Drug Eluting Stents or better alternatives?

The stop to drug eluting stents has come or at least the process to them has become? Millions of patients have been implanted with these metallic meshes to prevent and cure atherosclerosis, but now many doubts rise on the long term reliability of these biomedical devices, especially on their novel approach provided by drug eluting stents. Cardiologists adopted with enthusiasm this high tech but also high cost solution, with the promise to drastically reduce in stent restenosis, the pathology which leads to stent deployment failure in 15-30% of patients. From 2004, when two types of drug eluting stent have been approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these biomedical endo prostheses shifted their usage from only high risk patients to almost all non-invasive surgical procedures (80% of implanted stents are currently drug eluting stents). Higher costs for the health services, but higher profits for stent manufacturers, that invested a lot of money in drug eluting stent technology. In the middle, rising concern about a crescent incidence of thrombosis and heart attacks following drug eluting stent deployment.

Worldwide bees decline and cell phones

Albert Einstein made the statement "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live." Many people would be surprised to know that 80-90% of the bee population in the United States has died out. Recent studies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have shown that bee diversity is down 80 percent in the sites researched, and that "bee species are declining or have become extinct in Britain." The studies also revealed that the numbers of wildflowers that depend on pollination have dropped by 70 percent. If bees continue to die off so would the crops they support and with that would ensue major economic disruption. So far the causes remain unexplained and somewhat mysterious. It is being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and is causing agricultural honeybees nationwide to abandon their hives and disappear and raising worries about crops that need bees for pollination. It's a kind of mass suicide in the bee world. Initial studies on bee colonies experiencing the die-offs have revealed a large number of disease organisms, with most being "stress-related" diseases but without any one agent as the culprit. Climate chaos and extreme weather seem to be a major factor. No single cause drought chemicals/pesticides, mites, bacteria, a fungus or virus seems to be common to all the events or even indicated as a cause in any single event. Extreme weather and temperature fluctuations seem to play a major role stressing the bees and weakening their immune systems (the bees result immuno-compromised). Some studies suggest a possible relation between bees deaths and GSM electromagnetic fields, that now are all-pervasive worldwide. As GSM mobile phone systems produce radiation between 900 and 1800 megahertz, there could be a phenomenon of magnetic resonance, inducing jumps of misdirection in bees and avoiding them to return to their hives. Basically, other possible causes of bees population decline, could be:

• Infestations such as the varroa mite can be tested for quickly and easily, and could confirm this as the current cause, but this has not been reported this time.
• Pesticide use has not been suddenly altered across the world (Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Germany, Greece, the UK and 24 states of the USA).
• GM crops have been introduced, and not always as openly as some would like. These indeed can affect insect balance, but again this has not been evenly building across all the affected areas and would be more localised.
• Climate change is undoubtedly altering plant diversity and honeybees can be very specific, but this would suggest more gradual population density movements rather than disappearance.
  

While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown field crops. All of the following are dependant on bees, apples, pears, tangerines, peaches, soybeans, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, carrots, broccoli, almonds and avocados. The entire world now faces a decline of native pollinators. Over 100 species of birds and more than 80 mammals that pollinate are considered threatened or extinct by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), a network that includes scientists, experts, government agencies and non-governmental organizations from around the world. Each country has its own tale to tell. In southern India, nearly all of the native bees died in the 1990s when they became infected with an imported virus.

Prosthetics towards High Tech

A newer generation of prosthetic devices is making use of chip technology to help amputees walking in a more natural way. One such device is the C-Leg, from Otto Bock HealthCare, a German company. This biomedical device is equipped with a microprocessor, that reads data 50 times a second (from real-time sensor data) to help controlling and assisting limb movements. The same company also provides upper-body devices such as a new "dynamic arm" that for the first time has power-assist technology in elbow. But the next big step is probably going to be motorized or power-assisted prostheses. Today an amputee can move his limb under his own power--there's a battery that drives the electronics, but it's his leg that powers the movement of the device. In the future there would be some technology around that will assist the patient in the movement. That should be here in the next couple of years. The following step is to be able to connect to the neuromuscular areas of the body and actually reach a complete control of the biomedical device through patient's brain. Instead of having to think "I'm going to move my leg" and then move it, the amputee will just think and the nerves will fire, provoking the required movement.

Algae photobioreactors for CO2 absorption

Studies to develop surfaces for carbon oxide absorption (particularly CO2), are so common as strategy to diminish the athmospheric concentration of this polluctant. Since much time a solution in that way are titanium anodized surfaces (anatase), but the high material costs make it hard to widespread the technology. An innovative solution suggests to use unicellular green algae (Dunaliella parva e Dunaliella tertiolecta), which are organisms able to absorb CO2 and produce O2 in the reaction. Studies (greenfuelonline.com, MIT) helped to develop phototropic panels (Air-Lift Bioreactor) in which, thanks to an optimized photobioreactor, algae work in acqueous environment and solar light exposition takes to the generation of oxygen, following the process of chlorofillian photosynthesis. Algae used for this kind of experiments show annual efficiency, when they could be recycled as biomass waste to produce biofuels. It's possible to obtain a virtous cycle in the usage of this natural product, which should find numerous applications, such as: building, roofs, cars covering and surface nanotech treatments.

Renewable energy and oil price

In the field of world energy production, two main features seem to emerge interestingly: photovoltaic energy and biofuels. Wind energy maintains its good position. The high price of oil is leading to a large number of research and development activities in the field of renewable energy. The production of photovoltaic cells was a 44% greater during 2005 than during 2004, sustained by the Japanese technology and by the high demand coming from Germany and Japan itself.
The European production of biodiesel has been a 65% greater than during 2004. Also the production of bioethanol is growing, above all in America, where USA and Brazil are the main producers. With 15 billions of bioethanol liters produced in 2005, USA cover a 2.7% of their total fuel consumption. The high price of oil helps the production of bioethanol in countries as Brazil, where a long experience permitted to develop reliable methods to produce biofuels at lower prices in comparison with oil derivatives.
Germany represents the 50% of the whole production of world biodiesel, the 35% of photovoltaic energy and the 30% of wind energy. The direction is given, some doubts remain over the effective sustainability of this model.