Day: 12/29/2015

What exactly are the ethics of robot love?

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There was to have been a conference in Malaysia last week called Love and Sex with Robots but it was cancelled. Malaysian police branded it “illegal” and “ridiculous”. “There is nothing scientific about sex with robots,” said a police chief. However, others believe there are many interesting and important aspects of intimate robot partners that are worth researching and discussing.

There is a lot of science in Ava and Kyoko, the sexually capable robots in the movie Ex Machina, for example. Concepts raised in the film include the Turing Test and the Mary’s room thought experiment of ANU’s Frank Jackson, among others. Although, inevitably, as is the way of fiction, the robots turn on the humans.

Putting aside the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robophobic tropes of movies such as Oblivion, Robocop, and Transcendence, is there a moral issue when it comes to intimacy with a robot?

Some believe there is. There is a Campaign to Stop Sex Robots, which has called for sex with robots to be banned. The organisation’s argument is that sex robots would reinforce gender inequality. It links to similar arguments made against pornography and prostitution.

However, if you argue that something ought to be banned because it reinforces gender inequality, you would be committed to banning the Iliad or various plays by Shakespeare, or novels by Jane Austen. If this is the objection, one could no doubt develop sexbots that do not reinforce gender stereotypes, either in behaviour or form.

A more salient concern about sexbots might be: what would happen if everyone started bedding bots? What would be the trajectory? Where would humanity end up if these devices proliferated?

Perhaps we’d be in much the same place as we are now. The invention of sex toys has not stopped people getting married and having babies. Slippery slope arguments are intuitively tempting but they need strong gravity and weak friction.

Arguments in favour of sexbots put by proponents, such as David Levy, are that robot prostitutes are a lesser evil than human prostitutes. They will reduce incentives to traffic humans and subject them to the ‘degradation’ of sex work. Robot prostitutes might be safer than human ones, and therefore preferable.

Perhaps the stickiest moral problem is whether sex with a robot would count as adultery. But does an orgasm with a toy count as adultery? A sexbot today might be little more than a programmed artefact, but by 2050, who knows what it might look resemble?

Artificial bonding

Perhaps a more tractable moral issue in the short term is what Matthias Scheutz, Director of the Human Robot Interaction Lab at Tufts University, calls “unidirectional emotional bonds“. This is where someone falls in love with a robot, but the robot cannot fall genuinely reciprocate the sentiment.

It is well-known that humans affectively bond with robots. People name their robot vacuum cleaners, and even introduce them to their parents by name. Gnarly bomb disposal specialists beg the Baghdad robot hospital to fix theirbeloved blown-up robots because they have gone through hell together.

One could plausibly program a robot to go through the motions of expressing love. It could gaze at you with robo-dilated eyes, or could hold your hand and smile at you. It could play music like the “Gigolo Joe” character in Steven Spielberg’s movie Artificial Intelligence. It could do all this and yet feel nothing.

It might have an ability to sense your affective states and produce actions that you would interpret as emotions, but inside the robot there would be no feeling, just a Turing machine applying its rulebook to sensory inputs, passing scripted outputs to its actuators.

The robot would act ‘as if’ it loved you, but it would not love you any more than a rock would love you. Is this moral? Should such devices be banned?

Personally, I think not, as long as we understand exactly what we are getting into bed with. People already get into bed with animated yet lifeless artefacts. There are artefacts on the market that enable people to experience orgasms. Are machine generated orgasms as good as the real human deal? Who is to judge? Opinions differ.

I do not see a persuasive case for banning sex toys, whether they are manually or remotely piloted or even embodied and autonomous. However, there is a case for a health warning to ensure people know about unidirectional emotional bonding. Robots may be able to perform sex acts today but it may be decades or centuries before they can return your love.The Conversation

These were the top 10 space events of 2015

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This was a golden year for planetary exploration thanks to all of the NASA and European Space Agency missions that were planned and implemented decades ago. Not since Apollo and the epic space race of the Cold War has space featured so heavily in the public eye. So here are the top 10 space events that I got most excited about in 2015.

1. Pluto Flyby by New Horizons

For me the biggest scientific result of the year, if not the decade, was the revelation by New Horizons that the frozen distant world of Pluto was as active and varied as any we had yet explored.

Organic material staining the surface orange, kilometres high water-ice mountains plunging into freshly resurfaced nitrogen-ice sheets and a collapsing atmosphere all made this dwarf planet astoundingly exciting and well worth the almost decade long journey to reach.

While this world is definitely not a planet (having a system of moons almost as massive in total as it is) the distant frozen dwarf planet is truly King amongst the new class of Plutoids that represent a distinct phase of planet formation.

2. Water (but no atmosphere) on Mars

The announcement that Mars has flowing water on its barren surface was of huge importance as (at least on Earth), where there’s flowing water, there’s life. It meant we need to reassess the conditions under which water can exist and hence the possibilities for life.

There’s water in them hills. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The red planet made the list because of the incredible discovery by NASA’sMAVEN spacecraft that the Sun was responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere away, turning a water-rich world nearly four billion years ago into the inhospitable desert it is today.

The atmosphere isn’t locked away in rocks underneath the surface, à la Total Recall, but instead has been lost to space meaning future colonists may well have to bring more of their supplies than thought.

3. Philae called home (and more Rosetta discoveries)

The idea that there’s a spacecraft sitting on a comet still astounds me.

That #WakeUpPhile came true (briefly) in 2015 is a great reason to feature Rosetta again this year and explore the scientific discoveries from the comet, such as how the iconic tail forms from comet ice as well as the discovery of organic material. These compounds are the precursors to several different amino acids as found in organisms on Earth, meaning objects like Comet 67P could have brought the ingredients for life to the planet’s earliest days.

One of the big surprises is that the water in this comet has three times more ‘heavy’ water (where hydrogen is replaced with its heavier isotope deuterium) than in the oceans of Earth. Wherever the water came from that made life possible on Earth it wasn’t from comets like this.

4. Alien worlds discovered by Kepler

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft continued to search for exoplanets around stars in our Milky Way, even after the failure of critical gyroscope stabilisers, bringing the total to 1,030 confirmed worlds (with thousands more candidates to be followed up).

There are many more exoplanets out there. ESO/M. Kornmesser

One of the most exciting discoveries was of a rocky world similar in size to Earth orbiting a Sun-like star, Earth’s ‘cousin. Although this is far from saying it’s Earth-like. We don’t know if Kepler-452b is habitable yet as we can’t measure its atmosphere.

However, a rocky world orbiting in the ‘goldilocks zone‘ suitable for liquid water to exist was a huge step forward in our ultimate search for Earth 2.0 and finding life beyond Earth.

5. Breakthrough Listen to hunt for ET

An incredible US$100 million initiative funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to use two of the world’s largest radio telescopes including Australia’s Parkes(aka The Dish) to search the closet million stars and 100 nearest galaxies for alien signals. Breakthrough Listen will also use the optical Lick observatory in the chance that aliens have upgraded from radio/TV signals to laser-based communications.

In the decade-long search astronomers will upgrade the telescopes to thebenefit of astronomy worldwide, and learn incredible things about the stars of our Milky Way. Most excitingly of all we may be able to answer one of the most important questions of all time: are we alone?

6. The Martian

Rarely does a film convey the science so well that it could be considered aneducational resource, but The Martian managed it.

Science in science fiction? 20th Century Fox

Exceptionally detailed consideration of the physics of orbital dynamics, life support systems, astro-biology and some poignant moments of the cost of space exploration to astronauts as much as their families left behind.

The initial sandstorm was more plot device than physical reality, as while global sandstorms occur, the air pressure is so low on Mars (and we now know why thanks to discovery 2 above) that a few air molecules at hurricane speed would only feel like a light breeze in the denser air of Earth.

7. Super blood moon (lunar perigee eclipse)

One of the most observed events of the celestial year, the lunar eclipse was also, in some circles, reported as being the harbinger of the apocalypse.

This was because during a lunar eclipse the Moon turns ‘blood’ red as sunlight travelling through our atmosphere scatters onto the Moon. Only longer, red, wavelengths of light make it through the atmosphere which is why the sun low on the horizon appears red. The result is that the ‘blood’ is being illuminated by all the sunrises and sunsets of Earth.

This eclipse occurred when the Moon was at its closest point to Earth (known as a perigee or ‘super’ moon), making this a beautiful sight for most, and a terrifying one for some. If you missed it this year we won’t see a similar super lunar eclipse until 2033.

8. Dawn exploration of Ceres

NASA’s Dawn mission to Ceres, a dwarf planet and largest body in the asteroid belt, was overshadowed by the flashier, high speed flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons mission.

The intriguing bright spots in Occator crater on Ceres. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Yet as Dawn drifted towards Ceres on the faintest of thrust from its ion engine it spotted a huge surprise. Ceres had bizarre bright regions shining out from an asphalt-dark world. These were so unexpected that NASA even created an online poll so everyone could make a guess.

9. Launch of LISA Pathfinder

The race to test Einstein’s final prediction of gravitational waves heated up this year, and 2016 will only be more exciting.

The European Space Agency successfully launched LISA Pathfinder in December meaning that, technically, it won’t begin its mission (orbiting between the Earth and Sun) until February. It still makes the list as this is a critical first step and technology demonstrator of the ultimate space-based gravitational wave detector, LISA, or as it is now called, the New Gravitational wave Observatory.

The spacecraft formerly known as LISA will consist of three satellites in space precisely measuring their respective distances with lasers. These can then measure the change in their separation as a ripple in spacetime itself, caused by the titanic collisions of distant blackholes, passes by. An audacious goal which is why checking the technology is even possible first with LISA Pathfinder is a smart move.

10. Growing space lettuce

Aboard the International Space Station astronauts took their first bite of space-grown lettuce.

A little piece of Earth floats on-board the ISS. NASA/Don Pettit

While the jokes write themselves – e.g. the astronauts were growing cos(mos)lettuce but it tasted like rocket – the demonstration that we can grow our own food in space will be critical for our possible migration from Earth to the rest of the solar system.

In the future we may look back on this moment as the biggest reason why 2015 had a bumper crop of astronomical events. Sorry.

Lose 15kg In 15 Days With This Diet!

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The breakfast is the same throughout the whole diet plan

  • 1 fruit (orange, pear, peach, melon, watermelon,but no bananas or any grapes)

DAY 1

Lunch

  • 1 orange
  • 1 boiled egg
  • 1 cup yogurt (about 200ml)

Dinner

  • 2 tomatoes or 2 dl cooked tomatoes
  • 2 boiled eggs
  • 1 small piece of lettuce or ½ cucumbers
  • 2 pieces of rusk

DAY 2

Lunch

  • 1 orange
  • 1 boiled egg
  • 1 cup yogurt (about 200ml)

Dinner

  • 125 gr boiled beef
  • 1 tomato
  • 1 orange
  • 1 rusk
  • 1 cup of tea or coffee without sugar

DAY 3

Lunch

  • 1 orange
  • 1 boiled egg
  • 1 cup of yogurt (about 200ml)
  • 1 piece of lettuce or 1 cucumber

Dinner

  • 125 gr boiled beef
  • 1 orange
  • 1 rusk
  • 1 cup of tea or coffee

DAY 4

Lunch

  • 125 gr cow milk cheese
  • 1 tomato
  • 1 rusk

Dinner

  • 125 gr boiled beef
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 apple
  • 1 rusk

DAY 5

Lunch

  • 200 gr boiled meat or fish
  • 1 tomato
  • 1 rusk

Dinner

  • ½ kilos boiled vegetables (carrot, peas, potato)

NOTE

The meat and the vegetables are cooked with no or just a pinch of salt.

The 6th and 7th day you should stop the diet, and then continue it at day 8 in the same order.

You mustn’t consume any alcohol during this diet plan.

After the 5th day you’ll lose 5 to 10 pounds, and after the 2 days break, the diet plan should be repeated 3 times ( 5 days + 2 days break) and you’ll have no health consequences and still lose 30 pounds. If you continue eating regularly every day except Mondays, you won’t gain back the pounds. On Mondays, you should eat this:

Breakfast: 1 cup of lemon juice without sugar

Lunch: 1 apple, 1 rusk

Dinner: 1 boiled egg, 1 tomato, 1 rusk

All these foods can be taken hot or cold, but it’s important to be taken in the right order and not to omit any. If you don’t take them in the right order, or you just replace one food with another, you won’t achieve the desired effect.

New approach provides images of single cell with micrometer resolution via contrast based on cell’s thermal properties

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Thermal microscopy of single cells
On the left, a classical phase contrast image of a cell obtained via a standard microscope. On the right, a thermal image of the same cell recorded with the team’s thermal imaging device. 

Thermal properties of cells regulate their ability to store, transport or exchange heat with their environment. So gaining control of these properties is of great interest for optimizing cryopreservation—the process of freezing and storing blood or tissues, which is also used when transporting organs for transplants.

Cell activity influences thermal properties, and at the tissue level this explains why infected wounds feel warm to the touch. Cancer cells, in particular, contain a thermal signature that reflects a higher metabolism than those of healthy cells. This feature is useful for grading tumors and can be used to complement classical histological analysis.

A team of researchers in France working within this realm wondered whether it might be possible to tap into active thermography camera technology—behind night-vision equipment and the thermal imaging of buildings—to create a sort of thermal microscope to produce heat maps of single cells to help them understand the thermal behavior of the cells or go a step even further by detecting diseased conditions at the sub-cell scale.

As the team led by the University of Bordeaux reports in the journal Applied Physics Letters, the first step of their work involved growing cells atop a nanometric titanium sheet. Titanium was selected because it’s the main constituent of bone implants.

“We flash heat the titanium sheet by only a few degrees with a micrometric laser spot,” explained Thomas Dehoux, a researcher at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “You might say we ‘heat the spot’ to image the temperature variations on the bottom side of the sheet. If there is no cell on the other side, the heat remains in the titanium sheet and the temperature increases.” Conversely, if there is a cell on the other side it will absorb heat and create a cold spot on the sheet.

The involved are quite small and occur on a tiny micron-sized spot—a hundredth of a human hair—so the researchers can’t rely on a standard thermometer. Instead, they measure the titanium sheet’s ‘bulging’ upon heating.

What exactly do they look for? “When the temperature is high—without a cell on the other side—the metal sheet dilates locally and creates a bump,” said Dehoux. “When the temperature decreases—a cell is probed—the sheet’s profile returns to normal. We’re able to detect this effect with a second laser beam that’s deflected by the movement of the bottom surface, which gives us unprecedented sensitivity.”

Each part of the cell absorbs heat differently, thanks to the inhomogeneities in its thermal properties. “This allows us to see through the metal sheet and produce a thermal image of the cell,” he added.

While many existing modalities exploit differences in optical properties to image cells, most use fluorescent marking to increase contrast. Such images reveal the structure and molecular composition of the cell, but provide no useful details about its thermal properties.

The significance of the team’s model is that it provides an image of a single cell with micrometer resolution via a contrast based on the cell’s thermal properties. “Before now, no such image has ever been produced—it’s like looking at cells with night-vision goggles,” pointed out Dehoux.

In terms of applications, the team hopes their technique can serve as a new tool to perform histological analysis and detect diseased cells within samples of patients’ tissue. “It might also reveal new information about the behavior of cells because we will be able to observe them with a new contrast,” said Dehoux.

What’s next for the team? Since this is the first time images of this nature have been produced, the technique could use a bit more optimization. “In particular, we want to improve its acquisition time and sensitivity to enable observation of cells in real time,” Dehoux noted. “We’d also like to test the effect of anti-cancer drugs on the thermal properties of to see if new thermal strategies can be defined to stop cancer.”

ORNL cell-free protein synthesis is potential lifesaver

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ORNL cell-free protein synthesis is potential lifesaver
This section of a serpentine channel reactor shows the parallel reactor and feeder channels separated by a nanoporous membrane. At left is a single nanopore viewed from the side; at right is a diagram of metabolite exchange across the membrane. 

Lives of soldiers and others injured in remote locations could be saved with a cell-free protein synthesis system developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The device, a creation of a team led by Andrea Timm and Scott Retterer of the lab’s Biosciences Division, uses microfabricated bioreactors to facilitate the on-demand production of for medicines and biopharmaceuticals. Making these miniature factories cell-free, which eliminates the maintenance of a living system, simplifies the process and lowers cost.

“With this approach, we can produce more faster, making our technology ideal for point-of-care use,” Retterer said. “The fact it’s cell-free reduces the infrastructure needed to produce the protein and opens the possibility of creating proteins when and where you need them, bypassing the challenge of keeping the proteins cold during shipment and storage.”

ORNL’s bioreactor features elegance through a permeable nanoporous membrane and serpentine fabricated using a combination of electron beam and photolithography and advanced material deposition processes. This design enables prolonged cell-free reactions for efficient production of proteins, making it easily adaptable for use in isolated locations and at disaster sites.

From a functional perspective, the design uses long serpentine channels integrated in a way to allow the exchange of materials between parallel reactor and feeder channels. With this approach, the team can control the exchange of metabolites, energy and species that inhibit production of the desired protein. Through other design features, researchers extend reaction times and improve yields.

“We show that the microscale bioreactor design produces higher protein yields than conventional tube-based batch formats and that product yields can be dramatically improved by facilitating small molecule exchange with the dual-channel bioreactor,” the authors wrote in their paper, published in the journal Small.

The researchers also note that on-demand biologic synthesis would aid the production of drugs that are costly to mass-produce, including orphan drugs and personalized medicines.

12 THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO YOUR BODY WHEN YOU EAT EGGS

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Eggs might just be the easiest, cheapest and most versatile ways to up your protein intake. Beyond easily upping your daily protein count— each 85-calorie eggs packs a solid 7 grams of the muscle-builder—eggs likewise improve your health. They contain amino acids, antioxidants and iron. You should not just reach for the whites, though; the yolks boast a fat-fighting nutrient called choline, so choosing for whole eggs can actually help you trim down.

When you are buying eggs you have to pay attention to the labels. You should be buying organic, when possible. These are certified by the USDA and are free from antibiotics, vaccines and hormones. The distinction in color just varies based on the type of chicken—they both have the same nutritional value, says Molly Morgan, RD, a board certified sports specialist dietician based in upstate New York. Here are 12 incredible impacts the mighty egg can have on the human body:

  1. You will reduce your risk of heart disease

 LDL cholesterol is known as “bad” cholesterol in light of the fact that LDL particles transport their fat molecules into artery walls, and drive atherosclerosis — basically, gumming up of the arteries. (HDL particles, by contrast, can remove fat molecules from artery walls.) But not all LDL particles are made equal, and there are different subtypes that differ in size.

Bigger is definitely better — numerous studies have shown that people who have predominantly small, dense LDL particles have a higher risk of heart disease than people who have mostly large LDL particles. Here is the good part: Even if eggs tend to bring LDL cholesterol up in some people, studies show that the LDL particles change from small and dense to large, slashing the danger of cardiovascular problems.

  1. You will boost your immune system:

Only one large egg contains almost a quarter (22%) of your RDA of selenium, a nutrient that aids in supporting your immune system and regulate thyroid hormones.

Children should eat eggs. If children and adolescents do not get enough selenium, they could develop Keshan disease and Kashin-Beck disease, two conditions that can influence the heart, bones and joints.

  1. You will improve your cholesterol profile

There are three things about cholesterol that everyone knows: 1) High cholesterol is a bad thing; 2) There are good and bad types of cholesterol; 3) Eggs contain plenty of it.

Doctors are generally worried with the ratio of “good” cholesterol (HDL) to bad cholesterol (LDL).One large egg contains 212 mg of cholesterol, but this does not imply that eggs will raise the “bad” kind in the blood. The body constantly produces cholesterol on its own, and a large body of evidence shows that eggs can actually enhance your cholesterol profile. How? Eggs seem to raise HDL (good) cholesterol while increasing the size of LDL particles.

  1. You will have more get-up-and-go

Just one egg contains about 15% of your RDA of vitamin B2, also called riboflavin. It is just one of eight B vitamins. These vitamins help the body to convert food into fuel, which in turn is utilized to produce energy. Eggs are just one of the 25 Best Foods for a Toned Body! 

  1. Your skin and hair will improve

Other necessary vitamins for healthy skin, hair, eyes, and liver are B-complex vitamins. (In addition to vitamin B2, eggs are also rich in B5 and B12.) They also help to secure the proper function of the nervous system.

  1. You will feel fuller and eat less:

Eggs are such a good wellspring of quality protein that all other wellsprings of protein are measured against them. (Eggs get a perfect score of 100.) Many studies have shown the effect of high-protein foods on appetite. You may not be surprised to learn that eggs score high on a scale called the Satiety Index, a measure of how much food contribute to the feeling of fullness.

  1. You will lose fat

 A study gave some remarkable outcomes: Over an eight-week period, people ate a breakfast of either eggs or bagels, which consisted of the same amount of calories. The egg group lost 65% more body weight, 16% more body fat, experienced a 61% greater reduction in BMI and saw a 34% greater reduction in waist circumference!

  1. You will protect your brain

Eggs are good for your brain because of an essential nutrient called choline. It is a component of cell membranes and is required to synthesize acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Studies have demonstrated that a lack of choline has been linked to neurological disorders and decreased cognitive function. According to a U.S. dietary survey more than 90% of Americans get less than the daily recommended amount of choline.

  1. You will save your life

Amid the lesser-known amazing things the body can do: It can make 11 essential amino acids, which are important to sustain life. The thing is, there are 20 important amino acids that your body needs. Guess where the other 9 can be found? That’s right. A lack of those 9 amino acids can prompt muscle wasting, decreased immune response, weakness, fatigue, and changes in the texture of your skin and hair.

  1. You will have less stress and anxiety

 If you are not having enough of the 9 amino acids that can be found in an egg, it can have mental effects. A 2004 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences described how supplementing a population’s diet with lysine significantly reduced anxiety and stress levels, perhaps by modulating serotonin in the nervous system.

  1. You will protect your peepers

Lutein and zeaxanthin are two antioxidants found in eggs and they have powerful protective effects on the eyes. You will not find them in a carton of Egg Beaters — they only exist in the yolk. The antioxidants significantly reduce the risk of macular degeneration and cataracts. Macular degeneration and cataracts are the leading causes of vision impairment and blindness in the elderly.

  1. You will improve your bones and teeth

 Eggs are one of the few natural wellsprings of Vitamin D, which is crucial for the health and strength of bones and teeth. It does this, by aiding the absorption of calcium. Calcium is essential for a healthy heart, colon and metabolism.

Prescriptions Continue for Most Who Survive Painkiller ODs: Study

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Even as overdoses from narcotic prescription painkiller reach record levels in the United States, a new report finds that most people who survive such events continue to be prescribed the drugs by their doctors.

News Picture: Prescriptions Continue for Most Who Survive Painkiller ODs: Study

The new study found that this happened in more than 90 percent of cases, and patients who continued on drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet after an overdose had twice the odds of overdosing again within the next two years.

“Seventy percent of patients who overdosed were getting their drugs from the same doctor who prescribed the narcotic before the overdose,” noted lead researcher Dr. Marc Larochelle, an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

In many cases, doctors who continued to prescribe the narcotics didn’t even know that their patients had suffered an overdose. “This signals a problem with the health system, but I don’t think it necessarily fingers doctors as being bad doctors,” he said.

The problem, he said, is that emergency department records rarely find their way to a patient’s doctor. That’s because the record of an overdose is not automatically sent to the doctor who prescribed the drug, Larochelle said.

And patients, especially those addicted to these drugs, often don’t tell their doctor about winding up in the ER after an overdose.

For the study, Larochelle and colleagues used a large insurance claims database to collect information on nearly 3,000 people who overdosed on narcotic painkillers over 12 years. The report was published Dec. 28 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

So what’s the solution? Larochelle believes that prescribing physicians first need to curb how often they write these prescriptions.

“There is a direct correlation that the more narcotics you put in the population, the more overdoses you are going to have,” he said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdoses are at epidemic levels, as are the rates of related overdose deaths.

A CDC report released earlier this month found that drug overdose deaths reached record highs in 2014, fueled largely by the abuse of narcotic painkillers and heroin — a drug addicts often turn to when their prescriptions are cut off.

In 2014, more than 47,000 Americans died from drug overdoses — a 14 percent increase over 2013. Since 2000, nearly half a million people have died from overdoses, the CDC said.

Oxycodone, which includes the brand-name drug OxyContin, and hydrocodone, which is in the brand-name drug Vicodin, continue to be among the most commonly prescribed narcotic painkillers, and are responsible for more overdose deaths than any other narcotic, the researchers found.

Now, “doctors are trying to find a balance in prescribing narcotic painkillers between the risk and potential benefits,” Larochelle said.

Do patients need to be on these high-strength painkillers over the long term?

Larochelle say it’s doubtful. He said that while the drugs are effective in controlling pain after surgery and managing pain for cancer patients, they have not been proven effective at controlling chronic, non-cancer pain such as back pain.

In addition, Larochelle said no tool exists that can predict which patients will become addicted to these drugs. “Ideally, we would be able to identify those patients,” he said.

He also believes that better communication between ERs and doctors who prescribed these drugs is key. For example, insurance companies might be able to provide information on overdoses to doctors, which could help them spot patients who are having problems with the drugs, Larochelle said.

Dr. Scott Krakower is assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. He said that “narcotic painkillers can be highly addictive and patients may seek them out despite overdose, thus ignoring risks with these agents.”

But he said the medical community is increasingly opting for tighter controls of these agents. For example, in states with a prescription monitoring program, doctors can check the database to see if their patients have had an overdose or are getting prescriptions from several doctors, Krakower said.

Doctors should also avoid prescribing large quantities of narcotics and should understand the risks involved with dispensing multiple drugs, such as narcotics and benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines, such as Valium, Xanax and Klonopin, are used for treating anxiety, panic attacks, depression and insomnia. They don’t mix well with narcotic painkillers and can causebreathing difficulties that can be fatal.

Krakower said doctors need to communicate better with patients who have overdosed to prevent them from getting in trouble again.

“In the future doctors should aim to ensure that they facilitate adequate handoffs between each other, especially from the emergency room or inpatient settings to outpatient providers,” he said.

Vladimir Putin’s 2016 calendar

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Fans of Vladimir Putin can now spend “the whole year with the Russian president” as a new 2016 limited edition calendar is released in Russia showing the country’s strongman leader in a variety of carefully-crafted poses.

151228170925-putin-calendar-october-exlarge-169

Every month features an inspiring photograph of Russia’s popular leader — either fishing topless, going to church, lifting weights, or dressed in naval uniform. Each image is accompanied by a quotation from the man himself, on topics ranging from his love of dogs, Russian women and fishing to the country’s growing military power.

Dogs and Putin have “warm feelings” for one another, we learn in November. In March we are told that Russian women are the “most beautiful.”

The 2016 Putin calendar was published by a tabloid Russian newspaper, Zvezdi I Soveti (Stars and Advice), which says it printed 200,000 copies.

Unsurprisingly, in a country where Putin’s popularity ratings regularly top 80%, the calendars have been a big hit and are already selling out.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/europe/vladimir-putin-calendar-2016/index.html?sr=fbCNN122915vladimir-putin-calendar-20160352AMStoryGalLink&linkId=19957212

Old Russian Remedy That Cures Inflammation, Arthritis And Rheumatism: Only One Application And You Will Never Feel Pain Again.

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This old Russian remedy is made from few simple ingredients that you probably have in your home.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon of honey
  • 1 tablespoon of mustard (spicy)
  • 1 teaspoon of fine salt
  • 1 tablespoon of water

Preparation:

The preparation of this remedy is very simple. All you have to do is put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix them until you get a nice and smooth mixture. Then put this mixture in some container with a lid and store it in the refrigerator.

Application:

As for the application, you need to apply this mixture on the affected area. Then put a plastic bag over the affected area and finally wrap it with a cloth. Leave the remedy on for about 1.5 to 2 hours and then rinse the affected area with lukewarm water. For better results, you need to this procedure at night, right before going to bed. The results will follow immediately. However in order to get better results, you need to repeat this procedure for about 4 to in order to get better results, you need to repeat this procedure for about 4 to 5 days.

Note:

You should consult your doctor, before applying any natural remedies.

 

Guinea Declared Free of Ebola Virus That Killed Over 2,500

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The announcement comes 42 days after the last person confirmed with Ebola tested negative for a second time.

Guinea was declared free of Ebola transmission on Tuesday after more than 2,500 people died from the virus in the West African nation, leaving Liberia as the only country still counting down the days until the end of the epidemic.

The announcement comes 42 days after the last person confirmed with Ebola tested negative for a second time. The country now enters a 90-day period of heightened surveillance, the U.N. World Health Organization said.

The world’s worst outbreak of the disease began in Gueckedou, eastern Guinea, in December 2013 before spreading to Liberia, Sierra Leone and seven other countries. In all, more than 11,300 people died.

At its height, Ebola sparked fear around the world and caused governments and businesses to take precautions.

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“I commend the governments, communities and partners for their determination in confronting this epidemic,” said WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti.

“As we work towards building resilient health care systems, we need to stay vigilant to ensure that we rapidly stop any new flares that may come up in 2016,” Moeti said.

People in the capital, Conakry, greeted the declaration with mixed emotions given the deaths and the damage the virus did to the economy and the country’s health and education sectors.

“Several of my family are dead. This situation has shown us how much we must fight for those who are survivors,” Fanta Oulen Camara, who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres Belgium (Doctors Without Borders), told Reuters.

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“After I got better, the hardest thing was to make people welcome me. Most people that normally supported me abandoned me. Even the school where I was an instructor dropped me. It was very hard,” said Camara, 26, who works as part of the MSF Belgium psycho-social support team and fell ill in March 2014.

Ebola has orphaned about 6,200 children in Guinea, said Rene Migliani, an official at the national coordination centre for the fight against Ebola.

There were more than 3,800 cases in Guinea out of more than 28,600 cases globally, according to WHO. Almost all the cases and deaths were in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which officially ended its epidemic in November.

Liberia has lost more than 4,800 people but could be declared virus-free in January. The country was declared Ebola free in May and September, but each time new cases emerged.

“The time-limited persistence of virus in survivors which may give rise to new Ebola flares in 2016 makes it imperative that partners continue to support these countries,” said Bruce Aylward, WHO special representative for Ebola response.