Watch This: Using Lasers to Manipulate Blood Flow in Live Mice

When you’ve got a clogged artery, your options are usually few and risky: anti-clotting drugs or surgery to unblock the clot or reroute blood flow past the blockage.

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From Discover Magazine: Watch This: Using Lasers to Manipulate Blood Flow in Live Mice

When you’ve got a clogged artery, your options are usually few and risky: anti-clotting drugs or surgery to unblock the clot or reroute blood flow past the blockage.

But researchers in China have figured out how to use a laser to clog and then clear a blocked blood vessel in a live mouse, without surgery. This is the first time scientists have been able to externally manipulate cells inside a living animal, and it could lead to a safer way to unclog arteries in the future.

The techniqu

from Discover Magazine

From Ars Technica: IBM’s solar tech is 80% efficient thanks to supercomputer know-how

IBM Research’s prototype HCPVT system in Zurich.

By borrowing cooling systems used in its supercomputers, IBM Research claims it can dramatically increase the overall efficiency of concentrated photovoltaic solar power from 30 to 80 percent.

Like other concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) collectors, IBM’s system at its Zurich laboratory uses a mirrored parabolic dish to concentrate incoming solar radiation onto PV cells. The dish uses a tracking system to move with the sun, concentrating the collected radiation by a factor of 2,000 onto a sensor containing triple-junction PV cells. During daylight hours, each 1-sq cm PV chip generates on average between 200 and 250 watts of electrical power, harnessing up to 30 percent of the incoming solar energy.

Ordinarily, the remaining 70 percent of energy would be lost as heat. But by capturing most of that heat with water, IBM Research says it is able to reduce system heat losses to around 20 percent of the total incoming energy. This results in a bottom-line efficiency of 80 percent for its CPV collector, dubbed HCPVT for High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal. Unlike a regular CPV system, HCPVT delivers its energy in two forms: electricity and hot water.

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from Ars Technica

From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Which Drugs Actually Kill Americans [Infographic]

U.S. drug-related deaths, over time Katie Peek
Hint: not pot

In 2010, there were 80,000 drug and alcohol overdose deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database. The database, maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics, keeps a tally of all the deaths listed on certificates nationwide. They’re classified by the ICD-10 medical coding reference system.

Death reporting in the U.S. requires an underlying cause-the event or disease that lead to the death. This chart represents all those listed in the CDC database as “accidental poisoning,” “intentional self-poisoning,” “assault by drugs,” and “poisoning with undetermined intent.” In addition to the underlying cause, a death certificate has space for up to 20 additional causes. That’s where “cocaine” or “antidepressants” would show up. The subcategories are limited in their detail-many drugs are lumped together, like MDMA and caffeine, which are listed together as “psychostimulants.” And about a quarter of all overdose death certificates don’t have the toxicity test results listed at all, landing them in the “unspecified” stripe.

By adding all those sub-categories up, imperfect as they may be, it’s clear that the rate of reported overdoses the U.S. more than doubled between 1999 and 2010. About half of those additional deaths are in the pharmaceuticals category, which the CDC has written about before. Nearly three-quarters of the pharmaceuticals deaths are opioid analgesics-prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin. And while cocaine, heroin and alcohol are all responsible for enough deaths to warrant their own stripes on the chart, many popular illegal drugs-including marijuana and LSD-are such a tiny blip as to be invisible.

A few caveats about the statistics: if a person had multiple drugs listed on their death certificate, they’re being counted twice here. Also, the database doesn’t include nonresidents-either undocumented immigrants or U.S. citizens living abroad.

    

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

Which Drugs Actually Kill Americans [Infographic]

Death reporting in the U.S. requires an underlying cause—the event or disease that lead to the death. This chart represents all those listed in the CDC database as “accidental poisoning,” “intentional self-poisoning,” “assault by drugs,” and “poisoning with undetermined intent.

via Pocket http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/which-drugs-actually-kill-americans