Tag Archives: black

New liver cell for cellular therapy to aid in liver regeneration

"The discovery of the novel progenitor represents a fundamental advance in this field and potentially to the liver regeneration field using cell therapy," said the study’s senior author, Valerie Gouon-Evans, PharmD, PhD, Assistant Professor, in the Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "Until now, liver transplantation has been the most successful treatment for people with liver failure, but we have a drastic shortage of organs…

The dirt on hotel rooms

We asked several industry insiders to help us peel back the covers on your home away from home. Here's how to make the most of any stay.  “Eco-Friendly” Actually Means “Dirty Sheets” Here's a travel tip you might not have heard: Bedspreads are often cleaned just once a month. But sheets can dodge detergent, too.  “Some hotels take a unique approach to the water-conservation trend,” the housekeeping director we interviewed said. “Unless they look soiled, sheets may not be changed.” The solution: Ask for fresh sheets.  “When I travel, I change my own sheets,” one hotel director said.  Know what else you should change while you're on the road? Your diet. (Find out how one Men's Health reader wedged tough workouts and smart dining into his busy schedule.) Your Bill is Bogus The average business traveler is overcharged $11.35 a night, according to an audit of hotel bills by Corporate Lodging Consultants, a firm that helps companies and governments trim travel costs. Beware of fees for fridges, or anything labeled “local.” The solution: Question every charge, especially at the end of the month, one hotel controller said.  “It's unbelievable what managers do to make budget.” Even worse than the managers are some of the offerings at the morning buffet. (Avoid these 8 killer breakfast foods.) Upgrades Can Come Cheap Here's a travel tip from insiders: Upgrade at check-in. Full occupancy is rare - the average is 63 percent, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association, and suites are often vacant.  “A smart manager knows that the cost to clean a suite is roughly the same as for a regular room,” one manager said. The solution: Make the hotel more money. Offer 20 percent more than your current rate for the upgrade; you could be sleeping in a suite. (Just make sure you're sleeping in style with this well-traveled wardrobe.) Some Souvenirs Have Legs Hotels are a haven for bedbugs. Pest-control companies say hotels account for more than 37 percent of their bedbug business, according to Pest Control Technology magazine. The solution: Search for your hotel on bedbugregistry.com. Scan mattress and couch creases for the reddish brown bloodsuckers and their black droppings, Jason Rasgon, a public-health professor at Johns Hopkins, said. At home, dry your clothes on high for 45 minutes to kill stowaways. The Bathroom is Cleaner Than the TV Remote  Often, the worst germ incubators are the frequently touched surfaces: the thermostat dial, phone, and remote. Chuck Gerba, a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, actually found more traces of fecal matter on these surfaces than in the bathroom. The solution: Use hand sanitizer, and wash your hands frequently. A recent study reported that cold germs linger for more than a day on surfaces.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/dirt-on-hotel-rooms/

Woman undergoes quadruple amputation after black market silicone butt injections

Apryl Michelle Brown had black-market silicone injections which turned out to be bathroom sealant. It left her in agony and led to her losing her hands and feet, as well as her buttocks. The 46-year-old former hairdresser blames “vanity” and wants to warn others of the terrible dangers of such illegal treatments. Teased as a child about her “pancake” bum, Brown vowed to buy a shapelier one when she was older. The moment that changed her life came in 2004, when two women walked into her successful beauty salon to get their hair done. One of them ran “pumping parties” — where unqualified practitioners inject illegal silicone into “patients” at their home. Brown, from Los Angeles, Calif., said: “One of the women told me how she had given bottom injections to the friend who was with her. “I remember thinking it was a miracle she’d walked into my life. Her friend showed me the work she’d had done and it looked great. “In a split second I made the decision that I was going to go to this woman and let her inject silicone into my behind.” That decision nearly killed her. Brown paid the woman, who had no medical background for two lots of injections. Doctors later discovered the substance used was industrial-grade silicone. Brown admitted: “I didn’t do any research. A combination of naivety, misplaced trust and insecurity led me to take this disastrous decision. “I trusted her because she seemed so professional, and I had no reason to think anything awful was going to happen. “She carried out the procedure in her daughter’s bedroom. She assessed my bottom and said, ‘You’ll need three or four sessions to get the result you want’. “The first procedure took an hour. I remember asking, ‘Is it meant to be so painful?’ and she said, ‘Yes’. It felt like it was squeezing through my nerves.” Within weeks Brown returned for her second treatment. She said: “After going through it again I had an epiphany. As I left her house I thought, ‘What am I doing? I have no idea what she’s putting in my body’. “I never returned. But though I didn’t know it then, my life had already changed forever.” Over the next two years the area where she’d been injected became hard and the skin blackened. Brown, mother to daughters Danye, 22 and Courtney, 21, said:  “Within a few months of the second injection my buttocks began to harden. I knew something wasn’t right. But shame stopped me seeking medical help. As time went on it got worse as the skin blackened. I developed hard lumps. Then the searing pain started. I had to tell my doctor what I did. I was so ashamed.” Brown spent the next four years in constant pain. Two surgeons told her it was too dangerous to remove the silicone. She said: “I was in so much agony I became a regular at hospital asking for medication to ease what was like a combination of a migraine, childbirth and toothache localized in one area. “I suffered day and night, so I was willing to do anything — including remove my buttocks.” In February 2011 a surgeon operated unsuccessfully. Brown developed a hole in her buttocks — thought to be the trigger for an infection that in June was nearly fatal.  She said: “I was 24 hours from dying. I didn’t think of leaving my family. It was a relief I’d finally be free of pain.” Doctors put her in an induced coma for two months while performing 27 surgeries — starting with amputating her buttocks — and doing extensive skin grafts. She said: “They saved me but gangrene set into my hands and feet. I was brought out of sedation shortly before I became a quadruple amputee. “My hands looked like those of a dead person. I knew then I was going to lose them.” She added: “At first you try to register your new limbs. The real comprehension comes when you start to live this new life. “I had dark times. I cried a sea of tears. I had to face the fact I’d lost my hands, feet and buttocks because of complications from bottom injections. I was overwhelmed by shame and guilt... all because I wanted a bigger bottom. “I was six months in hospital. By the time I was discharged I was determined to turn this terrible thing into something positive. “I decided to do a triathlon. I told myself if I could achieve that I could do anything. “I took my first steps again by the end of 2011. I built up to training six days a week, learning to walk, cycle then swim again using my residual limbs. “I’d be crying in pain but I’d push through it. And six weeks ago I did it — completing a three-mile walk, ten-mile cycle and a 150-meter swim. “When I crossed that finishing line with my family cheering me on, I cried tears of joy.” She added: “I haven’t sued or sought compensation. I just want to move on. There are things I miss dearly — I’ll never be able to do my girls’ hair or feel sand between my toes. “But I believe I survived to share my story. “I want to warn others of the dangers of black-market surgery. We were born whole, perfect and complete. “My greatest message is we have to learn to love and accept ourselves for who we are.” Click for more from The Sun. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/woman-becomes-quadruple-amputee-after-black-market-silicone-injections/

Woman undergoes quaruple amputation after black market silicone butt injections

Apryl Michelle Brown had black-market silicone injections which turned out to be bathroom sealant. It left her in agony and led to her losing her hands and feet, as well as her buttocks. The 46-year-old former hairdresser blames “vanity” and wants to warn others of the terrible dangers of such illegal treatments. Teased as a child about her “pancake” bum, Brown vowed to buy a shapelier one when she was older. The moment that changed her life came in 2004, when two women walked into her successful beauty salon to get their hair done. One of them ran “pumping parties” — where unqualified practitioners inject illegal silicone into “patients” at their home. Brown, from Los Angeles, Calif., said: “One of the women told me how she had given bottom injections to the friend who was with her. “I remember thinking it was a miracle she’d walked into my life. Her friend showed me the work she’d had done and it looked great. “In a split second I made the decision that I was going to go to this woman and let her inject silicone into my behind.” That decision nearly killed her. Brown paid the woman, who had no medical background for two lots of injections. Doctors later discovered the substance used was industrial-grade silicone. Brown admitted: “I didn’t do any research. A combination of naivety, misplaced trust and insecurity led me to take this disastrous decision. “I trusted her because she seemed so professional, and I had no reason to think anything awful was going to happen. “She carried out the procedure in her daughter’s bedroom. She assessed my bottom and said, ‘You’ll need three or four sessions to get the result you want’. “The first procedure took an hour. I remember asking, ‘Is it meant to be so painful?’ and she said, ‘Yes’. It felt like it was squeezing through my nerves.” Within weeks Brown returned for her second treatment. She said: “After going through it again I had an epiphany. As I left her house I thought, ‘What am I doing? I have no idea what she’s putting in my body’. “I never returned. But though I didn’t know it then, my life had already changed forever.” Over the next two years the area where she’d been injected became hard and the skin blackened. Brown, mother to daughters Danye, 22 and Courtney, 21, said:  “Within a few months of the second injection my buttocks began to harden. I knew something wasn’t right. But shame stopped me seeking medical help. As time went on it got worse as the skin blackened. I developed hard lumps. Then the searing pain started. I had to tell my doctor what I did. I was so ashamed.” Brown spent the next four years in constant pain. Two surgeons told her it was too dangerous to remove the silicone. She said: “I was in so much agony I became a regular at hospital asking for medication to ease what was like a combination of a migraine, childbirth and toothache localized in one area. “I suffered day and night, so I was willing to do anything — including remove my buttocks.” In February 2011 a surgeon operated unsuccessfully. Brown developed a hole in her buttocks — thought to be the trigger for an infection that in June was nearly fatal.  She said: “I was 24 hours from dying. I didn’t think of leaving my family. It was a relief I’d finally be free of pain.” Doctors put her in an induced coma for two months while performing 27 surgeries — starting with amputating her buttocks — and doing extensive skin grafts. She said: “They saved me but gangrene set into my hands and feet. I was brought out of sedation shortly before I became a quadruple amputee. “My hands looked like those of a dead person. I knew then I was going to lose them.” She added: “At first you try to register your new limbs. The real comprehension comes when you start to live this new life. “I had dark times. I cried a sea of tears. I had to face the fact I’d lost my hands, feet and buttocks because of complications from bottom injections. I was overwhelmed by shame and guilt... all because I wanted a bigger bottom. “I was six months in hospital. By the time I was discharged I was determined to turn this terrible thing into something positive. “I decided to do a triathlon. I told myself if I could achieve that I could do anything. “I took my first steps again by the end of 2011. I built up to training six days a week, learning to walk, cycle then swim again using my residual limbs. “I’d be crying in pain but I’d push through it. And six weeks ago I did it — completing a three-mile walk, ten-mile cycle and a 150-meter swim. “When I crossed that finishing line with my family cheering me on, I cried tears of joy.” She added: “I haven’t sued or sought compensation. I just want to move on. There are things I miss dearly — I’ll never be able to do my girls’ hair or feel sand between my toes. “But I believe I survived to share my story. “I want to warn others of the dangers of black-market surgery. We were born whole, perfect and complete. “My greatest message is we have to learn to love and accept ourselves for who we are.” Click for more from The Sun. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/woman-becomes-quadruple-amputee-after-black-market-silicone-injections/

Simple vision test may predict IQ

A simple visual test is surprisingly accurate at predicting IQ, according to new research. The study, published May 23 in the journal Current Biology, found that people's ability to efficiently filter out visual information in the background and focus on the foreground is strongly linked to IQ. The findings could help scientists identify the brain processes responsible for intelligence. That doesn't mean snappy, efficient visual processing leads to smarts, said study co-author Duje Tadin, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester in New York. Instead, common brain processes may underlie both intelligence and efficient visual processing. IQ hunting Since the 1800s, the forefathers of IQ testing, including Sir Francis Galton (who also pioneered the science of fingerprinting), suspected that highly intelligent people also have supersensory discrimination. But studies in the subsequent decades have found only a modest connection between IQ-test scores and peoples ability to quickly or accurately spot motion in images. Tadin and his colleagues were studying a separate question on visual perception in 12 participants when they found something striking: IQ seemed to be correlated strongly with performance on a visual task. The test asked users to spot the direction of motion on a series of black-and-white stripes on a screen. Sometimes, the lines formed inside a small central circle, and other times, they were large stripes that took up the entire screen. Participants also completed a short IQ test. [Watch Video of Motion and Test Your Smarts] The team noticed that people with higher IQs were good at spotting motion in the small circles, but terrible at detecting motion in the larger black-and-white stripes. Because they had looked at so few people, Tadin and his colleagues wondered if their results were a fluke. They repeated the experiment with 53 people, who also took a full IQ test. The ability to visually filter the motion strongly predicted IQ in fact, motion suppression (the ability to focus on the action and ignore background movements) was as predictive of total IQ as individual subsections of the IQ test itself. Relevant information As people walk, the background scenery is always changing, so efficient brains may be better at filtering out this irrelevant visual information. And that efficiency could be operating across a wide range of tasks, Tadin said. “What happens in brains of high-IQ people is, they're automatically processing motion of small moving objects efficiently, whereas they're suppressing the background,” Tadin said. The findings reshape the conventional view that quick thinking leads to smarts. “Speedy processing does matter, but it's only half the story. It's how you filter out things that are less relevant and focus your speedy resources on what is important,” Tadin said. Big variation The study reveals new insights into brain efficiency and smarts, said Kevin McGrew, director of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics and owner of www.themindhub.com. Even though the link between IQ and visual filtering was very strong, IQ tests won't be replaced by motion tracking anytime soon, said McGrew, who was not involved in the study. “Their task accounts for or explains about 50 percent of the IQ scores,” McGrew told LiveScience. “That is impressive in psychology, but it still means there is 50 percent of the scores that they're not explaining.” Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/24/simple-vision-test-predicts-iq/

Simple vision test may predicts IQ

A simple visual test is surprisingly accurate at predicting IQ, according to new research. The study, published May 23 in the journal Current Biology, found that people's ability to efficiently filter out visual information in the background and focus on the foreground is strongly linked to IQ. The findings could help scientists identify the brain processes responsible for intelligence. That doesn't mean snappy, efficient visual processing leads to smarts, said study co-author Duje Tadin, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester in New York. Instead, common brain processes may underlie both intelligence and efficient visual processing. IQ hunting Since the 1800s, the forefathers ofIQ testing, including Sir Francis Galton (who also pioneered the science of fingerprinting), suspected that highly intelligent people also have supersensory discrimination. But studies in the subsequent decades have found only a modest connection between IQ-test scores and peoples ability to quickly or accurately spot motion in images. Tadin and his colleagues were studying a separate question on visual perception in 12 participants when they found something striking: IQ seemed to be correlated strongly with performance on a visual task. The test asked users to spot the direction of motion on a series of black-and-white stripes on a screen. Sometimes, the lines formed inside a small central circle, and other times, they were large stripes that took up the entire screen. Participants also completed a short IQ test. [Watch Video of Motion and Test Your Smarts] The team noticed that people with higher IQs were good at spotting motion in the small circles, but terrible at detecting motion in the larger black-and-white stripes. Because they had looked at so few people, Tadin and his colleagues wondered if their results were a fluke. They repeated the experiment with 53 people, who also took a full IQ test. The ability to visually filter the motion strongly predicted IQ in fact, motion suppression (the ability to focus on the action and ignore background movements) was as predictive of total IQ as individual subsections of the IQ test itself. Relevant information As people walk, the background scenery is always changing, so efficient brains may be better at filtering out this irrelevant visual information. And that efficiency could be operating across a wide range of tasks, Tadin said. “What happens in brains of high-IQ people is, they're automatically processing motion of small moving objects efficiently, whereas they're suppressing the background,” Tadin said. The findings reshape the conventional view that quick thinking leads to smarts. “Speedy processing does matter, but it's only half the story. It's how you filter out things that are less relevant and focus your speedy resources on what is important,” Tadin said. Big variation The study reveals new insights into brain efficiency and smarts, said Kevin McGrew, director of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics and owner of www.themindhub.com. Even though the link between IQ and visual filtering was very strong, IQ tests won't be replaced by motion tracking anytime soon, said McGrew, who was not involved in the study. “Their task accounts for or explains about 50 percent of the IQ scores,” McGrew told LiveScience. “That is impressive in psychology, but it still means there is 50 percent of the scores that they're not explaining.” Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/24/simple-vision-test-predicts-iq/

Lung cancer screening: CT scans more effective than X-rays

Screening for lung cancer using low-dose computed tomography (CT scans) rather than chest X-rays may be a more effective way of detecting the disease, Medscape Today reported. Researchers hope that these results, collected as part of the National Lung Screening Trial, will provide more detailed information about the benefits of various types of lung cancer screening available to patients and physicians. During the study, 26,309 participants received low-dose CT scans, and 26,035 participants underwent chest radiography to detect for signs of lung cancer. Among those who received CT scans, a total of 7,191 participants (27.3 percent) had a positive screening result, compared to 2,387 (9.2 percent) in the chest X-ray group. Overall, lung cancer was diagnosed in 292 participants (1.1 percent) in the CT group compared with 190 (0.7 percent) in the radiography group. Previously, experts had been concerned that the high level of false-positive screenings that occur during CT scans would lead to undue stress, unnecessary testing and high medical bills for patients, Medscape Today reported. However, the new report reveals that the majority of patients who had a positive result after their CT scan only underwent one additional diagnostic test. “In many of the previous analyses people have assumed that there would be three or four or five additional diagnostic tests for every positive screen, and this has ramifications for the cost effectiveness of screening,” study author Dr. William C. Black, professor of radiology at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., told Medscape Today. Black is hopeful that these results will provide a good frame of reference for other lung cancer screening programs. “If patients and their clinicians are trying to decide whether or not to get screened, they can always refer to these results. They will let patients know what they can expect, what are the likely outcomes, not just in terms of dying of lung cancer, which is only going to happen to a small percentage of people who get screened, but also in terms of the false positives and what happens afterwards,” Dr. Black told Medscape Today. People eligible for lung cancer screening include men and women, ages 55 to 74, who have a 30-pack-per year history of smoking, those who have quit smoking in the last 15 years and those who are medically fit for surgery. Click for more from Medscape Today.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/23/lung-cancer-screening-ct-scans-more-effective-than-x-rays/