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NEWSBITS
Pain-free syringes developed
Scientists have developed a tiny hypodermic syringe that can be used to give virtually pain-free injections.
The breakthrough could potentially be very good news for people with conditions such as diabetes, who require daily injections of insulin to manage their condition.
Japanese medical equipment maker Terumo Corporation has developed a prototype needle that is just 0.2 millimetres (0.008 inches) in diameter.
It uses a tapering technique to administer a flow of drugs through an extremely fine tip. No super-thin hypodermic syringes had been developed until now for fear that they could not guarantee full, uninterrupted flow of liquid medicine.
‘High demand’: Company spokeswoman Takako Ogawa said: “It depends upon the individual, but many people feel almost no twinge of pain with this needle.”
“Demand for a painless needle is very high among diabetics, who are supposed to inject insulin four or five times a day.
“We are also looking into the possibility of marketing the needle overseas.”
The company hopes the needle will be commercially available for purchase within the next five or six years.
Amanda Vezey, of the charity Diabetes UK, said: “We’ve come a long way since people with diabetes needed to inject insulin with unwieldy glass syringes and large, painful needles.
“Although this is a few years off, Diabetes UK would welcome any safe, effective advances which make the treatment of diabetes easier and more comfortable”
Terumo’s invention is thought to be the smallest conventional needle in the world.
However, a separate group of Japanese researchers has developed a microscopic alternative with a diameter of just 60 microns (60 millionths of one metre).
The device is connected to a miniature electric pump modelled on the mechanics of a mosquito bite. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
Paksat-1 reaches orbital position
The country’s first commercial satellite, Paksat-1, has reached its orbital position at 38 degrees east and has completed its initial manoeuvres to lock itself in a geosynchronous orbit, 36,000km above the earth.
National Telecommunication Corporation Chairman Air Vice-Marshal Azhar Maud said at a presentation to newspersons on Sunday that the satellite would start functioning from Feb 1, 2003.
He said a limited use of the satellite would help earn revenue and it could be used for educational, Internet and data networking at low costs.
He said the orbital slot was due to expire on April 19, 2003.
According to reports received from Frequency Allocation Board here and Suparco in Lahore, the satellite had stabilized at its location and its beacons were successfully received at the monitoring centres, he said.
The chairman said the satellite would be ready for commercial operations after comprehensive in-orbit testing and ground coverage survey, expected to take place till the end of January.
Its beacon frequencies were being received at the telemetry, tracking and control stations in Perth, Australia, after being relayed from Rugby in England.
The frequencies are also being monitored at Suparco and the Frequency Allocation Board facilities.
The transponder testing would begin in early January, he said.
In the past, five slots were allocated to the country in the orbit, which could not be exploited.
“If this slot was not protected by the government by bringing in a satellite and placing it there, this strategic asset and any future opportunity to enter the space would have been lost forever,” the NTC chairman said.
He said the government had acquired the use of the in-orbit satellite in July from the Hughes Global System (HGS) of the United States, for a low cost and planning was under way for a follow-on satellite to fully exploit the slot.
The HGS is assisting the government in frequency coordination and training of manpower. Replying to a question, he said the country would be able to build its indigenous commercial satellite by 2008.
Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Chairman Akhtar Ahmed Bajwa and advisor to the information technology and telecommunication minister, Salman Azhar Ansari, were also present. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
Brain’s adaptability confounds scientists
The adult brain appears much more able to rewire itself in response to stimuli from the outside world than previously thought, scientists have discovered.
A US team has used a groundbreaking technique to study activity in the brains of living mice. Their work has allowed them to observe adult brain cells forming new connections.
The finding contradicts the widely held view that the structure of adult brains is fixed, and therefore the capacity for recovering from injury is limited. It may also help scientists to gain a greater understanding of the processes underpinning learning and memory. And it may even lead to new ways to treat brain injuries and mental retardation.
Gene techniques: The researchers, from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, used state-of-the-art technology to show that connections between brain cells - known as synapses - form and dissolve in the adult brain as the mice take in sensory information.
The scientists used genetic engineering techniques to create mice with brain cells that produced a fluorescent green protein.
Then, they placed a small window over the part of the brain they wanted to study — the barrel cortex, a region associated with receiving information the mice gather with their whiskers. Every 24 hours for eight days and less frequently for the rest of a month, they checked to see which neurons sent out and retracted spines to form and eliminate connections with other neurons.
Whisker pattern: To see if the changing connections were influenced by sensory input they cut every other whisker on the mice, creating a chessboard pattern in which each cut whisker was surrounded by uncut whiskers, and then let the mice explore an unfamiliar environment. They found that the total number of synapses stayed relatively constant but the individual connections often changed.
Some stuck around for only a few days and others, generally the thicker ones, stayed for the duration of the experiment.
Significantly, connections formed and dissolved much more rapidly after the animals’ whiskers were cut and they were placed in the novel environment.
This suggests that the synapses changed according to new sensory input.
Random connections: The researchers, led by neurobiologist Professor Karel Svoboda, think it possible that brain cells put out connections to each other on a random basis. Those synaptic connections that prove to be useful are reinforced and grow thicker, while those that have little use wither away. Their next move will be to test whether synapses that are used more are the ones that grow thicker.
Professor Svoboda told BBC that he was quite surprised by the ability of the adult brain to make new connections. “The brain operates with circuitry that is constantly changing in response to new demands. The research is published in the Nature. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
Bridging Unix and Windows at NASA
The engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are responsible for making sure all astronauts and flight engineers are trained before they go to work miles above the Earth’s surface. This means writing training software that accurately simulates the in-flight work environment. But the Johnson Center had a problem. While its programmers prefer to work on Unix terminals, the government requires them to use Windows apps for E-mail and other forms of communication.
About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops.
“As PCs have become more powerful, it’s easier to run Linux on the desktop and add the Windows applications and use a single machine for everything,” McCartney says.
The Johnson Center’s IT team installed CrossOver Office from CodeWeavers Inc. on McCartney’s PCs to give the engineers access to a variety of open-source and Microsoft Office apps. CodeWeavers in mid-December introduced CrossOver Office Server Edition, a version of the product that gives workers access to open-source and Microsoft apps without having to install CrossOver Office on each PC. Server Edition is priced at $1,195 for the server software and an additional $1,185 for a 25-concurrent-user licence.
One drawback to CodeWeavers’ model is that the Johnson Center has to pay to license Microsoft apps, in addition to paying for CrossOver Office. But McCartney says he’s still been able to save about $10,000 in the past year by getting rid of his programmers’ old Unix terminals. The Johnson Center has also been able to replace a $1.6 million SGI Inc. mainframe server with a cluster of 12 PCs running Red Hat Linux for developing simulation software. The PCs were a $25,000 investment, less than half the cost of annual maintenance on the SGI server.
Better Linux desktop models exist for companies not required to use Windows. Tipic Inc. last week said it’s writing a version of its instant-messaging platform to run on Linux and Unix in addition to Windows. And Ximian Inc. offers an open-source desktop starting at $30 per license with productivity apps such as E-mail and calendaring. App support for Linux on the desktop is critical to its success, Aberdeen Group research director Bill Claybrook says. “It’s a less-expensive alternative for the desktop, assuming all the applications are there.” — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
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