July 19, 2008

TECHNOLOGY
 

Computer headset lets brain control action

A US high-tech company has created a headset allowing computer game lovers to use their thoughts to move mountains and make objects disappear on screen.

Emotiv, a San Francisco-based start-up that marries neuroscience and computer engineering, says its EPOC gaming headset offers only a glimpse of what the technology has to offer.

Emotiv co-founder Tan Le told while demonstrating the headset in the firm’s office, “This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible for us. There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface — the Holy Grail is the mind.” Gamers will be able to get their hands on the gadget in time for the winter holiday season, the company says.

The EPOC headset features 16 sensors that press against a user’s scalp to measure electrical activity in the brain using electroencephalography. A built-in gyro tracks head movement. The sensors also register users’ moods and facial expressions, merging the data in computer software that ‘learns’ to match readings with what people are thinking, according to Le.

“There is a direct correlation between thought and what happens on screen,” Le said. “It really fulfils this long fantasy that people have had of moving objects just with thought.” A videogame will be included with the headset when the package goes on sale for 299 dollars at the Emotiv website and selected shops.

A test of the headset showed that after ‘training’ the EPOC system for less than a minute one could spin, push, pull and lift objects onscreen, or make them vanish, by simply thinking about it.

Emotiv has a software development kit available to videogame makers as well as programmers of “anything that involves a human and a computer” including those involved in virtual worlds, cars and medical care. The technology could be used to let virtual world characters referred to as ‘avatars’ reflect the real-world expressions and moods of the people they represent online, according to Emotiv engineer Marco Della Torre.

The kit for third-party software savants to weave thought-control into programmes has reportedly been downloaded from the Emotiv website more than 1,000 times. “We have a lot of Fortune 500 companies interested,” Le said. Even law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in the headset’s ability to read people’s minds.

“It certainly could be used as a very accurate polygraph,” Le said. “If you have seen something before, there is no hiding it. There is brain recognition.” Medical applications could include giving stroke victims or people in comas new ways to communicate. —AFP

ENVIRONMENT
 

Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand face high risk from arsenic contamination

Myanmar’s cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta and Indonesias Sumatra Island face high risks of arsenic contamination in groundwater that could cause cancer and other diseases in residents, according to a new study.

Using a digitalised model that examines geological features and soil chemistry in Southeast Asia, researchers writing in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience mapped several likely hot spots that had never been assessed for arsenic risks.

“Obviously, there is concern,” said Michael Berg, one of the five authors, who is a senior scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Dubendor, Switzerland. “If you look at our data, there is a risk of arsenic in the ground water.”

Arsenic, especially in drinking water, is a global threat to health, affecting more than 70 countries and 137 million people. The country worst affected is Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of dying from cancers of the lung, bladder and skin.

Odourless and tasteless, arsenic enters water supplies from natural deposits in the ground or from agricultural and industrial practices. Arsenic is poisonous when consumed in high doses, but even smaller amounts can cause cancer, skin problems and abnormal heart rhythms.

Berg and the other authors determined a high risk of arsenic contamination exceeding World Health Organisation guidelines in Myanmars Irrawaddy delta, a low-lying area hit by a May cyclone that killed at least 84,537 people.

Researchers said regions with organic-rich sediment containing silt and clay have a higher likelihood of arsenic contamination.

“These are very young sediments. Only in young formation do we find that arsenic can be released from the sediment,” Berg said, adding that arsenic in soil that is much older has been mostly washed away.

He hopes that the maps they developed could serve as ‘a red flag’ for authorities to take precautions before building wells or other water facilities in areas deemed at high risk of arsenic contamination. Until now, testing for arsenic has been rare in many regions because it is costly and time consuming.

Lex van Geen, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who has studied arsenic contamination in Bangladesh and did not participate in the study, said it should be lauded for drawing attention to areas where little research has been done on the arsenic threat, such as Myanmar. But he said the digital models do not identify areas well below the surface where water quality is good.

“Using the mapping based on surface geology will identify settings where arsenic could be high in shallow groundwater,” van Geen said. “What it can’t tell you is how deep you might have to go to reach the low arsenic water, which is really what matters from a mitigation point of view. —AP

Global warming may increase kidney stones

More Americans are likely to suffer from kidney stones in the coming years as a result of global warming, according to researchers at the University of Texas.

Kidney stones, which are formed from dissolved minerals in the urine and can be extremely painful, are often caused by dehydration, either by not drinking enough liquid or losing too much due to high heat conditions.

If global warming trends continue as projected by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, the US can expect as much as a 30 per cent growth in kidney stone disease especially in some of its driest areas, said the findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The increased incidence of disease would represent between 1.6 million and 2.2 million cases by 2050, costing the US economy as much as one billion dollars in treatment costs.

“This study is one of the first examples of global warming causing a direct medical consequence for humans,” said Margaret Pearle, professor of urology at University of Texas South-western and senior author of the paper.

“When people relocate from areas of moderate temperature to areas with warmer climates, a rapid increase in stone risk has been observed.

This has been shown in military deployments to the Middle East for instance.” The lead author of the research, Tom Brikowski, compared kidney stone rates with the UN forecasts of temperature increases and created two mathematical models to predict the impact on future populations.

One formula showed an increase in the southern half of the country, including the already existing “kidney stone belt” of the south-eastern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The other showed that the increase would be concentrated in the upper Midwest.

“Similar climate-related changes in the prevalence of kidney-stone disease can be expected in other stone belts worldwide,” the study said. —AFP

HEALTH
 

Fruit juice tied to modest rise in diabetes risk

Women wanting to ward off type 2 diabetes should load their plates with green leafy vegetables and whole fruits, but perhaps stay away from fruit juice, new research suggests.

Eating an additional three servings of whole fruit daily, or one more serving of spinach, kale or similar leafy green vegetable was tied to a lower risk of developing diabetes over an 18-year period among 71,346 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study.

“It was a modest decrease,” Dr Lydia A. Bazzano of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, told Reuters Health. “This is not going to prevent it if you have many, many risk factors and you are overweight, it’s a tool in the prevention strategy.”

Bazzano and colleagues analysed data on the diets of Nurses’ Health Study participants - 4,529 of whom developed type 2 diabetes while they were being followed. They divided women into five groups based on fruit and vegetable intake, and also grouped them based on fruit juice consumption.

They found that an increase of three servings a day of whole fruit was associated with an 18 per cent lower risk of type 2 diabetes, while a single additional serving of leafy green vegetables cut the risk by nine per cent. However, an additional daily serving of fruit juice increased the likelihood of developing diabetes by 18 per cent. While the findings must be replicated, Bazzano said, there are plausible mechanisms by which fruit juice could increase risk. “It’s a big sugar load and it comes in a liquid form which is absorbed rapidly,” she noted.

The findings, the study team concludes, suggest that “caution should be observed in replacing some beverages with fruit juices in an effort to provide healthier options. The same caution applies to the recommendation that 100 per cent fruit juice be considered a serving of fruit as it is in the present national dietary guidelines.”  —Reuters

OPHTHALMOLOGY
 

Visual impairment indirectly linked to suicide

Visual impairment alone does not significantly increase the risk of suicide, but it does seem to do so when it is associated with poor health, according to a report in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

The findings suggest that better treatments for the underlying conditions that cause visual impairment, along with factors linked with poor self-ratings of health and health conditions may reduce the risk of suicide, Dr Byron L. Lam, from the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, and colleagues conclude.

The findings stem from an analysis of data for 137,479 adults who participated in surveys conducted by the National Centre for Health Statistics between 1986 and 1996. Data from these surveys were then linked to mortality data from the National Death Index.

During an average follow-up period of 11.0 years, 200 suicide deaths were recorded, the report indicates.

After accounting for the possible influence of various demographic factors, the number of health conditions unrelated to vision, self-rated health, visual impairment was linked with a 50 per cent increased risk of death by suicide, although the association was not statistically significant, meaning the association could possibly have been the result of chance.

By contrast, the association of suicide with poorer self-rated health, an increased number of health conditions unrelated to the eye, and visual impairment did have an indirect, significant relationship with increased suicide risk.

These results suggest that older adults, those with health conditions that do not involve the eye, and those with self-rated poor health and visual impairment are at increased risk of suicide. Eye care professionals should be aware of the potential increased risk of suicide for patients with visual impairment, especially those in poor health, and provide appropriate referrals for these patients,” the authors emphasise. —Reuters

At a glance
 

Nasa telescopes spot star ‘factory’
Telescopes looking back in time to more than 12 billion years ago have spotted a star factory - a galaxy producing so many new stars that they have nicknamed it the ‘baby boom’ galaxy. The remote galaxy is — or was — pumping out stars at a rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy gives birth to an average of just 10 stars per year, they reported.

Discovery may lead to quake early-warning system
Scientists working at Californias San Andreas Fault have detected subtle geological changes occurring hours before an earthquake that could enable them to develop an early-warning system aimed at saving lives. Their instruments detected geological changes most likely caused by tiny fractures forming in the rock ahead of an impending earthquake due to stress in the Earth’s crust, according to seismologist Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, one of the researchers.

Botox shots may help ward off migraines
Injections of botulinum toxin — better known as Botox - may help prevent migraines in people who suffer frequent migraine attacks that are poorly controlled with oral prevention therapies, research hints. In a study lasting six months, Drs Roger Cady and Curtis Schreiber of the Headache Care Centre in Springfield, Missouri evaluated the efficacy and safety of a single series of Botox injections, versus placebo shots, for preventing migraine.

Autism gene search turns up hope for treatment
Researchers studying more than 100 families prone to autism said they had identified at least six new genes that appear to underlie the disorder — and said they suggest it may be possible to treat it sometimes. Their study, published in the journal Science, reinforces the common wisdom that autism is not just a single disease but can be caused by a range of genetic and environmental factors.

Japan finds no Tamiflu link to abnormal behaviour
A Japanese government-backed research group has found no evidence that flu drug Tamiflu causes abnormal behaviour in young people, a health ministry official said. The study, which could lead to the lifting of warnings in Japan on the prescription of the drug to those between the ages of 10 and 19, was carried out in response to incidents that came to light last year in which young people jumped from buildings while taking Tamiflu.

Tropical Storm Bertha heads away from Bermuda
Tropical Storm Bertha buffeted the eastern shores of Bermuda with high winds and heavy rains, and forecasters said it was expected to become a hurricane again as it strengthened slowly off the British colony. The US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Bermudian authorities issued a hurricane watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible, as Bertha’s maximum sustained winds rose to near 70 miles per hour, just below hurricane strength.

Experts detail how rice absorbs so much arsenic
Scientists in Japan may have discovered why rice absorbs so much arsenic from the soil, paving the way for fresh efforts to block the potentially harmful element from Asia’s staple food. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they said they had identified two proteins in rice plants that appeared to transport arsenic from the soil to the grain.

Ancient bones could help combat TB
A team of German, Israeli and Palestinian researchers is studying ancient bones found in the biblical city of Jericho for clues that could help scientists combat tuberculosis. “We see a re-emerging wave of tuberculosis all over the world and ... perhaps learning from the past will help us understand the present,” Andreas Nerlich, professor of pathology at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians University said. —Reuters