Alcoholism is characterized by powerful cravings or an uncontrollable need for alcohol. Those who abuse alcohol may suffer problems at home, school, or work; physically harm themselves or others when driving or operating machinery; get in trouble with the law; and suffer health problems. Alcoholics cannot stop or limit drinking even when they try. They suffer withdrawal symptoms with attempts to stop drinking – nausea, sweating, shaking, anxiety, etc. – and continue drinking even when it interferes with daily activities and relationships. They often miss events or activities because they are drinking or hung over. Several factors contribute to physical alcohol dependence, including a family history, brain chemicals, social pressure, stress, pain, depression, and learned behaviors from family and friends.
P.S. Alcoholism can be successfully managed with safe detoxification, counseling, and ongoing support.
The pancreas releases insulin continuously and increases production after meals. Insulin carries sugar from the blood to cells, lowering blood sugar levels. In people with Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas produces little or no insulin. Those with Type 2 diabetes still produce insulin, but the body fails to process it efficiently. Both types of patients benefit from insulin therapy. Goals of insulin therapy include the maintenance of healthy blood sugar levels and prevention of long-term complications associated with diabetes. When successful, insulin – whether administered daily or as needed – reduces the risk of eye, kidney, and nerve damage; improves cholesterol levels; and lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease. Insulin is administered via an injection or infusion from an insulin pump.
P.S. Two risks associated with insulin therapy include low blood sugar and weight gain.
Fainting, also called syncope, occurs when a person loses consciousness suddenly due to a drop in blood flow to the brain. People typically recover from a fainting spell within seconds or minutes. Those who are most at risk for fainting include the elderly, recreational drug users, pregnant women, heart disease patients, and those taking certain medications (insulin, antihypertensives, diuretics, and anticoagulants, among others). Before fainting, a person often feels lightheaded, nauseous, and confused. He or she may experience blurred vision, sweating, giddiness, or heaviness in the lower limbs. Once fainting has occurred, a person may appear abnormally pale and have a weak pulse. The body may jerk spasmodically. Always seek medical attention after fainting to pinpoint a possible cause.
P.S. Between 3% and 4% of people experience fainting spells.
A leading cause of blindness in the United States, glaucoma affects approximately three million Americans – and half do not know they have it. An increase in fluid pressure in the eye causes glaucoma, a condition that can destroy the optic nerve. In a normal eye, a fluid (aqueous humor) circulates through the eye and drains through a tiny opening (drainage angle) into a small tube that carries it into the bloodstream. With open-angle glaucoma, which occurs in 90% of glaucoma cases, the tube carrying aqueous humor out of the eye gets blocked. Fluid accumulates, and intraocular pressure increases slowly over time. Without treatment, patients eventually suffer vision loss. Closed-angle glaucoma occurs when the drain itself becomes blocked, a medical emergency.
P.S. Catching glaucoma early through periodic screenings, especially after age 60, can help prevent or slow vision loss.
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee extends from the back of the thigh bone (femur) to the front of the inner shin (tibia). Its job is to stabilize the knee during twisting, pivoting, or deceleration activities, for example, stopping and starting in a basketball or soccer game, skiing, or aerobics. Injury to the ACL is common, affecting about four people out of every 1,000. Problems most often occur when the knee twists while the foot is still planted on the ground. People often hear and feel a “pop” followed by pain, swelling, and instability. Because the ACL is a unique area surrounded by joint fluid and receiving poor blood supply, treatment often involves surgery to replace damaged tissue.
P.S. Women are two to eight times more likely to injure their ACL than men.
The words “brain tumor” conjure up fatal thoughts for many people, but treatments have advanced in recent years. Many people recover from brain tumors, and not all masses are cancerous. If left untreated, however, tumors can be fatal, so it pays to know the signs. Symptoms vary depending on the tumor’s size and location. Intermittent headaches, especially in the morning, may indicate a tumor. Convulsion-causing seizures may occur. Some patients experience behavioral or personality changes, impaired bodily movement and sensation, numbness, weakness, or clumsiness. Memory, speech, and the ability to concentrate may suffer. After a tumor is diagnosed, treatment options include surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, depending on the tumor’s type, size, location, and the patient’s health.
P.S. In about 80% of cancerous brain tumor cases, the cancer has originated elsewhere in the body.
Patients who plan ahead for doctor’s visits as if they were business meetings prepare questions; request extra meeting time if necessary; and clarify all responses, decisions, and diagnoses. These patients foster more productive relationships with their physicians by becoming active participants in their medical care. Before the next doctor’s visit, determine the goal of the meeting. Keep track of all relevant information before the appointment, including symptom descriptions and attempted remedies. Inform the doctor of all medications – prescription and over-the-counter – and herbal supplements currently being taken and if they trigger any side effects. Whenever you do not understand something, ask the doctor to clarify the information. Review what was discussed at the appointment and any necessary follow-up before leaving.
P.S. Patients who know their family medical history can offer doctors valuable information.
Appendicitis, an inflammation of the appendix, is a medical emergency. The appendix is a small appendage of the large intestine that hangs down on the abdomen’s right side. Inflammation may occur from a gastrointestinal infection or from an obstruction in the tube connecting the appendix and large intestine. Symptoms include localized pain that worsens with coughing, deep breathing, sneezing, or pressure; appetite loss; low fever; frequent urination; bowel changes; nausea and vomiting; and bloating. The biggest complication associated with appendicitis is the risk of the organ rupturing, which can lead to a potentially fatal infection. Appendicitis is usually treated by surgically removing the appendix and administering antibiotics. Depending on the patient, an appendectomy can be performed traditionally or laparoscopically.
P.S. People typically develop appendicitis in their teens and twenties.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in women, killing ten times more women than breast cancer each year. Women’s symptoms are completely different from men’s, which may explain why so many cases of female heart disease go undetected until a heart attack occurs. Women’s arteries are softer than men’s, which contributes to the different symptoms. Also, calcium accumulation in the arteries does not seem to affect women as much as men – 90% of male heart attack victims have arterial calcium, while just 30% of women do. Warning signs of heart disease in women include nausea; indigestion; back pain; dizziness; unexplained fatigue; chest discomfort; and pain that radiates to the shoulders, neck, arms, or jaw.
P.S. Consult a doctor immediately with any signs of heart disease.
People with Munchausen syndrome seek attention by acting sick or injured. Many patients harm themselves intentionally to receive medical care. They may inject themselves with insulin to induce low blood sugar, or ingest harmful substances to trigger illness. Munchausen syndrome patients differ from hypochondriacs in their awareness that they are not sick – hypochondriacs truly believe they are ill. They actively seek physical exams, diagnostic tests, and hospitalization. Munchausen syndrome often accompanies other conditions like chemical dependency, depression, or chronic coping difficulties. Patients are often secretive about their actions. The disease typically starts in early adulthood, with more women suffering from it than men. Male cases, however, are typically more severe. Treatment involves addressing any valid medical conditions and psychiatric care.
P.S. Munchausen syndrome by proxy involves harming a child in an attempt to receive medical attention.


Hurricane Sandy and left an estimated eight million people without power. Plenty more have spotty cellular service-if they have any at all. But why do some people get a signal when others don't? And what does it take to get a wireless service back online?
As of yesterday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski estimated that 25 percent of all cell sites-regardless of server-were inoperable throughout 158 counties in 10 states spanning Virginia to Massachusetts. That's actually a fantastically small amount compared to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that effectively wiped out 70 percent of the telecommunications infrastructure. It had "completely collapsed," said Curtis Papke, an engineer at Idaho National Laboratory told Quartz. "Even if you had cell coverage, there was no one at the 911 centers to answer the call." And nothing calms a terrified public after devastating natural disasters quite like getting 911's answering machine.
To prevent this sort of thing happening again in future storms, *ahem*, the FCC issued the Katrina Panel Order, a set of binding guideline dictating that wireless carriers "ensure network reliability and reliance" by "[provisioning] their cell sites and switches with batteries to power them when electrical grids fail" and "maintain permanent generators at all of the switches and critical cell sites, as well as an inventory of backup power generators to recharge the batteries during extended commercial power failures." Basically, the FCC told the nation's wireless carriers that they needed install backup power sources on all of their cell towers to keep them running if the public grid fails. The wireless carriers responded as one would expect-they stalled and sued to block the ruling, claiming that they had already performed similar upgrades on 90-percent of their equipment.
While the FCC's order has been effectively shelved, the carriers apparently have been busy storm-proofing their cellular equipment. "The Verizon Wireless network withstood the severe weather along the Eastern Seaboard resulting from Hurricane Sandy and is functioning solidly - particularly in the hardest-hit areas in the Northeast, where more than 94 percent of our cell sites are up and running," Nicola Palmer, vice president-network and chief technical officer for Verizon Wireless, boasted in a press release Tuesday.
Power outages aren't the only cause of cell tower failure, mind you. Towers can sustain physical damage from winds and debris or their cabling back to the network switching subsystems can be severed. And since cellular networks are designed to share loads among nodes (the individual towers), knocking out a few nodes in each cell (read: service area) puts added strain on those remaining, leading to dropped calls or the inability to connect at all.
Unfortunately, repairing physically damaged towers means getting service technicians into disaster areas that must first be deemed safe by local authorities. And even if they do have access, as Bob Mudge, president of Verizon's Consumer and Mass Business division explained, "Some restorals will require physical rebuilding of our facilities, and others will require the return of commercial power."


Rainstorms provide opportunity for everyone to help conserve water
National Weather Service forecasters are predicting rainfall for the San Diego region starting as early as Tuesday and potentially through the weekend. The San Diego County Water Authority is urging residents, businesses and public agencies to immediately shut off landscape watering systems this week to conserve water.
Irrigation systems can be turned off for several days following storms bringing measurable amounts of rain and up to a week or more following heavy or prolonged storms. The Water Authority estimates a voluntary one-week hiatus from using landscape watering systems across the region could save 2,000 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two families of four for a year.
To determine when it is necessary to turn water systems back on, the Water Authority recommends monitoring soil moisture and plant stress. Check soil moisture by sticking a shovel or your finger into the dirt. When the soil is dry one to two inches deep, it is time to water. Signs of plant stress include wilting and/or a lack of luster in leaves or blades of grass.
The region's water supplies have been impacted by extremely dry conditions around California over the last two years, as well as by extensive drought conditions in the Colorado River basin. In addition, court-ordered pumping restrictions on the State Water Project have significantly cut water deliveries from Northern California this year and are expected to continue through 2009.
Reducing the frequency and length of watering cycles on all landscape during the shorter, cooler days of fall and winter is one of the most effective water saving methods. Reducing each irrigation cycle by one-to-three minutes, or eliminating one irrigation cycle per week can result in savings of 15 to 25 gallons for each minute and up to 250 gallons per cycle.
For more water conservation tips, incentives and programs, visit


We provide injury prevention programmes for children which allow them to take responsibility for managing their own risk and equips them with the skills to cope in an emergency.
Unintentional injury is a leading cause of death and illness in young people. On average 2 million children attend A&E departments each year because of accidental injury and every week 5 children die. Many of these injuries were preventable. See why teach accident prevention?
Our educational programmes and resources aim to minimise the number of accidents that lead to death or disability.
You can download more information about Oxfordshire I.M.P.S.
Core I.M.P.S. Programme
I.M.P.S. is an injury prevention education programme delivered to 10 and 11-year olds jointly in the school and local hospital emergency departments.
I.M.P.S. empowers young people to take personal responsibility for their own risk management and equips them with the skills to cope in an emergency situation.
The programme equips children with first aid and resuscitation skills, helping them to respond effectively if an incident occurs.I.M.P.S. is divided into 3 elements:
* Currently all hospital visits have been suspended and will recommence when it is safe and appropriate. All teaching is now delivered directly into the school.
Classroom resources are provided to every school enrolled on the programme. This includes lessons on injury prevention and taking safer risks linked to key stage 2 targets and guidelines of the national curriculum. The resources can be downloaded from the schools platform area of the website. Please contact us to request the log in details
Schools that are not in an I.M.P.S. area can access all on line resources by becoming an affiliated I.M.P.S. School.Go to top
The programme is now being taught in school by I.M.P.S. trainers for the foreseeable future.
Each group of children visit the local accident and emergency hospital accompanied by their teacher and 3 other adult helpers from school. The visit includes:
- A tour of the emergency department, which allows children to experience many of the concepts learnt in the classroom when applied to the real world.
- A session using an interactive DVD where children are taught the principles of first aid and injury minimisation.
- A session in which children are taught the principles of emergency life support including the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and how to put an unconscious casualty in the recovery position.
3. Follow up activities
- I M P S Follow Up Lessons (pdf; 7.7 MB)
- You may prefer a flip book which you can download with this link.
- Recovery Position (pdf; 480.6 KB)
- Online evaluation quiz (the children are asked to repeat the quiz using log in details provided following the I.M.P.S. visit)
- Emergency department computer resource (login required)
I.M.P.S. runs in Oxfordshire and Hull only. For schools out of these areas, please consider our affiliated schools package. You can download further information here.
Special needs schools
The majority of I.M.P.S. centres can provide a custom special needs programme and visit to suit the students needs. We find that in most cases, older special needs students benefit more from the programme and we can deliver a bespoke practical element to 15 & 16 year old students.
Please contact your nearest I.M.P.S. centre to discuss your requirements.
The I.M.P.S. online resources contain over 50 lessons on all aspects of injury prevention covering:
- Personal safety
- Home safety
- Road safety
- Sport and Leisure safety
- Resuscitation science
A resource for students with special needs can also be downloaded from the schools platform area of the website.
- Fire Safety (pdf; 214.3 KB)
- Stacks Of Trouble sample lesson (pdf; 4.8 MB)
- Road Accidents sample lesson (pdf; 238.4 KB)


By Graham Kendall, University of Nottingham
Sweaty-palmed and reciting facts over and over in their heads, the hordes of university and school students sitting down to exams this month will have precious little time to think about how their exam timetable was put together.
A typical university student – if there is such a thing – may sit five or six examinations over a two-week period. Each examination might be in a different room, or even in a different location. But every school, university, or college is different, with a different set of timetabling challenges.
There are hard constraints in timetable design: for example, students cannot sit two examinations at the same time, the size of the exam room must be big enough for the number of students, and some exams need certain facilities, such as computers.
Other constraints are a bit more flexible – so called “soft constraints”. These include spreading the exams out as much as possible to give each student more revision time, or scheduling larger examinations at the start of the exam period so that lecturers have more time to mark them.
In 1996, Canadian engineering academic Michael Carter and his colleagues presented a paper that provided the scientific community with 13 examination timetabling problems. The benchmark problems had between 81 to 2,419 examinations and 611 to 30,032 students that have to be timetabled.
Almost 20 years on, there are still papers being published that tackle the Carter benchmarks – as they have become known (see the MISTA and PATAT conferences for examples) – demonstrating how challenging they are. But the problems presented in this 1996 paper are a simplified version of the timetabling problems – with an underlying simplified mathematical model – that are faced by most schools, colleges and universities.
Recently the International Timetabling Competition (ITC) data sets have been introduced. These – and underlying mathematical models – are more realistic – but are still far from capturing all the issues that need to be addressed by every school, college and university.
Balancing all the constraints to create a perfect timetable is usually impossible. This can lead to some (hopefully) isolated unfairness. As a student, you might be faced with one examination straight after another or you may have an evening exam, followed by one early the next morning. In some cases you may have to be quarantined as a paper being sat by other students has some common questions with a paper that you will sit in the future.
So, the challenge is to create an examination timetable that is as fair to as many students as possible but, in the knowledge that you can’t please all the people all of the time.
Millions of options
An obvious question is why not simply generate every possible timetable, compare them against each other and choose the one that would satisfy most students?
Unfortunately, this is not possible. Assume that we can generate 1,000 examination timetables every second. For an institution the size of the University of Nottingham (which has about 33,000 students in the UK), it would take millions of years to generate every possible timetable, such is the number of possible options.
For a school, university or college with a relatively small number of students, it is not a realistic proposition to do this, so we have to resort to other approaches.
Normally, the examinations office has a couple of months to generate the timetable. The timetable undergoes continual refinement as the underlying data changes to correct data errors, student requirements become clearer (for example, some students may require specialised support, additional time etc.), invigilation data becomes available and the exact number of students sitting an examination becomes certain.
Typical of the approaches, at least in recent years, that are being used to generate examination timetables is hyper-heuristics, which are computer models that can solve general problems. Many other methodologies have also been used in the last 20 years or so, but we are still a long way from always being able to arrive at a perfect solution.
The problem of timetabling exams is typical of many problems where you need some way of modelling potential solutions and comparing one against another to choose the best one. Problems such as how to schedule deliveries with a fleet of vehicles, taxi scheduling, or how to display goods on supermarket shelves, need similar approaches to generate solutions.
So, as students sit their examinations, give some thought to the work that has gone into creating the examination timetable. It may not be perfect, but a lot of time and effort has gone into producing it.
Graham Kendall owns shares in EventMap Ltd., which develops examination timetabling software. He has received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to investigate some of the areas that this article discusses.


The role of methylation reactions in the control of cellular processes especially by the methylation of DNA, the effect of nucleoside analog inhibitors of DNA methylases on cell growth, the mechanism of DNA repair as it relates to removal of DNA-protein cross links.
We have been studying the properties of DNA methylases and of drugs that inhibit their activity. Several of these proteins are autoregulated. In addition to binding to the DNA at the site that they methylate, they bind to their promoter inhibiting transcription of their respective genes. The properties of these binding reactions are very different. The recognition sequence that confers specificity for methylation consists of only 5 nucleotides. However, when they bind to the promoter they protect 50bp from DNase I digestion. One of our objectives is to determine the basis for the difference in binding specificity of these proteins at these sites.
We have demonstrated that DNA methylases can be inhibited by nucleoside analogs. The analog must be incorporated into DNA to be an effective inhibitor. These analogs cause the DNA methylase to bind tightly to the DNA containing them. Some of these analogs will kill the cells only when they contain DNA methylase; the cells are presumably killed by the binding of the enzyme to DNA. The cells can repair this DNA damage. They die when the repair system can no longer repair all the DNA-protein cross links that are formed. We have been studying the repair of these DNA-protein adducts by preparing DNA containing the analog in vitro and studying the survival of the DNA in vivo. The cells can replicate the DNA-protein complex with approximately 50% of the efficiency that they can replicate unbound DNA. Replication is not dependent on either the recA or uvrA gene product. Presently we are studying processes by which these DNA-protein adducts are repaired.
Guest, J. R., Friedman, S., Woods, D. D., and Smith E. L. (1962). A methyl analogue of cobmide coenzyme in relation to methionine synthesis by bacteria. Nature 195, 340-342.
Friedman, S. (1985). The irreversible binding of azacytosine-containing DNA fragments to bacterial DNA (cytosine-5)methyltransferases. J. Biol. Chem. 260, 5698-5705.
Som, S., and Friedman, S. (1993). Autogenous regulation of the EcoRII methylase gene at the transcriptional level: effect of 5-azacytidine. EMBO J. 12, 4297-4303.
Som, S., and Friedman, S. (1994). Inhibition of transcription in vitro by binding of DNA (cytosine-5) methylases to DNA templates containing cytosine analogs. J. Biol. Chem. 269, 25986-25891.
Som, S., and Friedman, S. (1997). Characterization of the intergenic region which regulates the MspI restriction-modification system. J. Bacteriol. 179, 964-967.


A Northern Flicker, dead as a result of running into the window of a Chicago skyscraper. [Image credit: Annette Prince, Director of Chicago Collision Monitors]
A Generalist Investigation
UPDATED: 28th NOVEMBER 2012
Lots of birds die every year – most from natural causes. Lots of birds are killed by hunters, large numbers by cats. But I was unaware that, after habitat destruction, the biggest number of bird deaths are caused by plate glass and reflective windows – the full story of which follows.
As well as Window Kills, I have investigated bird deaths involved with power lines and the even more controversial subject of bird deaths caused by wind farms in subsequent posts.
Birds collide with lots of different kinds of man-made objects and below you will see some comparative figures from the US which gives annual death rates from these various causes and others. The figures differ in each case.
The American Bird Conservancy published the chart below comparing US bird collision deaths from a number of causes. Data date with low and high estimates:
Wind turbines: 100,000 (2010) - 440,000 (2009)
Communication Towers: 2008 4,000,000-50,000,000
Power lines: 2001 10,000,000-154,000,000
Roads/vehicles: 2005 10,700,000-380,000,000
Urban light: 2009 31,158,000
Glass: 2006 100,000,000 - 1,000,000,000
According to the Migratory Bird Mortality Fact Sheet produced by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.
‘Building window strikes may account for 96 to 976 million bird deaths each year.
Communication towers conservatively kill 4 to 5 million birds annually (probably closer to 40 to 50 million; a nationwide cumulative impacts study should help resolve this question).
Strikes at high tension transmission and distribution power lines very conservatively kill tens of thousands of birds annually. Taking into account the millions of miles of bulk transmission and distribution line in the US, and extrapolating from European studies, actual mortality could be as high as 174 million deaths annually. Electrocutions probably kill tens of thousands of birds but the problem is barely monitored.
Cars may kill 60 million birds or more each year, private and commercial aircraft far fewer
Wind turbines kill an estimated 33,000 birds annually.’
SEE ALSO: ‘Avian mortality from wind power, fossil fuel and nuclear electricity’ by Benjamin K. Sovacool (2009)
This contains the following chart, reproduced in the Wikipedia entry on the Environmental Impact of Wind Power which includes a broader range of causes of avian mortality.
Causes of avian mortality in the United States. Estimated mortality (in thousands)
Wind turbines 440
Nuclear power plants 330
Large Communications Towers (over 180', North America) 6,800
Communication towers (cellular, radio, microwave) 4,000 – 50,000
Fossil fuel power plants 14,000
Cars & trucks 50,000 – 100,000
Pesticide use 72,000
Building windows 97,000 – 976,000
Domestic cats 100,000
Feral cats 110,000
Transmission Lines (conventional power plants) 175,000
Hawkeye by Steve Jurvetson
Its worth asking why do birds collide with things. This is the subject of a fascinating paper which you can read here: ‘Scientists find bird-centric solutions to avian collisions’
'From a human perspective it appears very odd that birds so often collide with large objects as if they don't see them,' commented Professor Graham Martin from Birmingham University in the UK. He said that it is widely held that flight in birds is controlled primarily by vision, an idea captured by the phrase 'a bird is a wing guided by an eye,' but he pointed out that 'birds live in a different visual world to humans'.
See also: ‘Why Birds Crash’ on The Naked Scientist


The collapse of very massive stars can produce violent explosions, accompanied by strong bursts of gamma-ray light, which are some of the brightest events in the universe. Typical gamma-ray bursts emit photons with energies between 10 kiloelectron volts and about 1 megaelectron volt. Photons with energies above megaelectron volts have been seen in some very rare occasions but the distances to their sources were not known. An international research consortium is reporting in this week’s issue of the journal Science Express that the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected photons with energies between 8 kiloelectron volts and 13 gigaelectron volts arriving from the gamma-ray burst 080916C.
The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, occurred just after midnight GMT on September 16 (7:13 p.m. on the 15th in the eastern US). Two of Fermi’s science instruments — the Large Area Telescope and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor — simultaneously recorded the event. Together, the two instruments provide a view of the blast’s gamma-ray emission from energies ranging from 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.
A team led by Jochen Greiner at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, established that the blast occurred 12.2 billion light-years away using the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) on the 2.2-meter (7.2-foot) telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile.
“Already, this was an exciting burst,” says Julie McEnery, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “But with the GROND team’s distance, it went from exciting to extraordinary.”
Astronomers believe most gamma-ray explosions occur when exotic massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As a star’s core collapses into a black hole, jets of material — powered by processes not yet fully understood — blast outward at nearly the speed of light. The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star. This generates bright afterglows that fade with time.
The burst is not only spectacular but also enigmatic: a curious time delay separates its highest-energy emissions from its lowest. Such a time lag has been seen clearly in only one earlier burst, and researchers have several explanations for why it may exist. It is possible that the delays could be explained by the structure of this environment, with the low- and high-energy gamma rays “coming from different parts of the jet or created through a different mechanism,” said Large Area Telescope Principal Investigator Peter Michelson, a Stanford University physics professor affiliated with the Department of Energy.
Another, far more speculative theory suggests that perhaps time lags result not from anything in the environment around the black hole, but from the gamma rays’ long journey from the black hole to our telescopes. If the theorized idea of quantum gravity is correct, then at its smallest scale space is not a smooth medium but a tumultuous, boiling froth of “quantum foam.” Lower-energy (and thus lighter) gamma rays would travel faster through this foam than higher-energy (and thus heavier) gamma rays. Over the course of 12.2 billion light years, this very small effect could add up to a significant delay.
The Fermi results provide the strongest test to date of the speed of light’s consistency at these extreme energies. As Fermi observes more gamma-ray bursts, researchers can look for time lags that vary with respect to the bursts. If the quantum gravity effect is present, time lags should vary in relation to the distance. If the environment around the burst origin is the cause, the lag should stay relatively constant no matter how far away the burst occurred.
“This one burst raises all sorts of questions,” Michelson says. “In a few years, we’ll have a fairly good sample of bursts, and may have some answers.”


Ultra-thin camera creates images without lenses
Traditional cameras—even those on the thinnest of cell phones—cannot be truly flat due to their optics: lenses that require a certain shape and size in order to function. At Caltech, engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what lenses do using large pieces of glass: it manipulates incoming light to capture an image.
Lenses have a curve that bends the path of incoming light and focuses it onto a piece of film or, in the case of digital cameras, an image sensor. The OPA has a large array of light receivers, each of which can individually add a tightly controlled time delay (or phase shift) to the light it receives, enabling the camera to selectively look in different directions and focus on different things.
"Here, like most other things in life, timing is everything. With our new system, you can selectively look in a desired direction and at a very small part of the picture in front of you at any given time, by controlling the timing with femto-second—quadrillionth of a second—precision," says Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech, and the principal investigator of a paper describing the new camera. The paper was presented at the Optical Society of America's (OSA) Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) and published online by the OSA in the OSA Technical Digest in March 2017.
"We've created a single thin layer of integrated silicon photonics that emulates the lens and sensor of a digital camera, reducing the thickness and cost of digital cameras. It can mimic a regular lens, but can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously—with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light," Hajimiri says.
Phased arrays, which are used in wireless communication and radar, are collections of individual transmitters, all sending out the same signal as waves. These waves interfere with each other constructively and destructively, amplifying the signal in one direction while canceling it out elsewhere. Thus, an array can create a tightly focused beam of signal, which can be steered in different directions by staggering the timing of transmissions made at various points across the array.
A similar principle is used in reverse in an optical phased array receiver, which is the basis for the new camera. Light waves that are received by each element across the array cancel each other from all directions, except for one. In that direction, the waves amplify each other to create a focused "gaze" that can be electronically controlled.
"What the camera does is similar to looking through a thin straw and scanning it across the field of view. We can form an image at an incredibly fast speed by manipulating the light instead of moving a mechanical object," says graduate student Reza Fatemi (MS '16), lead author of the OSA paper.
Last year, Hajimiri's team rolled out a one-dimensional version of the camera that was capable of detecting images in a line, such that it acted like a lensless barcode reader but with no mechanically moving parts. This year's advance was to build the first two-dimensional array capable of creating a full image. This first 2-D lensless camera has an array composed of just 64 light receivers in an 8 by 8 grid. The resulting image has low resolution. But this system represents a proof of concept for a fundamental rethinking of camera technology, Hajimiri and his colleagues say.
"The applications are endless," says graduate student Behrooz Abiri (MS '12), coauthor of the OSA paper. "Even in today's smartphones, the camera is the component that limits how thin your phone can get. Once scaled up, this technology can make lenses and thick cameras obsolete. It may even have implications for astronomy by enabling ultra-light, ultra-thin enormous flat telescopes on the ground or in space."
"The ability to control all the optical properties of a camera electronically using a paper-thin layer of low-cost silicon photonics without any mechanical movement, lenses, or mirrors, opens a new world of imagers that could look like wallpaper, blinds, or even wearable fabric," says Hajimiri. Next, the team will work on scaling up the camera by designing chips that enable much larger receivers with higher resolution and sensitivity.
The study is titled "An 8X8 Heterodyne Lens-less OPA Camera."


by Eric Thompson,
“Suppose you had access to every person’s brain,” asks Dr. Michael Persinger, “and they had access to yours?”
Dr. Persinger, cognitive neuroscientist and professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, is convinced that this is not only possible but is immanent in the coming future. Why? How? In short, his pioneering research shows a strong correlation between the Earth’s magnetic field and the human brain.
If Dr. Persinger is correct, the Earth’s magnetic field is constantly interfacing with our own brains in such a manner as to influence our thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
This interface, however, seems to have another effect: Dr. Persinger’s research seems to indicate that the geomagnetic field can store and transmit all the information of every human brain in history. And if we can tap into this informational reservoir, there will be no more secrets.
In such a scenario, for example, we can know the true intentions of large corporations, regardless of what they may say through the media. We’d be able to feel and experience the pain of starving people in Africa.
This is huge!
Pay attention and enjoy!


Here at Cars.com's headquarters in Chicago, we are bound by local tradition to refrain from putting ketchup on our hot dogs — but we'll certainly consider putting it in our cars if it's more palatable to the environment. Condiment giant H.J. Heinz Co., maker of the iconic ketchup brand, has made a seemingly unlikely pairing with Ford to study the use of tomato fiber in developing more sustainable, composite bio-plastic materials for vehicles. Researchers are testing the materials' durability for wiring brackets and storage bins, according to Ford.
The project began two years ago when Ford joined forces with Heinz, Coca-Cola, Nike and Procter & Gamble to accelerate the development of a 100 percent plant-based plastic to replace petroleum-based packaging materials. Heinz researchers had been looking for ways to recycle and repurpose peels, stems and seeds from the more than 2 million tons of tomatoes the company uses each year to make ketchup, according to Ford.
"Our goal is to develop a strong, lightweight material that meets our vehicle requirements, while at the same time reducing our overall environmental impact," Ellen Lee, Ford plastics research technical specialist, said in a statement.
So, will Heinz-sight be 20/20 and tomato fiber become the bio-plastic ingredient of the future? If so, the bio-friendly initiative could have other automakers and food manufacturers running to … ketchup.
Cars.com photo composite by Jennifer Geiger; Nabeel Zytoon/Hemera/Thinkstock


Children are born with a set of primary teeth – 20 to be exact – that help them learn to chew, learn to speak, and develop enough space in the jaw for the permanent teeth that will appear several years later. Kids’ teeth are especially susceptible to decay, which can cause pain and tooth loss, problems that could interfere with oral development. As a parent, it is important that you take proactive steps to keep your child’s primary teeth as healthy as possible.
The Dangers of Bottles and “Sippie Cups”
Also known as early childhood caries, baby bottle tooth decay refers to tooth decay in infants and toddlers. Your child needs strong, healthy primary teeth to chew food properly and learn to speak, so preventing baby bottle tooth decay is very important.
Early childhood caries can occur in children as young as a year old, when they are allowed to go to bed with bottles and sippie cups of milk or juice. The sugars in these beverages, even natural sugars, can steadily decay the teeth.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests, and we agree, that milk and juice should only be offered to your child at meal times. Limit juice intake to just a few ounces per day. If your child becomes thirsty between meals or likes to go to bed with a bottle, we suggest you serve water during those times.
As a parent, you can establish healthy dental habits long before your child’s first tooth erupts. Start by gently wiping your baby’s gums with a clean wash cloth during the first months of life. By age one, graduate to an appropriately sized toothbrush and use a smear of fluoridated toothpaste, about the size of a grain of rice, to brush at least twice a day.
When your child is about three years old, use a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste. Watch your child as he or she brushes to make sure none of the toothpaste gets swallowed.
Dental visits should start young and continue on a regular basis throughout your child’s life. The American Dental Association recommends that parents bring their children to the dentist for the first time no later than the child’s first birthday. Initial visits at our office concentrate on an examination of the proper development of your child’s primary dentition and parental education, while future visits may include thorough cleanings and fluoride treatments as your child grows.
For more information about keeping your child’s teeth cavity-free, we invite you to contact our office to schedule a dental consultation and checkup.


“Discovery or invention”: the case for recalibrating the Nobel Prize for Physics
By Örjan Strandberg, Spokesman of the Swedish National Innovators Council and Chair of the Stockholm Innovators Association, Stockholm, Sweden
Most countries in the world agree that inventions and innovations are prerequisites for every nation’s industrial and societal growth and welfare. Intellectual property laws are the most important incentive for encouraging innovation and creativity. These laws recognize and reward inventors and ensure society benefits from inventions.
The other important motivator for invention and innovation is society’s general encouragement and acknowledgement of the inventor, both politically and socially, via the media, through awards and stipends, for example.
Arguably, the most important international award for inventors should have been the Nobel Prize for Physics. However, that prize, for reasons we will explain, has, over time, come to be perceived as the world’s most prestigious science prize and is no longer specifically associated with invention.
That all nations need a rich and continuous flow of skilled researchers and scientists is a given. But this should not detract from the equally important need for ingenious inventors and their inventions. History shows us that inventors are the main originators of technological, industrial and societal growth. In Sweden, for example, a report entitled, Where did Sweden’s Top 100 Innovations originate? by the Swedish innovation researcher Dr. Christian Sandström, shows that at least 80 percent of inventions originate from outside academia.
Over the last three decades, persuasive theories have circulated among political leaders, suggesting that the scientific community can replace the inventor community. This has resulted in a measurable decline in government funding for inventions in the industrial countries of the world. For example, in 2019, the Swedish government will allocate an estimated EUR 1.74 billion in R&D support for universities, an additional EUR 1.04 billion for research funding institutions and a just EUR 18 million or so to independent innovators and inventors.
Indeed, two years ago, having lost all government funding, Sweden’s National Inventors’ Association struggled to survive. This decline in funding is exacerbated further by the widespread misconception that only scientists working in academia are inventors.
Unfortunately, the historical importance of the world's most prestigious award in the field of invention and science, the Nobel Prize for Physics, maintains this misconception and thereby puts a brake on the engagement of inventors in industrial development and growth and thereby, social welfare.
Alfred Nobel’s will
In setting out the basis for the Nobel Prize for Physics in his will, Alfred Nobel listed ”discovery or invention” as the two intended contributions of beneficiaries of his physics prize.
Nonetheless, since its inception, approximately 80 percent of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics have been researchers, and only 20 percent (at most) of the laureates have been inventors.
Research by Elisabeth Crawford in The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution and others, clearly shows that the will of Alfred Nobel, himself an inventor and an entrepreneur, never intended to favor scientists over inventors.
Documentary evidence from the 1901 Nobel Committee for Physics, which is responsible for the selection of candidates for the Physics Prize, reveals a decision that inventors who had acquired a patent or patents for their invention should not be nominated for the prize. No such condition featured in Alfred Nobel’s will.
Moreover, by decision of the trustee of the will – not by Mr. Nobel or his will and testament – nominations for laureate candidates may only be submitted by research-related organizations and the research community.
Inventors and the organizations that represent them are not included in the selection process, despite the apparent fact that Alfred Nobel intended "inventors" to be one of the two categories to be considered for the prize.
A re-examination of Mr. Nobel’s will and recognition of his intention to reward inventors as well as scientific researchers seems appropriate. Under such circumstances, national inventors associations or the International Federation of Inventors' Associations (IFIA), which represents 140 inventor organizations in 100 countries, stand ready to nominate candidates for a physics award related to invention.
At a time when the world is facing daunting challenges, invention and innovation are more important than ever. In the face of these complex challenges, we need to explore all possible avenues to inspire and encourage the youth of today to become the inventors and scientists of tomorrow. Recognition of the value of invention by the Nobel Committee would go a long way in achieving this.
Inventions with a disruptive impact on society
Despite their disruptive impact on society and the global economy, none of the inventions listed below has been awarded a Nobel prize:
- The airplane (fixed wing, jet)
- The refrigerator (mechanical/compressor)
- The television
- Polyethylene (the world’s most common plastic)
- The computer
- The credit card
- The respirator
- The videotape
- The heart-lung machine
- The pacemaker
- The LCD display
- The artificial kidney
- The calculator
- Computer graphics
- The mobile phone (and associated networks, e.g. NMT and GSM)
- The World Wide Web
- Satellite-based navigational systems such as GPS
Arguably, most of these inventions have made "the greatest benefit to humanity", and thereby qualify for the prize, in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s will.
The WIPO Magazine is intended to help broaden public understanding of intellectual property and of WIPO’s work, and is not an official document of WIPO. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WIPO concerning the legal status of any country, territory or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This publication is not intended to reflect the views of the Member States or the WIPO Secretariat. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by WIPO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.


Transparency Market Research
Creatinine is synthesized in the human body at the time of muscle contractions. The glomeruli of the kidney remove creatinine in the blood and secrete it into the urine. The creatinine test is one of the most sensitive tests employed for measuring the glomerular filtration rate of the kidney. Hence, the creatinine test is most widely used to assess the kidney functioning. Presently, in the fields of research and drug discovery, direct and automation-ready procedures are becoming popular for measuring creatinine concentration in biological samples. Hence, demand for use of the creatinine assay for diagnosis of kidney diseases is increasing globally. Creatinine assay kits are designed to directly measure creatinine in biological samples, without any pre-treatment.
Major advances in the determination of creatinine levels contribute to diagnosis of early-stage kidney diseases. Rising demand for detection of presence of mycobacteria in urine and rise in geriatric population suffering from kidney malfunctioning are a few factors likely to boost the demand for creatinine assays in the near future. However, new developments in analytical methods and urology diagnostic techniques are paving the way for early diagnosis and treatment of kidney diseases.
High prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and diabetes, rising geriatric population, and increasing research and development initiatives are expected to drive the global creatinine assay market in the near future. Furthermore, advent in constituents of exogenous markers, rise in government funding, and large number of initiatives for clinical laboratories are also augmenting the global creatinine assay market. Serum creatinine assays are commonly employed in clinical chemistry laboratories worldwide. Favorable reimbursements and technologically advanced designs introduced by manufacturers (such as occlusive cuff or pumps with implants attached) in the global market are also likely to fuel the creatinine assay market during the forecast period.
The global creatinine assay market can be segmented based on assay type, sample type, end-user, and region. In terms of assay type, the market has been segmented into creatinine-pap test kits, ELISA test kits, Jaffe’s kinetic test kits, and others. The Jaffe’s kinetic test kits segment is likely to dominate the market during the forecast period, due to improving specificity of the reaction and challenges for clinical chemists. Based on sample type, the creatinine assay market can be classified into blood/serum, urine, and others.
Blood/serum is a rapidly expanding segment owing to increase in the prevalence of chronic kidney disease worldwide. Rise in technical advancements in assays is also a major factor that is projected to fuel the blood/serum segment in the near future. In terms of end-user, the market can be segregated into research & academics, hospitals, pathology laboratories, and others. In terms of region, the global creatinine assay market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of World.
Geographically, North America dominates the global creatinine assay market, due to increasing geriatric patient population suffering from urinary disorders, growing number of devices receiving regulatory approvals, and rising demand for new and advanced assays. Rising incidence of chronic kidney disease and early-phase diagnosis of diabetes is driving the pharmaceutical industry.
This, in turn, is expected to boost the creatinine assay market in North America from 2018 to 2026. Europe is the second-largest market for creatinine assay, due to favorable government policies regarding the development of health care infrastructure in the region. Expansion of research and development units and pathology labs in countries of Europe is also a major factor expected to drive the creatinine assay market in the region during the forecast period.
The market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a high growth rate during the forecast period, due to increase in geriatric population with chronic kidney disease, rise in awareness among patients about kidney diseases, and surge in the per capita expenditure in the region. Additionally, economic growth in India and China is supporting the health care infrastructure as well as expansion of pharmaceutical companies and biotech labs in the country. This is likely to drive the creatinine assay market in Asia Pacific between 2018 and 2026.
Major players operating in the global creatinine assay market are Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Merck KGaA, Bioassay Systems LLC, Cell Biolabs Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Wako Pure Chemical Industries, Ltd, Abcam PLC, Biovision Inc., Tulip Diagnostics Private Limited, Genway Biotech, and Cayman Chemical.
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Every liquid eg.- Madhu, ghee, etc. which is taken with drug or food or after drug or food intake are called Anupana. Acharya charka said that every lipuid which intake after Ahar (Food) is Anupana but it is only for directional view. Acharya Dalhan also agree with Acharya charka they said that –
|| Annadanu paschat piyate ityanupanam || Ch. Su. 46/419
Anupana itself has meaning in its name-
Anu- After but Acharya Dalhan said that it is an indication for food.
Pan- Drinkable liquid
In Ayurveda Acharyas did not mention anupana as a part of fun but a deep knowledge of ancient science present behind these theories. Anupana have some specific characters like –
1. Just opposite nature to food – ex: – hot nature anupana after cold nature food intake.
2. Not opposite to Dhatus – ex: – curd after milk
3. Just opposite to Dosas – ex: – in case of kaphaj disease we should take hot anupana.
4. Same nature to Medicine – ex: – cold anupana after pitta shamak medicine
5. Dependable upon disease and time – ex: – in primary case of fever we should take Usnodak (samehot water). Or liquor is good in Vat rogas in winter season but not in summer.
If we take anupana before food it creates weakness, in the middle of food it does not creates weakness or heaviness and if we take after food it creates heaviness in the body. So we can take anupana according to our requirements.
In Ayurveda best Anupana- Madhu.
According to doshas
1. V- Snigdha and Ushna
2. P- Madhur and Cold
3. K- Ruksha and Ushna
4. For week person – Alcohal is very good anupana also mandagni, Anidra etc.
5. For obes person – Madhu
6. Upvas, Marggaman, exercise after coming from hot temperature environment in these conditions best anupana is – milk
According to diseases
1. Fever – Tulsi leaf swaras , Adrak swaras , madhu, chiraita, sugandha bala, Pitpapda, shading water.
2. Chronic fever and cough – Vardhman piplli, sitopladi + Madhu, Ghee, Boiled milk
3. Shwas – Vasa juce + Adrak juce + Madhu
4. T.B. – Pure shilagatu
5. Prameha – Amla ras + Haridra churn.
6. Vat rog – Pure gugglu + Lahasun
7. Aam vat – Gomutra + castar oil
8. Anaemia – Mandoor Bhasm
9. Worm – Vidang churna
10. Diarrhea – Kutaj twak churna
11. Grahni – Takra
12. Unmad – old cow ghee
13. Khustha – khader and sariva kwatha
14. Shvttra – Bakuchi seeds
15. Ajirna – Shayan
16. Urdvajatrugat rog – Tekshna aushadi nasya
17. Pashrva shula – Pushkar mula
18. Ashmari – Pashan bhad, kulatha seeds, Varun twak kwatha
19. Gulma – Shegrumul twak
20. Vidradhi – Raktamokshna
21. Swarabhed – Gargal with hot water and salt or pushkarmul kwatha with madhu
Contraindications after anupana: – we should avoid study, singing songs, bad rest and walking after anupana because it creates bad effects on doshas.
Now a days we have forgotten the anupana’s concepts which can helpful to us to gain good results of medicine in particular disease.


Community Policing is a policy and strategy aimed at achieving more effective crime control, reduce fears of crime, improved quality of life, improved police service and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions. It allows the police and the community to work closely together to solve problems and fear of crime, physical and social disorder and neighbourhood decay.
In short: Community Policing it is a partnership between the police and the Community to solve safety problems.
What are the objectives of Community Policing?
- By establishing a partnership between the police and the communities they serve to ensure effective protection of communities and a better quality of life.
- Ensuring that the police address the primary needs of the community and are accountable to them.
- Enhancing the quality of information available to the police resulting in the development of a proactive and problem-solving approach to crime and violence.
- Providing communities with a visible, accessible policing presence to enhance public confidence in the police and to deter criminals.
- Aligning the values of the police organization with those of a democratic South Africa, aiming at producing police officers who can interact sensitively with their communities and in a manner that respects local norms and values.
What is a Community Policing Forum?
A Community Policing Forum (CPF) means a forum established in terms of section 19(1) of the SAPS Act 68 of 1995. A CPF is a group of people from different communities and police representatives who meet to discuss safety problems in their communities. A CPF also aims at ensuring police accountability, transparency and effectiveness in the community.
Where will CPFs be established?
At each and every police station in the province.
Who should be consulted and represented in establishing a CPF?
Police Act clearly stipulates that in order to establish a CPF, a Station Commissioner, after consultation with the mayor of the local Municipality or his/her representative, shall:
- Identify community based organisations and interested individuals from the community including representatives of all the groupings within the community, i.e. religious groups, youth groups, political groups, sports clubs, schools and taxi associations. People who are not part of any group or organization also have a right to be included.
- It is also important that the police are well represented i.e. Head of Detective Unit, child unit, etc. The Station Commissioner should always be available at CPF meetings.
What are the functions of CPFs?
As stated in the Police Act, the powers and functions of a CPF in the constitution include:
- Promoting accountability of the local police to your community and co-operation of your community with the local police.
- Monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of the police serving you.
- Evaluate the provision of services such as:
- Distribution of resources
- The way complaints and charges are handled.
- Patrolling of residential and business areas
- Keeping records, writing reports and making recommendations to the
Station Commissioners, the Provincial Commissioner and the MEC.
- The CPF will ask questions about local policing matters and request
enquiries when necessary.
What does a CPF constitution entail?
Each CPF should have its own constitution in line with the principles outlined in the Police Act and should include:
- The objective of the forum
- The structure of the forum
- How decisions will be made
- Funding procedures
- Deadlock procedures
What are the roles of Area Boards and Provincial Boards?
The function of both Area and Provincial Boards is to evaluate the functioning of CPFs in the province and to co-ordinate the efforts of CPFs with others in the provinces.
The Provincial Board also ensures that minutes and recommendations of the inputs are passed to the MEC who will then recommend possible changes to laws concerning policing.
Why must I join my local CPF?
Communities are comprised of many different people each with his or her own skills, views and innovative ideas that can make a huge difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of the SA Police Service and the manner social crime prevention is approached in a specific area. Word-of-mouth is an effective tool in spreading a message and informed CPF members can empower their communities to have a say in their own safety and eradicate crime and criminals from their area.
Each one of us wants to live and work without fear of being robbed, raped or attacked. By joining my local CPF you strengthen the human network against evil forces and ensure that I, my family, my neighbours and my community has peace of mind and a safe and secure environment to thrive and prosper in.
How do I join my local CPF?
Go to your local SA Police Station and ask to speak to the Community Policing Officer. He or she will give you the details of the chairperson and when CPF meetings take place.


There continues to be a distribution of massive misinformation being made throughout our culture about stem cell research. One part of the misinformation has been rooted in the fact that many people have tried to tie stem cell research into the abortion issue. It is true that there have been some research projects that were created around embryonic stem cells from aborted babies, but between politics, ethical concerns, and complications in the research this has not been where the most productive research has been taking place. Stem cells are a good thing, and may offer wonderful help in the battle against cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes and any number of other chronic health problems that humans face. It is important to be informed about this new tool of medicine, and not allow it to become a political or religious issue to the detriment of all of mankind.
Stem cells are primal cells found in all multi-cellular organisms that are able to reproduce and can differentiate into various specialized cell types. This is a fairly new science which began in the early 1960s. There are three broad categories of stem cells. They are: (1) Embryonic stem cells, which are taken from an early stage embryo of approximately four to five days old and consists of 50 to 150 cells. These stem cells can develop into each of more than 200 cells types of the adult body when given sufficient stimulation. (2) Adult stem cells, which are found throughout the body that normally reproduce to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues. (3) Cord blood stem cells found in the umbilical cord and are able to differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues.
To understand why stem cells are so useful, we might consider the repairs on a car as an analogy. If your car is overheating, what is likely to be the cause? Common sense tells you that the electrical system or the motor itself are not the probable villains. It is obviously the cooling system that has a problem, and there are only a few components that make up the cooling system. A quick check could tell you if you have enough fluid in the cooling system, and if so, a blockage or a dysfunctional water pump would be the likely culprit. It is relatively easy to determine if there is a blockage so if there is not, the mechanic would be likely to replace the water pump.
Many human diseases can be treated in much the same way. If a person is diabetic and his blood sugar is very high, it is not likely that the problem is being caused by the heart or the lungs. We all know that an organ called the pancreas secretes a substance called insulin that allows the sugars in our food to be processed. If there is not enough insulin, our blood sugar will be too high and that has numerous side effects on the individual. We now know that in the pancreas there are cells grouped into what are called the "islets of Langerhans" and each islet contains approximately 1000 cells. These cells are grouped into four groups. Sixty-five to eighty percent are beta cells which produce Insulin and Amylin, 15 to 20 percent are alpha cells which release Glugagon an activating agent, 3 to 10 percent are delta cells that produce Somatostatin, an inhibiting agent, and 1 percent are PP cells which contain a polypeptide. All of this tells us that the design of the human digestive system is incredibly complex. How do you fix it when something is wrong?
In the case of the car, someone has to have carefully built a water pump that will do what the original equipment was designed to do. That means that the original blueprint has to be understood, and all parts have to be carefully put together in the same way that the original equipment was produced. To fix diabetes, the same process has to be used. In type 1 diabetes in which insulin shots are required, the islets of Langerhans have been destroyed. If we can develop stem cells that will turn into islets of Langerhans and can inject them into the pancreas of the diabetic we will have replaced what is missing with an identical component. Science is very close to accomplishing this from adult stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells are not the answer to this type of research. Embryonic cells can become anything, which is why people have had an interest in them, but this is also a major problem. Embryonic cells can be misled by biochemical signals when they are transplanted into an adult, leading to unwanted cell types and sometimes to tumor formation.
Three researchers at the University of Missouri have been able to sustain adult stem cells and induce them to turn into specific cell types by exposing them to different chemical signals. No abnormal tissue results from this type of stem cell work. Elmer Price, Randall Prather, and Mike Foley at the University of Missouri have taken the lead in this research. Price says, "In theory, embryonic stem cells have the ability to become almost any cell type or organ. Very complex chemical signals need to be in place with embryonic stem cells in order for them to develop into the appropriate type of cell. However, we have shown that if you can isolate adult stem cells, you can make them generate the appropriate type of cell with much more ease and specificity."
Remember that blood-derived adult stem cells are normally used by the body for regeneration and repair, and by copying what God has designed for the maintenance of the human body, some wonderful solutions to the afflictions humans endure are possible. Stem cell research is a good thing, and as we learn more about this part of our body's makeup we have to understand even more fully David's description of what God has done in forming us from the dust of the earth: "I will praise thee Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).
Back to Contents Does God Exist?, NovDec07.


“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
– Dr. Seuss
Some experts claim that stretching is a bad idea and they aren’t wrong! If you stretch too much or attempt to stretch without the right goals or proper instruction, it could lead to disastrous outcomes. Most people are unaware of the components of good stretching. Determining goals and learning what type of stretching that works best for you are most important to avoid pain and injury.
The 2 main goals to consider when stretching are whether you want to just prep the muscles for strenuous activity or whether you would like to lengthen the muscles to increase range of motion and improve movement? If you are getting ready for a work out or about to do strenuous activity the type of stretching that would be better suited for you would be Ballistic, which involves bouncing , or a short duration static stretches, which involves holding a stretch for a short period of time. You also want to make sure that you are stretching target muscles that you will be utilizing. If you are looking to improve your range of motion and optimize movement while recorrecting your posture, then you would be more suited to visit a specialist that can help teach you Static, Active Isolated, and/or PNF stretching that would include the proper movements, adequate amounts of pressure and durations, and tips to avoid overstretching.
The idea behind stretching, either for activity prep or for increasing range of motion, is to avoid injury. Stretching increases blood flow to the area which increases localized temperature making the muscle fibers more pliable and easier to reduce muscular tension. The increase in blood flow also brings nutrients to the area that assists in the recovery of muscle tissue from activity and injury. With benefits like that, it should be an easy choice that stretching is a good move, but remember to stretch smart and stretch well. Always remember to seek professional advice on stretching from professionals such as chiropractors, massage therapist, personal trainers, and rehab specialists!


is perfectly straight and extends forever in both directions
is a perfectly flat surface that extends forever in all directions
is the part of a line between two points
is part of a line that starts at one point and extends forever in one direction
is formed by two rays with a common end-point called the vertex.
an angle that measures 90 degrees
an angle that measures more than zero but less than 90 degrees
an angle that measures more than 90 degrees, but less than 180 degrees
two angles whose measures add to 90 degrees
two angles whose measures add up to 180 degrees
figures that have the same shape and same size
a pair of opposite congruent angles formed by intersecting lines
Triangle Sum Theorem
states that the measures of the angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees
has 3 acute angles
has one right angle
has one obtuse angle
has three congruent sides and angles
has at least two congruent sides and angles
has NO congruent sides or angles
is a closed plane figure formed by three or more sides
a polygon with congruent sides and angles
a quadrilateral with exactly one pair of parallel sides
a quadrilateral that has 2 pairs of parallel sides
a parallelogram with four right angles
a parallelogram with all side congruent
a parallelogram with four right angles and four congruent sides
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Natural gas (methane) as a fuel for internal combustion engines holds the potential to be both cleaner than diesel and have substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions. That potential has not yet been realised. Burning 100% methane requires a spark ignition engine with lower efficiency than a compression ignition diesel, negating much of the benefit of methane. Burning a mixture of gas and diesel allows the gas to be burned at diesel efficiency, and has been demonstrated in relatively low-cost dual-fuel conversions of Euro V and VI trucks, but with significant amounts of methane passing through the engine unburned, so called ‘methane slip’, which also negates the greenhouse gas benefits.
This project will combine two approaches to almost eliminate methane slip in dual fuel conversions, demonstrating vehicles that fully comply with Euro VI emissions regulations. Dual fuel company G-volution will build upon and combine earlier research into engine combustion control and novel after-treatment technology to first reduce unburned methane and then eliminate the remainder effectively from the exhaust. In a consortium with truck operator ContainerShips UK and data solutions provider Microlise, they will develop and demonstrate 15 dual fuel diesel-methane trucks in real world operation that meet Euro VI emissions limits and offer significant greenhouse gas savings over diesel.
TRL Registered Office: Crowthorne House, Nine Mile Ride, Wokingham, Berks, UK, RG40 3GA. Registered in England, No. 3142272, VAT Registration 664 625 321 © Copyright 2017 TRL. All rights reserved.


Prescriptions for glasses have two main components: shape
The shape of a lens determines
the type of correction.
The power of a lens determines the
amount of correction. It is specified in
diopters. The higher the number of diopters, the more
vision correction the lens provides.
October 16, 2012
Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine
& Christopher J. Rudnisky, MD, MPH, FRCSC - Ophthalmology
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IntroductionEvery year there are thousands of home fires all across the nation due to faulty household electrical wiring. There are an annual average of 110 electrical fires a day as a result of frayed wires, loose electrical connections, broken extension cords, faulty switches and outlets and other common sources. The Consumer Product Safety Commission states that there were 40,300 fires in 1997 as a result of Electrical Distribution Equipment. There were also some 250 deaths and 1,360 injuries with a total of $687.3 million dollars worth of property damage resulting from these types of electrical equipment failures.i Estimates of over 50 percent of these fires are caused by low level arcing faults in typical household wiring. Low level arcing can generate enough heat and sparks to produce ignition of nearby flammable materials and cause major damage in the form of electrical fires. The National Fire and Protection Agency reports that fixed home wiring causes one third of all electrical fires, additionally, electrical cords and plugs caused one sixth of all home electrical distribution fires and one third of the related deaths.ii
What is an arcing fault exactly?General Electric defines an arc fault as "an unintentional electrical discharge characterized by low and erratic current that may ignite combustible materials."iii These unintentional discharges are what produce the "arcs and sparks" necessary to generate house fires. Arc faults can occur in damaged wiring and electric cords, or in or near a light switch or outlet box. The electrical discharge can either be a Parallel Fault (arcing between the line and neutral conductors), a Series Fault (e.g. broken wire, faulty switch, loose connection, or other single wire condition) or an Arcing to Ground (e.g. loose wires, shorts to ground, frayed wiring abrading metal, etc.). Any of these faults can produce the heat and sparks necessary to cause a home to be completely destroyed by fire.
The layman has always assumed that conventional circuit breakers or fuses will protect their home, the wiring and the security of their personal property from all electrical disasters. Litigation regularly occurs involving, circuit breaker and fuse manufacturers, for alleged product defects associated with house fires. The assumption, of course, is that "the circuit breaker should have tripped before my house burned down!" This just simply is not the case. Conventional thermomagnetic circuit breakers and thermal fuses used almost exclusively throughout this country have never been able to detect and stop electrical faults caused by electrical low level arcing. The Underwriters Laboratories (UL) definition of a properly applied circuit breaker is to protect the wiring insulation from overheating due to over currents.iv Since low level arcs, by definition, do not have these over currents, they can not be detected by conventional thermomagnetic means. Until recently, there has been no device commonly available to recognize and stop low-level arcs from occurring in the electrical distribution systems of your home. In fact, there are products we use everyday, which normally generate electrical arcing. These would include appliances incorporating various types of electric motors, hair dryers, electric mixers, vacuum cleaners, hand held power tools and similar devices. Any product designed to detect and react to electrical arcing conditions must be able to discriminate between "good" arcs and "bad" arcs.
The Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI)Within the past 2 years there has been a new class of circuit protection device available which is designed to detect and mitigate the effects of low level arcing almost always before it can become a source of ignition of nearby combustible materials. This product is called an Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter or AFCI. Every major manufacturer of circuit protection devices manufactures and sells this product today. This protective device can not only detect hazardous electrical arcing, but also will shut the flow of electricity off to the location and prevent the nearby combustible material from fire ignition that would normally follow an undetected arcing. The National Electrical Code recently defined the device, as it states, "An arc-fault circuit interrupter is a device intended to provide protection from the effects of arc faults by recognizing characteristics unique to arcing and by functioning to de-energize the circuit when an arc fault is detected."v While these products are designed to raise the level of fire protection within your home substantially, they still must sense the presence of an arc in progress. If the initial low-level arc fault is large enough to catch nearby combustible materials on fire prior to detection, then this device will fail to shut off the energy to the circuit quickly enough to stop further fire damage. Fortunately, almost all low level arcing does not instantly cause a fire to occur. That fact makes this device ideal for use in detecting and eliminating these sources of potential disaster around our homes. So useful in fact, that the Consumer Product Safety Commission engineers have tested these devices and have "found these products to be effective."vi
What causes these types of failures?There are numerous causes of electrical arcing faults. Sources include damaged wiring caused by cable staples used during installation, punctured wire insulation from placing nails through walls, electric cords caught between doors or under heavy furniture, furniture pressed against plugs installed in an outlet, natural aging, and exposure to light or heat. Loose connections in appliance plugs, outlet boxes and switches are also common areas of excessive heating and arcing. During the late 1960's and early 70's, aluminum wiring was used extensively in new home construction and remodeling. It was quickly discovered that this type of wire was 55 times more likely to have one or more connections reach "Fire Hazard Conditions."vii The use of aluminum wiring was soon discouraged as a substitute for the more traditional copper wires. However, many homes today still have this wiring and have the potential for this higher rate of fire hazard. The classic "sizzling" sound can sometimes be heard around areas of loose or faulty wire connections, indicating that low level arcing may indeed be in process.
Arc Fault Interrupter vs. Ground Fault InterrupterThe AFCI should not be mistaken for the GFCI or ground fault circuit interrupter. These two products serve similar, yet completely different functions. The GFCI is designed to protect people from severe or fatal shock hazards, while the AFCI, as previously stated, protects property against fires caused by electrical arcing faults. The GFCI can also protect against some electrical fires by detecting arcing and other faults between the line or neutral wires and ground. The GFCI can not detect the hazardous series or parallel arcing faults, which can cause fires.
A ground fault is an unintentional electrical path diverting current to ground. A ground fault occurs when current escapes outside the normal flow within the circuit, usually flowing outside the circuit to ground. If a person's body happens to provide that pathway for the current flow, the person could be injured, burned, severely shocked or electrocuted. The GFCI is designed to interrupt the circuit by opening the circuit breaker contacts when current of more than 4 milliamps is detected as missing out of the circuit. This value of current is less than the lethal dose of electricity for a human body and furthermore the skin can absorb this level of current without serious electrical injury or burns.
It should be noted that manufacturers of the AFCI are incorporating the GFCI functions within the same circuit breaker package, making safety a very real issue, for both homeowner and property.
Requiring AFCI'sThe NFPA 70 National Electric Code, 1999 Edition, an electrical standard used by most municipalities for electrical wiring, requires that AFCI's be used for receptacle outlets in bedrooms, effective January 1, 2002. Although this requirement is limited to only certain circuits in new residential construction, AFCI's should be applied to other circuits in new and existing homes. The code writers of the NEC obviously believe that the bedroom is the area where much low level arcing and subsequent fires take place. That area of our home contains combustible cotton materials in and around the bed, that if exposed to electrical arcing would potentially cause catastrophic results. This writer asks the question, what about the cotton fabric curtains we have hanging on windows throughout our homes, many times covering electrical outlets in the room or the cotton material that is on the sofa pushed up against the wall outlet in the family room? These objects are just as susceptible to arcing fire damage as bedsheets and mattresses. Hopefully, the code will be expanded to all circuits of our homes in three more years when the next issue of the NFPA 70 National Electrical Code is due to be published.
ConclusionWe haven't actually sparked our last house fire, unfortunately there will be much more property damage and even loss of life as a result of low level arc faults. There is, however, a device available to the average consumer that is easily installed by a licensed electrician, which can and will minimize property damage as a result of electrical arcing. These AFCI's can be installed in present circuit breaker panels and will provide instant protection against a major killer the US, electrical fires resulting from low level arcing. The next time you or your firm must address an electrical house fire issue, with the associated property damage and perhaps even loss of life, ask yourself, was an ACFI in place? If the answer is no, then ask why not, should there have been? They are here to protect property and lives.
i U.S. Consumer Product Safety Committee, 1997 Residential Loss Estimates Report - Table 1
Gene Haynesis a 1980 graduate of Florida Atlantic University in Electrical Engineering. He has twenty years of product design and manufacturing experience in Circuit Protection and Automotive Electrical products with Fortune 50 companies. He is a partner in Auto Fire and Safety Consultants and is the founder of MATRIX Engineering. Gene resides in Pensacola, Florida and regularly consults in electrical/electronic matters.
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The work of many first- and second-century Christian women have been written out of records. Here are some more recent Christian influents whose work for the Christian church have been minimized:
Leymah Gbowee: Liberian peace and women’s rights activist, Gbowee organized interfaith demonstrations and sex boycotts to bring civil peace. Though awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, her theological contributions have been largely unrecognized by Western Christianity. – leymahgbowee.com
Cecile Richards: President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Richards has been an outspoken women’s reproductive rights activist, though her United Methodist roots and theological ties have been minimized in the pro-life/pro-choice dialogue. – plannedparenthood.org, theird.org
You: Quite likely. Christian history has largely been focused on male contributions. How long will this bias continue?


How effective are poor schools? Poverty and educational outcomes in South Africa
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Other versions of this item:
- van der Berg, Servaas, 2008. "How effective are poor schools? Poverty and educational outcomes in South Africa," Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research Discussion Papers 69, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
References listed on IDEAS
- Anne Case & Angus Deaton, 1999. "School Inputs and Educational Outcomes in South Africa," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 1047-1084.
- Hanushek, Eric A., 2002. "Publicly provided education," Handbook of Public Economics,in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 30, pages 2045-2141 Elsevier.
CitationsCitations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
- Nic Spaull, 2011. "A Preliminary Analysis of SACMEQ III South Africa," Working Papers 11/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Taylor, Stephen & Spaull, Nicholas, 2015. "Measuring access to learning over a period of increased access to schooling: The case of Southern and Eastern Africa since 2000," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 47-59.
- Taylor, Stephen & von Fintel, Marisa, 2016.
"Estimating the impact of language of instruction in South African primary schools: A fixed effects approach,"
Economics of Education Review,
Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 75-89.
- Stephen Taylor & Marisa Coetzee, 2013. "Estimating the impact of language of instruction in South African primary schools: A fixed effects approach," Working Papers 21/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Fabrice Murtin & Thomas Laurent & Geoff Barnard & Dean Janse van Rensburg & Vijay Reddy & George Frempong & Lolita Winnaar, 2015.
"Policy Determinants of School Outcomes under Model Uncertainty: Evidence from South Africa,"
South African Journal of Economics,
Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(3), pages 317-334, September.
- Thomas Laurent & Fabrice Murtin & Geoff Barnard & Dean Janse van Rensburg & Vijay Reddy & George Frempong & Lolita Winnaar, 2013. "Policy Determinants of School Outcomes Under Model Uncertainty: Evidence from South Africa," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1057, OECD Publishing.
- Rulof Burger & Rachel Jafta, 2006. "Returns to Race: Labour Market Discrimination in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Working Papers 04/2006, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Nicola Branson & Julia Garlick & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt, 2012. "Education and Inequality: The South African Case," SALDRU Working Papers 75, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
- Stephen Taylor & Servaas van der Berg & Vijay Reddy & Dean Janse van Rensburg, 2011. "How well do South African schools convert grade 8 achievement into matric outcomes?," Working Papers 13/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Derek Yu, 2012. "Youths in the South African labour market since the transition: A study of changes between 1995 and 2011," Working Papers 18/2012, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
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- Kaus, Wolfhard, 2013.
"Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa,"
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Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 63-73.
- Wolfhard Kaus, 2010. "Conspicuous Consumption and Race: Evidence from South Africa," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2010-03, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
- Stephen Taylor & Nicholas Spaull, 2013. "The effects of rapidly expanding primary school access on effective learning: The case of Southern and Eastern Africa since 2000," Working Papers 01/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Debra Shepherd, 2013. "A question of efficiency: decomposing South African reading test scores using PIRLS 2006," Working Papers 20/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
- Debra L. Shepherd, 2011. "Constraints to school effectiveness: what prevents poor schools from delivering results?," Working Papers 05/2011, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
More about this item
KeywordsAnalysis of Education;
- J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
NEP fieldsThis paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-AFR-2006-07-02 (Africa)
- NEP-ALL-2006-07-02 (All new papers)
- NEP-EDU-2006-07-02 (Education)
- NEP-HRM-2006-07-02 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)
- NEP-LAB-2006-07-02 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-URE-2006-07-02 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
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What does the assistive robot of the future look like? It depends. A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology finds that older and younger people have varying preferences about what they would want a personal robot to look like. And they change their minds based on what the robot is supposed to do.
Participants were shown a series of photos portraying either robotic, human or mixed human-robot faces and were asked to select the one that they would prefer for their robot's appearance. Most college-aged adults in the study preferred a robotic appearance, although they were also generally open to the others. However, nearly 60 percent of older adults said they would want a robot with a human face, and only 6 percent of them chose one with a mixed human-robot appearance. But the preferences in both age groups wavered a bit when participants were told the robot was assisting with personal care, chores, social interaction or for helping to make decisions.
"We found that participants, both younger and older, will assign emotional traits to a robot based on its face, which will determine what they are most comfortable interacting with," said Akanksha Prakash, a School of Psychology graduate student who led the study. "As a result, preferences for robotic appearance varied across tasks."
Preferences were less strong for helping with chores, although the majority of older and younger participants chose a robot with a robotic face. But for decision-making tasks, such as getting advice for where to invest money, younger participants tended to select a mixed human-robot appearance. A robotic face was their least favored choice for this task. Older adults generally preferred a human face.
"Those who selected a mixed face perceived the robot as more intelligent, smarter or wiser than one with a 'cute' robotic face. Perceived intelligence in appearance was an important assessment criterion for receiving assistance with decision-making tasks," said Prakash.
Personal care tasks such as bathing provoked the most divisive preferences within both age groups. Those who chose a human face did so because they associated the robot with human-like care capabilities – such as nursing – and trustworthy traits. Many others didn't want anything looking like a human to bathe them due to the private nature of the task.
"Sometimes personal care can get pretty involved. Many participants said they would rather have an impersonal looking creature caring for their personal needs," Prakash said.
In the final category, assistance with social tasks, both age groups preferred a human face for the assistive robot.
Based on this early research, Prakash says that if a robot is designed to help only with a specific task, its appearance should be aligned with the attributes of the task. For instance, if the robot is designed to specifically assist the user with critical decisions, the robot should be given an intelligent look instead of a funny demeanor. However, if the robot is tasked with a variety of jobs in the home, allowing for appearance customizability might be the best option. She admits that may not be possible. If not, a safer bet would be to design robots with some human-like features but making certain that the overall aesthetics are not discomforting or repulsive to the majority of end users. Prakash plans to expand the study to other age groups and more diverse educational backgrounds.
The findings will be presented this week at the Human Factors and Ergonomics International Annual Meeting in San Diego.
Explore further: Robots in the home: Will older adults roll out the welcome mat?


I remember collecting the fallen Bakula flowers with the scent intact and stringing it together into a garland. The tree was planted by my grandfather, whose hobby was to grow exotic trees and plants in a plot reserved for his hobby. Though the color of Bakula flowers is subdued, the garland looks lovely. The scent makes up for the lack of color.
The botanical name of Bakula is Mimusops Elengi and belongs to the family Sapotaceae. It is also known as Spanish cherry, Bullet wood, Indian Medlar, Surabhi / fragrant, Maulsari, and Madhu Gandha / sweet aroma. I was delighted to find this tree in full bloom in Jag Mandir Palace, Udaipur.
Bakula is an evergreen tree and grows all over India. It reaches to a height of 16 to 18 meters with a well-defined dense rounded canopy.
The fissured hard bark of the tree is dark grey. The leaves are smooth, pointed, shiny, and are 5 – 10 cm long and 3 – 5 cm broad. These features make it the much sought after tree for gardens.
Bakula tree flowers from March to June. Flowers are small around 2cm in diameter. They bloom either in solitary or in bunches. The environs fill with the heady fragrance of the Bakula flowers. A small crown rises from the center of the flower. By morning the ground near the tree will be full of fallen Bakula flowers but with fragrance intact. While falling from the tree, the flower twirls like a disc helped by the crown in the middle. The flowers are offered to gods. Jains and Buddhists consider Bakula tree as sacred.
The fruits of the Bakula tree are oval and are 2.5 cm long. The ripe fruits are sweet and are consumed by people. The fruit consists of one or two seeds.
There is a growing demand in the cosmetics industry for Bakula as it has valuable properties for skin and hair care. Bakula is one of the herbs mentioned in ancient Ayurvedic scriptures and has been used for centuries in India for medicinal purpose.
Leaves, bark, flowers, seeds, roots, fruits are used to treat various diseases especially dental disorders.
Bakula flower is offered to Lord Ganesha during the 21 Pushpa Pooja while chanting the below mantra: “Om Shaktiyuthaya Namaha Bakula Pushpam samarpayami”.