Human Virus Linked to Deaths of Endangered Mountain Gorillas; Finding Confirms That Serious Diseases Can Pass to Gorillas from People

The finding confirms that serious diseases can pass from people to these endangered animals.

The researchers are from the non-profit Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project; the Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis; the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University; and the Rwanda Development Board.

Their study, which reports the 2009 deaths of two mountain gorilla that were infected with a human virus, was published online by the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Because there are fewer than 800 living mountain gorillas, each individual is critically important to the survival of their species," said Mike Cranfield, executive director of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project and a UC Davis wildlife veterinarian. "But mountain gorillas are surrounded by people, and this discovery makes it clear that living in protected national parks is not a barrier to human diseases."

Humans and gorillas share approximately 98 percent of their DNA. This close genetic relatedness has led to concerns that gorillas may be susceptible to many of the infectious diseases that affect people.

The potential for disease transmission between humans and mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) is of particular concern because over the past 100 years, mountain gorillas have come into increasing contact with humans. In fact, the national parks where the gorillas are protected in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are surrounded by the densest human populations in continental Africa.

Also, gorilla tourism -- while helping the gorillas survive by funding the national parks that shelter them -- brings thousands of people from local communities and around the world into contact with mountain gorillas annually.

The veterinarians of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, who monitor the health of the gorillas and treat individuals suffering from life-threatening or human-caused trauma and disease, have observed an increase in the frequency and severity of respiratory disease outbreaks in the mountain gorilla population in recent years.

Infectious disease is the second most common cause of death in mountain gorillas (traumatic injury is the first). "The type of infection we see most frequently is respiratory, which can range from mild colds to severe pneumonia," said co-author Linda Lowenstine, a veterinary pathologist with the UC Davis Mountain Gorilla One Health Program who has studied gorilla diseases for more than 25 years.

The two gorillas described in the new study were members of the Hirwa group living in Rwanda. In 2008 and 2009, this group experienced outbreaks of respiratory disease, with various amounts of coughing, eye and nose discharge, and lethargy. In the 2009 outbreak, the Hirwa group consisted of 12 animals: one adult male, six adult females, three juveniles and two infants. All but one were sick. Two died: an adult female and a newborn infant.

Tissue analyses showed the biochemical signature of an RNA virus called human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infecting both animals that had died. While the adult female gorilla ultimately died as a result of a secondary bacterial pneumonia infection, HMPV infection likely predisposed her to pneumonia. HMPV was also found in the infant gorilla, which was born to a female gorilla that showed symptoms of respiratory disease.

The study's UC Davis authors are Cranfield, Lowenstine and Kirsten Gilardi, co-director of the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center's Mountain Gorilla One Health Program. The lead author is Gustavo Palacios, a virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University in New York. Other authors are from the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, Columbia University and the Rwanda Development Board.

The research was supported by Google.org; the U.S. National Institutes of Health; the Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program of the U.S. Agency for International Development; and a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

About mountain gorillas

With only about 786 individuals left in the world, mountain gorillas are a critically endangered species. Mountain gorillas live in central Africa, with about 480 animals living in the 173-square-mile Virunga Volcanoes Massif, which combines Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mgahinga National Park in Uganda. The remaining population lives within the boundaries of the 128-square-mile Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.

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Will We Hear the Light? Surprising Discovery That Infrared Can Activate Heart and Ear Cells

University of Utah scientists used invisible infrared light to make rat heart cells contract and toadfish inner-ear cells send signals to the brain. The discovery someday might improve cochlear implants for deafness and lead to devices to restore vision, maintain balance and treat movement disorders like Parkinson's.

"We're going to talk to the brain with optical infrared pulses instead of electrical pulses," which now are used in cochlear implants to provide deaf people with limited hearing, says Richard Rabbitt, a professor of bioengineering and senior author of the heart-cell and inner-ear-cell studies published this month in The Journal of Physiology.

The studies -- funded by the National Institutes of Health -- also raise the possibility of developing cardiac pacemakers that use optical signals rather than electrical signals to stimulate heart cells. But Rabbitt says that because electronic pacemakers work well, "I don't see a market for an optical pacemaker at the present time."

The scientific significance of the studies is the discovery that optical signals -- short pulses of an invisible wavelength of infrared laser light delivered via a thin, glass optical fiber -- can activate heart cells and inner-ear cells related to balance and hearing.

In addition, the research showed infrared activates the heart cells, called cardiomyocytes, by triggering the movement of calcium ions in and out of mitochondria, the organelles or components within cells that convert sugar into usable energy. The same process appears to occur when infrared light stimulates inner-ear cells.

Infrared light can be felt as heat, raising the possibility the heart and ear cells were activated by heat rather than the infrared radiation itself. But Rabbitt and colleagues did "elegant experiments" to show the cells indeed were activated by the infrared radiation, says a commentary in the journal by Ian Curthoys of the University of Sydney, Australia.

Curthoys writes that the research provides "stunningly bright insight" into events within inner-ear cells and "has great potential for future clinical application."

Shedding Infrared Light on Inner-Ear Cells and Heart Cells

The low-power infrared light pulses in the study were generated by a diode -- "the same thing that's in a laser pointer, just a different wavelength," Rabbitt says.

The scientists exposed the cells to infrared light in the laboratory. The heart cells in the study were newborn rat heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes, which make the heart pump. The inner-ear cells are hair cells, and came from the inner-ear organ that senses motion of the head. The hair cells came from oyster toadfish, which are well-establish models for comparison with human inner ears and the sense of balance.

Inner-ear hair cells "convert the mechanical vibration from sound, gravity or motion into the signal that goes to the brain" via adjacent nerve cells, says Rabbitt.

Using infrared radiation, "we were stimulating the hair cells, and they dumped neurotransmitter onto the neurons that sent signals to the brain," Rabbitt says.

He believes the inner-ear hair cells are activated by infrared radiation because "they are full of mitochondria, which are a primary target of this wavelength."

The infrared radiation affects the flow of calcium ions in and out of mitochondria -- something shown by the companion study in neonatal rat heart cells.

That is important because for "excitable" nerve and muscle cells, "calcium is like the trigger for making these cells contract or release neurotransmitter," says Rabbitt.

The heart cell study found that an infrared pulse lasting a mere one-5,000th of a second made mitochondria rapidly suck up calcium ions within a cell, then slowly release them back into the cell -- a cycle that makes the cell contract.

"Calcium does that normally," says Rabbitt. "But it's normally controlled by the cell, not by us. So the infrared radiation gives us a tool to control the cell. In the case of the [inner-ear] neurons, you are controlling signals going to the brain. In the case of the heart, you are pacing contraction."

New Possibilities for Optical versus Electrical Cochlear Implants

Rabbitt believes the research -- including a related study of the cochlea last year -- could lead to better cochlear implants that would use optical rather than electrical signals.

Existing cochlear implants convert sound into electrical signals, which typically are transmitted to eight electrodes in the cochlea, a part of the inner ear where sound vibrations are converted to nerve signals to the brain. Eight electrodes can deliver only eight frequencies of sound, Rabbitt says.

"A healthy adult can hear more than 3,000 different frequencies. With optical stimulation, there's a possibility of hearing hundreds or thousands of frequencies instead of eight. Perhaps someday an optical cochlear implant will allow deaf people to once again enjoy music and hear all the nuances in sound that a hearing person would enjoy."

Unlike electrical current, which spreads through tissue and cannot be focused to a point, infrared light can be focused, so numerous wavelengths (corresponding to numerous frequencies of sound) could be aimed at different cells in the inner ear.

Nerve cells that send sound signals from the ears to the brain can fire more than 300 times per second, so ideally, a cochlear implant using infrared light would be able to perform as well. In the Utah experiments, the researchers were able to apply laser pulses to hair cells to make adjacent nerve cells fire up to 100 times per second. For a cochlear implant, the nerve cells would be activated within infrared light instead of the hair cells.

Rabbitt cautioned it may be five to 10 years before the development of cochlear implants that run optically. To be practical, they need a smaller power supply and light source, and must be more power efficient to run on small batteries like a hearing aid.

Optical Prosthetics for Movement, Balance and Vision Disorders

Electrical deep-brain stimulation now is used to treat movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease and "essential tremor, which causes rhythmic movement of the limbs so it becomes difficult to walk, function and eat," says Rabbitt.

He is investigating whether optical rather than electrical deep-brain stimulation might increase how long the treatment is effective.

Rabbitt also sees potential for optical implants to treat balance disorders.

"When we get old, we shuffle and walk carefully, not because our muscles don't work but because we have trouble with balance," he says. "This technology has potential for restoring balance by restoring the signals that the healthy ear sends to the brain about how your body is moving in space."

Optical stimulation also might provide artificial vision in people with retinitis pigmentosa or other loss of retinal cells -- the eye cells that detect light and color -- but who still have the next level of cells, known as ganglia, Rabbitt says.

"You would wear glasses with a camera [mounted on the frames] and there would be electronics that would convert signals from the camera into pulses of infrared radiation that would be patterned onto the diseased retina that normally does not respond to light but would respond to the pulsed infrared radiation" to create images, he says.

Hearing and vision implants that use optical rather than electrical signals do not have to penetrate the brain or other nerve tissue because infrared light can penetrate "quite a bit of tissue," so devices emitting the light "have potential for excellent biocompatibility," Rabbitt says. "You will be able to implant optical devices and leave them there for life."

The heart cell study was led by Rabbitt, with University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student Gregory Dittami as first author. Co-authors were Suhrud Rajguru, a former Utah doctoral student now at Northwestern University in Chicago; Utah doctoral student Richard Lasher; and Robert Hitchcock, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Utah.

Rabbitt's coauthors on the inner-ear study included first author Rajguru; Dittami; Claus-Peter Richter and Agnella Matic of Northwestern University; neuroscientist Gay Holstein of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York; and neuroscientist Stephen Highstein of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

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Most Obese Mothers and Children Underestimate Their Weight

A growing number of obese Americans perceive themselves as being slimmer than they actually are. A new study from Columbia University Medical Center in New York shows that among more than 200 obese mothers and children, this continuing trend may be putting many at greater risk of serious health issues. Findings of the new research were recently presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Atlanta, Georgia.

About one-third of children and two-thirds of adults living in the U.S. are now either overweight or obese. With the growing problem of obesity in America, it appears that the perception of being overweight is being re-defined in such a way as to lead many who are in serious need of losing weight to see their weight as being normal. In light of this dangerous trend, it comes as no surprise that the rates of diabetes and other chronic diseases continue to rise.

For their study, the researchers interviewed 111 women, and 111 children ranging in age from 7 to 13, to gather information regarding age, income and body size. In addition, the height, weight, and body mass index measurements of each participant were taken. Approximately 80 of subjects were Hispanic, and the rest were either black, Asian or white. Among the group, about 66 percent of the Mothers, and 39 percent of the children were either overweight or obese.

The participants were shown images of body silhouettes depicting various body weights ranging from underweight and normal weight, to overweight, obese, and extremely obese. When the subjects compared themselves to the silhouettes, findings showed that 82 percent of obese women, and 42.5 percent of overweight women underestimated their weight. In addition, about 13 percent of women having a normal viewed themselves as being thinner than they were. Among the children in the study, 86 percent of those who were overweight or obese underestimated their weight, as did 15 percent of those being of normal weight.

But it didn’t stop there. In addition to misguided self-perceptions about weight, close to half of the study participants projected the lighter image to their family members. Findings showed that 47.5 of mothers of overweight or obese children thought their children were at a healthy weight, while 41 percent of children whose mothers were overweight or obese thought their parent needed to lose weight.

Regarding the findings, lead author of the study, Nicole E. Dumas, M.D., an internal medicine resident at Columbia, “A lot of their misperception has to do with the fact that overweight and obesity is becoming the norm.” She also pointed out, “There was a trend that showed that as women became more and more overweight, and then obese, the larger the misperception of true body weight was. Unfortunately, we found this was the case with the children as well.”

Although Dumas acknowledged that the findings may not be respesentative of the American population as a whole, she noted that other studies have found similar trends. Indeed, in a 2009 survey, when participants were asked to evaluate their weight stage based on their body mass index, thirty percent of those measuring in the overweight class said they were of normal weight, while 70 percent of the obese respondents believed they were only overweight. In addition, sixty percent of morbidly obese respondents said they were merely obese.

Similarly, in the report F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010, published by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, researchers found that an increasing number of children are either overweight or obese and that their parents are in denial. Parents who were polled about their children overwhelmingly—to the tune of 84 percent— rated their children as having a normal or healthy weight, while in fact that was not true in many of the cases.

With obesity affecting more than 30 percent of adults, as well as over 30 percent of children in America, it’s time to cut the calories and get more exercise. Our nation’s health is at stake, and we all need to take responsibility for our own individual health as well as that of our families.

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New Study Shows the Cold Busting Properties of Zinc

Taking zinc supplements could be your best weapon in the battle against the common cold. According to a new study recently published in the health care journal The Cochrane Library, zinc can reduce the severity and duration of the cold virus and possibly even prevent the virus altogether.

Researchers from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India examined data gathered from fifteen trials on more than 1,300 participants. Their findings showed that cold sufferers who began taking zinc in the form of tablets, lozenges, or syrup within a day of the onset of symptoms experienced curative effects. In addition, participants who took zinc regularly for at least five months saw a reduction of the number of colds they contracted.

Zinc is a trace mineral necessary to the basic biological process, such as with cell division. As for how zinc can fight the common cold, it may contain antiviral properties, or possibly prevent the release of histamine and prostaglandin, which are known to increase inflammation in the nose that contributes to stuffiness, pain, and sneezing.

Previous studies have touted the effectiveness of zinc against the common cold in regards to both prevention and a reduction in the duration of symptoms. This latest study serves as confirmation of past findings. In a statement, lead researcher Meenu Singh of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research acknowledged, “This review strengthens the evidence for zinc as a treatment for the common cold.”

According to the research team’s press release, “At seven days, more of the patients who took zinc had cleared their symptoms compared to those who took placebos.” The statement also noted, “Children who took zinc syrup or lozenges for five months or longer caught fewer colds and took less time off school. Zinc also reduced antibiotic use in children, which is important because overuse has implications for antibiotic resistance.”

Contrary to popular belief, cold temperatures do not cause the common cold. The virus is spread by droplets coming from a person who has already been infected. However, droplets released by a cough or sneeze have more favorable conditions to travel farther and remain in the air longer on a cold and dry day, and the dryness of nasal passages during cold weather only adds to this effect.

People also tend to spend more time indoors during winter, which increases the frequency of close contact with one another, and boosts the likelihood of virus transmission. In addition, viruses remain in common space areas such as elevators and break rooms, as well as on surfaces such as countertops, doorknobs, and telephones.

The normal duration of a cold is about seven days, and although the virus may make you more susceptible to other bacterial infections, it does not cause them. Therefore, if your symptoms begin to improve and then worsen over a period of days, a visit to your doctor is advisable.

As to the outcome of the new study, it is not yet clear as to what dosage of zinc is sufficient for the prevention and cure of the cold virus. The researchers concluded that “at the moment, it is still difficult to make a general recommendation, because we do not know very much about the optimum dose, formulation or length of treatment.” Future investigations into the matter will be necessary to make any definite determinations.

For now, the best preventive measure against the cold virus is to wash your hands frequently and thoroughly, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer as your backup. In addition, getting a sufficient amount of sleep can cut your risk of getting a respiratory infection. Research has also shown that regular exercise can help ward off the common cold. And, of course, a healthy diet including zinc can’t hurt. If you already have a cold, cough into your elbow instead of your hands to lessen the likelihood of your cold spreading to others.

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Five Things Facebook Should Fix Immediately

Let me start with two questions. Why is it that such a successful company as Facebook feels like it needs to change and reinvent its interface constantly? And why are we so complacent with these changes that, quite literally, disrupt our online social lives?

We have seen how social media is changing the world around us, yet we don’t have a say in its progress. Undeniably, Facebook is already part of all of our lives, even for non-users.

We shouldn’t take the site for granted. After all, it has over half a billion users. Alternatively, we should not allow it to take us—their users—for granted either. I remember back when I was heavily using Digg, they made so many changes, that it was all too hard to follow. At around version 4, I couldn’t use it anymore and therefore left the site.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of new design and up-to-date features. But when one has such a large community of users, you need to make changes carefully and not force your members to suffer through your own growing pains. It’s true, we can all leave the site if we are upset with the changes. No one is forcing us to be members. But most of us don’t want to leave. We want to be part of this community. Facebook should acknowledge some of the problems that need to be resolved and show appreciation for the mass following they have built before it slips away.

I’d like to highlight 5 critical problems that Facebook needs to fix immediately:

Groups
One day I saw this update on my Facebook feed: “If one more person adds me to a group, I’m sending you to the unfriended land.” I easily related to this, can’t you? I don’t know what Facebook was thinking by letting anyone add you to a group, and start sending messages as a default setting. That’s like saying: Hello spam, come visit me more often. And yes, your Facebook friends are the biggest spammers in the world, they just might not know it.

By the time I wake up in the morning, my mailbox has at least two new group invites (I’m not sure we can even call them invites), and email discussions around this group, mostly from people that have no clue why this group owner added them. Couldn’t you handle this one better Facebook? Shouldn’t I get an email suggesting that I join this group in the first place? And thank god, my chatbox is closed most of the time because if I had to get all of those Group discussions inside chat, I’d go nuts. I’m a member of my high school’s group (something that is always nice to remember) but I know some people that left the group since the chat was too annoying for them and they didn’t want to deal with (nor understand) the odd settings. So rant number one: Make groups less spammy.

Photo Viewer

I wanted to leave this section open and let you all say whatever that comes to your mind.. but I feel like I must say it out loud: What the hell?!

How did this design replace the previous one? The user experience is so completely wrong here. The light box annoys the eye and basically it is just a bad visual that doesn’t fit the overall design of the site. A photo viewer is for viewing pictures, but the pictures are now displayed in a smaller format so you get a poorer experience than before. Why did you fix something that wasn’t broken, Facebook?

And before you tell me to click F5 and forget about it, I don’t want to and I shouldn’t have to either. I think it looks bad, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, and since photos are a huge part of the site, I also don’t think it’s a good idea to change it from good to worse. Usually, it goes the other way around.

Places
To have a world of possibilities is sometimes great and sometimes confusing. I love both Foursquare and Gowalla, and only lately have I started to use Facebook Places. But when it comes to choosing one service, Facebook is my last choice. Why? You can’t connect it to Twitter. Perhaps Facebook thinks all my friends are on Facebook, but even so, if I want them to know where I am, I’d like to extend this ability to make sure they’ll be able to see my statuses from other platforms as well. I still don’t get why Facebook is so closed. If people want privacy they can set their own personal choices. What if other people want to share more? I think Facebook should allow it. After all, it’s a “social” network, right?

Messaging
I can honestly say that I haven’t switched from the old messaging platform to the new one. But I’ve noticed people sending me up to 10 emails when they meant to send only one. Most people don’t know how to fix this so they always just apologize for sending too many messages, which results in even more messages. Overall, it looks like Facebook is trying to make everything behave like chat (i.e., new commenting system) when chat is not something everyone feels comfortable using all the time.

Tabs
Now, I don’t want to say Facebook is evil, but I don’t really understand how they could dismiss the customized tabs so easily after people worked so hard on them, and many companies were built specifically around this creation space. Yes, I know you can still see tabs, but not as prominently as before. Again, this was to me at least the part of Facebook that was fun and now has been marginalized. With the latest changes from FBML to Iframe, many users who could create customized tabs on their own have been left with obsolete skills. Seriously, if a company asked me if it’s worth it to create something from the Facebook API, I’d say it’s a risky situation since Facebook so easily changes things solely for their own benefit. Tabs are one great example of that. I would never expect them to change such a great feature. One that really gave users and brands the feeling of ownership but, alas they did…

Remember when it used to be so much fun to use Facebook? When you had games right in your face (not just news), when you could see your connections from Flickr, Youtube, and other sites, when it was just a more friendly place? I miss that.

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Amazon Beats Apple And Google To Cloud-Based Music Storage/Streaming

Well, the rumors were true. Not only is Amazon entering the “music locker” space, they’re doing it before both Google and Apple — as their “Cloud Drive” and “Cloud Player” have just gone live on their site tonight.

Cloud Drive is the name Amazon is giving to its media storage space on their servers. They give you 5 GB of storage for free and allow you to access the media from any computer. Cloud Player is the name of yes, the actual player. And it comes in two flavors: a player for the web, and one for Android devices. You’ll note an absence of an iOS player…

A bit more:

    * Any album bought through Amazon MP3 is stored for free in your Cloud Drive — a very nice perk.
    * If you buy one album from Amazon MP3, they’ll upgrade your Cloud Drive storage to 20 GB for free for a year — another nice perk.
    * Normally, 20 GB of Drive storage will cost $20 for a year. 50 GB is $50. 100 GB is $100. And so on. All the way up to 1 TB for $1,000.
    * The Cloud Drive storage isn’t just for music — Amazon notes that 1 TB will hold 70 hours of HD video.
    * Other files can be uploaded — this includes music, movies, photos, and even documents.
    * The MP3 uploader accepts MP3 or AAC files, but they must be DRM-free (.wma, .wav, .ogg and others are not supported)
    * Old Amazon MP3 purchases aren’t put in your Cloud Drive, only new purchases going forward (though you can manually upload).
    * The Android Cloud Player is built into the Amazon MP3 app — it’s in both the Android Market and Amazon’s new Appstore.
    * This is for U.S. customers only for the time being.
    * Cloud Player for the web works on IE 8 and above, Firefox 3.5 and above, Chrome, and Safari. There is no Opera support. And Flash is required (but for uploads only).
    * There’s also a stand-alone uploader app for Mac and PC.
    * You can’t upload music from your mobile device “at this time”.

So there you go, Amazon has won the race of the big three to deliver a fully cloud-supported music option. Current whispers have Google launching something very similar at their I/O conference in May. And Apple is working on a similar concept as well — but it may not launch until this fall. At least that was the original plan, Amazon’s move may alter things, obviously.

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RJ Shiva's next film!

RJ turned actor Shiva delighted everyone with his comic performance in films like Chennai-28, Saroja and Tamizh Padam. The actor's next film is titled 'Sivapoojayil Karadi' and is being directed by Rama Narayan. The film is touted to be a complete comic caper and the shooting is complete. The post production works are going on in full throttle now. The movie will release once the results of the upcoming elections are out.

Shiva is happy to have finished this film and told the media that he is working on his own script and wants to transfer it to the celluloid. The actor is also doing a cameo in Jiiva's Ko directed by KV Anand. We wish Shiva all the very best on his next film's release and hope that his script will be made into a film soon.

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