Device to detect Gastro-Intestinal Cancers

Scientists developed a prototype of an advanced multi-bending cholangioscope to detect and cure Gastro-Intestinal Cancers. Earlier, most patients used to visit a physician when the disease was in an advanced stage. This new equipment has a video camera and can bend easily. It could detect cancers of bile duct, liver and pancreas. It will help in detecting the disease in early stage. The multi-bending peroral direct cholangioscope (PDCS) cannot be inserted free-hand into the bile duct. But a high success rate of direct insertion will be achieved if the endoscope is passed over a guide-wire and an anchoring balloon. In fact, pancreatic cancer is the third most prevalent gastro-intestinal cancer in India whereas liver cancer is the most common.

Kepler Mission Discovered 2 Earth-Like Planets

Around 1200 light years away from Earth, there are five planets which are circling around the sun-like star called Kepler-62 in Lyra constellation, according to the latest discovery made by the scientists by making use of Kepler space telescope of NASA. Two of these planets, named Kepler-62f and Kepler-62e are said to be in such a position that they might have water on their surface, a condition which is necessary to support life. Kepler scientist William Borucki, with NASA’s Ames Research Center in California explained that this is strongest evidence of the existence of Earth-sized planets in the star’s habitable zone. These two new Earth-like planets are outermost pair which is circling the Kepler-62 star. The most distant planet is Kepler-62f, which is around 1.4 times as huge as that of Earth’s size. It can orbit its parent star in 267 days. Other Earth-like planet called Kepler-62e is 1.6 times as big as the size of Earth and it orbits around the star in 122 days. However, whether one of these or both these plants have water on their surface or not is beyond the Kepler’s technical capabilities or the capabilities of any other telescope. This is so because Kepler actually works by checking the slight dips in light which come from the star that is caused by the planet passing by. Checking the information is very cumbersome process. Every downloaded data from Kepler has 18000 events of interests to the scientists. It is important to note that the scientists are still studying the Kepler-62, which means that there might be chances of existence of other planets that have longer orbital periods. Earlier, the Kepler team discovered a star that had six planets in its orbit. European researchers on the other hand had made use of various telescopes to discover seven-planet system.

H7N9 silently spreads in humans and birds

The novel H7N9 avian flu virus that is currently circulating in certain regions in China has bewildered public health officials within and outside the country. To start with, H7N9 is a product of reassortment of three avian influenza virus strains that “infect only birds.” Reassortment happens when gene swapping takes place between two or more viruses present at the same time in a host. The influenza, which was initially restricted to Shanghai and neighbouring regions, has now reached Beijing — two people have so far been infected with the virus. Till date, 77 people have been infected and 16 have died. But this number may be a gross underestimation of the actual spread of the infection. Therein begin the many puzzling and worrying characteristics of the bird flu. Unlike the initial cases where the infection proved to be deadly, cases now being detected have wide ranging virulence. A 4-year-old boy has been tested positive for the virus on April 15, but shows no symptoms of infection. This is the first time that an asymptomatic case has been found. Unlike other avian flu infections and initial H7N9 infection cases, people appear to exhibit the entire range of infection — critical, mild and completely asymptomatic. According to Gregory Hartl, Head of Media for WHO, the current H7N9 case fatality rate is “approximately 20 per cent,” and may end up even lower if the actual number of infected people is known.

Widespread?

But knowing the denominator is the biggest challenge. This is because, the presence of asymptomatic and mild cases raises the real possibility that the virus may be more widespread than believed and difficult to find. Though people with mild/asymptomatic infection may not be dying, such cases are, in fact, “very worrying,” notes Nature . According to WHO, there is no way of knowing whether the number of cases identified represents “some or all of the cases actually occurring.” The occurrence of some “relatively mild cases” raises the possibility that there are “other such cases that have not been identified and reported.” Reduced virulence may be facilitating “further genetic adaptation of the virus to infection of human beings — and thus greater potential to spread.” According to a paper published on April 11 in The New England Journal of Medicine, genome sequencing of the first three cases of H7N9 infected people who died revealed that it is “better adapted” than other bird flu viruses to “infecting mammals.”

But the peculiar feature of the virus is that it causes only asymptomatic or mild disease even in birds. This allows the virus to silently spread among birds. The reason for this is now clear: the NEJM study indicated that the haemmagglutinin sequence data is associated with “low” pathogenicity in birds. In the case of H5N1, birds falling sick after infection were clearly seen, and this helped in knowing the spread of the infection. Exacerbating this enigma is not knowing which animals act as viral hosts. This is despite intense surveillance of animals to find out the reservoirs. “We can’t be 100 per cent sure how anyone has contracted H7N9. Many patients had contact with poultry, but not all. So [it is] still a puzzle,” Hartl of WHO tweeted on April 13. According to reports, about 40 per cent of infected people have had no contact with poultry.

The routes of transmission from animals to humans are not fully known either. But the NEJM paper provides certain clues. An amino acid substitution in H7N9 may facilitate transmission through respiratory droplets, just the way the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu spread from birds to humans. Genome sequence of the first three cases showed that there have been “at least two introductions” from animals to humans. Another peculiar aspect is that the number of people infected with H7N9 shot up from 24 to 63 within a short span of seven days. A reported increase of 14 infected cases on April 16 was the biggest ever for a single day. Though sustained human-to-human transmission has not been found, two such “suspicious” cases have been found. “We are not near a H7N9 pandemic yet but we need to understand better how the virus works in order to control the outbreak,” Hartl tweeted. “It is premature to dismiss the possibility of an H7N9 pandemic or to say the outbreak is under control.”

The Plan to Build World’s largest Telescope approved by the US Government

The US government approved the plan to build the world’s largest telescope at the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano. The telescope could observe planets that orbit stars other than the sun and enable astronomers to observe new planets and stars being formed. It will also help scientists understand the early years of the universe. The primary mirror used in the telescope is nearly 100 feet tall. It will enable nine times the collecting area of the largest optical telescopes functioning at present. Its images will also be three times brighter. There are protests against the plan arguing it would defile the mountain’s sacred summit. Native Hawaiian tradition considers high altitudes as sacred and a gateway to heaven. Environmentalists are also protesting on the grounds that would harm habitat for the rare wekiu bug. The University of California system, the Association of Canadian Universities and the California Institute of Technology for Research in Astronomy are leading the telescope project. India, China and Japan have joined the project as partners.

A Giant Galaxy called HFLS3 discovered

Scientists in the third week of April 2013 discovered a giant galaxy called HFLS3 in the Universe which is 12.8 Billion light years away from Earth. The newly found galaxy is believed to produce 3000 Suns every year. It has stars having a total mass nearly 40 billion times the mass of our Sun. The galaxy is shrouded in a dust cloud which is 100 billion times the mass of Sun. The age of the galaxy has been estimated around 800 million years old which makes it as one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe. The astronomers used 12 orbiting and ground-based telescopes to discover HFLS3. The galaxy was described as a maximum star-burst galaxy due to its prodigious star formation rate.

UK Scientists produced a Disease-Resistant Piglet called Pig-26

Scientists produced a disease-resistant piglet called Pig-26 using a new technique which is more simple than cloning, paving way for genetically modified meat. The new technique is called gene editing and Pig 26 is the first animal to be created through gene editing. It was born in December 2012 at Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, where the cloned sheep Dolly was created in the year 1996.

The Special features of new technique are as following:

• Pig 26 was created through a process called gene editing.

• It is faster and more efficient than other methods.

• It is immune to African swine fever which can kill within 24 hours.

• The new scientific development could bring GM meat a step closer.