South Korea

South Korea records its first locally transmitted case of monkeypox

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People sit beneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom along a street in Seoul on April 3, 2023.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the person has no travel history

South Korea has reported its first case of locally transmitted monkeypox disease, bringing the total number of infections to six.

The South Korean national was admitted to a hospital on Monday and was reported to authorities on Thursday on the suspicion of having contracted monkeypox. The following day, his samples were sent and the results came back positive, Yonhap News Agency reported on Saturday.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the person has has no recent travel history.

“Unlike the previous five cases in the country, which were linked to overseas travel, the latest patient had not travelled abroad within the past three months,” the KDCA said.

It was said that the individual, whose identity has not been revealed, had been experiencing symptoms since the end of March. Since then, he had been in contact with others for several days.

“A thorough epidemiological investigation is currently ongoing, and we will release necessary information as soon as it is ready,” a KDCA official said, adding that the individual is in good health.

The first case of monkeypox in South Korea was recorded on June 22 last year, while the fifth case was reported March 13.

The virus, which is traditionally confined to regions in Central and Western Africa, can cause fever, chills, rashes and lesions, among other symptoms.

A KCDA official told Yonhap agency that the risk of transmission of monkeypox is relatively low compared to COVID-19 and flu, unless one has close contact with a confirmed infected case.

In one of the cases, the third patient was a medical worker and was infected after being accidentally pricked by an injection needle while taking a skin lesion sample from a who contracted the disease during overseas travel.

The US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 86,746 viral disease cases since January 2022 all over the world, with 30,286 infections detected in America alone. During the same time period, 112 people died, including 38 in the US.

S.Korea reports first death by Naegleria fowleri. Here’s all you need to know about the ‘brain-eating amoeba’

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Common symptoms that usually start after about five days of infection include fever, nausea and vomiting. Other symptoms that happen at a later stage of infection are a stiff neck, confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, seizures, hallucinations, and coma. Ultimately it destroys brain tissue, causing swelling in the brain and ultimately death.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

South Korea has reported its first death from a rare but fatal brain-eating amoeba that causes death in a matter of days. Here’s everything you need to know about Naegleria fowleri:

South Korean authorities on Monday reported the nation’s first death from a “brain-eating amoeba”. The  Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) as per Yonhap news agency confirmed that a 50-year-old Korean man who had recently returned from Thailand died from the disease.

Here’s all you need to know about the “brain-eating amoeba”:

What is it?

The scientific name for this brain-eating amoeba is ‘Naegleria fowleri‘, and it is a microscopic single-celled organism found in warm freshwater bodies like lakes, rivers and hot springs.

How does it infect people?

Naegleria fowleri can enter the body via infected water. This can happen when people go swimming, diving or dunk their heads in water contaminated by this amoeba.

The amoeba as per the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) travels up your nose and enters the brain cavity where it slowly destroys brain tissue and causes a rare but usually fatal infection called Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

Even if people don’t go swimming in the above-mentioned water bodies they can still risk infection if they use Naegleria fowleri-contaminated water to cleanse their noses and clear sinuses.

In rare instances, people have been infected by chlorine-free pool water and water parks etc.

Geographically, where is this brain-eating amoeba found?

It was first discovered in the United States in the year 1937 and the CDC warns that in warmer months of July, August and September, it may be present in any freshwater body in the US. It is not present in salt, or brackish water.

The organism mainly thrives in warm water and heat and grows best in high temperatures up to 115°F (46°C) but can at times survive warmer temperatures.

How common are infections from this amoeba?

The case reported on Monday (December 26th) is South Korea’s first case of the brain-eating amoeba. In the US between the period, 2012-2021 on an average zero to five cases were diagnosed annually. As of 2018, a total of 381 cases have been reported from across the world, mainly from US, India and Thailand.

Who is most vulnerable to the disease?

Mostly young boys of ages 14 years or younger. However, as per CDC, this could mainly be due to the fact that boys this age are more prone to participate in activities that leave people vulnerable to the organism and the resulting disease.

Is it contagious?

No, it isn’t. An infected person cannot pass the disease on to another.

What are the symptoms of brain infection?

Common symptoms that usually start after about five days of infection include fever, nausea and vomiting. Other symptoms that happen at a later stage of infection are a stiff neck, confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, seizures, hallucinations, and coma. Ultimately it destroys brain tissue, causing swelling in the brain and ultimately death.

The disease progresses rapidly and generally, death happens between one to five days after the infection. In almost 97 per cent of cases, the infection turns fatal.

What are the treatment options for Naegleria fowleri?

Currently, no set treatment for the amoeba exists. This is mainly due to the rare nature of this infection. However, a number of drugs were found to be beneficial in the treatment.

While currently reported cases of this deadly amoeba are rare, as climate change and global warming heat up the planet, this heat-loving amoeba may thrive making infections common.

This Vantablack Pavilion Is The Blackest Building on Earth

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A building in PyeongChang, South Korea is now the blackest building in history. The Hyundai Pavilion, designed by architect Asif Khan for the 2018 Winter Olympics, has been sprayed with one of the blackest pigments ever invented.

With parabolic walls that stand 10 metres (33 feet) high, and 35 metres (115 feet) long, the exterior has been coated in Vantablack VBx 2, the spray paint variation of Vantablack.

Vantablack VBx 2, made by Surrey NanoSystems, absorbs 99 percent of all visible light, resulting in mind-melting, void-like blackness.

vantablack pavilion 02

While pretty cool, the original Vantablack is painstaking to apply to surfaces.

It’s made from millions of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, each with a diameter of around 20 nanometres (around 3,500 times smaller than the width of a human hair) and 14 to 50 microns in length (1 micron is 0.001 millimetres).

When light enters this forest of nanotubes, it gets trapped, bouncing around until it dissipates as heat.

The original method of coating a material with Vantablack nanotubes involved “growing” them via chemical vapour deposition. It’s powerful, though, absorbing 99.6 percent of all visible, infrared and ultraviolet light.

Then Surrey NanoSystems invented a sprayable version that blocks only visible light, laying down the nanotubes in a random configuration; and the VBx paints, that don’t use nanotubes at all, but can be used for commercial applications.

This latter product is what has been sprayed on the Hyundai pavilion.

When in shadow, the three-dimensionality of the walls of the pavilion seems to disappear. It’s bristling with rods, the ends of which are lit to appear like stars against the extreme blackness.

vantablack pavilion 03(Luke Hayes/Hyundai)

“From a distance the structure has the appearance of a window looking into the depths of outer space,” Khan said in a statement.

“As you approach it, this impression grows to fill your entire field of view. So on entering the building, it feels as though you are being absorbed into a cloud of blackness.”

Inside the building, the interior is the opposite – pure glossy white, made from Corian, a surface material more commonly seen in kitchen benchtops. The entire room is a water installation, with 25,000 water drops per minute flowing across the hydrophobic surfaces.

Haptic sensors allow visitors to interact with the installation, changing the rhythm of the droplets as they collide and flow towards a central lake, which drains, and reappears, and drains again.

It is, the designer said, reminiscent of a city seen from space. And both parts of the pavilion, commissioned by Hyundai, align with the car manufacturer’s hydrogen fuel cell by referencing the hydrogen in the stars and the hydrogen in water.

“The water installation visitors discover inside is brightly lit in white. As your eyes adjust, you feel for a moment that the tiny water drops are at the scale of the stars,” Khan said.

“In the project I wanted to move from the scale of the cosmos to the scale of water droplets in a few steps. The droplets contain the same hydrogen from the beginning of the universe as the stars.”

The pavilion will open to the public at the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony on February 9.

A Phone That Charges in Seconds? UCF Scientists Bring it Closer to Reality

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A Phone That Charges in Seconds? UCF Scientists Bring it Closer to Reality

A team of UCF scientists has developed a new process for creating flexible supercapacitors that can store more energy and be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading.

The novel method from the University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center could eventually revolutionize technology as varied as mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“If they were to replace the batteries with these supercapacitors, you could charge your mobile phone in a few seconds and you wouldn’t need to charge it again for over a week,” said Nitin Choudhary, a postdoctoral associate who conducted much of the research published recently in the academic journalACS Nano.

Anyone with a smartphone knows the problem: After 18 months or so, it holds a charge for less and less time as the battery begins to degrade.

Scientists have been studying the use of nanomaterials to improve supercapacitors that could enhance or even replace batteries in electronic devices. It’s a stubborn problem, because a supercapacitor that held as much energy as a lithium-ion battery would have to be much, much larger.

The team at UCF has experimented with applying newly discovered two-dimensional materials only a few atoms thick to supercapacitors. Other researchers have also tried formulations with graphene and other two-dimensional materials, but with limited success.

“There have been problems in the way people incorporate these two-dimensional materials into the existing systems – that’s been a bottleneck in the field. We developed a simple chemical synthesis approach so we can very nicely integrate the existing materials with the two-dimensional materials,” said principal investigator Yeonwoong “Eric” Jung, an assistant professor with joint appointments to the NanoScience Technology Center and the Materials Science & Engineering Department.

Jung’s team has developed supercapacitors composed of millions of nanometer-thick wires coated with shells of two-dimensional materials. A highly conductive core facilitates fast electron transfer for fast charging and discharging. And uniformly coated shells of two-dimensional materials yield high energy and power densities.

Scientists already knew two-dimensional materials held great promise for energy storage applications. But until the UCF-developed process for integrating those materials, there was no way to realize that potential, Jung said.

“For small electronic devices, our materials are surpassing the conventional ones worldwide in terms of energy density, power density and cyclic stability,” Choudhary said.

Cyclic stability defines how many times it can be charged, drained and recharged before beginning to degrade. For example, a lithium-ion battery can be recharged fewer than 1,500 times without significant failure. Recent formulations of supercapacitors with two-dimensional materials can be recharged a few thousand times.

By comparison, the new process created at UCF yields a supercapacitor that doesn’t degrade even after it’s been recharged 30,000 times.

Jung is working with UCF’s Office of Technology Transfer to patent the new process.

Supercapacitors that use the new materials could be used in phones and other electronic gadgets, and electric vehicles that could benefit from sudden bursts of power and speed. And because they’re flexible, it could mean a significant advancement in wearable tech, as well.

“It’s not ready for commercialization,” Jung said. “But this is a proof-of-concept demonstration, and our studies show there are very high impacts for many technologies.”

In addition to Choudhary and Jung, the research team included Chao Li, Julian Moore and Associate Professor Jayan Thomas, all of the UCF NanoScience Technology Center; and Hee-Suk Chung of Korea Basic Science Institute in Jeonju, South Korea.

Source: ucf.edu

 

South Korea is the plastic surgery capital of the world

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Seoul, South Korea, is the global plastic surgery capital.

The high-status neighborhood of Gangnam reportedly has 500 aesthetic centers alone.

Why the concentration? Because South Korea has the most plastic surgeries per capita on earth, with over 980,000 recorded operations in 2014. That’s 20 procedures per 1,000 people, putting it ahead of the US’s 13 procedures per 1,000. And Korea has had the most operationsper capita since 2009.

Tech Insider visited JK Plastic Surgery, one of South Korea’s leading cosmetic centers, to learn more about why plastic surgery is so central to the culture.

Eye Surgery 2

Learn to be dead for the day: Suicidal people are locked into coffins in bizarre ‘death experience’ schools in South Korea where 40 people kill themselves every day

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  • South Korea has the second highest number of suicides in the world as people suffer from stress and depression
  • Up to 40 people kill themselves every day in a ‘hyper-competitive’ society where pressure to achieve is great
  • In response, bizarre ‘death experience’ schools have been launched to help depressed people appreciate life 
  • Pupils are made to sign their own will and are locked in coffins by the ‘angel of death’ and have mock funerals
  • They come out ‘refreshed’ as facing realities of death like saying goodbye to loved ones helps them reflect on life

South Korea is facing a suicide crisis as a huge number of people are becoming depressed due to the pressures of modern life and killing themselves.

The sad statistic that 40 people kill themselves every day is blamed on the country’s hyper-competitive society where young people are under constant pressure to succeed while the middle-aged and elderly complain of ever-growing financial burdens.

But in a strange response to the country’s growing suicide epidemic, bizarre ‘death experience’ schools are being set up to teach depressed pupils to appreciate life again, by showing them what it’s like to be dead.

After life: Inside a 'death experience' school, where depressed pupils in South Korea are taught what it's like to die, which makes them appreciate life. Pictured, a student pretends to be dead as she lies in a coffin

After life: Inside a ‘death experience’ school, where depressed pupils in South Korea are taught what it’s like to die, which makes them appreciate life. Pictured, a student pretends to be dead as she lies in a coffin
Curious: Depressed pupils sit in their coffins which is are sealed by an 'angel of death' where they lay inside in the dark for ten minutes to reflect on their lives

Curious: Depressed pupils sit in their coffins which is are sealed by an ‘angel of death’ where they lay inside in the dark for ten minutes to reflect on their lives
They are made to sign fake wills and are locked inside coffins where they are given mock funeral services.

And at the Seoul Hyowon Healing Centre in the capital, business is booming.

Sitting between rows of coffins, with pens and paper littering small desks, the students listen as the head of the centre, former funeral company employee Jeong Yong-mun, explains that the problems we face in life are a part of life. They are told they must accept them and try to find joy in their hardships.

Among the students are teenagers who can’t cope with exam pressure in school, parents who find themselves useless after their children have left home, and the elderly terrified of being a financial burden on their young families.

South Korea has rocketed from being one of the poorest countries in the world to the 12th biggest global economic power in just a few decades.

Farewell: The students write wills and pen letters to their families telling them how they feel about them. When they wake up they say they feel refreshed afterwards and appreciate life

Farewell: The students write wills and pen letters to their families telling them how they feel about them. When they wake up they say they feel refreshed afterwards and appreciate life
Contemplation: Up to 40 South Koreans kill themselves every day, and the country has had the highest suicide rate in the developed world for the past eight years. It is hoped that showing people the realities of death might curb the macabre statistic

Contemplation: Up to 40 South Koreans kill themselves every day, and the country has had the highest suicide rate in the developed world for the past eight years. It is hoped that showing people the realities of death might curb the macabre statistic
Popular: Among the groups of students are teenagers who can't cope with exam pressure, middle-aged people worried about economic problems and elderly people who don't want to become a burden on their families

Popular: Among the groups of students are teenagers who can’t cope with exam pressure, middle-aged people worried about economic problems and elderly people who don’t want to become a burden on their families

But the sudden financial boom has come at a cost. The rapid ideological shift from collectivism to individualism, disintegrating the traditional family unit and leaving many people feeling isolated and alone.

Fewer than a third of the population still believes that they should financially support elderly relatives, according to the National Statistics Office – which suggests there is a new culture of ‘looking after number one’.

And the elderly are worried about being a burden as they are four times more likely to commit suicide in South Korea than in any other developed country.

The only country with a higher death rate is the small South American nation of Guyana, which sees 44.2 suicides per every 100,000 people. In South Korea some 28.9 people kill themselves for every 100,000, according to the World Health Organisation.

Opening speech: The head of the centre, former funeral company employee Jeong Yong-mun, opens the ceremony with a speech in which he encourages the students to accept the difficulties in their lives as a necessary part of life

Opening speech: The head of the centre, former funeral company employee Jeong Yong-mun, opens the ceremony with a speech in which he encourages the students to accept the difficulties in their lives as a necessary part of life

At the Hyowon Healing Centre ‘death school’ the fake funeral ceremony begins with the students having their ‘funeral portrait’ photo taken where they lay inside a coffin and wear a traditional dress.

Afterwards, they write a will or compose a farewell letter to their families, before reading their last words to the group.

The idea is to dwell on the ‘collateral damage’ of death, to think of the pain involved for their relatives left behind and consider the practicalities of their suicide.

Then the hour of death comes, and the group leader tells their students that it’s ‘now time to go to the other side’. Candles are lit, and a person dressed as the ‘Korean angel of death’ enters the room.

Graduates: After going through the 'death experience', students emerge from their coffins speaking of feeling 'refreshed' and 'liberated' from their troubles

Graduates: After going through the ‘death experience’, students emerge from their coffins speaking of feeling ‘refreshed’ and ‘liberated’ from their troubles
Damaging: The idea is to dwell on the ‘collateral damage’ of death, to think of the pain involved for their relatives left behind and consider the practicalities of their suicide. Pictured, students in traditional robes write their wills and suicide letters

Damaging: The idea is to dwell on the ‘collateral damage’ of death, to think of the pain involved for their relatives left behind and consider the practicalities of their suicide. Pictured, students in traditional robes write their wills and suicide letters
Emergence: After being sealed into their coffins by the 'angel of death', the students are left to think about what is good about life before they are freed. Some pupils emerge in tears, while others look traumatised. They are told that they have now 'seen what death feels like, you are alive, and you must fight!' 

Emergence: After being sealed into their coffins by the ‘angel of death’, the students are left to think about what is good about life before they are freed. Some pupils emerge in tears, while others look traumatised. They are told that they have now ‘seen what death feels like, you are alive, and you must fight!’ 

The students lay down in their coffins before being sealed in by the angel, at which point they are faced by the crushing nothingness of the ever-after.

They are then left alone in the dark inside their coffins for at least 10 minutes, where they take time to contemplate life from an outsider’s perspective.

Students wake up afterwards and emerge from their coffins, where, they say, they feel ‘refreshed’ and ‘liberated’ from their troubles.

They are spoken to again by head of the centre Jeong Yong-mun: ‘You have seen what death feels like, you are alive, and you must fight!’

Mers outbreak: Don’t drink potentially fatal camel urine, WHO warns

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Seven people in South Korea have died as a result of Mers in the latest outbreak, the largest since the syndrome was first detected in the Saudi Arabia in 2012.

Authorities in Seoul confirmed the seventh death, of a 68-year-old woman who had a pre-existing heart condition, on Tuesday. There have been 95 infections and 2,500 people are currently in quarantine in South Korea.

The WHO guidance was issued in response to the infection of a 75-year-old man thousands of miles to the west, in Oman, last week. Mers, caused by a new strain of coronavirus, can affect people and animals, and one theory is that the syndrome started in animals before making the jump to humans.

A medical worker from South Korea handles a sample tube from a man suspected of carrying the MERS virusA medical worker from South Korea handles a sample tube from a man suspected of carrying the MERS virus

Mers has been detected in camels, and humans have contracted Mers after coming into contact with camels. However, doctors are still not sure how how humans become infected.

The man, who was said to be in a stable condition on a hospital isolation ward after testing positive for Mers on 29 May, was reported by WHO to own “a barn with camels and young calves, and [have] frequent contact with them”.

WHO said that those with pre-existing conditions including diabetes, renal failure and chronic lung disease are considered to be at high-risk from MERS.

“General hygiene measures” such as avoiding close contact with animals, especially camels, and hand-washing after coming into contact with animals, should be followed, WHO said.

A statement posted on the WHO website adds: “Food hygiene practices should be observed. People should avoid drinking raw camel milk or camel urine, or eating meat that has not been properly cooked.”

South Korea's health ministry has reported eight new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus

South Korea’s health ministry has reported eight new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus

Symptoms of Mers, which has killed over 400 people worldwide since Sept

South Korea confirms deaths from MERS virus.

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Two people die from respiratory syndrome as the country, which has reported 24 cases, tries to contain the disease.

  • South Korea has reported 24 cases of the disease since diagnosing the country's first MERS illness last month [AFP]
South Korea has reported 24 cases of the disease since diagnosing the country’s first MERS illness last month [AFP]

South Korea confirmed the country’s first two deaths from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as it fights to contain the spread of the virus that has killed hundreds of people in the Middle East.

Seoul has reported 24 cases of the disease since diagnosing the country’s first MERS illness last month in a man who had travelled to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

Tests on a 58-year-old woman who died of acute respiratory failure on Monday showed she had been infected with the disease before her death, the health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

A 71-year-old man who tested positive for the virus last week has also died, it said.

The statement said both stayed at the same hospital with the first patient.
Inside Story – Is the MERS virus worrisome?

South Korea’s cases have largely connections to the first patient, either medical staff who treated him, or patients who stayed near the man at the hospital before he was diagnosed and isolated, and their family members.

Health officials said Tuesday that about 750 people in South Korea were isolated at their homes or in state-run facilities after having contact with patients infected with the virus. They said the number could rise and that depending on their conditions many of the isolated could be banned from leaving the country.

Last week, the son of one of the patients ignored doctors’ orders to cancel a trip to China, where he was later diagnosed as that country’s first MERS case.

China isolated the South Korean man at a hospital, and Hong Kong authorities said Sunday that 18 travellers were being quarantined because they sat near him, but they were not showing symptoms.

MERS was discovered in 2012 and has mostly been centred in Saudi Arabia. It belongs to the family of coronaviruses that includes the common cold and SARS, and can cause fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure.

The virus has spread primarily through contact with camels, but it can also spread from human fluids and droplets.

There have been about 1,170 cases of the virus worldwide and about 480 of the patients have died, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Imaging Internet Addiction in Teenagers.

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Gaming-addicted adolescents show thinning of the orbitofrontal cortex.

Connecting to the Internet via numerous devices is ubiquitous, beginning in childhood. This exposes teenagers to the possibility of online addictions, including gaming, which is the most prevalent Internet addiction in adults. Because all addictions are associated with morphometric changes in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), investigators in South Korea examined this region in adolescents addicted to online gaming.

Structural magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 15 gaming-addicted teenagers (mean age, 13) and 15 healthy controls, who were significantly older (mean age, 15) and had significantly higher intracranial volumes. Investigators comprehensively assessed all participants to rule out other psychiatric disorders. Cases needed to meet criteria for addiction, including functional impairment.

Analyses controlled for age and intracranial volume. In analyses by both region of interest and surface area, addicted adolescents had significant thinning of right lateral OFC, isthmus of the right cingulate gyrus, right pars orbitalis, and left lateral occipital cortex.

Comment: The age difference between the groups probably did not contribute to these imaging findings because normal adolescent cortical thinning would have favored thinner cortices in older healthy participants. The findings are consistent with those for other addictions, which overlap with findings for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clinicians should be sure to ask patients and parents about time spent with online gaming because it could interfere with normal adolescent development. Families can be informed that a case-by-case approach to treatment is needed due to the lack of treatment studies.

 

Source: Journal Watch Psychiatry