Study - Science

Cigarette butts to 

make steel rust - free

Hong Kong: Chemical extracts from cigarete butts -- so toxic they kill fish -- can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found.

         In a paper published in the American Chemical Society's journal industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.

         They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting. "The metal surface can be protected and the iron atom's further dissolution can be prevented," they wrote.

        the chemicals, including nicotine, appear to be responsible for this anti-corrosion effect, they added. The research was led by Jun Zhao at Xi'an Jiaotong University's School of Energy and Power Engineering and funded by China's state oil firm China National Petroleum Corporation.

        Corrosion of steel pipes used by the oil industry costs oil producers millions of dollars annually to repair or replace. According to the paper, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year.

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Health Issue: Eat Nuts Control Cholesterol

             Eat nuts to contain

Cholesterol

Washington: Consuming more nuts seems to be linked to lower blood cholesterol levels, says a new study. Recently, consumption of nuts has been the focus of intense research because of their potential to reduce coronary heart disease risk and to lower blood lipid [fat and cholesterol] levels based on their unique nutritional attributes.

           Nuts are rich in plant proteins, fats (especially unsaturated fatty acids),dietary fibre, minerals, vitamins and other compounds,such as antioxidants and phytoesterols. Joan sabate, Loma Linda University, California and colleagues pooled primary data from 25 nut consumption trails conducted in seven countries and involving 583 women and men with high cholesterol or normal cholesterol levels.  

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Soon, Wireless implants Kickstart Heart

Soon, wireless implants

that can kickstrt heart

        The likelihood that patients may some day receive heart defibrillators that can operate without electrical wires connected to their hearts has moved a step closer, according to a study.

        The development of the new type of defibrillator has been long pursued by a researcher, gust Bardy, at the seattle Institute for Cardiac Research in Seattle. And in the study published on Wednesday in the New England Jurnal of Medicine, Bardy and other researchers reported that initial trials of such a device in patients were successful.

         Defibrillators fire an electrical jolt to interrupt a potentially fatal heart rhythm and restore normal beating. For a unit to function, a surgeon muct thread an electrical sensing wire through a blood vessel into a patient's heart. The wires pose risks because they can, on rare occasion, puncture the heart during implantation or fracture while in place.

         The new version works much like an external defibrillator, but delivers the electrical jlot by means of a sensor implanted under the skin near the chest bone. A power unit is placed under the skin on the side of the chest.

         The new device is already for sale in some European countries, but Bardy and others cautioned that full-scale, long-term trials were still needed to prove the implant's worth to the Food and drug Administration. Even if successful, the unit could not be used by all patients who needed a defibri8llator, but several experts said they were excited by the new study nonetheless.

         Douglas Zipes, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, said the new device could someday displace existing models used in many patients Every month, about 10,000 patients in the US get a defibrillator, either for the first time or as replacements for devices whose batteries have worn out.
         In recent years, the safety of defibrillator wires has come in particular focus because a model made by Medtronic has been prone to fracturing. Hundreds of patients who received the model have had to undergo new operations to replace it. Also, scar tissue often builds up around intravenous wires, a process that can make removing and replacing them difficult or dangerous.

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