Thursday, October 4, 2012
Life created from eggs made from skin cells
Life created from eggs made from skin cells
The resulting mice were fully fertile
Stem
cells made from skin have become "grandparents" after generations of
life were created in experiments by scientists in Japan.
The cells were used to create eggs, which were fertilised to produce baby mice. These later had their own babies.If the technique could be adapted for people, it could help infertile couples have children and even allow women to overcome the menopause.
But experts say many scientific and ethical hurdles must be overcome.
Healthy and fertile Stem cells are able to become any other type of cell in the body from blood to bone, nerves to skin.
Last year the team at Kyoto University managed to make viable sperm from stem cells. Now they have performed a similar feat with eggs.
They used stem cells from two sources: those collected from an embryo and skin-like cells which were reprogrammed into becoming stem cells.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Dr Evelyn Telfer University of EdinburghI just thought wow! The science is quite brilliant”
The first step, reported in the journal Science, was to turn the stem cells into early versions of eggs.
A "reconstituted ovary" was then built by surrounding the
early eggs with other types of supporting cells which are normally found
in an ovary. This was transplanted into female mice. Surrounding the eggs in this environment helped them to mature.
IVF techniques were used to collect the eggs, fertilise them with sperm from a male mouse and implant the fertilised egg into a surrogate mother.
Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi, from Kyoto University, told the BBC: "They develop to be healthy and fertile offspring."
Those babies then had babies of their own, whose "grandmother" was a cell in a laboratory dish.
Devastating blow The ultimate aim of the research is to help infertile couples have children. If the same methods could be used in people then cells in skin could be turned into an egg. Any resulting child would be genetically related to the mother.
However, Dr Hayashi said that was still a distant prospect: "I must say that it is impossible to adapt immediately this system to human stem cells, due to a number of not only scientific reasons, but also ethical reasons."
He said that the level of understanding of human egg development was still too limited. There would also be questions about the long-term consequences on the health of any resulting child.
Dr Evelyn Telfer, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "It's an absolutely brilliant paper - they made oocytes [eggs] from scratch and get live offspring. I just thought wow! The science is quite brilliant."
However, she warned that this had "no clinical relevance" as there were still too many gaps in understanding about how human eggs developed.
"If you can show it works in human cells it is like the Holy Grail of reproductive biology," she added.
Prof Robert Norman, from the University of Adelaide, said: "For many infertile couples, finding they have no sperm or eggs is a devastating blow.
"This paper offers light to those who want a child, who is genetically related to them, by using personalised stem cells to create eggs that can produce an offspring that appears to be healthy.
"It also offers the potential for women to have their own children well past menopause raising even more ethical issues.
"Application to humans is still a long way off, but for the first time the goal appears to be in sight."
Dr Allan Pacey, from the British Fertility Society and the University of Sheffield, said: "What is remarkable about this work is the fact that, although the process is still quite inefficient, the offspring appeared healthy and were themselves fertile as adults."
Source
'50-hour genome' test for babies with genetic diseases
'50-hour genome' test for babies with genetic diseases
Faster results mean sick babies can be given the correct medication
Doctors
in the US say they have taken a big step forward in the speed of
analysing the DNA of seriously ill babies with genetic diseases.
The whole of a baby's genetic code - genome - was sequenced,
analysed and the results given to doctors within 50 hours in intensive
care units at Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City.The process would normally take at least a month, they said.
Experts in the UK said it was an "impressive" technical achievement.
US doctors say up to a third of babies admitted to neonatal intensive care units are there because of genetic diseases caused by mutations in their DNA. However, there are more than 3,500 different genetic diseases meaning many are rare and difficult to diagnose.
The first copy of the blueprint of human life - the Human Genome Project - took years to accomplish and an incredible amount of money. Since then both the time and the cost have fallen dramatically.
Children's Mercy Hospital has been testing a new way of reading the genetic code which takes 50 hours from the moment a blood sample is taken.
They were able to make a diagnosis in three out of the four babies they tested, according to a study published in Science Translational Medicine.
Costly business Dr Stephen Kingsmore, director of the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at the hospital, said: "We can now consider whole genome sequencing to be relevant for hospital medicine.
"It is now feasible to decode an entire genome and provide interim results back to the physician in two days.
"We think this is going to transform the world of neonataology."
The results could help doctors provide the best treatment and counsel families. However, at a cost of about £8,400 ($13,500) it is still expensive.
Prof David Bonthron, from the University of Leeds, said: "It's pretty impressive technically, they're pushing the envelope of how fast you can turn this stuff around - two days is pretty fast."
He said speed was also vital in analysing the genes of a foetus still in the womb if abnormalities have been identified.
However, he added: "The speed issue is maybe a bit restricted in its applicability as other areas are not that time pressured. In outpatients a few days is not that important."
Source
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Nato's exit strategy in Afghanistan
Nato's exit strategy in Afghanistan
As Nato prepares to leave Afghanistan in 2014,
questions on how this withdrawal will logistically take place have yet
to be answered.
With the road route through Pakistan blocked, and instability and hostility from neighbouring countries making air and rail exits difficult, will it be possible to transport all the weapons and hardware of nearly 100,000 troops from this landlocked country?
Source
With the road route through Pakistan blocked, and instability and hostility from neighbouring countries making air and rail exits difficult, will it be possible to transport all the weapons and hardware of nearly 100,000 troops from this landlocked country?
Source
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Liquid air 'offers energy storage hope'
Liquid air 'offers energy storage hope'
Renewable power generation, such as wind turbines, can produce electricity when it is not in demand
Turning air into liquid may offer a solution to one of the great challenges in engineering - how to store energy.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says liquid air can
compete with batteries and hydrogen to store excess energy generated
from renewables. IMechE says "wrong-time" electricity generated by wind farms at night can be used to chill air to a cryogenic state at a distant location.
When demand increases, the air can be warmed to drive a turbine.
Engineers say the process to produce "right-time" electricity can achieve an efficiency of up to 70%.
IMechE is holding a conference today to discuss new ideas on how using "cryo-power" can benefit the low-carbon economy.
The technology was originally developed by Peter Dearman, a garage inventor in Hertfordshire, to power vehicles.
A new firm, Highview Power Storage, was created to transfer Mr Dearman's technology to a system that can store energy to be used on the power grid.
The process, part-funded by the government, has now been trialled for two years at the back of a power station in Slough, Buckinghamshire.
More than hot air The results have attracted the admiration of IMechE officials.
The energy storage technology has been tested for two years at a power station
"In this case, it is a very clever application that really does look like a potential solution to a really great challenge that faces us as we increase the amount of intermittent power from renewables."
Dr Fox urged the government to provide incentives in its forthcoming electricity legislation for firms to store energy on a commercial scale with this and other technologies.
IMechE says the simplicity and elegance of the Highview process is appealing, especially as it addresses not just the problem of storage but also the separate problem of waste industrial heat.
The process follows a number of stages:
- "Wrong-time electricity" is used to take in air, remove the CO2 and water vapour (these would freeze otherwise)
- the remaining air, mostly nitrogen, is chilled to -190C (-310F) and turns to liquid (changing the state of the air from gas to liquid is what stores the energy)
- the liquid air is held in a giant vacuum flask until it is needed
- when demand for power rises, the liquid is warmed to ambient temperature. As it vaporizes, it drives a turbine to produce electricity - no combustion is involved
The heat can be used to boost the thermal expansion of the liquid air.
More energy is saved by taking the waste cool air when the air has finished chilling, and passing it through three tanks containing gravel.
The chilled gravel stores the coolness until it is needed to restart the air-chilling process.
Delivering durability Highview believes that, produced at scale, their kits could be up to 70% efficient, and IMechE agrees this figure is realistic.
"Batteries can get 80% efficiency so this isn't as good in that respect," explains Dr Fox.
"But we do not have a battery industry in the UK and we do have plenty of respected engineers to produce a technology like this.
"What's more, it uses standard industrial components - which reduces commercial risk; it will last for decades and it can be fixed with a spanner."
In the future, it is expected that batteries currently used in electric cars may play a part in household energy storage.
But Richard Smith, head of energy strategy for National Grid, told BBC News that other sorts of storage would be increasingly important in coming decades and should be incentivised to commercial scale by government.
He said: "Storage is one of four tools we have to balance supply and demand, including thermal flexing (switching on and off gas-fired power stations); interconnections, and demand-side management. Ultimately it will be down to economics."
Mr Dearman, who also invented the MicroVent resuscitation device used in ambulances, told BBC News he was delighted at the success of his ideas.
He said he believed his liquid air engine would prevail against other storage technologies because it did not rely on potentially scarce materials for batteries. "I have been working on this off and on for close on 50 years," he told BBC News.
"I started when I was a teenager because I thought there wouldn't be enough raw materials in the world for everyone to have a car. There had to be a different way. Then somehow I came up with the idea of storing energy in cold.
"It's hard to put into words to see what's happening with my ideas today."
John Scott, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), added: "At present, pumped-hydro storage is the only practical bulk storage medium in the British grid.
"However, locations are very restricted," he told BBC News. "In the future, if new storage technologies can be deployed at a lower cost than alternatives, it would benefit the power system."
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said it would shortly launch a scheme to incentivise innovation in energy storage. Other grants are available from Ofgem.
Follow Roger Harrabin on Twitter: @RogerHarrabin
Source
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Tehrangeles: How Iranians made part of LA their own
Tehrangeles: How Iranians made part of LA their own
Google maps recently recognised "Tehrangeles" as a neighbourhood of
central Los Angeles. How did this upmarket part of LA become home to the
largest community of Iranians outside Iran?
"We're on the map, I mean why shouldn't we be on the map?" says a girl at a hip Los Angeles cafe where young Iranians hang out."There's Koreatown, and Chinatown. Why shouldn't we have an area?"
Now they do.
Estimates show anywhere from 300,000 to over half a million Iranians in Southern California, with many living in Tehrangeles.
"Do not engage in any Iranian gossiping if you're not prepared to defend it," says Mahdis Keshavarz, who runs an LA PR agency. "Because everyone here speaks Farsi."
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Dr Reza Aslan California UniversityThey settled in LA because so much of it reminds them of Iran - the landscape, the car culture, the mountains”
"The first time I came to LA as a
student I was on campus and I heard Persian and I turned with that
knee-jerk reaction, of 'Wow, cool, another Iranian,'" says Amy Malek, a
PhD graduate at UCLA, who studies the Iranian diaspora.
"And the girl looked me up and down as if to say, 'Why are you staring at me, what's the big deal?'"And that's when I realised, OK, you've got a lot of Iranians here."
The largest concentration of Iranians is around Westwood Boulevard, where most of the shop signs are in Persian and most of the voices you hear are speaking Farsi.
With almost 40% of the students at the renowned Beverly Hills High School said to be Iranian, studies show that Iranians are one of the best-educated immigrant groups in the US, and they are flourishing as entrepreneurs.
Continue reading the main story
Tehrangeles facts
- Also known as Little Persia
- Located between Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles
- Centred on the Westwood neighbourhood
- A fifth of the population of Beverly Hills is of Iranian descent
Entrepreneurs, for example, like
Farhad Mohit, who set up comparison-shopping website bizrate.com while
he was still in business school and later sold it for millions of
dollars.
Online giant e-Bay was founded by an Iranian and the current YouTube CEO is also Iranian.In fact, plenty of non-Iranian residents of LA are signing up for Farsi lessons to make themselves attractive as potential employees to Iranian businessmen.
The first immigrants arrived in LA as students in the 1960s and prospered in the early 1970s, but the biggest wave came as people fled from the 1979 revolution which overthrew the Shah and ushered in an Islamic Republic.
Many never expected to stay long.
"We had a saying in our community, don't unpack your suitcase, we thought any day things would change and we would go back," says writer and broadcaster Homa Sarshar.
"But it's been 32 years and we are still here."
Many more followed to join families, to escape the Iran-Iraq war of the early 1980s, or simply in search of better opportunities.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Sara Second-generation IranianIf you say, 'I'm Iranian,' people think you're enriching uranium in your garage!”
The climate was also a factor.
"They settled in LA because so much of it reminds them of
Iran - the landscape, the car culture, the mountains," says Dr Reza
Aslan of California University.But it has not all been plain sailing.
Iran-US relations sharply deteriorated in 1979, when 52 American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, and this had implications for Iranians newly arrived in LA.
"We would be playing on the drive way and neighbours would drive up to scare us and then drive away," says Sara, a child of Iranian immigrants.
Farhad Mohit, who arrived at the height of the hostage crisis, was called names at school.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
- Listen to Iranian comedian Maz Jobrani's tour of Tehrangeles on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 29th September at 10.30 BST
- Or catch up here on BBC iPlayer (UK only)
Demonstrations by Americans against Iranians telling them to go back home were common.
"It wasn't a great time to be an Iranian, so when I went to university I changed my name to Fred," he says.Iranians in the US have struggled to shake off the terrorist-fanatic image ever since.
"As a result of the prejudice Iranians would say they are Italian or Greek," says Amy Malek.
"Or they would refer to themselves as Persian rather than Iranian, as the identity that comes to mind with Persia is cats and rugs, but with Iran, the images are all negative."
"It's like if you say you're Persian, you're more cultured or posh," says Sara.
"But if you say, 'I'm Iranian,' people think you're enriching uranium in your garage!"
Every time new tensions arise between the two governments, the community fears the return of old prejudices.
"Americans are good people, they are just very uncomfortable with what they don't understand," says one young Iranian American who came to the US in the 1980s.
"You always realise that when you get out of California, but LA is like our safe haven."
But a generation on from the turmoil of 1979, most Tehrangeles residents feel completely comfortable with their dual identity.
Now in her thirties, Mahdis Kehsavarz says she no longer feels she has to choose between being Iranian or American.
"We're not going to be fully Iranian and we're not fully American, so let's keep out names and not change them and be proud of who we are."
Source
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Why male Japanese wage-earners have only 'pocket money'
Why male Japanese wage-earners have only 'pocket money'
Mariko Oi reports on the 74% of Japanese household budgets that are controlled by women
The 15th of each month is a big day for 36-year-old Yoshihiro Nozawa: it is the day he gets paid.
But every month, he hands over his entire salary to his wife Masami. She controls the household budget and gives him a monthly pocket money of 30,000 yen ($381; £243). Despite being the breadwinner, that is all the money he can spend on himself over the next 30 days.
"The last five days from the 10th of each month are usually the toughest," says Yoshihiro.
To put the amount of his pocket money into context, the Nozawa family of four could easily spend 30,000 yen at Tokyo Disneyland in a day.
Yoshihiro and Masami have two children, Rino aged 6 and Ren aged 8, and they are the reason his wife decided to put him on a fixed allowance.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Taisaku Kubo BusinessmanShe draws a pie chart of our household budget to explain why I cannot get more pocket money.”
"I started controlling the household budget when I became a housewife after having children," says Masami.
"Suddenly, there was only one income and their educations and private lessons cost a lot."Under the thumb Yoshihiro nods but he says 30,000 yen doesn't go far in the world's most expensive city, Tokyo.
"She makes me a lunch box every morning so that helps a lot," he says as he eats his lunch alone in a nearby park from his office.
His only luxury is cigarettes, which he spends one third of his monthly allowance on.
"I think I may have to quit if the price goes up again," he says.
Yoshihiro may be eating his lunch alone but he is not unique.
According to a survey conducted by research firm Softbrain Field, 74% of Japanese household budgets are controlled by women and it is not just couples with young children.
Yoshihiro Nozawa: "Even if I get a pay rise, I'm not too hopeful that my pocket money will go up as well"
He has tried to negotiate a pay rise each year but his wife makes a presentation to explain why it cannot be done.
"She draws a pie chart of our household budget to explain why I cannot get more pocket money," says Taisaku.
On the hand drawn chart, his pocket money is stated as 8.8% of the monthly budget.
"The biggest expenditures are home loan and taxes," says his wife Yuriko. "We don't have children so I want to make sure that we'll have enough money after his retirement."
Just like that, Taisaku loses his argument for a pay rise.
"I've given up my car, motorbike and many expensive hobbies," he laughs.
Shrinking budget But his monthly allowance of 50,000 yen is in fact higher than the national average.
According to Shinsei Bank which has been researching the trend since 1979, the average monthly pocket money was 39,600 yen last year.
And to make things harder for the men, that compares with 76,000 yen in 1990 when people thought that Japan's economy was at its peak. That was two years after the nation's benchmark stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached a record high of 38,916.
But share prices fell sharply in the 1990s and have never since come close to that level.
A study shows that 74% of Japanese household budgets are controlled by women
So today, those whose wives don't make lunch boxes try to cap their daily lunch budget to one coin: 500 yen - about $6.50.
As in most cities, prices vary wildly according to location, decor and the standard of food and drink on offer.
But in many places 500 yen would barely be enough for a bowl of noodles or a McDonald's burger.
Their drinking budget has also shrunk to a record low.
On average, they only spend 2,860 yen on a night of drinking which is almost half of what they used to spend just three years ago.
That does not allow for a great many half litre bottles of Asahi - the average price is around 700 yen.
Double income So why don't men start controlling the household budgets themselves?
"I don't think many men hand over their entire salaries happily," says career consultant Takao Maekawa of FeelWorks.
"But they feel it's their obligation to earn money for the family even if it means they have to suffer themselves."
Traditionally, it was a combination of hardworking salarymen, as white-collar businessmen are called in Japan, and stay-at-home mothers or housewives which supported Japan's economic growth after World War II.
"He actually tried to handle the household budget once," says Masami Nozawa whose husband Yoshihiro lives on 30,000 yen a month.
"But he said it was too time consuming so returned the task back to me," she says.
Yoshihiro agrees: "I know how much I make and I now understand how difficult it is to allocate the money".
"Even if I get a pay rise at work, I am not too hopeful that my pocket money will go up."
Today, more families are seeking out a double income simply because they cannot afford not to.
But for now, Yoshihiro and Taisaku look for cheap enough bars where they can still have some drinks without blowing all of their monthly pocket money at once.
Source
Monday, September 24, 2012
10 things readers want in a history of the world
10 things readers want in a history of the world
Andrew Marr's History of
the World is attempting to tell the story of civilisation in eight
hour-long episodes. Last week he spoke of the difficulty of choosing
what to include, and what to leave out.
Charlemagne didn't make the cut. Mughal emperor Aurangzeb did. And there had to be a host of other difficult omissions. We asked for your suggestions for often overlooked moments in world history. Here are 10.
1. Industrial ammonia
In 1909 Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch created a way of producing huge amounts of fertiliser by artificially synthesising ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen.
The fertiliser increased crop
yields which allowed more food to be produced for a growing population.
The process was described as conjuring "bread from air".
Without the Haber-Bosch process, about 40% of people - nearly
three billion - would not be alive today because we could not produce
the amount of food we need, says environmental expert Professor Vaclav
Smil from the University of Manitoba."We have to eat and drink, everything else is optional. In that sense it's the most important scientific discovery. Organic agriculture would not provide enough food to feed the world."
But Haber's contribution to agriculture is often overshadowed by his work developing chemical weapons. During World War I, he developed the use of gas for warfare and his work was later used by the Nazis to poison Jews in the gas chambers.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
- Andrew Marr's History of the World began Sunday 23 September on BBC One at 21:00 BST
- Reveals the decisive moments that shaped the world we live in today
Of Jewish descent but "pardoned"
because of his patriotic efforts in World War I, Haber was expelled from
Germany after he refused to fire Jewish workers. He died of a heart
attack one year later in 1934.
"We should remember his peaceful efforts before the Great War
and recognise his contributions to science, useful for the whole of
humanity to stave off possible famine," says Haber's godson, the
historian Fritz Stern."He was a prime example of the complexities and contradictions of a scientist in wartime."
2. Andreas Hofer, rebel Austrian leader
"The story of Andreas Hofer deserves to be much more widely told." Dr Andrew Bellenkes, Pinswang, Austria
Continue reading the main story
Napoleon and Austria
- Two of Napoleon's most famous victories fought against the Austrians - at Ulm and Austerlitz
- Arc de Triomphe in Paris built to commemorate Austerlitz victory
- Treaty of Vienna (1814) carved up Europe after Napoleon's defeat, and was a diplomatic triumph for the Austrian statesman Metternich
In 1809 Andreas Hofer led a rural
rebel army to fight against Napoleon's troops to try and claim back
Tyrol, a region of Austria that had been given to the German state of
Bavaria.
An innkeeper in the countryside, his army was made up mostly
of peasant workers and farmers. They only had improvised weapons and
primitive military tactics.For a short period in 1809 he ruled the land, announced new laws and made his own coins. But his success was short lived, and less than a year later, in exile, he was betrayed and executed.
Today he is celebrated as a hero. He has museums, books, streets and hotels named after him, but not many outside of Austria know who he is.
"If you look to Europe during the Napoleonic era, Tyrol was not of economic importance, it was just keeping the traffic routes between the North and South open," says historian and director of the Tiroler Landesmuseen, Wolfgang Meighoerner.
3. Alhazen and his work on optics
"The great Arabic scientific work of the 10th Century, and in particular the life of men such as Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)." James, Bristol
Continue reading the main story
Father of scientific method
- Al-Haytham proved that we see because light enters our eyes
- Many of his scientific discoveries were made while under a 10-year house arrest
Ibn al-Haytham was born in about 965 in what is now Iraq, and is regarded by some by some as the real father of the scientific method, predating Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes in the 17th Century.
Al-Haytham was the first to disprove the theory that we see
objects by rays of light emitted from our eyes, realising instead that
we see because light enters our eyes. No other scientist before him had used maths to prove this process, says Prof Jim Al-Khalili from the University of Surrey.
"When the great scientific revolution took place in Europe, science had advanced so much that people forgot it was built on previous knowledge."
Al-Haytham was part of the golden age of Arabic science, and while Europe was stuck in the Dark Ages, he filled the gap, says Al-Khalili.
4. Danube script
The Neolithic civilisation of central Europe (6000-3,500BC) and the enigmatic Danube script, which possibly influenced the first true writing." Jeremy Glover, Leighton BuzzardThe Danube script is a controversial subject among archaeologists, some of whom claim it is the earliest known form of writing in the world.
The early signs are found on Neolithic artefacts such as pottery and spindle whorls, concentrated in the Balkans and associated with the Vinca culture.
Some think tablets from Tartaria, in Romania, are exceptional as they "really look like 'writing'", notes James Mallory, professor of prehistoric archaeology at Queen's University in Belfast.
But he says no-one can tell for sure whether they are random symbols, a system of select magical symbols, or possibly some form of early writing.
There has also been a debate about whether they actually date to the Vinca period or were later insertions into the mound, he says.
5. Double-entry book-keeping
"Double-entry book-keeping, which revolutionised commerce first in Europe and then the world over." Philippa Sutton, Newcastle
Continue reading the main story
Luca Pacioli, father of accounting
- Born around 1447 in Tuscany, this Franciscan friar was friend of Leonardo da Vinci
- His masterwork Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita set out principles of double-entry accounting
- His motto: "No person should go to bed until the debits equal the credits"
Double-entry book-keeping, which
is widely believed to have been introduced to Europe in the early 16th
Century by the monk Luca Pacioli, is a financial accounting system. It
recognises that all transactions have two aspects, a credit and a debit,
and in a properly constituted set of books, the two sets of figures
always balance.
Prof Christopher Napier from the Royal Holloway, University
of London, says the system provided a standard structure for businesses
and individuals to record transactions, and it helped entrepreneurs and
investors to measure their capital, and the profits of their business. Some people argue that double-entry prompted a shift in culture, Napier says, from a time when the goal was simply to earn a good living, to a culture where the goal was to maximise one's capital. But there are some historians of accounting who argue it's possible to overstate the influence of double-entry, Napier says.
6. Seven Years' War
"The Seven Years War was truly the first WORLD war and is overlooked in history." Cleggy, Northfleet, KentThe Seven Years' War (1756-1763) involved all the great powers of Europe and saw France, Austria, Russia and Sweden on one side, and Britain, Prussia and Hanover on the other.
Continue reading the main story
The Death of Wolfe
- Benjamin West's 1770 painting is probably most famous image of Seven Years' War
- James Wolfe died from his injuries while leading British troops in Battle of Quebec
Michael Ball, curator of Britain's National Army Museum,
says the Seven Years' war could arguably be seen as the first world
war, "not in the sense of the 20th Century wars, which saw entire
nations mobilised for war, but in terms of geography".
"The battles affected North America, India, the Caribbean, the Philippines and large parts of central Europe," he says.Prof Mark Knights, of the University of Warwick, says the Seven Years' War could also be seen as the first world war due to its "shockingly high" casualties.
"Estimates vary but it is likely that more than a million people died," he says.
The result of the fighting, which saw Britain acquire Canada from the French and control all of North America east of the Mississippi, was also "very significant", according to Ball, and ultimately led to the American war of Independence.
It also saw Britain become, arguably, the first world power, he says.
7. The Kingdom of Axum
"Civilisations are neglected. What about Axum?" Berhanu Tessema, Addis AbabaThe Kingdom of Axum (or Aksum) rose to prominence as a trading nation in the 1st Century, and at its height became the greatest market of north-eastern Africa.
Its most renowned surviving monuments are a group of memorial obelisks, or stelae.
There are many reasons for including Axum in any world history, says James Burns, author of A History of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The kingdom represents a significant and highly innovative urban civilisation.
"Its economy was based on the cultivation of crops grown exclusively in the Ethiopian highlands, supplemented with cereals and technologies imported from Asia. It was one of Rome's great trading partners, and they rose and fell in close parallel," he says.
The kingdom was one of the earliest regions of Christian conversion in Africa. "The image of an isolated Christian kingdom captured the imagination of Christians in Europe throughout the Middle Ages", he says.
8. The law code of Hammurabi
A basalt stele (slab) protrudes into Paris' Louvre like a thumb. On it is the earliest truly extensive documented set of laws of the ancient world, written in Akkadian.
It is commonly referred to as the Law Code of Hammurabi, but some experts argue it's not really a law code at all. It does however provide an incomparable insight into life and justice during King Hammurabi's reign (1792-1750BC) as first ruler of the Babylonian Empire.
The stele sets out the famous principle of "an eye for an eye". But also included are familiar concepts of evidence-based justice and giving testimony under oath - even provisions for the maintenance of divorced wives.
There were precursors to Hammurabi's laws, explains Dr Frances Reynolds, Assyriology expert at Oxford University, but the stele and 130,000 clay tablet documents from the period establish the king as a "fantastic administrator".
It perhaps explains why he adorns the wall of the American Supreme Court, suggests Reynolds.
9. Rise of the Khmer empire and creation of Angkor Wat
Thousands of backpackers and awed holidaymakers have stood and gazed at the massive temple complex of Angkor Wat deep inside the Cambodian jungle.
The Angkor temples are legacies of the Khmer Empire, which dominated south-east Asia from the 9th Century.
"One of the first and certainly the most important classical civilisation of southeast Asia, it set the standards by which kingdoms and societies that came after measured themselves", says Dr Charney, an expert from SOAS.
Angkor became the "largest pre-industrial urban complex in the world", says Cambridge PhD student Mary Beth Day, featuring the "most sophisticated hydraulic engineering and water management system". The Khmer could collect and store water across 1,000 square km, channelling it directly to rice paddies.
Yet the empire's demise remains a "contentious issue", says Day, with many details shrouded in mystery.
10. The life of Simon Bolivar
Inspired by European enlightenment philosophy, Caracas-born Simon Bolivar helped liberate his people from the Spanish Empire, gaining independence for the modern-day nations of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
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Simon Bolivar
- Born 1783 in Caracas, New Granada (now Venezuela), died 1830
- Soldier and statesman who led revolutions against Spanish rule in Latin America
- Bolivia named after him
His political rule was less
successful. Unable to fend off factional enemies and increasingly
dictatorial, Bolivar died awaiting exile in 1830, "disillusioned that he
was unable to maintain the ideals of freedom, liberty and equality",
says Dr Matthew Brown, a Latin America expert at Bristol University.
Bolivar's impact was nevertheless vast.The "most significant figure" to emerge from Latin America, he was even "more important than [US President George] Washington", says Anthony McFarlane, emeritus professor at Warwick University.
He played a critical role in the decline of the Spanish Empire, which in turn marked a huge shift in global imperial relations. Bolivar's leadership also served as a "model" for later anti-colonialist movements, adds McFarlane.
Reporting by Tom Heyden, Vanessa Barford and Melissa Hogenboom
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Painkillers 'are the cause' of millions of headaches
Painkillers 'are the cause' of millions of headaches
Up
to a million people in the UK have "completely preventable" severe
headaches caused by taking too many painkillers, doctors have said.
They said some were trapped in a "vicious cycle" of taking pain relief, which then caused even more headaches.The warning came as part of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's (NICE) first guidelines for treating headaches.
It is also recommending acupuncture in some circumstances.
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“Start Quote
Prof Martin Underwood Warwick Medical SchoolThis can end up getting into a vicious cycle where your headache gets worse, so you take more painkillers, so your headache gets worse and this just becomes worse and worse and worse”
"Medication overuse headaches" feel the same as other common headaches or migraines.
There is no definitive UK data on the incidence of the condition, but studies in other countries suggest 1-2% of people are affected, while the World Health Organization says figures closer to 5% have been reported.While painkillers would be many people's instant response, they could be making sufferers feel even worse.
Prof Martin Underwood, from Warwick Medical School, who led the NICE panel, said: "This can end up getting into a vicious cycle where your headache gets worse, so you take more painkillers, so your headache gets worse and this just becomes worse and worse and worse.
"It is such an easy thing to prevent."
'Tipping point' Exactly how painkillers have this effect on the brain is unknown.
Most of the people affected are thought to have started with either everyday, tension-type headaches or migraines. The headaches then became worse as they treated themselves at home.
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Main types of headache
- Tension - the common "everyday" headache most people will experience at some point in their lives. In some cases people have tension headaches on most days of the month.
- Migraine - severe headache that can last for several days. It gets worse with activity and often comes with nausea as well as sensitivity to light and sound.
- Cluster - extremely severe pain around the eye and side of the face, also includes swelling and a red watery eye. Some people report eight attacks a day, which can last up to three hours.
- Medication overuse - feels like a tension headache or a migraine, but is due to taking too many painkillers.
- However, there are more than 200 types of headache.
Manjit Matharu, a consultant
neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery,
said there was a tipping point at 10 to 15 days of using pain relief
each month when the drugs became the issue.
He said: "This is a huge problem in the population. The
figures in terms of the number of people who have medication overuse
headache are one in 50, so that is approximately a million people who
have headaches on a daily or near daily basis because they're using
painkillers."People with a family history of tension-type headaches or migraine may also be genetically more vulnerable to medication overuse headaches. They could be susceptible when taking pain relief even if it is not for headaches.
The new guidelines for doctors in England and Wales advise telling sufferers to immediately stop taking all pain relief. However, this will lead to about a month of agony as patients contend with regular headaches without pain relief, until symptoms eventually improve.
The panel said other options for controlling any underlying headaches, such as preventative treatments, could be considered.
Acupuncture The guidelines also include a recommendation for acupuncture in patients susceptible to migraine and tension headaches.
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Drugs causing overuse headaches
- Paracetamol, aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on 15 or more days per month
- Triptans, opioids, ergots or combination analgesic medications on at least 10 days per month
"We would expect that to lead to
more people getting acupuncture, but given there is good evidence to
show this is effective for the prevention of both tension-type and
migraine-type headaches then that is a good thing because people are
getting access to an effective treatment," Prof Martin Underwood said.
Doctors have also been asked not to refer patients for brain
scans "solely for reassurance" that they do not have a brain tumour. The
NICE panel said a tumour would come with other symptoms such as a
change in behaviour or epilepsy.The chief executive of the Migraine Trust, Wendy Thomas, said: "The guideline will assist with accurate diagnosis, appropriate referral and evidence-based information for those with troublesome and disabling headaches.
"It will also raise awareness of medication overuse, which can be an issue for those with severe headaches.
"People with disabling migraine will experience improved quality of life as a result of this guideline."
Dr Fayyaz Ahmed, the chair of British Association for the Study of Headache, welcomed the guidelines.
He said: "Headache is the most prevalent condition and one in seven of the UK population has migraine.
"The condition puts an enormous burden on the healthcare resources and the economy in general."
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What Neuroscience Really Says About Female Desire
Correctly understood, neuroscience offers important insight into how our minds function and how our brains shape our lives: many of my articles on Healthland attempt to explore these questions. But the kind of oversimplification seen in Wolf’s book and, sadly, in many other popular accounts of neuroscience, threatens to perpetuate a psychological myth. Rather than illuminating the complex interplay between mind and brain, it portrays human beings — especially women — as automatons, enslaved by brain chemicals we cannot control.
That’s not what the science shows. The mind-body connection is far more complicated and wonderful, as a quick tour through some of Wolf’s errors will illustrate. There is a new science of female sexual behavior, but it is far more liberating than the book suggests.
(MORE: First 3D Movie of Orgasm in the Female Brain)
Let’s start with Wolf’s understanding of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that rightly fascinates many researchers. Dopamine appears to be critical for motivation and desire: if it’s depleted or blocked (with a medication like an antipsychotic, for example), people may lose the will to strive, even the ability to move. But boost it with a drug like cocaine and people feel capable, excited, empowered.
Here’s how Wolf connects women’s sexuality with the function of dopamine in the brain:
If as a woman, you are frustrated sexually and even worse, aroused but denied release, your dopamine system eventually diminishes in anticipation of sex, you eventually lose access to the positive energy you might otherwise have had both in sex and also subsequently to take elsewhere in your life. … With low dopamine activation, you will suffer from a lack of ambition or drive and your libido will be low.The theory sounds plausible, but “the fallacy is that she’s saying dopamine is primarily involved in sexual pleasure, and that’s not the case,” says Larry Young, a pioneering researcher on sexual and social bonding and co-author of The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction. “Dopamine is involved in reward and motivation for everything we do in life — whether we’re eating good food, drinking good wine or interacting with our kids and family.”
Sexual frustration, therefore, isn’t likely to turn off your dopamine system. “Taking one [type of pleasure] away isn’t going to change all aspects of your life like that,” Young says. He also points out that dopamine isn’t only associated with joyful experience. “It’s also released under stressful conditions,” he says.
Further, if the dopamine system typically turned itself off when satisfaction wasn’t attained, few people would develop addiction. Indeed, the experience of addiction itself is marked by ongoing desire in the face of frustration: addiction doesn’t create an overall lack of desire or drive, but rather a very intense, if misdirected, motivational pull toward the drug of choice.
(MORE: The Female Erotic Brain, Mapped)
Wolf further misconstrues how dopamine interacts with serotonin, another neurotransmitter that has multiple functions, including roles in mood and sensation. Arguing that antidepressants that raise serotonin levels (like Prozac and other drugs of its kind) may be used to keep women submissive, she writes:
Dopamine will — if women and their vaginas are not hurt, suppressed, injured or demeaned — make women more euphoric, more creative and more assertive — possibly more than a male-dominated society is comfortable with. … Serotonin literally subdues the female voice, and dopamine literally raises it.Again, there is no basis in neuroscience for this claim. Although some antidepressants do have the side effect of suppressing sexual desire, this affects both men and women, not women alone. Antidepressants that increase serotonin levels don’t typically deplete desire or motivation in general, however. Quite the opposite in fact: people whose depression has been lifted by these drugs tend to be more motivated, not less.
Women are more likely to be depressed than men, so they’re more likely to take medication for it. And yet while some antidepressants work by elevating dopamine — for example, bupropion (Wellbutrin) — you don’t see women being denied such drugs for fear they’ll overthrow the patriarchy. As with all antidepressants, women are prescribed these drugs more frequently than men are.
We still don’t know which medication will lift depression better — or worsen it, for that matter — in any given individual of either gender, though. The complexity of the condition and the widely varying response to antidepressants illustrate just how subtle and nuanced the interactions are between serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters and our moods and desires. Countless things can go wrong to produce depression or low libido, and innumerable things can go right to alleviate such problems. If the brain were as simple as Wolf presents it, it just wouldn’t work. It’s not as straightforward as one neurotransmitter, one effect.
“Science, particularly physiology, never works that way,” says Kathryn Clancy, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, who studies reproductive behavior and blogs about “ladybusiness” for Scientific American, noting that, for example, two women with the exact same levels of hormones can have vastly different physiology — either a “lush, thick” uterine lining, say, or a very thin one.
(MORE: What a Workout! Women Report that Exercise Triggers Orgasm)
Wolf includes a similar oversimplification in her discussion of the neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin, which is best known for its involvement in facilitating bonding between lovers and between parents and children. Wolf calls oxytocin “women’s emotional superpower” and, citing research in prairie voles, concludes that it makes women more likely to become emotionally connected to their sexual partners than men are.
But Young says there’s no data on gender differences in oxytocin in humans. “Based on what we know from animals, it is likely that when women have sex that they are going to experience more of an oxytocin release than men,” he says, adding, “We don’t know.”
Wolf then jumps from this conjecture to the notion that women’s intense oxytocin release makes them more likely to become literally addicted to sex: “Good sex is, in other words, actually addictive for women biochemically in certain ways that are different from the experience of men — meaning that one experiences discomfort when this stimulus is removed and a craving to secure it again.”
From this unscientific claim, the author leaps even further afield, concluding that because of their biochemistry, women are less capable of controlling themselves when it comes to love and therefore, less human. “The tricky part, if you look at the new science, is that women are indeed, in sex, in some ways more like animals than men,” she writes.
Note here that we’ve gone from assuming that an animal finding applies to humans to an assumption (one without any data at all) that the previous conclusion creates an uncontrollable desire for sex in women that is similar to addiction, which characterizes women in love as having little more self-control than animals.
There is a truth buried amongst this nonsense: but it’s not the truth that Wolf is claiming. Love — for both men and women — does rely on the same circuitry that engenders addiction. It’s the same circuitry that fuels the desire to persist in frustrating tasks like parenting as well. Like addiction, both love and parenting involve continuing with behavior despite negative consequences. But that’s a good thing: we need to be a little bit irrational to stay with partners who are far from perfect and to deal with children who can easily drive adults mad.
(MORE: How a Squirt of Oxytocin Can Ease Marital Spats and Boost Social Sensitivity)
This doesn’t mean, however, that we become powerless in the face of our brain chemistry. Even heroin addicts remain human and capable of self-control: you don’t see junkies shooting up in front of the police, for example. Similarly, people maintain control despite the pulls of parenting and love — and women aren’t any more romantically compulsive than men.
That’s because the brain circuitry that drives us to love and to parent — the same region that can be derailed during addiction — isn’t the only part of our brain. Even in the throes of addiction, romantic obsession or the early chaotic days of parenting, we’re still capable of choice, and none of the neuroscience data proves otherwise. “Just because genes or a molecule modulate a behavior, it doesn’t mean that genes or molecules determine that behavior,” says Young. “People who are in love will generally engage in behavior that they wouldn’t normally do, but I don’t think that means they’re less responsible.”
Oddly, one of the few places in her book where Wolf gets the science right — in a discussion about the physiology of a clitoral versus vaginal orgasm — quashes the universalizing claims she makes elsewhere in the book. It was a pinched pelvic nerve in Wolf’s spine that apparently prevented her from experiencing vaginal orgasms and a surgical cure of the problem that inspired the book. She notes that her doctor told her, “Every woman is wired differently; some women’s nerves branch more in the clitoris. Some branch a great deal in the perineum, or at the mouth of the cervix. That accounts for some of the differences in female sexual response.”
Indeed, there is important new research here suggesting that, for example, that the wiring of these nerves affects the types of orgasms women have. Clitoral-focused orgasms seem to rely on one arm of the pudendal nerve, while cervical and some vaginal sensation and related orgasms are linked to the pelvic nerve. As Wolf rightly notes, this knowledge should bring comfort to women who think themselves different or psychologically immature for having the “wrong” kind of orgasm.
Again, however, there is more complexity to the female orgasm than the author conveys. For one, as she does mention, new anatomical data suggests that the clitoris, far from being located only outside the body, actually wraps around the vagina internally. Which means that it, too, can be stimulated from within. “It’s shaped like a wishbone and the tip of the wishbone is the part that is external,” says Barry Komisaruk, professor of psychology at Rutgers and a leading researcher on sexuality. “The rest of it has these two legs that straddle the vagina and during intercourse the penis can actually stretch the vagina to the point where the legs of clitoris are stimulated.” While there are distinct vaginal and clitoral orgasms experienced by many women, the two types of stimulation can also intermingle. Neither is inherently superior, nor required for conception.
(MORE: Sharing a Bed Makes Couples Healthier)
Moreover, Komisaruk and his colleagues have found that women with spinal injury, even those who have paralyzing damage, can often still have vaginal orgasms because the spine and pelvic nerve are not the only conductors of sensation from the vagina and cervix. The vagus nerve transmits these impulses, too, outside of the spinal cord. “It’s probably that nerve that carries sensation in [women with] spinal cord injuries [during orgasm],” says Komisaruk. Wolf’s vagus may not have functioned this way, but that doesn’t mean other women have the same problem.
The brain and female sexuality are extremely complicated — and reducing them to simplistic formulations that deny women their humanity fails to do justice to either feminism or science. Properly contextualized, neuroscience can add to our knowledge of sexuality, but not if it’s twisted to support sexist ideas about women as “animals” who are so addicted to love that they become zombies.
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.
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