Picture of the day: the immortal jelly fish

The Immortal Jelly Fish or Turritopsis nutricula is the oldest living animal one of the strangest in the animal kingdom. You may think that the name is just for fun or that the animal can boast of living for perhaps a few hundred years. You’d be surprised to know that the name is literal and the immortal jelly fish can theoretically live forever.

Most jellyfish species have a relatively fixed life span, which varies by species from hours to many months. But not the immortal jelly fish. This organism has the ability, at any stage in its life, to completely transform back into a polyp, its earliest stage of life through a process called transdifferentiation. The immortal jellyfish doesn't die; it merely regenerates its cells in a younger stage, then ages naturally again.

That doesn't mean all Turritopsis nutricula can go on living forever; the species is a small invertebrate in the ocean, and can be a victim to any of the horrible things that can befall such creatures, from being eaten or succumbing to disease. But it does not erase the fact that it is biologically capable of immortality.

Few People Wash Their Hands Correctly

This image contains just eleven words with a serious message.

Many individuals take hand washing for granted especially when the behavior in which they engage requires or warrants it.

A recent study from Michigan State University sneakily observed 3,749 people in public restrooms and the results are scary!

Many people – as much as 95percent of those observed- did not wash their hands long enough to kill germs.

It was also observed that 15percent of men and 7percent of women did not wash their hands at all and amongst those that attempted to wash, half of the men and 22 percent of women neglected to use soap!

What is the correct way to wash the hands?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you need to wash your hands with soap for at least 20seconds to kill germs. The people in this study only washed their hands for an average of 6 seconds.

Where do you belong? With the 95percent majority or the minute 5percent that wash correctly?

Failing to wash or insufficiently washing of hands contributes to the spread of food-borne illness and it is known that washing the hands with soap can reduce diarrheal disease risk. Yet, why many skip this important part of hygiene is not known.

Imagine the number of hands you shake. Combine that with the fact that many of the people you meet don’t wash their hands after using the restroom. Who knows the amount of poop that must have been exchanged!

This study found lots of other interesting tidbits about hand-washing habits that include;

          People were more likely to wash their hands in the morning

          People were less like to wash their hands if the sink was dirty

          People were more likely to wash their hands if there was sign to remind them

Discovery of a New Human Body Part

A previously unknown human body part hidden in the eye has been discovered by Harminder Dua a professor of ophthalmologist and visual sciences, at the University of Nottingham. The new body part is named after the discoverer and is called Dua’s Layer.

Dua's layer is just 15 microns thick and sits at the back of the cornea, which previously had only five known layers. Dua and his colleagues discovered the new body part by injecting air into the corneas of eyes that had been donated for research and using an electron microscope to scan each separated layer.

As regards its function, it is believed that the Dua’s layer helps keep fluid from building up in the cornea. A tear in Dua's layer is the cause of corneal hydrops, a disorder that leads to fluid buildup in the cornea.

According to Popular Science, knowledge of the new layer "could dramatically improve outcomes for patients undergoing corneal grafts and transplants." Because when you're gently knifing into the eyeball with a scalpel, it's probably a good idea to know exactly what you're cutting into.

Dua himself noted it is a major discovery that will mean ophthalmology textbooks will literally need to be re-written

Details of the discovery appeared in the journal Ophthalmology

Health Care Workers Be On The Lookout For MERS

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

The World Health Organisation has advised health care workers to be on the alert for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The disease emerged in 2012 in Saudi Arabia and is caused by a Coronavirus related to the one that causes SARS.

So far, 55 cases had been confirmed, 31 of which were fatal. Most of the cases were in four Middle Eastern countries, 40 occurring in Saudi Arabia. The WHO urged all countries in the Middle East to urgently intensify their surveillance efforts for infection by the virus.

International concerns about these infections  are high, because it is possible for this virus to move around the world. There have been several examples where the virus has moved from one country to another through travelers.

Large gaps in our knowledge about this virus remain and the route of infection remains unknown, though the first case of person-to-person transmission occurred in France in April.

“All countries in the world need to ensure that their healthcare workers are aware of the virus and the disease it can cause, and that when unexplained cases of pneumonia are identified, MERS should be considered,” said the World Health Organisation following a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Currently, the diagnosis of MERS relies heavily on clinical awareness combined with confirmatory testing for the presence of the causative agent by the polymerase chain reaction.

The ‘Evil’ of Sleep Paralysis

You wake up in the morning to discover that you cannot move a muscle; you find your body completely paralyzed. You tried to speak but no words seem to come out of your mouth, the words that eventually part your lips seem so faint to be heard by anyone. It feels so unreal yet real at the same time. In the mix of all that terror you notice an evil presence in your room and a sense of weight upon your chest causing you to suffocate and threatening you with death. You try to react and defend yourself but you can’t due to the paralysis. After a while, you regain movement in the muscles and discover there’s nobody in the room with you but the shock of the event leaves you quite terrified and distressed.

This weird phenomenon is known as sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is a temporary inability to move or speak that happens when you are waking up or, less commonly, falling asleep. Although you are awake, your body is briefly paralyzed. In some cases, hallucinations are present, and the sufferer feels that someone or something is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation.

The paralysis can last from a few seconds to several minutes. After this, you will be able to move and speak as normal. An unsettling feeling may come over you and you may become anxious. The condition does not however pose a risk to general overall health. It has been linked to disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea; however, it can occur in isolation. Many people only experience sleep paralysis once or twice in their life. If it happens several times in a month or more regularly, it is known as isolated sleep paralysis.

What Happens During Sleep Paralysis?

To better understand what happens during sleep paralysis, a little knowledge of what usually happens when you are asleep is important. Sleep occurs in cycles and each cycle is split into two phases – rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and the non-REM sleep.

The brain is usually very active during REM sleep and most dreams occur at this stage. Also, during REM sleep, the body is paralyzed apart from the movement of the eyes and the diaphragm (the muscle that controls breathing) the paralysis is thought to occur to prevent you acting out the actions in your dreams.

Sleep paralysis occurs when the normal muscular paralysis of REM sleep temporarily continues after you have woken up.

Causes

Several circumstances have been identified that are associated with an increased risk of sleep paralysis. These include insomnia and sleep deprivation, sleeping in unfamiliar or spooky place or in an environment that is too hot or cold, an erratic sleep schedule, sleeping in the supine position(on the back), stress, overuse of stimulants, physical fatigue as well as certain medications. It is also believed that there may be a genetic component in the development of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is also known to be more common in teenagers and young adults.

Is It Really Evil Spirits?

All over the world, sleep paralysis always had a supernatural explanation which seemed to be evil in almost all cultures. People have always thought of sleep paralysis as stemming from an evil source. It has been given different names and various explanations.

In New Guinea, for example, people refer to this phenomenon as Suk Nimyo, believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during the night so as not to disturb the human’s daily life, but sometimes people wake unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.

In Korean culture, sleep paralysis is called gawi nulim, which translates to “being pressed down by a ghost”.

In Nigeria, sleep paralysis is often associated with witchcraft and demon attack. It is referred within African communities as “the Devil on your back”.

Treatment

Sleep paralysis is more common in people who are sleep deprived, so getting enough sleep may help reduce the number of episodes of sleep paralysis. Most adults need 6-8 hours of sleep each night. Keeping a regular sleep schedule where you go to bed at roughly the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning, can also help. The safest treatment for sleep paralysis is for people to adopt healthier sleeping habits. However, in serious cases more clinical treatments should be sought.

Terror after an episode

Waking up to realize that you cannot move or speak can be a terrifying experience especially when it is accompanied with hallucinations and feelings of breathlessness. A new research found that people were most distressed after an episode when hallucinations felt threatening and when they held supernatural beliefs regarding sleep paralysis.

The research also suggests that understanding why it happens helps people feel less distressed after an episode.Believing that sleep paralysis is brought on by the supernatural, on the other hand, makes people feel more unnerved.

Even though not everyone will accept or experience relief from naturalistic interpretation, thinking away the fear and accepting a naturalistic or scientific explanation can help to reduce the terror after an episode.

A Chance to Put Your Name and a Message in Mars

NASA has invited the general public to submit their names and a personal message online for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft to mars. The DVD will be aboard the NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft which is supposed to study Martian upper atmosphere and is set to launch in November.

The DVD will carry every name submitted. The public is also encouraged to submit a message in the form of a three-line poem or haiku. However, only three haikus will be selected. The top three most popular messages will be sent to mars and will be prominently displayed on the MAVEN website. The dead line for all submissions is July 1. An online public to vote the top three messages to place on the DVD will begin July 15.

The going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration, and science in general, and share our excitement.

Participants who submit their names to the Going to Mars campaign will be able to print a certificate of appreciation to document their involvement with the MAVEN mission.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The spacecraft hopes to investigate how the loss of Mars’ atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface.

To participate in the Going to Mars campaign, visit

http://lasp.colorado.edu/maven/goingtomars