Australia: Obesity Epidemic Affecting Autopsies

Australians are getting more obese by the day, with experts warning body fat is masking the diagnosis of other illnesses. It is causing stress on Australia’s public health system and the people who have to examine the grossly overweight bodies. South Australian forensic pathologist Roger Byard says the problem is so bad he cannot get some of his clients onto his examination tables, reports Rebecca Brice from abc.net.au.

Dr Byard says obesity is one of the most frightening epidemics he has seen in his four decades in medicine. ”We have antibiotics for infections, we have chemotherapy for cancer, so we take two steps forward but with the obesity problem we’re almost taking three steps back,” Dr Byard said.

Dr Byard says since 1986 the rate of morbidly obese bodies entering his Adelaide mortuary has risen from just over 1 per cent to almost 5 per cent. At times the bodies are so big he has to dissect them on the floor. ”We try to avoid this obviously, but if a body is so large that we can’t safely put the body on a trolley then we have to perform the autopsy on the floor, which is terribly difficult.”

The bigger the bodies, he says, the harder it is to dissect them and the harder it is to find the cause of death. ”Obesity comes with so many diseases – it’s almost how do you choose which is the problem,” he said. ”As well as the fact that they have to carry this excess weight around, their heart’s being compressed and this adipose tissue material is secreting toxins that people think actually cause death of heart cells. So they’re being attacked on all fronts.” Dr Byard said.

The problems are not confined to the morgue. Some obese hospital patients do not fit into CT scanning machines and excess fat can hinder the taking of blood using syringes, which impedes diagnosis in both the dead and the living.

Doomsday Clock Ticks Closer to Midnight

The Doomsday clock ( Wiki Below) has ticked another minute closer to midnight on the back of global uncertainty on how to deal with the threats of nuclear weapons and climate change.

“It is now five minutes to midnight,” said Allison Macfarlane, chair of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created the clock in 1947 as a barometer of how close the world is to an apocalyptic end.

The last decision by the group, which includes a host of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, moved the clock a minute further away from midnight in 2010 on hopes of global nuclear cooperation and the election of US president Barack Obama. However, the latest decision pushes the clock back to the time it was at in 2007.

Increasing nuclear tensions, refusal to engage in global action on climate change, and a growing tendency to reject science when it comes to major world concerns were cited as key reasons for the latest tick on the clock.

“It is clear the change that appeared to be happening at the time is not happening, not materialising,” co-chair Lawrence Krauss said. ”Faced today with the clear and present dangers of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and the continued challenge to find new and sustainable and safe sources of energy, business as usual reigns the norm among world leaders.” Read the full article »»»»

Millionth Find ‘Entolama Parasiticum’ Could Be A New Species

To the untrained eye,  fungus, mushroom and the like are all pretty much a muchness. To South Australian botanists, however, it occupies a much more esteemed position, becoming the one millionth specimen to be collected by the State Herbarium.

This small gilled fungus – botanical name Entolama parasiticum - was found growing on damp and rotten wood on Kangaroo Island and may in fact be a new species. The wood is likely to have fallen during the 2007 bushfire on the island and was collected by researchers Pam Catcheside, Helen Vonow and David Catcheside. Read the full article »»»»

Metallic Alloy Space Sphere Drops From Sky in Namibia

A large metallic ball has fallen out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency. The hollow ball with a circumference of 3.5 feet/1.1 metres was found near a village in the north of the country some 465 miles/750 kilometres from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik. Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said. With a diameter of 35 centimetres, the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of “two halves welded together”. It was made of a “metal alloy known to man” and weighed six kilograms, Mr Ludik said. The ball was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 metres wide. Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years. The ball is likely to be a “composite overwrapped pressure vessel”, used by NASA to store gases under pressure in space.

The strength needed to maintain pressure within the balls means they are manufactured from tough material including Kevlar, and therefore likely to remain intact when they re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. The sphere was discovered in mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.

US Government Calls For Censorship on Man-Made Flu

The journals Science and Nature are as we type and you read, mulling over whether to publish details of a man-made mutant flu virus with the potential to kill millions.

A US government science advisory committee has urged key details be withheld so people seeking to do widespread harm would not be able to replicate the virus.

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) reviewed two scientific papers relating to the findings and recommended the journals considering them “make changes in the manuscripts”, a statement said. Read the full article »»»»

IBM Predicts Mind Reading Machines: Look Into The Future With IBM’s 5-in-5 Tech Predictions

Century-old technology behemoth IBM has done some pretty wild things in it’s time. They’ve dragged us from Keypunch through Typesetting and on to Supercomputing technology. So when the behemoth makes a prediction, the world listens, even when it’s outlandish. IBM has predicted a near future in which machines read minds and recognise who they’re dealing with. Each year since 2006, IBM has released Five-In-Five, a list of 5 predictions for the future of tech, 5 innovations that will have a profound effect in the next 5 years. The latest IBM Five-in-Five predictions were based on societal trends and research which the New York State-based company expected to begin bearing fruit by the year 2017.

“From Houdini to Skywalker to X-Men, mind reading has merely been wishful thinking for science fiction fans for decades, but their wish may soon come true,” IBM said in its annual assessment of innovations on the horizon. Read the full article »»»»

Higgs Boson: ‘The God Particle’ Nearly, But Not Quite!?

Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research - CERN -  say they have found signs of – although not yet conclusively discovered – the Higgs boson, an elementary particle which is the missing link in the Standard Model of physics.

The famed particle is the missing link in current theories of physics, used to explain how everything gains its mass. Rumors have been crashing about the scientific community for weeks on these findings.

Fabiola Gianotti, the scientist in charge of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, said the signal was centred at around 126 – GeV – Giga Electron Volts.

“I think it would be extremely kind of the Higgs boson to be here,” Gianotti told a seminar to discuss the findings :: Read the full article »»»»