Day: 06/21/2014

Acinetobacter baumannii Emerging as a Multidrug-Resistant Skin and Soft-Tissue PathogenParallels to Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureusDrug-Resistant A baumannii in Skin, Soft TissueLetters

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Over the last 30 years, the gram-negative coccobacillus Acinetobacter baumannii has risen to microbiologic notoriety for its ability to successfully evade nearly all available antibiotics. It is now a well-established source of nosocomial bacteremia and pneumonia, known to cause hospital outbreaks, particularly in the intensive care unit. Less often it represents a source of nosocomial skin and soft-tissue infection (SSTI) in the setting of war wounds, surgical sites, and burns.

 

 

 

 

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From the desk of Zedie.

This Hypnotizing Macro Timelapse Of Exotic Corals Will Take Your Breath Away | The Mind Unleashed

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Daniel Stoupin, a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Australia, has created a stunning must-see video that will open your eyes to just how little most of us understand about the many different forms of life we have here on Earth. His “Slow Life” video combines thousands of close-up photographs of beautiful corals to illustrate their daily movements in a way that makes them seem not of this earth.

Stoupin’s video is an incredible combination of macro, aquatic and time-lapse photography methods the likes of which we’ve never seen before. And that’s because the corals in this video are displayed at speeds that most of us have never seen before. These organisms move too slowly for us to really notice what they do.

Not only are the corals and sponges in these videos governed by many of the same needs we are, they are also hugely important to their ocean environments. If you’re interested in learning more about the organisms in Stoupin’s video and about marine ecosystems, be sure to visit his blog!

“Our brains are wired to comprehend and follow fast and dynamic events better, especially those very few that happen at speeds comparable to ours,” Stoupin explains on his blog.

Help for varicose veins at hand

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Non-invasive radiofrequency ablation GAINS POPULARITY in the city

People whose jobs require them to stand for long hours — bus conductors, traffic police personnel and salesman, for instance — often have to contend with a thorny problem: varicose veins.

Varicose veins are dilated, tortured, lengthened veins near the surface of the skin and commonly affect legs and ankles. They are caused when the valves in the vein weaken, and the blood that should be headed up to the heart seeps backward into the vein. One treatment for the condition is radiofrequency ablation, gaining in popularity in the city.

According to M. Bakthavatchalam, associate consultant, department of vascular and endovascular sciences at the Government Multi Super-Specialty Hospital in Omandurar, many have been seeking this treatment at the hospital’s recently-opened catheterisation lab.

“The procedure involves inserting a catheter into the affected vein, and sending a radiofrequency wave through it. The wave emits heat, and this leads to an inflammation inside the vein, fusing the walls together, and preventing blood from leaking,” he said.

Every week, the department gets about seven or eight cases of people with varicose veins,and there are already about 20 people waiting to be treated” said Dr. Bakthavatchalam, who along with senior consultant S. Jayakumar performs these procedures.

Patients with varicose veins can suffer from itching, cramps, discolouration in their legs and even blood clots. In some cases, it can lead to eczema, ulcers, pain and swelling, he said.

The procedure is non invasive, and patients can go home the next day. The results, he said, have been very good, so far.

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If you are the mother of a toddler, then you must be spending most of your time this summer trying to persuade your child to eat at least one idli or a few spoons of rice. But it is likely no sweet-talking has worked.

Fussy eating among toddlers and school-going children is nothing new. But children tend to grow fussier as the mercury levels soar. Paediatricians say this loss of appetite is normal when the temperature rises, and parents need not worry.

“Normally, children have no appetite during summer. They will take plenty of water but drinking water alone will dilute electrolytes in the body. It is better to give them fluids such as buttermilk, and fruits,” said Rema Chandramohan, professor of paediatrics, Institute of Child Health, Egmore.

Temperature variations bring down the appetite drastically and make children irritable leading to conditional starvation, said A. Balachandran, paediatrician, Mehta Children’s Hospital. “Their tongue dries and loses taste. They will avoid food and demand icecream, cold water or juice,” he said.

It is important to keep them comfortable and in an airy space. Parents should give children fruits such as apples, bananas, watermelon and other seasonal fruits.

“Many think curd will give the children a cold, but it is not so. Curd is a good source of calories. Parents should also give children vegetable salads and boiled legumes as they are nutritious,” he said.

Mothers can pack food that is not spicy for their school-going children. “Spicy food will increase sweating. Give them extra bottles of water to drink. Tell them to avoid drinking water outside or water packets. Never force them to eat,” said Dr. Chandramohan.

Drug War Failure: Cocaine Found in UK Tap Water

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Cocaine use is so prevalent throughout the UK that it has even been found in the tap water. Inspections of tap water at four different sites in the UK found metabolized traces of the illegal drug.

Research from Public Health Britain affirms that the levels are low enough to disregard any health concern, promising that the low trace levels pose no danger or health risk. Other tests have also found numerous traces of cocaine on nearly every bank-note in circulation, in toilets in the House of Commons, and at least 2/3 of Cambridge colleges. This is yet another reminder of how obvious the prohibition efforts of the government have failed miserably.

cops

Possession of cocaine in the UK carries with it a sentence of 7 years in prison and a hefty fine: it’s still classified as a Class A substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA). Regardless, nearly 700,000 people aged 16 to 59 are estimated to take the drug every year in the UK. Working in opposition to the various goals which are expected to be achieved by prohibition efforts, illegal drugs are now cheaper and purer globally than at any time over the last 20 years. The police are not keeping drugs off the streets, out of homes or classrooms; they can’t even keep drugs out of the prison system. So who benefits from criminalization?

Perhaps the pharmaceutical drug companies aren’t in a rush for decriminalization because they don’t want you to grow medication instead of buying pills. Perhaps police departments are reluctant to accept decriminalization efforts because anti-drug prohibition legislation has helped numerous police departments to profit in the millions of dollars (thanks to asset forfeiture laws).

Numerous criminology experts, among others, have called for an overhaul of the prison system, specifically in regards to drug criminalization. Locking someone up in a cage for years seems a bit of an overreaction in response to a victimless crime such as possession of cannabis. Meanwhile, corporate CEO’s are slapped with a $1000 fine and community service, or less, for actions that are far more harmful to society.

drugzRegardless of your own personal feelings on drug use, the fact remains that drug prohibition doesn’t work. It only adds more violence to drug use, and increased risk will also result in an increase in profit to be made by its vendors. Even medical researchers continue to warn that the war on drugs is failing, suggesting we should start to approach drug use as a public health issue and not a criminal justice issue.

No human being should be arrested or jailed when they haven’t committed a crime; when there is no victim there is no crime. Our society has many problems, and substance abuse is one of them, but the solution is not to throw people in cages. Victimless crimes do not need to gain a victim through incarceration, and substance abuse problems have never been helped by prohibition.

Study finds advanced CT scanners reduce patient radiation exposure

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Computed tomography scans are an accepted standard of care for diagnosing heart and lung conditions. But clinicians worry that the growing use of CT scans could be placing patients at a higher lifetime risk of cancer from radiation exposure.

Beaumont Health System research, published in the June 20 online issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, found that the use of advanced CT scanning equipment is helping to address this important concern.

The study, of 2,085 at nine centers in the U.S. and Middle East, found that using newer generation, dual-source CT scanners significantly reduced for patients when compared with first generation, 64-slice, single-source scanners or first generation, dual-source CT scanners.

Patient radiation exposure was reduced by 61 percent with the newer scanners, with no significant difference in image quality for patients having CT scans for , pulmonary embolism or aortic disease.

“Newer technology makes a difference in terms of radiation exposure and the difference is quite large,” says study author Kavitha Chinnaiyan, M.D., director of Advanced Cardiac Imaging Research at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. “It is important for patients to ask questions when referred for a radiation-based test to understand what the procedure involves and what the risks are of the particular technique and if there are alternative imaging choices.”

The study findings also have important implications for referring physicians.

“Clinicians must understand that imaging studies not only have a major impact on the care of an individual patient, but also on trends in radiation exposure, as well as overall health care costs,” says Dr. Chinnaiyan. “Incidental findings may require further imaging studies with other radiation-based tests. In addition to choosing patients appropriately, it is important to discuss the risks and benefits of testing with patients, and to refer them to centers that offer newer technologies.”

The study results provide information that will help in setting standards for radiation safety quality control in cardiovascular imaging.

Beaumont cardiologists are world leaders in cardiac CT imaging research and have published studies on the use of CT imaging for identifying heart obstructions requiring invasive heart catheterization; for diagnosing or predicting heart attack; for identifying unstable plaque likely to cause a heart attack; and for diagnosing chest pain patients in the Emergency Center.

Researchers identify mitochondrial mutation linked to congenital myasthenic syndrome

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Although significant progress has been made over the last 25 years to identify genetic abnormalities associated with congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS), many patients remain genetically undiagnosed. A report in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Neuromuscular Diseases identifies a gene defect in mitochondria, specifically the citrate carrier SLC25A1, that may underlie deficits in neuromuscular transmission seen in two siblings.

“While mitochondrial gene defects can cause a myriad of neurological disorders including myopathies and neuropathies, these have not been specifically implicated in defects of the neuromuscular junction,” says Hanns Lochmüller, MD, Professor of Experimental Myology, Institute of Genetic Medicine, MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Of the 19 genes that have been implicated in CMS, most express proteins involved in neuromuscular synapse development and function. These mutations usually involve post-synaptic proteins. The current study shifts the area of impairment to the presynaptic region.

Investigators conducted genomic analyses of two patients who are brother and sister. The pair was born to healthy parents who were first cousins. “The family history was highly suggestive of autosomal recessive inheritance,” notes Dr. Lochmüller. Since childhood, the 33-year-old brother had displayed some speech and motor problems that worsened with exercise and improved with rest. He had mild bilateral ptosis (drooping of the eyelid), speech difficulties, and mild learning disabilities. His 19-year-old sister showed delayed development including recurrent falls, fatigable limb weakness, intermittent double vision, and some drooping of facial muscles.

The investigators performed homozygosity mapping and whole exome sequencing to determine the underlying genetic cause of the siblings’ condition and successfully identified a homozygous mutation in the SLC25A1 gene. SLC25A1 is a mitochondrial citrate carrier believed to be a key component in many important biological processes, such as fatty acid and sterol biosynthesis, gluconeogenesis, glycolysis, maintenance of chromosome integrity, and regulation of autophagy.

Using electrophysiologic techniques, researchers were able to show clear abnormalities in the of the patients, as evidenced by increased jitter or jitter with blocking of muscle fibers.

Researchers also found evidence that SLC25A1 may be required for normal neuromuscular junction formation by looking at the effects of reduced expression of SLC25A1 in zebrafish embryos. Anatomically, while the muscle fibers appeared normal, presynaptic motor axon terminals were shortened and grew erratically, with no evidence of complete synapse formation. They also saw structural changes in the brain and heart, which mirrored abnormalities seen in humans.

“It is still not clear how deficits in a mitochondrial citrate carrier result in neuromuscular junction defect,” comments Dr. Lochmüller. However, while mutations in SLC25A1 may prove to only be a rare cause of CMS, he and his co-investigators advise clinicians that should a patient show fatigable weakness, it may be appropriate to test for SLC25A1 mutations and consider screening for cardiac and metabolic defects should these mutations be found.

“We aimed to identify the underlying molecular defect in this family ever since we met them first in clinic more than 20 years ago,” adds co-investigator Kate Bushby, MD, Professor of Neuromuscular Genetics, Institute of Genetic Medicine, MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases, Newcastle University. “We are pleased that latest sequencing technology has resolved this long-standing diagnostic puzzle, which helps us in counseling and treating them more effectively”.

Congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS) are a group of inherited characterized by muscle weakness (myasthenia). Typical symptoms include weakness of muscles controlling limbs, as well those involved with control of the eyes, respiration, and movements of the face, head, and neck (due to involvement of the corticobulbar tract). The symptoms are fatigable, meaning that they worsen with repetition, and severity of the deficits can range from mild to severe.

UCLA Shows Radiation Treatment Makes Breast Cancer Worse.

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Published in the well-respected Cancer journal, a study conducted at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (UJCCC) describes how radiation treatments actually promote malignancy in cancer cells instead of eradication. More than 200,000 women a year develop breast cancer in the U.S. and at least 2000 men do as well. While Susan G. Komen and other breast cancer related non-profit organizations struggle to keep afloat, we can wonder why simple studies like this one.

A malignant disease is one which is virulent, invasive and uncontrollable. It can even become deadly. It is the opposite of curable. In contrast, there are a number of natural treatments coming to light in reference to breast cancers, specifically, which don’t’ require expensive radiation treatments and certainly do not cause cancer cells to go rogue and grow uncontrollably. Raw, vegan diets and herbal remedies like Turmeric and Black Cohosh are examples of simple solutions. None of these remedies cause your hair to fall out, skin problems, inflammation of the mouth, fatigue, anemia, the development of lymphedema, and extreme nausea.

The Study

The UJCCC study found that radiation actually induced breast cancer cells to form more tumors and malignancy in radiation treated breast cells was likely to be 30 times more probable. While radiation treatments can temporarily regress tumors, this is only the false appearance of eradicating the disease, as the study points out. The treatment may seem to work for a short time, but the ratio of highly malignant cells to benign cells begins to spiral out of control very soon after. This can lead to a treatment-induced death – not from the original appearance of cancer, but from the radiation treatment itself.

“Researchers from the Department of Radiation Oncology at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center report that radiation treatment transforms cancer cells into treatment-resistant breast cancer stem cells, even as it kills half of all tumor cells.”

Even more alarming is the fact that radiation treatments can cause some cancer stem cells. They can behave like regular cells, but develop into tumor-forming cells. Scientists are not sure how this happens to date. Some doctors are looking to reduce the amount of radiation therapy given to patients in light of this evidence, but many more should consider natural therapies that do not create a ‘false’ healing which cause cancers to grow back with even greater force.

Yet another study in the journal Stem Cells found that ionizing radiation reprogrammed less malignant breast cancer cells into iBCSCs. Cancer stems cells are especially non-responsive to chemo and radiation treatments, and this is why these ‘medicines’ often do not work.

“Breast cancers are thought to be organized hierarchically with a small number of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) able to regrow a tumor while their progeny lack this ability. Recently, several groups reported enrichment for BCSCs when breast cancers were subjected to classic anticancer treatment. However, the underlying mechanisms leading to this enrichment are incompletely understood,” the study says.

Alternative Solutions for Breast Cancer (and Other Cancers) Treatment and Prevention

Treating breast and other cancers with natural herbs might change the ability for stem cells to produce tumors altogether. The following herbs are also known cancer-preventatives:

  • Astragalus – This Chinese and Ayurvedic herb is anti-cancerous. When used at MD Anderson with radiation treatments it greatly lowered the number metastasized cells.
  • Blood Root has been known to kill cancerous cells. One of its constituents, sanguinarine, causes cancer cell apoptosis or cell death.
  • Cat’s Claw has been shown to help reduce cancerous tumors.
  • Butcher’s Broom has shown promising effects in treating breast cancer, especially for reducing swelling after surgery.

7 Things Only Chronic Overthinkers Will Understand

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Being an indecisive person in day-to-day life may not sound like the greatest of burdens in this troubled world, but it certainly presents its challenges — challenges that people who are not chronic over-thinkers don’t even know exist in their la-de-dah, it’ll-all-work-out, easy-go-lucky state of mind (lucky them).

WOMAN THINKING CHAIR

Being an experienced chronic over-thinker myself, I can’t even walk into a Coldstone for ice cream without having a minor panic attack over the array of flavors and on top of that, the add-ins and toppings. And god, what size do I want? It’s too much. What if I choose one flavor, but then realize I want the other? There’s no going back; I’m stuck with the cake batter and Heath — what in the world was I thinking? Why did I make such a stupid choice? I. Am. An. Idiot. I should have picked the chocolate. Yeah, that chocolate was definitely calling my name…

And before we chronic over-thinkers know it, the poorly-chosen cake batter and Heath is gone, and we barely enjoyed one bite because time and energy were spent thinking about the chocolate.

But what exactly goes on in our minds? Here’s a start (and trust me, this list is just grazing the surface — see, already over-thinking).

1. Nothing is ever 100 percent, certainly, without a doubt the right choice.
There are always countless “what-ifs” and hypothetical situations that will find their way into our minds, even after we have made a well-thought out choice. Peace of mind is our acquaintance, not a close friend.

2. Navigating relationships is a whole other ball game.
Especially in this day and age, when the hook-up culture is so prevalent and constant communication is completely plausible. There is so much to over-analyze, so many signs to read into. “Why did he sent a winky face emoji instead of a normal smile? Why did he end that sentence with a period and not an exclamation point? Is he mad at me? Oh god, he’s mad… what did I do? Sh*t, now he sent a smiley face. Does that mean we are OK?” Impressively enough, we can go on and on.

3. We run away from uncertain outcomes (see number two).
I can only speak for the over-thinker in myself here, but I know when I start reading too much into a person or a situation, I convince myself to end it before the other person can. This way I retain control and hurt myself rather than the other person hurting me — as if one is preferable over the other.

4. We can’t compartmentalize.
If something is wrong in one part of our life, it will likely consume our thoughts in other parts of life as well. We are good at hiding this and being productive regardless, but it’s still there, nibbling at the back of our minds until we can get home, collapse on the couch and give it our full attention.

5. We don’t live in the moment.
Some people can do this well, or claim to, but we are completely incapable. Each moment leads to another, and another, and another… and suddenly, we are five years down the road, wondering how this decision is going to affect us then, rather than enjoying the spontaneity.

6. Buyer’s remorse.
When buying an electronic, for example, we spend hours researching and decided which best fits our needs, only to change our minds multiple times. Then after being almost sure and purchasing one, the remorse kicks in and we imagine how much better that iPhone would have treated us than the Android we chose…

7. We rarely enjoy experiences to the fullest extent.
This isn’t because we aren’t happy or wish we were elsewhere. We just wish we could have found a way to combine every possible choice to have a perfect, happy, blended assortment, leaving no room for wondering about the alternative.

But even through the struggles and the uncertainty, through telling our minds to just, for the love of God, shut the hell up already, we manage to come out the other side. We manage to hold our lives together because we think our choices through — and as often as this burdens us, it also frees us from less favorable outcomes.

Preop Beta-Blockers No Help in CABG?

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Giving beta-blockers to patients about to undergo coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) was not associated with improved perioperative outcomes, an observational analysis showed.

The rate of mortality and several other outcomes within 30 days of the operation did not differ significantly between patients who received a beta-blocker in the 24 hours before surgery and those who did not, according to William Brinkman, MD, of the Cardiopulmonary Research Science and Technology Institute in Plano, Texas, and colleagues.

And new-onset atrial fibrillation was slightly but significantly greater in the patients who received a beta-blocker (21.50% versus 20.10%; OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.06-1.12), the researchers reported online in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“On the surface, these observational study data stand in contrast to the endorsed National Quality Forum standards that mandate preoperative beta-blocker use before CABG procedures,” they wrote, noting that the findings are consistent with studies of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery, as well.

“A prospective randomized trial with careful attention to adequate dosing and specific drug type may help to answer this question [in cardiac surgery],” they wrote.

Commenting on the study, Alan Markowitz, MD, chief surgical officer at UH Case Medical Center, said, the study “puts a serious dent in a practice that we normally pursue for virtually everyone undergoing coronary bypass surgery. It will make us step back and really reconsider whether we need to give everyone a beta-blocker. It’s in a philosophy of one-size-fits-all and perhaps we should more specifically decipher who would benefit the most rather than [use] just a blanket administration of this drug.”

He added that he doesn’t think the recommendations for preoperative beta-blockade in patients undergoing CABG should be rescinded, “but they should be modified with a much broader study that eliminates some of the limitations of this study.”

The use of beta-blockers before CABG has been associated with reduced perioperative mortality in prior observational studies conducted in the 1990s, and the practice was adopted as a national quality standard in 2007. However, no randomized trials have examined the utility of preoperative beta-blockade and more recent observational studies have raised questions about its use.

The current analysis, which used data from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons National Adult Cardiac database (STS-NCD), included 506,110 adult patients who underwent nonemergent CABG at 1,107 U.S. hospitals from 2008 through 2012. The researchers excluded patients who had a myocardial infarction in the 21 days before the operation — because these patients are known to derive benefits from beta-blockers — and those with high-risk presenting symptoms.

Overall, 86.24% of the patients received a beta-blocker in the 24 hours before surgery, with the rate increasing from 80.15% in 2008 to 92.72% in 2012.

In a propensity score-matched analysis, there were no significant differences between patients who did and those who did not receive a beta-blocker for several perioperative outcomes:

  • Mortality: 1.12% versus 1.17% (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.87-1.06)
  • Permanent stroke: 0.97% versus 0.98% (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.89-1.10)
  • Prolonged ventilation for more than 24 hours: 7.01% versus 6.86% (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.98-1.07)
  • Any reoperation: 3.60% versus 3.69% (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.92-1.03)
  • Renal failure: 2.33% versus 2.24% (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.97-1.11)
  • Deep sternal wound infection: 0.29% versus 0.34% (OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.71-1.04)

The researchers said the higher rate of atrial fibrillation seen in the beta-blocker group “seems counterintuitive and is in contrast to guidelines for the treatment of atrial fibrillation.”

“Because the STS-NCD only collects data on preoperative beta-blocker use (within 24 hours of the incision) as a yes/no field, we are unable to determine whether the timing, the dose given, or other unrecorded covariates may contribute to this observation,” they wrote.

They acknowledged some additional limitations of the study, including the lack of information on beta-blocker type and physiologic response, the 30-day follow-up period, and the inability to determine why beta-blockers were not used in some of the patients.

In an accompanying editorial, David Shahian, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, raised other issues as well.

Short-term mortality rates after CABG have been driven so low in contemporary patients, he said, that mortality may not be the most appropriate endpoint to assess the utility of preoperative beta-blockade.

“The effect of beta-blockade on longer-term survival or a composite of nonfatal outcomes may provide additional insights,” he said.

Also, the database used did not include information on whether patients were on long-term beta-blocker therapy, on the exact timing of and protocol for administration of the drugs, and on the use of the antiarrhythmic amiodarone, which could have confounded the results.

A further issue was that the propensity-matching process resulted in a cohort of patients taking beta-blockers that had lower rates of comorbidities and a lower surgical risk compared with the larger group.

“They are not representative of the broader population of beta-blocker patients, and this difference may affect the generalizability of the study’s findings,” Shahian said.

“The study by Brinkman and colleagues is an important and hypothesis-generating observational analysis,” he concluded. “However, owing to the limitations discussed above, continued adherence to current ACC/AHA guidelines regarding preoperative beta-blockade in CABG surgery, together with good medical judgment, is advisable.”

“Additional randomized and observational studies, including new variables in STS-ND version 2.8, might shed further light on this issue,” he said.

Action Points

  • In a retrospective analysis of patients undergoing nonemergent CABG surgery who had not experienced a myocardial infarction in the prior 21 days, there was no difference in the incidence of perioperative mortality, permanent stroke, prolonged ventilation, any reoperation, or renal failure.
  • However, patients who received preoperative beta-blockers within 24 hours of surgery had higher rates of new-onset atrial fibrillation when compared with patients who did not.

U.K. record for smallest book made in Thrissur .

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A miniature book of poems written by a Thrissur-based writer has entered the registry of the Record Holders Republic of U.K. The RHR has named the book written by Sathar Adhoor the ‘World’s Smallest Readable Book of Poems’.

The book, titled ‘One’, contains poems in 66 languages, including nine Indian ones. It is 1cm long, 1 cm wide and 4 mm thick. Ten copies of the book can be created using an A4 sheet paper. The book has been printed in a press at Changaramkulam.

‘One’, a miniature book of poems.– Photo: By Special Arrangement

Some of the poems are in English, Armenian, Byelorussian, Polish, Azerbaijani, Norwegian, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Yiddish, Latvian,

Serbian, Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Chinese.

The poems, written originally in Malayalam, were translated into foreign and other Indian languages with the help of the author’s friends in the Gulf.

In 2011, he made it into the Limca Book of Records for the smallest ever literary works published in the world. His creations included two miniature books in Malayalam and one in English. The Malayalam books – ‘SMS 101 kadhakal’ (40 mm x 25 mm x 4 mm) and ‘SMS 101 kavithakal’ (30 mm x 25 x 4 mm) – have 100 pages each. The dimension of the English book, ‘50:50’, is 16mm x 13 mm x 4 mm.

In 2008, he made a 10-second video, titled ‘The Man’, in an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. The film depicts in seven shots the helplessness of an ant that had fallen into a pool of water and the hands of a man that kill the insect.