in Australia last year suggests that children who eat or inhale dirt while spending time on the playground could actually become smarter. When scientists fed mice a dirt bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae, the animals navigated complex mazes twice as fast as those that weren't – a finding that flies in the face of helicopter parenting and compulsive hand-sanitizing habits. Young has also written a book on the subject called Craving Earth: Understanding Pica - the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk, which is available on Amazon. – AFP Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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