Featured – Page 6

Long Term Effects of Marijuana On The Brain

Written on March 10, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

With a drug war against marijuana still raging in more countries than not, the question of the long-term effects of marijuana on the brain is a pivotal question in its legalization. Although alcohol remains legal despite heaps of evidence to the dangers of long-term use, the fight to make marijuana available both with regard to its medical properties (especially in selectively killing cancer cells) and non-medical uses has frequently hinged on...

Threat to Stopping Ebola Virus Is Believing That It’s Finished

Written on March 9, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

The last Ebola patient in all of Liberia was discharged from a treatment center on Thursday, March 5th. And with that, the country was without a single confirmed case of the dreaded disease. This is amazing. A few months ago, Ebola threatened to overwhelm the nation. Now, even though Ebola still exists in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, Liberia is counting the days until it can be considered Ebola-free. That officially comes on April 4th....

New Ebola Vaccine Trials Will Be Tested in Guinea by WHO

Written on March 6, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, World News.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it will begin conducting Ebola vaccination trials in Guinea this week, which if found effective, could be the “game-changer to finally end the epidemic” that has affected nearly 24,000 people, mostly in West Africa. “We have worked hard to reach this point,” WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, said in Geneva. “There has been massive mobilization on the part of the affected countries...

Why Is Influenza Worse Than Ebola

Written on March 5, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, World News.

Despite the heavy media coverage and widespread concern surrounding the Ebola virus, Americans face a more serious health threat — influenza or as what we like to call it the Flu. “It’s complicated. It’s exotic. It’s something you hear about on the news every day,” said Dr. Edward Waltz, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University at Albany, of the Ebola virus. “Objectively, the flu...

App for Simulating the Potential Spread of the Measles Virus

Written on March 4, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Personal Safety, USA News.

To help the public better understand how measles can spread, a team of infectious disease computer modelers at the University of Pittsburgh has launched a free, mobile-friendly tool that lets users simulate measles outbreaks in cities across the country. The tool is part of the Pitt team’s Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics, or FRED, that it previously developed to simulate flu epidemics. FRED is based on anonymized U.S. census...

Lab-on-Paper Invention: Fast & Low Cost Pathogen Diagnostics

Written on March 3, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

A team of University of Rhode Island engineers led by Professor Mohammad Faghri has created a new paper-based platform for conducting a wide range of complex medical diagnostics. The key development was the invention of fluid actuated valves embedded in the paper that allow for sequential manipulation of sample fluids and multiple reagents in a controlled manner to perform complex multi-step immune-detection tests without human intervention. Faghri...

North Korea lifts Ebola caused travel ban

Written on March 3, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Business News, Featured, Government News, Travel, World News.

North Korea has lifted severe restrictions on foreign travel it imposed last year to keep the Ebola virus from crossing its borders, although North Korea is thousands of miles from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The already isolated country virtually closed its borders to foreigners last October, halting all non-essential visas and requiring those few foreigners allowed in to undergo three weeks of quarantine. The rules applied to diplomats,...

Fujifilm’s Flu Drug Turned Ebola Drug Avigan Proven Effective

Written on March 2, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Business News, Featured, Government News, Health News, World News.

Fujifilm Holdings Corp.’s drug Avigan, which has shown signs of efficacy against the Ebola virus, has drawn interest from about 20 countries and the company stands ready for large orders, its chief executive said. “We can provide as much as we are asked for,” said Shigetaka Komori in an interview Friday. The company has enough of the drug’s basic ingredient on hand to manufacture pills for 300,000 people and will ramp up production if necessary,...

Free of Ebola, but Nina Pham Files Lawsuit Against Texas Health

Written on March 2, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, USA News.

The 26-year-old nurse says she has nightmares, body aches and insomnia as a result of contracting the disease from a patient she cared for last fall at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. She says the hospital and its parent company, Texas Health Resources, failed her and her colleagues who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States diagnosed with Ebola. “I wanted to believe that they would have my back and...

Ebola Virus As ISIS Bio-Weapon?

Written on February 27, 2015. Posted in Featured, Government News, Personal Safety, World News.

ISIS may already be thinking of using Ebola as a low-tech weapon of bio-terror, says a national security expert, who notes that the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and terror groups like it would not even have to weaponize the virus to attempt to wreak strategic global infection. Such groups could simply use human carriers to intentionally infect themselves in West Africa, then disseminate the deadly virus via the world’s air transportation system....