The friendship between man and dog dates back to about 30,000 years ago. Today, they are a favourite pet in households all over the world. Dogs, through the years have been extremely loyal to mankind and because of this awesomeness, it is good to learn some uncommon facts about them.

1. Dogs can smell disease

Dogs have a great sense of smell, and beyond just sniffing random things, research has shown that they can also detect some health conditions, especially cancer. Research at the Schillerhohe Hospital in Germany found dogs has revealed that dogs have an incredible ability to recognise the smell of a range of organic compounds that show the human body isn’t working as it should. This means dogs can actually diagnose cancer, migraines, low blood sugar, high blood sugar, as well as diabetes and the early signs of an epileptic seizure. This is something scientists are eager to explore further.

2. Dog’s Urine corrode metal

Dog’s urine is very corrosive. There have been several studies to prove this. In April 2003 Derbyshire County Council spent £75,000 carrying out a six-month survey of one million lamp-posts amid fears that dog wee was causing the bases to crumple. In the same year, urinating dogs were blamed for a spate of lamp-posts collapsing in Croatia.

3. A wagging tail doesn’t always mean they are happy

Tail wagging has its own language. Apparently, dogs wag their tail to the right when they’re happy and to the left when they are frightened. Wagging low means they are insecure and rapid movements accompanied by tense muscles or dilated pupils can signal aggression. So every wagging tail tells its own story, if you know how to read the signs.

4. A dog’s paw print is unique as human fingerprint

A dog’s paw print may look pretty generic but their nose print is actually as unique as a human fingerprint. Their combination of ridges and creases is so distinct it can actually be used to identify them.

Good luck getting them to stick their nose in a pad of ink without sneezing though.

5. Dogs fall in love

Like humans, dogs release oxytocin and they can feel both rejected and in love.  The concept that dogs can fall in love was suggested by anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Social Lives of Dogs, who believed two dogs named Sundog and Bean were agonized star-crossed lovers kept apart because neither of their owners wanted to give them up.

It may sound far fetched but Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, found that a dog’s brain releases the love hormone – when it interacts with humans and dogs, just the same as a human brain does when we hug or kiss.

Reference: mirror.co.uk

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According to a new report by Harvard University, eating fruits and vegetables high in pesticide residue may lower the chance of successful birth with assisted reproductive technology.

Therefore, women seeking to conceive through fertility treatments are advised to go organic. Eating organic fruits and vegetables is linked to lower infertility rates.

As posted by New York Times, researchers studied 325 women undergoing fertility treatment in Boston. They collected data on medical and lifestyle factors and had the women fill out food frequency questionnaires. Using data from the United States Department of Agriculture, which samples produce for pesticide residue, they calculated the amount of residue on what the women ate. A list of fruits and vegetables and their “pesticide residue score” appears in the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The 325 women had 228 live births. Women in the highest one-quarter for high-pesticide residue produce consumption had an 18 percent lower probability of pregnancy and a 26 percent lower probability of live birth than those in the lowest one-quarter.

The senior author, Dr. Jorge E. Chavarro, an associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, noted that this is just one study, and it would have to be replicated before firm conclusions can be drawn.

Still, he said, “If you really want to eat peaches or spinach” — two of the most contaminated foods on the list — “it makes sense to switch to the organic version. The literature is not so clear on whether switching has health consequences. This is the first study to my knowledge to suggest that it does.”

Certain types of fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries and spinach, tend to require more pesticides to protect the crops and ‘washing them makes absolutely no difference,’ says study author Jorge Chavarro.

Pesticides have been linked to a broad range of negative health effects for the nervous system, skin and eyes and hormone system. Some are suspected to even cause cancer.

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Meet Richard Browning, an English inventor, who is bringing the world closer to realising a dream that found expression in science fictions:  men being able to fly. Browning is the founder of human propulsion technology startup Gravity. His company invented, built and patented a personal flight system.

Browning has set a Guinness World Record for recording the fastest speed in a body-controlled jet engine-powered suit. His Iron Man-like suit which cost a sum of £40,000 moved at a rate of 32.02 mph following a test run, although it later crashed over a lake. The suit, Daedalus Mark 1 — is a body-controlled jet engine-powered suit with miniature jet engines to achieve vertical flight. Browning’s company has already secured investments to develop Daedalus. It recently completed a series A funding round, raising $6,50,000.

Browning, speaking with BBC, says, ‘We stand at the very beginning of what human propulsion systems will do. It’s at the same point as the mobile phone was in the early ’80s or the internet of the early ’90s,’ he said. ‘Daedalus will eventually be capable of flying at several hundred miles per hour, and at thousands of ft.’

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A post shared by BBC News (@bbcnews) on Nov 9, 2017 at 5:05am PST

He also noted in a previous interview, that  “We’re working on survivability technology to get up to the height where you can use a parachute.” Browning’s biggest fear is engine failure causing him to tumble to the ground, which has only happened once. He describes it as “less dangerous than a motorbike if you fly it sensibly”.

The Gravity team and other experts will continue to improve these suits and in a couple of decades, this breakthrough might make a great difference in travel, military and disaster management across the world.

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As reported by Time Magazine, a former NFL player is reportedly the first living person ever accurately diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). A  disease found in the brains of dozens of ex-football players.

In 2005, a Nigerian-American pathologist named Bennet Omalu published the first evidence of CTE in an American football player: former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster. This disease was depicted in Concussion a 2015 American biographical sports drama film directed and written by Peter Landesman featuring Will Smith.

As defined by Concussion Legacy Foundation, CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

This breakthrough, which was made in 2012, but only published this week in the journal Neurosurgery, could help doctors identify and treat patients while they are still alive. CTE was previously only identifiable through a brain examination after death.

The subject of the diagnosis was not named in the study, but was reported by CNN to be Fred McNeill, who died in 2015 at age 63. McNeill played 12 seasons as a linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings before retiring in 1985.

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Elon Musk has unveiled Tesla’s first electric articulated lorry, designed to challenge diesel trucks as king of the road. The long-anticipated Tesla Semi has a range of 500 miles on a single charge. Tesla says the vehicle – known in the US as a semi-trailer truck – will go into production in 2019. Click to see video:

Chief executive Elon Musk also unexpectedly revealed a new Roadster, which he said would be “the fastest production car ever” made.

“The point of doing this is just to give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars,” Musk said. “Driving a gasoline sports car is going to feel like a steam engine with a side of quiche.”

The red sports car was driven out of the trailer of the electric lorry during Tesla’s presentation on Thursday.

The Roadster will have a range of close to 1,000km (620 miles) on a single charge and will do 0-100mph in 4.2 seconds.

The new Roadster becomes available in 2020.

Speaking on stage at Tesla’s facility in Los Angeles, chief executive Elon Musk said: “It’s not like any truck that you’ve ever driven.” Musk said the car’s acceleration from 0 to 60 mph and 0 to 100 mph, as well as its quarter-mile speed, were all “world records” for production cars.

However, the charismatic Mr Musk faces continued pressure from investors and customers as the firm struggles to meet demand for its Model 3 car.

The Model 3 is behind schedule due to factory delays, a situation Mr Musk described recently as “production hell”.

The 46-year-old had been camping at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada, to oversee battery production for the new cars. However, while the company had predicted it would make 1,500 Model 3 cars in the third quarter of 2017, in reality it only managed 260.

Source: BBC

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A new study has linked the use of contraceptive to suicidal tendencies. Contraceptives are effective ways to prevent pregnancy, alleviate menstrual pain and ease heavy bleeding, but the hormonal changes needed to accomplish that may have some negative psychological side effects.

In the study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the authors assessed associations between hormonal contraceptive use and suicide attempt and suicide in a nationwide prospective cohort study of all women in Denmark who had no psychiatric diagnoses, antidepressant use, or hormonal contraceptive use before age 15 and who turned 15 during the study period, which extended from 1996 through 2013.

It was reported that women taking hormonal contraceptives — like birth control pills, the patch, the ring and hormonal IUDs — have up to triple the risk of suicide as women who never took hormonal birth control.

The absolute risk of suicide associated with hormonal contraceptives is still extremely low, say the researchers, but the data suggest it’s worth studying and understanding further.

The same researchers reported last year that hormonal contraceptives were linked to a 70% higher risk of depression, which itself is associated with suicide. Because of that connection, in the current study, the researchers looked specifically at contraceptive use and suicide. They used a national study that tracked all women ages 15 and older who were living in Denmark from 1996 to 2013. The study analyzed prescriptions and filled prescriptions for contraceptives, as well as deaths and causes of death, and compared women taking this type of birth control to women who did not have a history of contraceptive use.

Among women who used hormonal contraceptives currently or recently, the risk of attempting suicide was nearly double that of women who had never used contraceptives. The risk was triple for suicide. The patch was linked to the highest risk of suicide attempts, followed by IUD, the vaginal ring and then pills.

“At first I was surprised by the high risk compared to the results from the depression study I published last year,” says Charlotte Wessel Skovlund, lead author of the paper from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. But she says that the results make sense when considering that in the current study, she compared contraceptive users to women who had never used contraceptives before, while the previous study compared them to non-users: a category that could include women who started hormonal contraceptives but stopped because of mood changes.

The current study also looked at a younger population, and the risk peaked in the first two months after starting a hormonal contraceptive. After a year, the risk plateaued. But even after a year, the risk remained higher than it was for women who never used contraceptives: at least double after a year and 30% higher after seven years.

The results held even after the researchers adjusted for other factors that can affect suicide risk, including mental illness and the initiation of sexual relationships.

But other scientists say the study may not have accounted for all of the potential reasons why women who use contraceptives differ from those who do not. For example, women using contraceptives are more likely to be in relationships, and that may predispose them to a higher likelihood of emotional challenges — especially for younger women, “For them, they are still more insecure in relationships and may suffer more from breakups, unhappy events and things like that,” speculates Karin Michels, professor and chair of epidemiology at University of California Los Angeles. Michels, who was not involved in the study, conducted a previous study that found a link between oral contraceptive use and heightened suicide risk among the large Nurses’ Health Study.

The researchers agree that the findings aren’t robust enough to discourage women from using hormonal contraceptives. But they say the results should prompt doctors to discuss the potential side effects of contraceptives and to pay more attention to women who might be at higher risk, like those who have a history of depression or mood disorders. “We think the findings are a little concerning, and we think that the consequence of these findings is that prescribers of hormonal contraceptives should make a little more effort to assess women before they get a prescription,” says Ojvind Lidegaard, the study’s senior author from the University of Copenhagen.

While it’s not clear how contraceptives may be affecting suicide risk, it’s possible that some of the risk is occurring through the way that hormones can affect mood and depression. “I believe that hormonal contraception can also have a direct effect on the brain,” says Skovlund.

The authors, as well as Michels, agree that women who are currently using contraceptives successfully should not stop using them. Rather, they suggest that women and their physicians should discuss potential suicide risk when considering contraception. “Women and their doctors should be aware about mood reactions as a potential side effect, so they can quit their hormonal contraception if they feel affected,” says Skovlund. “Doctors should be more reluctant to prescribe hormonal contraception to young girls unless there are medical reasons to do so. Other non-hormonal contraceptive options, like condoms and copper intrauterine devices [IUDs], should be considered when only contraception is needed.”

By Alice Park in Time Health.

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Apple Stores in the United States and United Kingdom have begun the sale of gaming robots, MekaMons, built by a Nigerian-British, Silas Adekunle.

Adekunle’s company, Reach Robotics struck the deal with Apple recently.

The product with a price tag of $299.95 went on sale from 16 November in the shops and online. The robots can  be operated with an iPhone and other smartphones.

Reach Robotics, an augmented reality gaming company creates robots for both fun and STEM education.

Adekunle, who was born in Nigeria moved to the UK when he was 11 years old.

He is an engineer who graduated with First Class Honours from the University of the West of England in Bristol, with a Bachelor of Science in robotics technology. He previously worked at GE Aviation and Infineon.

“We’ve created an entirely new video gaming platform,” said Adekunle in a press release, published by Black Enterprise.

“MekaMon straddles both the real and virtual worlds while taking the gaming experience beyond a player’s screen and turning their sitting room into a limitless robotic battle zone. MekaMon represents a quantum leap forward in the leveraging of augmented reality. Players can whip out their iPhone to battle their multi-functional, connected battlebots in the physical and virtual worlds at the same time.”

MekaMons are four-legged robots that players can control via a smartphone using a companion app for augemented reality gameplay.

Multiple players can have their MekaMons battle each another. Each robot weighs a little over two pounds with dimensions of 11.8 by 11.8 by 5.9 inches.

MekaMons can connect to each other via infrared signals and Bluetooth, allowing for co-op gaming.

The robots are powered by a rechargeable battery that provides up to an hour of gameplay. They are compatible with the iPhone, using the smartphone’s camera and infrared tracking capability for precise navigation.

Adekunle’s company, founded in 2013 is based at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) Technology Incubator. His colleagues include  Chris Beck who had been working as a roboticist in the BRL.

The company, according to southwestbusiness.co.uk has experienced fast growth in the past few months and the firm is moving out of its offices at Future Space in Bristol.

The company, which has taken space for its 29 members of staff at Bristol Business Park, has secured $9.5m (£7.1m) of investment funding from organisations which, says Adekunle, could “see the potential for what we were developing”.

Adekunle said: “When I was a student at UWE Bristol I spent some time going into schools to help inspire young people and it struck me that there was a huge untapped market for a consumer robot with a difference.

“We used to go in and explain simple robotics to try to inspire the young roboticists and engineers of the future and this experience set me off thinking about designing gaming robots.”

Reach Robotics is anticipating fast future growth and is looking to target the UK and US market in the lead up to Christmas.

Adekunle added: “This is an exciting time for our company as now after years of development work we are finally able to bring Mekamon to customers across the UK and US and with plans to go global.

“UWE Bristol has given us an amazing start and we are so grateful for their support.”

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Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN) has said that it is partnering with other research agencies to introduce electric automobiles in Nigeria.

Managing Director of PAN, Ibrahim Boyi, who disclosed this yesterday in Kaduna while hosting the National Defence College on a national tour of strategic establishments, said the company had commenced research on producing electric tricycles, but was only awaiting its economic viability before introducing them into the Nigerian market.

“We are bringing our experience, expertise and funds to making this work. We are not just working on electric cars at the Peugeot Head Office in France, autonomous cars are also being researched upon,” he said. He explained that regulators are still coming up with guidelines on such technologies, but that the company is also discussing with partners on automobiles that use alternative fossil fuels and other alternative fuels like CNG.

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A start-up in Nigeria, Go Solar Africa, has developed a way to recycle old freezers and turn them into solar-powered coolers to help Nigerians grappling with power outages easily refrigerate their food, TRT World reports.

Go-Solar-Africa collects discarded freezers or buys used ones from dealers to have them refurbished and fitted with solar gadgets. The coolers have a battery unit that can store energy for 24 hours.

Nigerians are no doubt in need of a technology like this because of the erratic power supply being faced in the country. The transmission grid is dilapidated, there is infrastructural challenge with natural gas while the new generating and distribution companies are still struggling to be profitable since the 2012 privatization of the sector.

Go Solar Africa, despite not having the support of government found a way around this problem as it affects food refrigeration in households. Currently, a lot of university students and international organisations are interested in Go Solar’s freezer project.

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A mummified Neolithic male whose corpse was discovered in a glacier 26 years ago will be the focus of a film giving a fictional account of his life.

Ötzi’s body was found by German couple Erika and Helmut Simon, who stumbled across the remains, complete with tools and clothing, in the Ötztal Alps of southern Tyrol, Italy.

Its skin covered in 60 tattoos and other organs were intact and the hikers initially believed the corpse to be new, until forensic scientists found it was the world’s oldest known human mummy at about 5,300 years old.

Nicknamed after the Alpine valley in which he was found, the Stone Age hunter became the subject of stomach content analysis as thousands of specialists clambered to determine his cause of death.

The investigation found he was felled by an arrow that pierced his left shoulder, leading him to fall, hit his head on a stone and bleed to death.

Now the corpse draws about a quarter of a million visitors annually to the northern Italian mountain town of Bolzano, where he is displayed in a specially designed cold chamber.

His popularity over the past two decades means the museum, which can only house 300 people, is soon moving to a new site to accommodate visitor demand.

Breakthroughs establishing facts about how Ötzi lived have allowed German filmmaker Felix Randau to create a feature film about his struggle for survival.

Der Mann aus dem Eis (Iceman) is out this month and was shot in the rugged mountains of Bavaria, South Tyrol and Carinthia in Austria.

Randau says his film questions whether humans have progressed in the millennia leading to the present day and his biopic speculates as to why Ötzi was killed after archaeologists and scientists have failed to offer a concrete conclusion.

‘The figure of Ötzi, with his mythical grandeur, allowed us to look into the past to see what it tells us about the present,’ he said.

‘It raises the question as to whether humans have really changed at all and developed over 5,000 years.’

Jürgen Vogel plays Ötzi, who is called Kelab in the film, speaking an early version of the Rhaetic tongue.

Kelab is depicted as a hunter living with goats and pigs, wearing animal furs for warmth and trekking through the treacherous, snowy landscape in an attempt to shield himself and his family from human enemies and the elements.

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A Nigerian startup has developed a machine learning system to detect childbirth asphyxia earlier and hopes to save thousands of babies’ lives every year when its technology is deployed.

The founders say the AI solution has achieved over 95% prediction accuracy in trials with nearly 1,400 pre-recorded baby cries.

The startup is now raising funds to acquire more data to improve accuracy and obtain clinical approval from health institutions.

The young startup is already garnering international attention and is in the final round for the global IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition, which has a $5 million prize.

Birth asphyxia is the third highest cause of under-five child deaths and is responsible for almost one million neonatal deaths annually, according to WHO.

It has also been linked to 1.1 million intrapartum stillbirths, long-term neurological disability and impairment.

Charles Onu, Ubenwa’s founder and principal innovator, explained that the startup’s machine learning system takes an infant’s cry as input, analyses the amplitude and frequency patterns of the cry and provides instant diagnosis of birth asphyxia.

Although the condition is detectable, Onu said few public hospital in the country had the equipment due to its high cost, poor electricity service and an unrealistic routine application for every child.

Ubenwa’s co-founder and engineering lead, Udeogu Innocent, said after being able to achieve a level of success with the model, the startup then deployed its technology to a mobile app for easier mobile diagnosis of birth asphyxia.

It builds on techniques that have been developed for speech recognition.

The Ubenwa team is conducting clinical validation exercises in Nigeria at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital and in Canada at the McGill University Health Centre.

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People suffering from diabetes run two- to five-fold risks of heart failure if they have excess fat in the heart, which harms the cells’ essential ability to produce energy, a new study revealed.

Diabetes and obesity are often characterised with excess fat in the heart, which is the most energy-hungry organ in human body.

According to the study, conducted by researchers at University of Iowa (UI) and published in the latest edition of journal Circulation Research, lipid overload in the heart causes numerous small, misshapen mitochondria that don’t produce energy as efficiently as normal mitochondria.

Healthy heart cells, like a combustion engine, consume fuel molecules to create necessary energy to keep the heart pumping.

But diabetes reduces the heart muscle’s metabolic adaptability and causes heart cells to overuse fat as a metabolic fuel, which ultimately leads to mitochondrial and cardiac damage.

“Diabetes, which affects almost 30 million Americans, significantly increases the risk of heart failure,’’ said study leader E. Dale Abel, professor of internal medicine at the UI Carver College of Medicine.

Researchers have detected that increased amount of fat in the heart triggers dramatic changes in the structure and function of the mitochondria in the heart.

The findings said that prolonged lipid overload increases the levels of damaging substances called reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Excess ROS alters the activity of several important proteins that work to control the size and shape of mitochondria, thus disrupting the mitochondrial network, the study said.

It found that if ROS in normal heart cells is removed, mitochondria becomes four times as large as normal, indicating that ROS levels are inversely proportional to mitochondria size.

In conclusion, cardiac lipid overload, which disrupts normal mitochondrial structure, would damage energy production and heart function. (Xinhua/NAN)

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A study published by the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed that Ibuprofen has a negative impact on the testicles of young men which causes impotency.

The development was confirmed after a small sample of young men developed a hormonal condition that typically begins, if at all, during middle age following an intake of ibuprofen doses commonly used by athletes.

This condition is linked to reduced fertility.

Advil and Motrin are two brand names for ibuprofen, an over-the-counter pain reliever. CNN has contacted Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, the makers of both brands, for comment.

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group that represents manufacturers of over-the-counter medications and supplements, “supports and encourages continued research and promotes ongoing consumer education to help ensure safe use of OTC medicines,” said Mike Tringale, a spokesman for the association.

He also said: “The safety and efficacy of active ingredients in these products has been well documented and supported by decades of scientific study and real-world use.”

The new study is a continuation of research that began with pregnant women, explained Bernard Jégou, co-author and director of the Institute of Research in Environmental and Occupational Health in France.

Jégou and a team of French and Danish researchers had been exploring the health effects when a mother-to-be took any one of three mild pain relievers found in medicine chests around the globe: aspirin, acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol and sold under the brand name Tylenol) and ibuprofen.

Their early experiments, published in several papers, showed that when taken during pregnancy, all three of these mild medicines affected the testicles of male babies.

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Earth last year wasn’t quite as hot as 2016’s record-shattering mark, but it ranked second or third, depending on who was counting.

Either way, scientists say it showed a clear signal of man-made global warming because it was the hottest year they’ve seen without an El Nino boosting temperatures naturally.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United Kingdom’s meteorological office on Thursday announced that 2017 was the third hottest year on record. At the same time, NASA and researchers from a nonprofit in Berkeley, California, called it the second.

The agencies slightly differ because of how much they count an overheating Arctic, where there are gaps in the data.

The global average temperature in 2017 was 58.51 degrees (14.7 degrees Celsius), which is 1.51 degrees (0.84 Celsius) above the 20th century average and just behind 2016 and 2015, NOAA said. Other agencies’ figures were close but not quite the same.

“This is human-caused climate change in action,” said Nobel Prize winning chemist Mario Molina of the University of California San Diego, who wasn’t part of any of the measuring teams. “Climate is not weather, (which) can go up and down from year to year. What counts is the longer-term change, which is clearly upwards.”

Which year is first, second or third doesn’t really matter much, said Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi. What really matters is the clear warming trend, he said.

During an El Nino year — when a warming of the central Pacific changes weather worldwide — the globe’s annual temperature can spike, naturally, by a tenth or two of a degree, scientists said. There was a strong El Nino during 2015 and 2016.

But 2017 finished with a La Nina, the cousin of El Nino that lowers temperatures. Had there been no man-made warming, 2017 would have been average or slightly cooler than normal, said National Center for Atmospheric Research climate scientist Ben Sanderson.

On the other hand, NASA calculated if the temperature contributions of El Nino and El Nina were removed from the global data through the years, 2017 would go down as the hottest year on record, NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.

The observed warming has been predicted within a few tenths of a degree in computer simulations going back to the 1970s and 1980s, several scientists said.

It has been 33 years since the last month that the globe was cooler than normal, according to NOAA.

Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini has never lived through a month or year that wasn’t hotter than normal.

“I look at pictures of the great winters of the late ’70s from my parents and wonder if I’ll ever experience anything like that in my lifetime,” said Gebsini, who’s 31.

Source: Time.com

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In the first study of its kind, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States (U.S.), found an elevated rate of language delay in girls at 30 months old born to mothers who used paracetamol (acetaminophen) during pregnancy, but not in boys.

This is the first study to examine language development in relation to acetaminophen levels in urine.

The study was published online January 10 in European Psychiatry.

Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen or APAP, is a medication used to treat pain and fever. It is typically used for mild to moderate pain relief.

The Swedish Environmental Longitudinal, Mother and Child, Asthma and Allergy study (SELMA) provided data for the research. Information was gathered from 754 women who were enrolled into the study in weeks 8-13 of their pregnancy. Researchers asked participants to report the number of acetaminophen tablets they had taken between conception and enrollment, and tested the acetaminophen concentration in their urine at enrollment. The frequency of language delay, defined as the use of fewer than 50 words, was measured by both a nurse’s assessment and a follow-up questionnaire filled out by participants about their child’s language milestones at 30 months.

Acetaminophen was used by 59 percent of the women in early pregnancy. Acetaminophen use was quantified in two ways: High use vs. no use analysis used women who did not report any use as the comparison group. For the urine analysis, the top quartile of exposure was compared to the lowest quartile.

Language delay was seen in 10 percent of all the children in the study, with greater delays in boys than girls overall. However, girls born to mothers with higher exposure — those who took acetaminophen more than six times in early pregnancy — were nearly six times more likely to have language delay than girls born to mothers who did not take acetaminophen. These results are consistent with studies reporting decreased Intelligent Quotient (IQ) and increased communication problems in children born to mothers who used more acetaminophen during pregnancy.

The SELMA study will follow the children and re-examine language development at seven years.

Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, is the active ingredient in Tylenol and hundreds of over-the-counter and prescription medicines. It is commonly prescribed during pregnancy to relieve pain and fever. An estimated 65 percent of pregnant women in the United States use the drug, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Given the prevalence of prenatal acetaminophen use and the importance of language development, our findings, if replicated, suggest that pregnant women should limit their use of this analgesic during pregnancy,” said the study’s senior author, Shanna Swan, PhD, Professor of Environmental and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “It’s important for us to look at language development because it has shown to be predictive of other neurodevelopmental problems in children.”

The Guardian

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A man whose body rejected a face transplant he received seven years ago has been given a second donor face after living nearly two months without one, French medical agencies said Friday.

It is the first time in transplant history that doctors have replaced one donor face with another, according to Olivier Bastien of France’s biomedicine agency.

More than 12 years since the first-ever face graft was done, in France, it remains a high-risk procedure.

But it also means a life-long reliance on immunosuppressant medicines, to stop the body rejecting the “foreign” organ. These drugs can leave a person vulnerable to infections and cancers.

It is a rare procedure with fewer than 40 operations performed to date, and at least six patients have died.

The latest recipient, in his 40s, went under the knife at a Paris hospital on Monday, for a procedure that lasted nearly a full day, according to a joint press statement issued by the biomedicine agency and the AP-HP public hospital system.

The man’s original graft had been removed in an operation on November 30, and he was kept on life support in an induced coma until the follow-up procedure.

“This graft shows for the first time … that re-transplantation is possible in the case of chronic rejection” of a donor face, said the statement.

It will be weeks before doctors can say whether the second graft has taken.

The recipient of the world’s first face transplant, Isabelle Dinoire, died of cancer in April 2016, 11 years after her groundbreaking operation.

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The UK’s first cyborg shop assistant was fired after a week due to “incompetence,” suggesting the much-feared AI takeover may still be some way off.
Fabio, the Pepper robot, produced by Japanese company Softbank, was hired as a retail assistant at a Margiotta supermarket in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of an experiment run by Heriot-Watt University for the BBC documentary Six Robots & Us.

“We thought a robot was a great addition to show the customers that we are always wanting to do something new and exciting,” Elena Margiotta, who runs the family-owned company, said. “Unfortunately Fabio didn’t perform as well as we had hoped. People seemed to be actually avoiding him.”

Fabio failed to help customers, telling them beer could be found “in the alcohol section,” rather than directing customers to the location of the beer, the Telegraph reports. He was soon demoted to offer food samples to customers, but failed to compete with his fellow human employees.

“Conversations didn’t always go well. An issue we had was the movement limitations of the robot,” Margiotta said. “It was not able to move around the shop and direct customers to the items they were looking for.”

It wasn’t all bad for Fabio, as the robot proved popular with his fellow employees. This came as a surprise to the researchers.

“One of the things we didn’t expect was the people working in the shop became quite attached to it,” Dr. Oliver Lemon, director of the Interaction Lab at Heriot-Watt said. “It was good in a way because we thought the opposite would happen and they would feel threatened by it because it was competing for their job.”

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Key facts

• Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic illness of 2-21 days duration that occurs in West Africa.
• The Lassa virus is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with rodent urine or faeces.
• Person-to-person infections and laboratory transmission can also occur, particularly in hospitals lacking adequate infection prevention and control measures.
• Lassa fever is known to be endemic in Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, but probably exists in other West African countries as well.
• The overall case-fatality rate is 1%. Observed case-fatality rate among patients hospitalized with severe cases of Lassa fever is 15%.
• Early supportive care with rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves survival.

Causes Lassa fever
 The main cause of Lassa virus is a rodent known as the Multimammate Rat of the genus Mastomys but it is not sure that which species of Mastomys are associated with Lassa fever.
* Avoid direct contact with rats
* If rat eat your grain or other food the virus could transfer to the food.
* It may also spread through person-to-person contact when a person comes into contact with virus in the blood, tissue, secretions, or excretions of an individual infected with the Lassa virus.

How to Prevent Lassa fever
Avoid contact between rats and human beings
Isolating infected patients from contact with unprotected persons until the disease has run its course

• Block all rat hideouts
• Cook all foods thoroughly
• Cover all foods and water properly.
• If you suspect that rat has eaten any food, discard it
• Keep your house and Environment clean
• Store foodstuffs in rodent proof containers

• Transmission of the Lassa virus from rodent to humans can be prevented by avoiding contact with Mastomys rodents(The rat that causes Lassa fever).
• Wearing protective clothing, such as Masks, gloves, gowns, and Glasses

Symptoms/Signs of Lassa fever
·  Abdominal Pain
·  Back Pain
·  Chest Pain
·  Conjunctivitis
·  Cough
·  Diarrhea
·  Facial Swelling
·  Fever
·  Mucosal Bleeding
·  Proteinuria
·  Sore Throat
·  Vomiting

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