Category: Interesting Reads

(via Blue’s News)
This article at the BBC indicates that scientists believe we could well eliminate food allergies in the next 10 years.

Experts at the BA Festival of Science, in Norwich, heard that vaccines could be created against the molecules which trigger allergies.

The scientist leading the research – Dr Ronald van Ree, from Amsterdam University – said a vaccine with no side effects was in sight.

. . .

Speaking about the research, Dr van Ree told festival delegates: “Taken together, these new developments provide good opportunities to develop strategies for the treatment of food allergies, both preventive and curative.”

He said it was now possible to produce altered versions of food allergy molecules in the laboratory.

“Importantly, this allows scientists to develop hypo-allergenic variants of these molecules for application in safer immunotherapy that will induce little or no side effects,” the scientist told the meeting at the University of East Anglia.

“Effective treatment will end the fear that food-allergic patients have for unwanted exposure to food allergens.”

Some of you already know me as a bit of a skeptic.  I’ll continue that tradition here.  In 5-6 years, we’ll get an update on this that we’ve moved slower than initially expected, and that now (i.e., the year 2011 or so), we really are just 10 years away from eliminating food allergies.  And this time, we really mean it.  At least, until 5-6 years later when scientists confirm that things are progressing slower than anticipated, but really, it will only be 10 more years, at most, before food allergies are wiped out.

I hope I’m wrong – I’d love to see food allergies eliminated.  But the body is damn tricky in how it works.  And as Jurassic Park taught us, any time you try to alter nature, nature finds a way around your changes (or something like that).

[tags]End of food allergies, Sciencists predict 10 years to end food allergies[/tags]

Sometimes, I marvel at the things we try in our attempts to make everyone “normal” in life. The latest thing I’ve chuckled over is electroshock, just because I wonder how the idea that this would help someone ever came up. Specifically, this bit on electric shock being used to treat the insane at Modern Mechanix (from the way back in November 1940 issue of Popular Science) made me think about this.

Insane Patients Helped by Electric Shock Treatment

Fighting insanity with electric shock is the most dramatic recent advance in the field of medicine. At the New York State Psychiatric Institute, in. New York City, seemingly hopeless cases of the most common forms of insanity, schizophrenia and dementia praecox, have been shocked back to apparent mental health by the new treatment. Electrodes, at the ends of a caliperlike instrument, are placed just in front of the ears on the patient’s head. From seventy to 100 volts of current pass through his brain. The result is a violent convulsion resembling an epileptic seizure.

In some cases, a single electric shock achieves what seems to be a medical miracle, restoring the patient to sanity. Previously, insulin, snake venom, and metrazol, have been used to produce shock. The electric treatment is painless, leaves no after effects, and costs less than shock-producing drugs.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Insane patients helped by electric shock[/tags]

(via Blue’s News)

After turning down the government’s offer for a state funeral, Steve Irwin’s family held a low-key funeral for the Crocodile Hunter over the week-end in Queensland, Australia.

Family and friends of the man known as the Crocodile Hunter reportedly joined the low-key ceremony in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast.

It is believed that afterwards Mr Irwin was to be buried at Australia Zoo, the Queensland zoo dedicated to Australian fauna owned by Mr Irwin’s family.

Details of the funeral service are expected to be made public on Monday.

[tags]Crocodile Hunter funeral, Steve Irwin buried at the zoo[/tags]

I’ve been too busy to work on the site for a couple++ days, and I’m not sure I’ll quite get back to frequent postings for a few more days still.  But to break to drought, here’s a quickie on poisonous fish.  Apparently, there are significantly more poisonous fish species than poisonous snake species.  Perhaps this will set up Mr. Jackson for his next movie sequel?  I’m thinking something with fish in a glassbottom boat.

The 1,200 presumably venomous fish tallied in a new study is six times previous estimates. Fish with a biting bite outnumber all other venomous vertebrates combined, in fact.

“The results of this research were quite surprising,” said researcher William Leo Smith of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

This might surprise you, too: More than 50,000 people are poisoned by fish bites every year, Smith and his colleague said. Symptoms range from blisters to death.

. . .

“Venomous fishes are in almost all habitats,” Smith told LiveScience. “They range from mountain streams to the depths of all oceans, but the vast majority of the most venomous fishes are in the tropics, he said.

There are also “plenty of venomous fishes” in the United States, but most are “not particularly harmful,” Smith said. Exceptions include a few scorpionfishes in California and the Western Atlantic.

“However, there is always the possibility of introduced species being quite venomous,” he said. “And, we have an example of this in the case of the lionfish/firefish, which became introduced in Florida, and now individuals can be collected at least as far north as Long Island in the fall.”

Should swimmers worry? “For the most part, no,” Smith said. “But people should always exercise caution when dealing with unfamiliar fishes or known venomous species.”

Sounds scary.  I don’t think any of those poisonous fish are on the same deadliness scale as the blue ring octopus, but these critters can still kill you dead.  Forever.

And that’s a very long time.

[tags]Poisonous fish, Fish on a mother-@#$@ing boat?[/tags]