Diagnosing patients at an early stage

ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2012) ? Norwegian researchers have developed the world's first sensor capable of measuring individual particles in a blood sample.

Our blood contains several hundred different proteins that can give us a picture of our general health -- and provide information about the condition of our heart or the presence of cancer. Currently, when we give our doctor a blood sample for a 'full check', it can only be analysed for five or six indicators, such as blood percentages, blood sugar and infections. For other test results, the sample must be sent to a central laboratory for analysis. It can often take as long as a week before the results come back.

Improved sensitivity

Four years ago, SINTEF began a joint project with Stanford University in the USA and the University of Oslo (UiO). The aim was to build a sensor that could improve sensitivity a million fold, making it possible to measure individual particles in the blood, including proteins at extremely low concentrations, as well as DNA and RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules.

Their work has been able to proceed thanks to internal funding from SINTEF's own Medical ACTION project, government SIP funding (the Strategic Institute Programme), and assistance from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Bergen (UiB), the University of Zurich and the German research organisation Fraunhofer. The researchers have also been able to use the Norwegian NorFab laboratories.

The result is a new nano-particle sensor developed in MiNaLab in Oslo.

Photonic crystal

The sensor comprises a thin silicon membrane -- about three hundred times thinner than a single hair. It is perforated with hundreds of small holes arranged in a regular pattern.

'We call these structures photonic crystals. The same structures occur naturally in the wings of some butterflies,' says Ib-Rune Johansen at SINTEF ICT. Like his colleagues Jon Olav Grepstad and Michal Mielnik, he believes that they are not exaggerating when they claim that this is "the ultimate bio-sensor -- at the cutting edge of nanotechnology."

Starlight

One of the properties of the crystal is that it amplifies parts of the light spectrum.

'When we are looking for particles in blood samples, we illuminate the photonic crystal from behind. That way, we can amplify the intensity of light within the membrane by many hundred fold. The crystal is impervious to light: all light is reflected and nothing gets through. Viewed from behind, therefore, the crystal looks like the dark night sky. However, each particle that is captured becomes trapped in a hole in the membrane and allows some light to leak through -- giving it the appearance of a star in the sky,' says Johansen.

'Our breakthrough came with this opportunity to see these microscopic particles,' he tells us.

Early cancer diagnosis

Currently, medical laboratories measure proteins to detect imbalances in the body that occur when an infection is present. The new sensor can take these analyses much further.

SINTEF's chemists are trying to attach receptors to the wall of each of the perforations in the membrane (biofunctionalisation). When blood is pumped through, the receptors trap very specific molecules, depending on what the scientists are looking for. Because the sensor/membrane has many perforations, they can specify a wide range of different proteins. It will thereby be possible to detect illnesses such as prostate and ovarian cancer in their very early stages.

Two challenges overcome

Work on biosensors faces two challenges. The first is to make the sensors sufficiently sensitive. The second is to ensure that they measure what they are supposed to measure. The sensors must be able to differentiate between two particles, and select only those particles that have been specified (specificity). The SINTEF researchers have improved their sensor's sensitivity a million fold compared with ordinary sensors. They can now measure particles down to 20 nanometres.

'Many proteins relevant to diagnosis are in this size range, but many others are even smaller. We can currently detect individual molecules of the larger proteins. We can also detect smaller protein molecules, but not individually, i.e. we need more protein molecules before we can detect them with our sensor. However, the aim is to perfect the sensor's architecture so that in the long term we will also be able to detect individual molecules of even the smallest proteins,' says Michal Mielnik.

The researchers have also discovered a high specificity method, as well as their exceptional specificity method. Patent applications have been filed for both discoveries.

Sensitive -- and cheap.

'We are very optimistic. So far, we have succeeded without a lot of support. However, a great deal of research remains to be done. In order to develop an industrial product, we need assistance from the Research Council of Norway and the EU,' says Ib-Rune Johansen.

In the autumn, they will run artificial blood samples through the membrane, and in the spring, they will run tests using proteins from ovarian cancer.

Perhaps the best news of all is that it will only cost medical centres a few thousand kroner to buy the 'tool' -- consisting of the sensor/membrane, a light source and a standard camera of the type used in mobile phones and PCs.

As well as its impact on medicine, the sensor is likely to make it possible to count and define limits for naturally occurring harmful nanoparticles. It will be possible to monitor the quality of water, air and food.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by SINTEF.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/cQPZ0oyEDKQ/121207090539.htm

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Court to rule on same-sex marriage: What?s at stake

In a historic step that rivals other Supreme Court moves into the center of America?s cultural character, the justices on Friday agreed to consider the constitutionality of federal and state laws that deny marriage rights or marital benefits to same-sex couples.? But the move carried with it the potential for stopping short of settling the core constitutional issue.

The court?s orders Friday afternoon said the justices would hear claims that states do not violate the Constitution when they allow marriage only for one man and one woman, and that the federal government does violate the Constitution when it denies benefits to same-sex couples who are already legally married under state laws.? Those are the key questions on gays and lesbians right to marry.

At the same time, however, the court gave itself the option of postponing answers to those key questions.? It raised a series of procedural issues that could mean that neither of the cases it granted would provide a definitive outcome.? Which way it ultimately would choose to move is not predictable at this point.? (Constitution Daily on Monday will provide a fuller analysis of what the Court has said it would do.)

Last summer, as cases on same-sex marriage were reaching the Supreme Court, the justices were told that what was at stake was ?the defining civil rights issue of our time.?? That was a comment from two lawyers whose own fame ? and past differences in court ? have added to the high visibility of those cases: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies.

Once the opposing lawyers in the court?s celebrated decision in Bush v. Gore, settling a presidential election, Olson and Boies have joined forces to help speed up an already unfolding timetable of court rulings on whether gays and lesbians will be able to marry.? They won one of the most sweeping rulings ever issued by a court, when a federal judge in San Francisco two years ago struck down California?s ban on such marriages, ?Proposition 8.?

But, years before those titans of the bar joined the fight, lawyers in gay rights organizations had been pressing the marriage issue in their own lawsuits.?? They, too, saw it as a defining issue of the day.?? They actually had two parallel campaigns going in the courts: open marriage to homosexual partners, and open the military to gays and lesbians, who could serve without hiding their sexual identities.

As the court now moves into the marriage issue, the fight over gays in the military already has been won.? Congress repealed that ban, and the services are now welcoming gays and lesbians without trying to regulate their private lives.

There is virtually no chance that Congress ? at least Congress as presently constituted ? would pass legislation to open marriage to homosexuals on a nationwide basis.? That is simply not politically possible and, besides, there is a question about whether Congress could impose such a requirement upon states, which traditionally have defined who can marry.

And, since the politics of gay rights do not suggest that a constitutional amendment to permit same-sex marriages will even be attempted, the path to such marriages remains either in state legislatures, with the voters of the states, or with the courts.

Recent Constitution Daily Stories

What?s the court doing with same-sex marriage cases?
Constitution Check: Would an Obama victory turn the Supreme Court sharply to the left?
Constitution Check: Will the politics of 2012 influence the constitutionality of gay marriage?

The campaign to pursue same-sex marriage through the courts has been marked, at times, by disagreements about what was the best strategy, and what was the best time to try to advance the cause.? While supporters of same-sex marriage have had some control over the process, it has not been entirely a matter of their choice.? Rigorous efforts challenging same-sex marriage have been made, in politics and in the courts, and have succeeded most of the time with the voters.

Still, it has been widely assumed that, sooner or later, the issue probably would be resolved as a constitutional matter by the Supreme Court.?? It has had rulings on gay rights in recent years, but it has never issued a full-scale ruling on the issue of marriage for homosexual couples..

Whether the review that is now beginning will lead to a sweeping new ruling, or only one that is limited in scope, will only become clear as the time for decision approaches.

Since the same-sex marriage cases began arriving at the court last summer, a total of 11 have now been placed on the docket.?? At a Conference Friday morning, the court had before it 10 of those petitions, and the justices were examining them to decide which issues they were ready to confront.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center?s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court?s work.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/court-rule-same-sex-marriage-stake-214056481.html

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Google is ?the biggest hammer in a world full of nails?

Google (GOOG) is easily one of the most powerful companies in tech right now but according to?Sector & Sovereign Research analyst Paul Sagawa, a serious threat is beginning to present itself. According to the analyst, Google is ?the greatest data processing company on Earth,? and its mastery of collecting and utilizing data powers the success of each big product it offers, including search, advertising and even Android. Sagawa sees trouble potentially looming on the horizon though, and it?s not coming from a rival like Apple (AAPL) or Microsoft (MSFT).

?The biggest risk for Google is government intervention,? Sagawa wrote in a note on Sector & Sovereign?s website?titled Google: The Biggest Hammer in a World Full of Nails.??We believe that these threats, in many jurisdictions, can be negotiated without significantly diluting Google?s bright future.?

Android is the king of smartphone operating systems, Google search is unrivaled, the company ?essentially invented the cloud? and is very well positioned to capitalize on the coming cloud boom, its business is built to scale and its advertising business is booming even though ads are ?Google?s monetization of choice, not necessity? according to the analyst. But Sagawa thinks Google?s widening lead in these categories may soon be slowed by government intervention.

?Google?s powerful IT infrastructure, Android market momentum, and portfolio of leading cloud assets, such as search, video streaming, and internet advertising, are a competitive bulwark for the company?s core revenues and a springboard to future growth and new opportunities,? Sagawa wrote. ?However, inquiries at the FTC and by several European governments could lead to restrictions on Google?s ability to leverage these advantages or hamstring the effectiveness of its core search franchise. While we believe catastrophic outcomes are very unlikely, the potential for some level of regulatory burden is real.?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-biggest-hammer-world-full-nails-163334756.html

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China bus drivers given bail after strike

SINGAPORE (AP) ? Four Chinese immigrant bus drivers accused of inciting the city-state's first labor strike in 26 years have been granted bail in a case that highlighted growing social friction caused by an influx of foreign labor.

A fifth Chinese driver has already been sentenced to six weeks in prison even though prosecutors said he was not an instigator of the strike, which was called to demand equitable pay.

Walking off the job in protest is almost unheard of in Singapore, and the swift prosecution following the Nov. 26-27 strike was a clear sign that the government of this strictly-enforced country will not brook any disobedience from its work force.

Three of the men who appeared in court on Thursday were allowed a bail of 10,000 Singapore dollars ($8,200). A fourth driver, He Jun Liang, who faces an additional charge of making an online post in Mandarin, was given a bail of S$20,000 ($16,400).

It is not clear if they will be able to raise the money to get out of detention before their case resumes on Dec. 12.

A Chinese embassy official who was present at the hearing declined to comment on the cases.

If found guilty, all four men face up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $2,000.

The four drivers and the fifth already in jail were among 171 Chinese bus drivers of a state transport company who went on strike in protest at being paid nearly a quarter less than their Malaysian colleagues. The labor action disrupted about 5 percent of the city-state's bus services.

Singapore requires essential service workers to give 14 days' notice of a strike. The last strike in the country was in 1986 by shipyard workers.

The government revoked the work permits of 29 other drivers and deported them to China. The remaining drivers in the group were issued warnings, and will be allowed to remain and work in Singapore.

Authorities say a police investigation found that the strike was premeditated and that the drivers were absent from work without reason. The bus company's chief Desmond Kuek has said that the Chinese drivers' salary was fair. He said the Chinese were paid less than the Malaysians because the company bore their expenses for transport, accommodation and utilities.

Singapore relies on hundreds of thousands of immigrants from countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, China, Malaysia and Myanmar to work as maids, construction workers, waiters, garbage collectors and at other jobs deemed unappealing to many locals.

But the massive influx of foreigners has created much resentment among locals who see them as undisciplined and noisy. They also blame the foreigners for the overcrowding that has put pressure on infrastructure, and for raising housing prices because of bigger demand on limited supply.

The case has not caused any diplomatic rift between Singapore and China, a major trading partner. But activists in Hong Kong staged a protest outside the Singapore consulate on Wednesday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-bus-drivers-given-bail-strike-053609746.html

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Brain hubs boil when hoarders face pitching their own stuff

Friday, August 10, 2012

In patients with hoarding disorder, parts of a decision-making brain circuit under-activated when dealing with others' possessions, but over-activated when deciding whether to keep or discard their own things, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded study has found. NIMH is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Brain scans revealed the abnormal activation in areas of the anterior cingulate cortex and insula known to process error monitoring, weighing the value of things, assessing risks, unpleasant feelings, and emotional decisions.

NIMH grantee David Tolin, Ph.D., of Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Conn., and colleagues, report on their functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in the August 2012 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Hoarding disorder, a proposed category in psychiatry's new diagnostic manual, DSM-5, is characterized by avoidance of decision-making about possessions.

The new findings pinpoint brain circuit activity suspected of underlying the lack of self-insight, indecisiveness, sense that the wrong decision is being made, inflated estimates of the desirability of objects, and exaggerated perception of risk that are often experienced with the disorder.

In the study, brain activity of 43 hoarding disorder patients was compared to that of 31 obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) patients and 33 healthy controls while they had to decide whether to keep or discard their own or others' junk mail and newspapers. Notably, such ownership did not appear to differentially affect brain activity in the OCD patients. Hoarding disorder patients, as expected, decided to keep many more items than the other groups.

"The results of this study reflect an accelerating trend toward finding disturbed regulation of brain systems responsible for various dimensions of behavior that may cut across mental disorders as traditionally defined," said Bruce Cuthbert, Ph.D., director of NIMH's Division of Adult Translational Research.

In this case, the implicated brain areas are hubs of a salience network that weighs the emotional significance of things and regulates emotional responses and states. Hoarding patients' severity of symptoms, self-ratings of indecisiveness, and feeling of things being "not just right" were correlated with the degree of aberrant activity in these hubs. The results add to evidence of impaired decision-making in hoarding disorder and may help to disentangle its brain workings from those of OCD and depression.

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NIH/National Institute of Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih.gov

Thanks to NIH/National Institute of Mental Health for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/122480/Brain_hubs_boil_when_hoarders_face_pitching_their_own_stuff

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Afghan-Pakistan talks on Taliban releases: Islamabad

Pakistan and Afghanistan are in talks on the release of a key member of the Taliban, whose 2010 arrest in Pakistan was blamed for sabotaging peace initiatives, a Pakistani foreign ministry official confirmed Friday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a powerful Taliban military chief who has been described as the militia's second in command, was arrested in Pakistan's port city of Karachi.

The Afghan government and the former UN envoy to Afghanistan said his detention had adversely affected efforts to talk to the insurgents.

"The issue of prisoners is under discussion between the two countries," foreign ministry spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan told reporters when asked to comment on Afghan demands for access to Baradar and for his release.

The spokesman did not name any prisoner or give further details, but when asked, confirmed that Baradar was still in Pakistani custody.

Baradar is the most important Taliban leader to be captured since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Afghan militia from power in Kabul.

He was known as a trusted aide to the Taliban's elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Shortly after Baradar's arrest, the Pentagon said two other Taliban officials were arrested, also understood to have been captured in Pakistan.

In March 2010, Kai Eide, the then just retired UN envoy to Afghanistan, said the arrest of key Taliban in Pakistan had stopped a secret channel of communication between the insurgents and the United Nations.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly invited the Taliban to open direct talks with his government and on Pakistan to facilitate an end to the 10-year war.

Pakistan has said it will do anything required by Kabul to support an Afghan-led peace process, but there is a wide degree of scepticism in Afghanistan and the United States about the sincerity of the former Taliban ally.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-pakistan-talks-taliban-releases-islamabad-132716221.html

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A Legal Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Criminal Law: Spouses and ...

ObiterJ's Law and Lawyers Blog has posts another informative article, this time using ?recent cases to examine the law on spouses and civil partners (competence and compel lability). The recent case is??R v BA [2012] EWCA Crim 1529, a case under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 s.2(a); the?statute under discussion is the?Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 s.80.

Another nice post from ObiterJ, showing us how the courts analyze and apply the law to an actual case. Worth a read if you are studying criminal law.

Read the post here.

Source: http://www.legalyankee.com/2012/08/criminal-law-spouses-and-civil-partners.html

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