Mesothelioma: What is - Types - Evolution - Symptoms

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Mesothelioma: What is?
The mesothelium is a tissue that lines, such as a thin film, the inner wall of the chest and abdomen and the space around the heart.
This membrane is also of most of the internal organs and protects them thanks to the production of a particular liquid lubricant that...

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#Mesothelioma, #Mesothelioma-Evolution, #Mesothelioma-Of-The-Tunica-Vaginalis, #Mesothelioma-Symptoms, #Pericardial-Mesothelioma, #Peritoneal-Mesothelioma, #Pleural-Mesothelioma

Lou is coming to Washington for ADAO"s Asbestos Awareness Conference

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I am going to Washington! Below is the recent announcement released in a statement by Linda Reinstein, Co-Founder/CEO at Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO)’I am so excited to announce that Lou Williams will be attending the 10th Annual ADAO International Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization Asbestos Awareness Conference on April 4 – 6, 2014 in DC!!! ADAO sends our sincere thanks to the Asbestos Safety & Eradication Council for funding Lou’s flight to Washington, DC. Geoff Fary and Peter Tighe. Together, change is happening and I believe in magic!!♥ Ellen TunkelrottLou Williams shared Linda Reinstein’s photo.A big thank you to Linda Reinstein, ADAO and the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Council in Australia for believing in me – I am just so so thrilled to be coming and to …


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How Earth might have looked: How a failed Saharan Atlantic Ocean rift zone sculped Africa"s margin

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Break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana about 130 Million years ago could have lead to a completely different shape of the African and South American continent with an ocean south of today’s Sahara desert, as geoscientists from the University of Sydney and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have shown through the use of sophisticated plate tectonic and three-dimensional numerical modelling.The study highlights the importance of rift orientation relative to extension direction as key factor deciding whether an ocean basin opens or an aborted rift basin forms in the continental interior.For hundreds of millions of years, the southern continents of South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and India were united in the supercontinent Gondwana. While the causes for Gondwana’s fragmentation are still debated, it is clear that the supercontinent first split along along the East African coast in a western and eastern part before separation of South America from Africa took place. Today’s continental margins along the South Atlantic ocean and the subsurface graben structure of the West African Rift system in the African continent, extending from Nigeria northwards to Libya, provide key insights on the processes that shaped present-day Africa and South America.Christian Heine (University of Sydney) and Sascha Brune (GFZ) investigated why the South Atlantic part of this giant rift system evolved into an ocean basin, whereas its northern part along the West African Rift became stuck.”Extension along the so-called South Atlantic and West African rift systems was about to split the African-South American part of Gondwana North-South into nearly equal halves, generating a South Atlantic and a Saharan Atlantic Ocean,” geoscientist Sascha Brune explains. “In a dramatic plate tectonic twist, however, a competing rift along the present-day Equatorial Atlantic margins, won over the West African rift, causing it to become extinct, avoiding the break-up of the African continent and the formation of a Saharan Atlantic ocean.”The complex numerical models provide a strikingly simple explanation: the larger the angle between rift trend and extensional direction, the more force is required to maintain a rift system. The West African rift featured a nearly orthogonal orientation with respect to westward extension which required distinctly more force than its ultimately successful Equatorial Atlantic opponent.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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Coral fish biodiversity loss: Humankind could be responsible

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Literal biodiversity reservoirs, coral reefs and associated ecosystems are in grave danger from natural and human-made disturbances. The latest World Resources Institute assessment is alarming with 75% of coral reefs reported as endangered worldwide, a figure that may reach 100% by 2050. The numbers are concerning, particularly as coral reefs provide sustenance and economic benefits for many developing countries and fish biodiversity on coral reefs partly determines the biomass available for human consumption.A Multi-Facetted BiodiversityWhile phylogenetic diversity in communities is acknowledged for its vital heritage value, illustrating, as it does, a “part” of the tree of life, ecosystem functional diversity has long been overlooked in impact studies. An ecosystem’s richness is also measured both in taxonomic biodiversity terms (number of different species) as well as by the number of lineages or functions performed by many ecosystem goods and services.*There have not as yet been any studies into the impact of human activity on coral fish community taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic taxonomic diversity loss.Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity Loss RevealedAfter sampling 1553 fish communities through underwater surveys in 17 Pacific countries, researchers assessed the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity levels of a group of species fished along a human density gradient ranging from 1.3 to 1705 persons per sq. km of reef.The social and environmental data were collected under the PROCFish and CoFish projects co-ordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and funded by the European Union.The results showed a sharp drop in functional and phylogenetic diversity levels, particularly above 20 people per sq. km of reef, while species richness was barely affected along the gradient.When human population density reached 1700 persons per sq. km of reef, the impact on functional and phylogenetic diversity levels (-46 % and -36 %, respectively) was greater than on species richness (-12 %).A Tree of Life that Needs ProtectingThe research shows that species numbers are a poor indicator of anthropogenic pressure, while two other biodiversity components are far more heavily affected by human density. These components make up the tree of life, i.e. the diversity of biological traits and phylogenetic lineages that are essential for coral systems to function.The researchers emphasised how important it was to conserve all the components of biodiversity. They also recommended using trait and lineage diversity as reliable and sensitive indicators of damage to species communities.*Some reef fish species play key roles in ecosystem functions: regulating competition between algae and coral colonies; and creating areas that are conducive to recruiting coral larvae by bio-erosion, etc.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Institut de Recherche pour le Dveloppement (IRD). …


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Don"t throw out old, sprouting garlic -- it has heart-healthy antioxidants

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“Sprouted” garlic — old garlic bulbs with bright green shoots emerging from the cloves — is considered to be past its prime and usually ends up in the garbage can. But scientists are reporting in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that this type of garlic has even more heart-healthy antioxidant activity than its fresher counterparts.Jong-Sang Kim and colleagues note that people have used garlic for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Today, people still celebrate its healthful benefits. Eating garlic or taking garlic supplements is touted as a natural way to reduce cholesterol levels, blood pressure and heart disease risk. It even may boost the immune system and help fight cancer. But those benefits are for fresh, raw garlic. Sprouted garlic has received much less attention. When seedlings grow into green plants, they make many new compounds, including those that protect the young plant against pathogens. Kim’s group reasoned that the same thing might be happening when green shoots grow from old heads of garlic. Other studies have shown that sprouted beans and grains have increased antioxidant activity, so the team set out to see if the same is true for garlic.They found that garlic sprouted for five days had higher antioxidant activity than fresher, younger bulbs, and it had different metabolites, suggesting that it also makes different substances. …


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Mental health problems mistaken for physical illness in children

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Many children are admitted to general acute wards with mental health problems mistaken for physical disease. Somatic symptoms, such as abdominal pain, headaches, limb pain and tiredness, often mask underlying problems and result in the NHS spending money on investigations to eliminate wrongly diagnosed disease.A literature review published in Nursing Children and Young People examines how children’s nurses can recognize such complaints and help to address them.It identified that somatic complaints are linked to children’s upbringing and their home environments, including unstable home lives, a chaotic upbringing and parental over-protectiveness.The authors suggest that nurses working on the wards are in an ideal position to identify cases of children and young people presenting with somatic symptoms and provide holistic care.They say that nurse training and practice need to be adapted to enable somatic complaints to be diagnosed quickly and ensure correct management from the start.The article concludes that somatic disorders can, to some extent, be predicted when nurses take into consideration issues such as poor family situations and parental influences, psychosocial stress, and poor emotional functioning.Nurses should assess these factors together with physical symptoms to provide a full picture of a child’s circumstances and healthcare needs.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by RCN Publishing Company. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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3-D imaging sheds light on Apert syndrome development

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Three dimensional imaging of two different mouse models of Apert Syndrome shows that cranial deformation begins before birth and continues, worsening with time, according to a team of researchers who studied mice to better understand and treat the disorder in humans.Apert Syndrome is caused by mutations in FGFR2 — fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 — a gene, which usually produces a protein that functions in cell division, regulation of cell growth and maturation, formation of blood vessels, wound healing, and embryonic development. With certain mutations, this gene causes the bones in the skull to fuse together early, beginning in the fetus. These mutations also cause mid-facial deformation, a variety of neural, limb and tissue malformations and may lead to cognitive impairment.Understanding the growth pattern of the head in an individual, the ability to anticipate where the bones will fuse and grow next, and using simulations “could contribute to improved patient-centered outcomes either through changes in surgical approach, or through more realistic modeling and expectation of surgical outcome,” the researchers said in today’s (Feb. 28) issue of BMC Developmental Biology.Joan T. Richtsmeier, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Penn State, and her team looked at two sets of mice, each having a different mutation that causes Apert Syndrome in humans and causes similar cranial problems in the mice. They checked bone formation and the fusing of sutures, soft tissue that usually exists between bones n the skull, in the mice at 17.5 days after conception and at birth — 19 to 21 days after conception.”It would be difficult, actually impossible, to observe and score the exact processes and timing of abnormal suture closure in humans as the disease is usually diagnosed after suture closure has occurred,” said Richtsmeier. “With these mice, we can do this at the anatomical level by visualizing the sutures prenatally using micro-computed tomography — 3-D X-rays — or at the mechanistic level by using immunohistochemistry, or other approaches to see what the cells are doing as the sutures close.”The researchers found that both sets of mice differed in cranial formation from their littermates that were not carrying the mutation and that they differed from each other. They also found that the changes in suture closure in the head progressed from 17.5 days to birth, so that the heads of newborn mice looked very different at birth than they did when first imaged prenatally.Apert syndrome also causes early closure of the sutures between bones in the face. Early fusion of bones of the skull and of the face makes it impossible for the head to grow in the typical fashion. The researchers found that the changed growth pattern contributes significantly to continuing skull deformation and facial deformation that is initiated prenatally and increases over time.”Currently, the only option for people with Apert syndrome is rather significant reconstructive surgery, sometimes successive planned surgeries that occur throughout infancy and childhood and into adulthood,” said Richtsmeier. …


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