Day: 08/15/2014

Should Naloxone Be Available to All First Responders?

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Dispatch: Police unit Baker 1, respond with fire-rescue and ambulance to 1703 Maple for unconscious person.
Baker 1: Copy. En route.
Dispatch: Update info. Reporting party suspects drug abuse as cause.
Baker 1: On scene. Show me with contact with individual. They are out on the front lawn.
Baker 1: Advise fire and ambulance that I am giving the narc antidote.

The scenario above would’ve been unheard of a couple years ago, but is likely to become increasingly common as the public and its elected officials pay more attention to the numerous mainstream media stories about the increasing use and abuse of prescription opioid medications and the resurgence of heroin.

The phenomenon is neither geographically nor socioeconomically limited, and more often the proposed solution is to increase the availability of naloxone (Narcan) to any and all first responders—specifically to law enforcement officers, often a community’s first contact with opioid overdose victims after 9-1-1 services have been summoned.

The suggestion of law enforcement administration of naloxone is so prevalent that even United States Attorney General Eric Holder specifically promoted it as an answer to the very real challenge of opioid abuse and overdose, calling on “all first responders—including state and local law enforcement agencies—to train and equip their men and women on the front lines to use the overdose-reversal drug known as naloxone.”1

A Growing Epidemic
From 1991 to 2010 the annual number of prescriptions for opioids in the U.S. almost tripled, from approximately 76 million to almost 210 million.2 This has, in part, contributed to the significant increase in the number of people addicted to opioid medications. To combat this, states have taken many different pathways to decrease the availability and prescribing of opioids, such as state-organized prescription monitoring programs. In Oklahoma and New York, for example, physicians can easily access a prescription drug-monitoring program’s Web-based database and, within 60 seconds, determine what controlled substance prescriptions have been filled for any individual, including the exact name and quantity of medications received as well as which pharmacies and prescribers provided that medication.

In Vermont, state police will investigate any incidence of a reportedly lost or stolen prescription, and in many states it’s a misdemeanor to fail to tell a physician about controlled substance prescriptions. Tools like these have helped curb the number of people getting multiple prescriptions for the same narcotics in some states, but have had little effect in others.2

At the same time, heroin is reemerging as a common drug of abuse. In 2012, about 669,000 Americans reported using heroin in the past year, a number that’s been on the rise since 2007.3 Supply and demand governs the market, and currently oral opioids cost many times more than the same equivalent of heroin.

The growing number of people addicted to and abusing prescription or illegal opioids—and subsequently overdosing—is a nationwide problem. It’s not just homeless drug addicts and heroin abusers; this problem affects people from all walks of life: kids experimenting with drugs; persons with chronic pain who take an increasing amount of pain medication(s), perhaps mixed with muscle relaxing medications or anxiolytics; returning soldiers with wounds from war; and patients suffering from cancer or other long-term painful conditions.

As a result of this well-publicized, increasing epidemic, naloxone, long-utilized by paramedics to directly reverse opioid effects, is now also being endorsed for administration by EMTs, law enforcement officers and even the general public through a number of state laws. In fact, as of May 15, such laws are in effect in at least 23 states and the District of Columbia,4 and enjoy clear federal support as well.

Community-access programs in cities like Chicago allow for third-party administration of naloxone for treatment of overdose and have resulted in a decrease in overdose deaths where implemented.5 Their success seems to be due to the educational programs teaching overdose avoidance that accompany the distribution of the drug, and not just the drug itself.

Law enforcement programs have also been developed. One of the first, in Quincy, Mass., has reported reversal of over 200 opioid overdoses since 2010.6 Several other demonstration projects have shown the ability to train and deploy naloxone via law enforcement professionals, most commonly in nasal atomization delivery to suspected opiate overdose victims. In New York state, for example, EMT-trained police officers have been credited with being the life-saving difference for multiple citizens.

We know opioid abuse is a reality leading to tragic consequences. We know public safety professionals besides paramedics are committed to improving the quality of life in their communities. We know that naloxone can be an effective therapy for patients who overdose on opioids. But is the answer as easy as putting naloxone in the hands of every police officer?

Naloxone, and specifically the administration of naloxone by law enforcement, is an answer, but is it the answer for your community? The answer to that question, from the view of experienced EMS physicians and paramedics, comes in the way you and your community answers the following questions.

The Right Treatment?
The physical symptoms associated with opioid abuse aren’t “one size fits all” in appearance. The primary effects of altered mental status and depressed respirations are found on a spectrum. On one far end of the spectrum, when a person has dramatically misjudged the potency or dose of an opioid, sudden cardiac arrest from a respiratory arrest occurs. In the setting of a cardiac arrest, what intervention is most rapidly needed? CPR—not naloxone.

In the absence of circulation, naloxone administered intranasally, or via any route for that matter, won’t restore respiration and circulation. In these cases, CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) are the vital links needed to attempt to restore spontaneous circulation and neurologic function. This is all the more applicable in the single rescuer situation, as may occur most often in initial law enforcement response and patient contact.

At the other end of the spectrum, when a victim is merely disoriented or mildly decreased in alertness but able to maintain an airway and is breathing regularly, administration of naloxone can precipitate the unnecessary onset of acute withdrawal. In this instance, administration of naloxone violates the primary dictum of medicine: “First, do no harm.”

Opioid withdrawal is its own form of threat to a person’s health, at times causing serious physical stress, specifically serious hypertension, tachycardia, vomiting, diaphoresis, anxiety and agitation. The causation of avoidable opioid withdrawal is most often unappreciated and unacknowledged by naloxone’s strongest proponents—proponents that in many instances are without formal medical education.

The only indication for naloxone administration in the prehospital setting by laypersons, police, EMTs or paramedics should be opioid-induced respiratory depression or respiratory arrest. Refer to Figure 1 (p. 32) and Figure 2 (p. 33) for two medically-validated approaches for naloxone administration by public safety professionals not trained in a primary EMS role. These algorithmic approaches point out key assessment steps to take in deciding if naloxone is medically necessary. The first approach (Figure 1) also presents a dosage range recommended to stay within when administering naloxone.

Be sure and check with locally applicable regulations and authorities, including medical oversight physicians involved with your public safety agencies for specific instructions regarding the ability and specifics of naloxone administration.

Necessity or Redundancy?
Do you have paramedics available in your community or coverage area? If so, what’s the typical paramedic response time from 9-1-1 activation until patient contact? And what’s the differential in time from the initial responder’s arrival?

In most of metropolitan America, paramedics typically respond and report patient contact or scene arrival time within minutes. Factoring the ALS response time realities in your area, is it likely EMTs, firefighters or law enforcement will be on scene long enough before paramedics arrive to reliably assess if the patient is suffering from opioid effects and prepare and administer a dose of naloxone? The sequence of assessment, preparation and treatment may not be realistically completed in less than 60 seconds, particularly by public safety professionals new to such procedures.

These considerations most likely equate with naloxone being a better fit for use in locales where paramedics are at long distances or times from opioid overdose victims, such as rural and suburban areas, specific locations in urban areas and other focused deployments.

Although certain areas of densely populated cities might be so defined, the reality is that rural county law enforcement agencies might prove the ideal agencies to adopt naloxone administration for greater use despite lower populations.

Distribution of naloxone to law enforcement may not be a blanketed response within different systems—maybe in a specific urban area with multiple high-rises, the vertical response time for EMS equates with delay that law enforcement officers can prove a critical impact, yet in other areas of same city, the EMS response may generally beat law enforcement to the scene. Each system, and even areas within a system, can present a different scenario, a different challenge, a different answer.

Fiscal & Operational Sense?
A 2 mg prefilled syringe of naloxone in most areas of the U.S. costs approximately $20. Although naloxone prefilled syringes won’t significantly impact most public safety agency budget needs, what about the cost and logistics necessary to place these naloxone syringes on every law enforcement vehicle, fire apparatus and BLS ambulance? What about replacement costs? Will the replacement need be due to actual use or a manufacturer controlled expiration date?

To make this worse, prescribing laws or regulations in many states could require the medication be assigned to each officer, rather than each vehicle like an AED. This can quickly create a serious fiscal hardship and operational boondoggle—a department that puts out 12 AEDs on a shift in its cruisers may have nearly 100 officers, increasing the tracking, purchasing, oversight and operational complexity by a factor of nearly 10.

Medication expiration dates are often less than 1–2 years from time of purchase. Those expiration dates are based on the medication being at or even a bit lower than room temperatures. Pharmaceutical research investigating the weather effects on chemical stability have indicated that heat speeds up the degradation of medication potency.

We also have to consider how non-paramedic providers, especially police officers, will physically carry naloxone. Will it be placed in the squad car’s “front office” or be relegated as a rarely used item to its hot (or cold) trunk? Will it ever be carried on their person? This is unlikely given the extreme space limitations of an officer’s duty uniform.

In a system where BLS providers carry naloxone, would a clearly identified opioid overdose generate a paramedic response? For example, Boston EMS has been treating heroin overdose as a BLS call since 2006. Dispatch is designed to send the right units to the right calls at the right times, and BLS has been proven to be perfectly adequate at handling simple heroin overdose, increasing the availability of the ALS resources.

Drug Shortages
Many emergency care medications are in near historic low supply and have been in precarious availability over much of the past 3–4 years. Could a sudden surge in naloxone demand be met by sufficient increase in manufacturing and distribution capabilities? Will these capabilities not only meet the new demand, but also ensure current paramedic agencies and hospitals obtain needed supply? Given the current status of medication availabilities, doubts are well founded.

The Bottom Line
We don’t want readers to conclude that naloxone administration by non-paramedics is a bad practice—in fact that’s far from the truth. We do want you to consider all the facts about naloxone deployment and administration to realize that the right conclusion will differ from community to community.

We believe there needs to be careful, thoughtful discussion about this capability afforded by a growing number of state laws. What’s most important for a community wanting to effectively and realistically address opioid abuse needs is to first ask the right questions and let honest answers drive the decisions. The addition of naloxone to the equipment carried by any first response organization should be done based on the needs of the patient population and not on the needs of politics.

Whether you’re a physician, nurse, paramedic, EMT, firefighter, law enforcement officer or government leader, let’s collectively support a practice of good, safe medicine. Let’s be fiscally responsible in decisions that are paid most often with taxpayer monies. And let’s be realistic about what will or will not be a critical “difference maker” for a particular community.

References
1. U.S. Department of Justice. (April 16, 2014.) Attorney General Eric Holder delivers remarks at the 2014 Police Executive Research Forum. Retrieved May 28, 2014, from www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2014/ag-speech-140416.html.
2. Brady JE, Wunsch H, DiMaggio C, et al. Prescription drug monitoring and dispensing of prescription opioids. Public Health Rep. 2014;129(2):139–147.
3. National Institute on Drug Abuse. (February 2014.) What is the scope of heroin use in the United States? Retrieved May 28, 2014, from www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/heroin/scope-heroin-use-….
4. The Network for Public Health Law. (May 15, 2014.) Legal interventions to reduce overdoes mortality: Naloxone access and overdose good Samaritan laws. Retrieved May 28, 2014, from
www.networkforphl.org/_asset/qz5pvn/network-naloxone-10-4.pdf.
5. Bigg D. (n.d.) Chicago recovery alliance. Harm Reduction Coalition. Retrieved May 28, 2014, from www.harmreduction.org/issues/overdose-prevention/tools-best-practices/na….
6. Sledge M. (April 16, 2014.) Eric Holder calls on first responders to carry naloxone, anti-overdose drug. The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 28, 2014, from www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/eric-holder-naloxone_n_5160717.html.

Attack Ebola on a nanoscale

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The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has claimed more than 900 lives since February and has infected thousands more. Countries such as Nigeria and Liberia have declared health emergencies, while the World Health Organization began a two-day meeting on Wednesday to discuss ways to battle the outbreak.

There is no known vaccine, treatment, or cure for Ebola, which is contracted through the bodily fluids of an infected person or animal. But that doesn’t mean there’s not hope. In fact, Chemical Engineering Chair Thomas Webster’s lab is currently working on one possible solution for fighting Ebola and other : nanotechnology.

“It has been very hard to develop a vaccine or treatment for Ebola or similar viruses because they mutate so quickly,” explained Webster, the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanomedicine. “In nanotechnology we turned our attention to developing nanoparticles that could be attached chemically to the viruses and stop them from spreading.”

One particle that is showing great promise is gold. According to Webster, are currently being used to treat cancer. Infrared waves, he explained, heat up the gold nanoparticles, which, in turn, attack and destroy everything from viruses to cancer cells, but not healthy cells.

Recognizing that a larger surface area would lead to a quicker heat-up time, Webster’s team created gold nanostars. “The star has a lot more surface area, so it can heat up much faster than a sphere can,” Webster said. “And that greater allows it to attack more viruses once they absorb to the particles.” The problem the researchers face, however, is making sure the hot gold nanoparticles attack the virus or rather than the healthy cells.

In addition to the gold nanostars, Webster’s lab is also generating a nanoparticle that would serve as a “virus decoy,” chemically attracting the virus to attack it rather than .

While Webster’s lab has been working in nanotechnology for about 15 years, it was not until recently that his lab started to explore the benefits of nanomedicine.

“We realized the potential,” Webster said, noting that his student researchers use synthetic analogs that mimic viruses’ structures. “There is obviously such a huge need right now for ways to treat Ebola and other , and it’s up to us to study and look at new and creative ways that traditional medicine really can’t.”

12 Chemicals That Are Screwing Up Your Hormones

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The world can be a toxic place sometimes, can’t it? While technological innovations have in many cases made our lives better (see: Vitamix), “progress” can often bring unwanted toxins into our homes and lives.

 

That’s why it’s important to arm yourself with information about what sort of chemicals may be making their way into your body. Fortunately, the Environmental Working Group this week released its Dirty Dozen List of Endocrine Disruptors, 12 hormone-altering chemicals that can be found in everything from drinking water to cleaning products. So keep an eye out for these bad boys, and protect yourself from a hormonal roller coaster ride!

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11479/12-chemicals-that-are-screwing-up-your-hormones.html

From the desk of Zedie.

Gadget uses converts sound waves in speech to charge your mobile

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  • Prototype created by Queen Mary University of London and Nokia
  • The device, which is about the size of a mobile phone, uses zinc oxide
  • Zinc oxide produces electricity when subjected to mechanical stress
  • Stress could come from vibrations in sound that move tiny rods
  • Invention was inspired by research which found playing pop and rock music improves the performance of solar cells

It seems phone batteries always die at the same moment you need to make an important call.

But while shouting at your mobile in frustration might seem pointless, a new gadget could soon mean your screams won’t be in vain.

Researchers in London have created a new technology that uses sound, such as chants at a football ground or chatter in a coffee shop, to charge up mobile phones.

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While shouting at your mobile in frustration might seem pointless, a new gadget could soon mean your screams won't be in vain. Researchers in London have created a new technology that uses sound, such as chants at a football ground or chatter in a coffee shop, to charge up mobile phones

While shouting at your mobile in frustration might seem pointless, a new gadget could soon mean your screams won’t be in vain. Researchers in London have created a new technology that uses sound, such as chants at a football ground or chatter in a coffee shop, to charge up mobile phones

Their prototype device, which is about the size of a mobile phone, uses zinc oxide to convert vibrations caused by sound into electricity.

The invention was inspired by previous research at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), which found playing pop and rock music improved the performance of solar cells.

 This was because the sound vibrations triggered the movement of material in the solar cell that caused it to improve efficiency by up to 40 per cent.

Developing this research further, Nokia worked with the QMUL team to create an energy-harvesting prototype that could be used to charge a mobile phone using everyday background noise.

Nokia worked with the QMUL team to create an energy-harvesting prototype that could be used to charge a mobile phone using everyday background noise. Pictured here is the zinc oxide used in the device

Nokia worked with the QMUL team to create an energy-harvesting prototype that could be used to charge a mobile phone using everyday background noise. Pictured here is the zinc oxide used in the device

Good Vibrations – harvesting energy from sound

The team used the key properties of zinc oxide, a material that when squashed or stretched creates a voltage by converting energy from motion into electrical energy, in the form of nanorods.

The nanorods can be coated onto various surfaces in different locations making the energy harvesting versatile.

When this surface is squashed or stretched, the nanorods then generate a high voltage.

HOW ROCK MUSIC IMPROVES THE ENERGY OUTPUT OF SOLAR CELLS

The latest research was inspired by a study last year that found playing pop and rock music improves the performance of solar cells.

Scientists at QMUL and Imperial College London found sound vibrations triggered the movement of material in the solar cell causing it to improve efficiency by up to 40 per cent.

This discovery could make it possible to power a wider range of devices with solar energy than at present, as scientists can improve the efficiency of solar cells using the ambient, or background, noise present in many environments.

Practical uses for this discovery could include solar powered air conditioning units, laptop computers or electronic components on buses, trains and other vehicles.

The nanorods respond to vibration and movement created by everyday sound, such as our voices.

Electrical contacts on both sides of the rods are then used to harvest the voltage to charge a phone.

In order to make it possible to produce these nanogenerators at scale, the scientists found innovative ways to cut costs in the production process.

Firstly, they developed a process whereby they could spray on the nanorod chemicals – almost like nanorod graffiti – to cover a plastic sheet in a layer of zinc oxide.

When put into a mixture of chemicals and heated to just 90°C, the nanorods grew all over the surface of the sheet.

Secondly, gold is traditionally used as an electrical contact, but the team were able to produce a method of using cheap and cheerful aluminium foil instead.

The final device is the same size as a Nokia Lumia 925 and generates five volts, which is enough to charge a phone.

‘Being able to keep mobile devices working for longer, or do away with batteries completely by tapping into the stray energy that is all around us is an exciting concept,’ said Dr Joe Briscoe from QMUL.

‘We hope that we have brought this technology closer to viability.’

The device is the same size as a Nokia Lumia 925 (pictured) and generates 5 volts - enough to charge a phone

The device is the same size as a Nokia Lumia 925 (pictured) and generates 5 volts – enough to charge a phone

'Being able to keep mobile devices working for longer, or do away with batteries completely by tapping into the stray energy that is all around us is an exciting concept,' said Dr Joe Briscoe from QMUL. Pictured is the voltage test to see how much energy the device could harvest 

‘Being able to keep mobile devices working for longer, or do away with batteries completely by tapping into the stray energy that is all around us is an exciting concept,’ said Dr Joe Briscoe from QMUL. Pictured is the voltage test to see how much energy the device could harvest

 

Dopamine replacement associated with impulse control increase in early Parkinson’s.

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New Penn Medicine research shows that neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety and fatigue are more common in newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients compared to the general population. The study also found that initiation of dopamine replacement therapy, the most common treatment for PD, was associated with increasing frequency of impulse control disorders and excessive daytime sleepiness. The new findings, the first longitudinal study to come out of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), are published in the August 15, 2014, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The PPMI, a landmark, multicenter observational clinical study sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, uses a combination of advanced imaging, biologics sampling and behavioral assessments to identify biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease progression. The Penn study, which represents neuropsychiatric and cognitive data from baseline through the first 24 months of follow up, was conducted in collaboration with the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and the University Hospital Donostia in Spain.

The study examined 423 newly diagnosed, untreated Parkinson’s patients and 196 healthy controls at baseline and 281 people with PD at six months. Of these, 261 PD patients and 145 healthy controls were evaluated at 12 months, and 96 PD patients and 83 healthy controls evaluated at 24 months.

PD patients were permitted to begin dopamine therapy at any point after their baseline evaluation.

“We hypothesized that would be common and stable in severity soon after diagnosis and that the initiation of would modify their natural progression in some way,” says senior author, Daniel Weintraub, MD, associate professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellow in Penn’s Institute on Aging.

The Penn team showed that while there was no significant difference between PD patients and healthy controls in the frequency of , a neuropsychiatric symptom that can lead to compulsive gambling, sexual behavior, eating or spending, 21 percent of newly diagnosed PD patients screened positive for such symptoms at baseline. That percentage did not increase significantly over the 24-month period.

However, six patients who had been on dopamine therapy for more than a year at the 24-month evaluation showed impulse control disorders or related behavior symptoms while no incident symptoms were reported in PD patients who had not commenced dopamine therapy. Dopamine therapy did help with fatigue, with 33 percent of patients improving their fatigue test score over 24 months compared with only 11 percent of patients not on dopamine therapy.

The investigators also found evidence that depression may be undertreated in early PD patients: Two-thirds of patients who screened positive for depression at any time point were not taking an antidepressant.

PPMI follows volunteers for five years, so investigators plan to expand upon these results, which Weintraub still considers preliminary. “We will more closely look at cognitive changes over time,” he says. “Two years is not a sufficient period of follow up to really look at meaningful cognitive decline.”

The perspective of time is what makes the PPMI such an important initiative, Weintraub points out, since many patients with the disease live for 10 to 20 years following their diagnosis. “It’s really a chance to assess the frequency and characteristics of psychiatric and cognitive symptoms in PD, compare it with healthy controls, and then also look at its evolution over time,” he says. “The hope is that we will be able to continue this work so that we can obtain long-term follow up data on these patients,” says Weintraub.

Is the Internet ‘full’ and going to shut down?

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Reports state that the Internet is running out of space — but is this really a problem? Do we have to worry about it?

Reports this week have claimed that the Internet is in danger of becoming “full” because the number of Internet connections rose above a crucial limit. A small number of sites could have been taken momentarily offline by the issue with the infrastructure supporting parts of the Internet.

MOVE ON? Is the Internet ‘full’ and are we in for a rocky ride over the next few weeks?

The issue revolved around a limit on the number of concurrent connections made to routers that underpin the Internet. These operate in a similar manner to home routers spreading data about the global Internet, rather than simply within a single address.

“Old hardware that is at least five years past its end-of-life sulked, because it ran out of memory,” explained James Blessing, chair of the Internet Service Providers Association, which has close to 300 members across the U.K.

“The problem revolved around TCAM memory — which is like an address book — getting full,” Mr. Blessing told The Guardian. “The default settings have 5,12,000 entry spaces. It reached 5,12,000 entries last week when an Internet service provider (ISP) had a problem and leaked some address space, which caused some older boxes at other ISPs to fail.” ISPs have known about this issue for a while. Cisco, which manufactures a large chunk of the hardware used by ISPs, put out a notice about the issue in May, but some ISPs have been slow to fix the problem.

“There is a fix for the issue — you can simply change some values on the boxes and then restart the entire machine,” said Mr. Blessing. “Unfortunately these boxes have hundreds of customers attached to them so getting permission from them all to do that is a pain.” That has caused some ISPs to put off the reboot, which would momentarily take websites connected to the box offline, until it caused a brief issue last week.

Because some of the properties that suffered issues are interlinked it created larger domino-like problem for other sites.

Mr. Blessing explained that if an ad-server was hit, then ads wouldn’t show up on websites making them look broken, or if an authentication service that lets users log into other sites with a single username and password — like Facebook, for instance — then those sites would be disrupted.

Safe for now

The issue could be described in a similar manner to the Y2K bug — something that could have caused major issues for the Internet if it hadn’t been fixed, but the fix was simple and in most cases completed within plenty of time.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s tiny,” said Mr. Blessing. “It’s a glitch, glitches happen.” “If someone at an ISP hasn’t noticed it by now, it’s too late as the default table is over 512,000, so nothing that had this problem is now connected to the Internet and working,” he said.

“We’ve had the glitch and nothing further will happen now concerning the 512,000 bug.” The advice from experts is that if Internet users haven’t noticed any issues by now they won’t see anything happening from now on. The Internet is safe for now.

 

Cosmic grains pre-date Solar System

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Stardust capsule

The cosmic particles were stored safely in a capsule that Stardust delivered to Earth in 2006

Scientists may have identified the first known dust particles from outside our Solar System, in samples returned to Earth by a Nasa space mission.

A team of scientists, with the help of more than 30,000 worldwide citizens, has identified seven exotic grains.

The material was captured by the Stardust spacecraft and brought back to Earth in 2006.

The region between stars – interstellar space – is not entirely empty, but is filled with microscopic particles.

The material that forms interstellar dust is a product of the aeons of stellar birth, evolution and death that went into building our cosmic neighbourhood.

These molecules originated in the extremely hot interior of other stars before the Sun was born, and were expelled into interstellar space where they condensed into tiny rocks as they cooled down.

Having these particles on Earth means that scientists can characterise them in unprecedented detail. The composition and structure of the collected samples could help explain the origin and evolution of dust in space.

Scientists inspecting collector tray
The collected samples could help explain the origin and evolution of interstellar dust

Dr Andrew Westphal, from the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, told BBC News: “Our results are giving us the first glimpse of the complexity and diversity of interstellar dust particles.”

A preliminary analysis by Dr Westphal and colleagues, published in Science, showed that the seven interstellar candidates are much more diverse in size, chemical composition and structure than anyone had pictured before based on previous astronomical observations and theories.

“It could easily have been that our answer when we did this project was to find that all interstellar dust particles are similar, and we are not finding that at all. They are all different from each other.”

Comet dust, in contrast, is younger. The material out of which our Solar System formed was heated, melted, mixed and transformed as the Sun and the planets began to take shape. The comets represent the relics of this process and are therefore representative of the composition of our early planetary system.

Stardust was two missions in one. Although it is mostly known for its close encounter with Comet Wild 2, the spacecraft also captured dust flowing in the interstellar dust stream. This stream carries ancient particles older than our Sun, from different parts of our galaxy.

Stardust artist impression
Stardust captured dust particles using a retractable grid of aerogel

Stardust was equipped with a device called the Interstellar Dust Collector, a tennis-racket sized mosaic of 132 tiles made of the lightest manmade solid, referred to as aerogel. This is a silicon-based material that is more than 99% empty space.

The dust particles can travel at hypervelocity, more than 5km per second. Like a net, this light, fluffy aerogel captured dust particles without vaporising them by slowing them down gradually.

More than 30,000 volunteers who signed up to the Stardust@home project examined millions of images of the aerogel in search of the carrot-shaped trails left by the incoming hypervelocity particles, which are about two millionths of a metre in diameter.

But not all of the particles embedded in the aerogel are of interstellar origin. The researchers determined that all but three of the tracks were caused by tiny bits of the spacecraft.

Four more possible interstellar particles, as tiny as 0.4 millionths of a metre, were found encrusted in minute craters in the aluminium foil around the aerogel tiles.

The seven dust particles are composed of different silicates – minerals consisting of silica, oxygen and metals – which indicate that each particle may have its own history.

“[The particles] may have formed in one star and were then processed over tens of millions of years in the interstellar medium and mixed in with particles coming from other stars or even particles that formed in the interstellar medium in cold molecular clouds; so it’s probably a mixture of lots of different things,” explained Dr Westphal.

Particle track in aerogel
The dust particles leave a cone-shaped trail as they are slowly decelerated by the aerogel

Ongoing work

Dr Westphal and his colleagues plan further tests to the published results.

The final proof lies in the levels of different chemical oxygen forms, known as isotopes, within them. A different concentration than that found in our Solar System would indicate their extra-solar origin.

It will require several years of hard work to refine the techniques available to measure the abundance of oxygen isotopes in the dust particles without destroying them.

Dr Westphal added: “It’s a necessary step before we dare to do anything with the real thing. The problem is that they are just so rare… we cannot dare to take any chances.”

More data remain to be analysed. Half of the aerogel tiles and an even larger fraction of the foils will be scrutinised in the next two to three years.

In the meantime, Dr Westphal said the team members were “having fun”.

HowStuffWorks “10 Connections Between Physics and Music”

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Music doesn’t emerge from random creative inspiration. Songs aren’t chaos. Instead, they involve structure, pattern, repetition and other characteristics that make them recognizable to the human ear. In the end, music is a sort of science — a fascinating, pulsating type of sound that peers through people’s aural perceptions and into the universe beyond.

We humans have organs specifically designed to detect and understand sound. Our fleshy ears snag all sorts of sounds, from the chirping of crickets to the pounding of jackhammers, to classical music streaming through radio signals.

Few of us, however, take the time to really think about how those sounds move from one place to another. And not many of us probably think about why a jackhammer doesn’t qualify as music but Neil Diamond does (usually). It’s not just a subjective judgment. There’s actually science behind music.

All music emerges from the principles found in physics and math. In fact, centuries ago, some academics considered the study of music to be a kind of science. It was regarded as an important discipline alongsidemathematics, geometry and astronomy.

These days, most people agree that music is important, but it may not get the scientific respect that it should. Whether you listen to The Bangles or Boards of Canada, maybe music’s scientific pedigree deserves a closer look.

Everything else in the universe is connected. So too are music and physics. Keep reading and you’ll see how physics and music are interwoven.

Do Different Kinds Of Alcohol Get You Different Kinds Of Drunk?

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Do Different Kinds Of Alcohol Get You Different Kinds Of Drunk?

When your friend gets tipsy and starts rambling about how tequila turns her into a savage party monster, and then your other friend vehemently calls bullshit, calmly put your hands up and say this: “Friends. Please. I got this.” And then explain to them what I’m about to explain to you.

First off: alcohol is alcohol – which is to say that the alcohol in wine is the same as the alcohol in beer is the same as the alcohol in the unholy red-cup concoction at a dormroom game of King’s Cup. That alcohol is ethyl alcohol, aka ethanol, and it’ll get you drunk. The fact that liquor tends to contain higher concentrations of ethanol than wine, and wine higher concentrations than beer, means that the same volume of different alcoholic beverages will get you more/less drunk, ergo the “standard drink” rule, as defined by the National Institutes of Health:

In the United States, a “standard” drink is any drink that contains about 0.6 fluid ounces or 14 grams of “pure” alcohol. Although the drinks below are different sizes, each contains approximately the same amount of alcohol and counts as a single standard drink.

Do Different Kinds Of Alcohol Get You Different Kinds Of Drunk?

The standard drink model suggests that when it comes to behavioral effects, the only difference between a can of beer and a shot of whiskey is the mode of delivery. Ounce-for-ounce, an 80-proof shot of MaCallan’s is a much more efficient ethanol-delivery system than a can of Bud Light. If you down a few shots of the former really quickly, you’ll experience a rapid spike in your blood alcohol level, and, presumably, a rapid drop in your inhibition, sense of propriety, and so-forth. But any perceived difference between the drunk you feel from the liquor and the drunk you feel from beer has to do with the rate at which you consumed the ethanol, not the beverage via which you consumed it.

But what about hard alcohols that are comparable in ethanol concentration, and therefore equally efficient at getting you drunk? According to the Alcohol Is Alcohol argument, 80-proof tequila should have the same effect on you as 80-proof vodka, rum, gin or whiskey. Yet we all know someone who insists that tequila makes them wild, that whiskey makes them angry, or that gin makes them sad. Why is that?

Do Different Kinds Of Alcohol Get You Different Kinds Of Drunk?

One possible explanation: mixers. Lots of people shoot tequila straight, whereas rum is commonly taken in tandem with something else – cola, for example. If you’re combining gin with tonic, or vodka with something super-caffeinated like Red Bull, who’s to say the drunk you’re experiencing is due to the alcohol, and not because of what you’re drinking with it?

Another explanation: congeners. Congeners are byproducts of the fermentation and distillation process, and include chemicals like acetone, acetaldehyde, and esters – not to mention forms of alcohol other than ethanol. Different alcoholic beverages contain different types and quantities of congeners, so even though 80-proof vodka, rum and gin all contain the same amount of ethanol, their congener content can vary considerably. This variation contributes mainly to tan alcohol’s colors and flavors, but may or may not also have an effect on the “flavor” of drunkenness it imparts – the lackluster (but still technically valid) justification being that different chemicals affect everyone differently, in ways we may not fully understand.* Take coffee, for example: we know it makes you have to poop, but we really aren’t clear on why that is.

All of the above being said, despite the fact that there are no scientific studies (to my knowledge) that examine the behavioral effects that different alcoholic beverages may or may not have, the most common explanation for the differential effects of booze is that it’s all in your head, and that your experience with a given alcohol is dictated largely by the social situations in which you choose to consume it:

“A lot of this is folk memories and cultural hangovers,” says pharmacologist Paul Clayton, former Senior Scientific Advisor to the UK government’s Committee on the Safety of Medicines,in an interview with The Guardian. He continues:

A lot of it depends on what mood you were in when you started drinking and the social contex. The idea that gin makes you unhappy probably comes from its nickname “mother’s ruin” – the idea that it makes women depressed, which is a cultural idea. But fundamentally, alcohol is alcohol whichever way you slice it.

The psychosocial explanation for alcohol’s differential behavioral outcomes closely resembles the results of studies on alcohol expectancy effects, which examine not only the way people behave when they’ve ingested alcohol, but how they behave when they think they’ve ingested alcohol. Consider for example that even when test subjects are given a standardized dose of ethanol, and attain the same blood alcohol level as other study participants, their reactions tend to vary dramatically. Some act utterly sloshed, while others barely bat an eye. According to a 2006 review paper on alcohol expectancy effects, there’s evidence that this variability may stem from differences among test subjects in the how they expect to be affected by the alcohol they’re consuming:

Studies of alcohol effects on motor and cognitive functioning have shown the individual differences in responses to alcohol are related to the specific types of effects that drinkers expect. In general, those who expect the least impairment are least impaired and those who expect the most impairment are most impaired under the drug. Moreover, this same relationship is observed in response to placebo.

In the end, our expectations can have tremendous sway over the perceived effects of an alcoholic beverage (or non-alcoholic, for that matter). In this light, the question of whether mixers or congeners affect our experiences with different alcohols seems almost inconsequential; if you whole-heartedly believe that a tequila shot is your one-way ticket to Bedlamtown, there’s probably not a whole lot that can be said to convince you – or your body – otherwise.

Mustaches may raise burn risk with home oxygen therapy

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A new case report from U.S doctors suggests that men who use home oxygen therapy should consider a clean-shaven look to reduce their risk of serious facial burns.

“If you’ve ever tried to start a campfire, you always start with some dry little twigs and once that starts – and that’s kind of the mustache – then that oxygen tubing lights on fire, it’s like a blow torch shooting up their nose,” said Dr. Andrew Greenlund of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “So, if we can prevent it, it would be good.”

People with lung conditions that impair their ability to get enough oxygen from normal air may use home oxygen therapy, which delivers a steady stream of oxygen-rich air from a portable metal tank through tubing that fits into the nostrils.

After noticing that three of his patients, all with mustaches, had suffered facial burns while using their home oxygen therapy, Greenlund and his team decided to investigate.

“We looked through all the literature out there in the last 20 years and no one had noted that more people with facial hair and home oxygen were having burns than people without facial hair,” he told Reuters Health.

Narrowing their search to their own institution, the doctors identified nine patients who had suffered home oxygen therapy-related burns and eight of those men had mustaches.

Greenlund said that NASA has demonstrated how flammable human hair is under normal conditions and how it ignites much more readily in the presence of higher oxygen concentrations. But no one had looked at the issue in the context of home oxygen therapy.

To test their theory that facial hair places oxygen therapy users at a higher risk for burns, the researchers set up mannequins with and without human hair mustaches, outfitted them with the nasal tubing and exposed them to a spark.

The tubing on the mustached models ignited while those without mustaches did not, suggesting that concentrated oxygen together with kindling in the form of facial hair is a dangerously flammable combination.

According to the report published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 1.5 million people in the United States use home-oxygen therapy, and worldwide the numbers are growing as smoking rates increase, leading to lung disease.

“Since you can modify that risk by getting rid of the facial hair it seemed like a reasonable thing to look into to decrease the risk of the burns,” Greenlund said.

The American Thoracic Society advises persons using home oxygen therapy to keep the tubing as well as the oxygen tank at least six feet away from an open flame, and to never smoke while using the device.

The poly-vinyl tubing that patients use is extremely flammable, said Greenlund, so avoiding sparks is key. He noted that most of the patients who suffered burns were grinding metal at the time, which could have been a source of sparks.

“The best thing to do if your tubing catches on fire is to get it off quickly,” he added.

He thinks that another solution might be to change the material that the tubing is made of so that it doesn’t burn as easily.

If culture and religion allow, then shaving facial hair would be the number one preventive measure to take, Greenlund advises. But if a man decides to keep his facial hair, then using water-based hair products and avoiding those that are alcohol- or oil-based could also help reduce the risk.

He pointed out that while the degree of the burns varies, they can be very serious and a few of the individuals who suffered facial burns had to be put on a ventilator as their burns healed.

“One of my patients said it was like looking hell in the face, so it can be pretty traumatic and it’s life-threatening,” he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1kdZCWs Mayo Clinic Proceedings