Is The Data on Your Smartphone Safe?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by | 2 comments

Most people are very cautious when using their credit card online as credit card and internet fraud seem to be increasing exponentially. In fact, Scotiabank estimates that the amount of money being stolen via credit cards in Canada alone has risen from $266 million in the year 2005 to just under $395 million in 2009.Although we are cautious when giving away our credit card numbers, most people don’t think twice when making payments on their smartphones. We simply tap the “buy app” button in the apple app store and readily press the “confirm payment” button on the eBay website. After all, viruses and hackers only target computers right? Wrong!

With the world shifting towards a more smartphone dependent lifestyle, so have hackers and scam artists. The story doesn’t end there. It seems that the hackers are getting better at the tricks of their trade. They are getting so good that a recent study conducted at Georgia Tech University found that even trained smartphone cyber-security experts fail to recognize when they have landed on a potentially dangerous site.

smartphone showing Google wallet, a new way to pay with your smartphone. Credit: justinpickard

The study found that even though attempts have been made to encrypt data, most mobile web browsers fail to satisfy the security standards of the World Wide Web Consortium, meaning that hackers can easily lure victims into their traps. In some cases, you do not even need to give a fraudulent website your credit card information. Just visiting such a site can open up a doorway, allowing hackers to see what you are doing on your smartphone. They monitor your phone’s activity and when you use payment options on a legitimate website, they strike and steal all your data.

The researchers focused their study on the top 10 mobile browsers, which make up approximately 90% of all mobile browsing in the United States. They found that none of these browsers had security indicators to warn users of hazardous sites. The researchers believe that limitations may be due to small screens and  limited processing power of smartphones. Despite this, they still believe that new policies need to be formed that more carefully define the security standards of mobile devices and warn users to be much more alert when browsing the web on their mobile phones.

Below is a small news report that describes some of the signs of an infected phone and the steps that one can take to secure your personal data.

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So, next time your browsing the web or making a payment on your smartphone, don’t think that you are perfectly safe. Use extreme caution and don’t trust websites that you are not sure about. With new electronics and devices being added to our lives day by day it can sometimes be very easy to get lost in the world of technology, but we need to realize that security threats are very real and that we need to take all the steps necessary to secure our information.

-Gagandeep Gill

Online References:

https://eldorado.tu-dortmund.de/bitstream/2003/28936/1/10.pdf

http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/common/sites/ccrc/pdf/fraud.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121205112829.htm

http://www.newswise.com/articles/mobile-browsers-fail-georgia-tech-safety-test

 

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Prostate cancer screening harmful to men?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by | 1 comment

Would you be surprised to know that one in 7 men will develop prostate cancer during his lifetime? Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian men and, on average, 73 Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer every day. Imagine that you are just diagnosed with prostate cancer. Your life will flash before your eyes, and try to handle the verdict in the midst of the flashbacks. But don’t be scared yet, gentlemen. And let’s look at how prostate cancer is commonly tested and see if it is necessary as part of normal checkups.

Cancer
Image: http://healthydebate.ca/opinions/we-should-aggressively-screen-for-cancers-early-right

There are mainly two ways of testing for prostate cancer: PSA screening and digital rectal exam. PSA, also known as prostate specific antigen, is often used by doctors and healthcare practitioners to detect the presence of prostate tumor.  Because PSA level in the blood generally goes up with the presence of prostate tumors, it is generally thought that early detection can be achieved by PSA screening.

PSA testing no longer recommended
Image: http://alvinblin.blogspot.ca/2012/05/uspstf-recommends-against-psa-for.html

However, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF) concluded that PSA screening for prostate cancer are unreliable and do not offer men any tangible benefit in lifespan or quality of life.  PSTF found that there are many more men who were injured by PSA tests than are helped by it. But, why?

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First of all, PSA blood levels can be increased by many other factors, meaning that the test has a high chance of producing false-positives.  Prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia, and even rigorous physical activity can contribute to the increase in PSA blood levels.  According to the ten years’ worth of comprehensive data on PSA screening, PSTF determined that, while at least 100 will receive false positives, only one in 1,000 men will derive any potential benefit.

A: increased diagnose of prostate cancer
B: minimal reduction in deaths by prostate cancer
Image: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810696

Secondly, PSA screening has serious side effects, thus does more harm than good. According to the study, Mortality Results from a Randomized Prostate-Cancer Screening Trial: it was concluded that the rate of death from prostate cancer was very low and did not differ significantly between the two study groups with over 76000 men: one that had PSA screening for 6 years and the other that had usual care as the control. Why did the PSA screening test fail to reduce the death from prostate cancer? Despite the early detection of prostate cancer, PSA screening led to other medical complications such as infection, bleeding, clot formation, and urinary difficulties. Treatment-related complications, which are generally more serious, included infection, incontinence, impotence, and other disorders.

Most men develop prostate cancer if they live long enough. However, prostate cancers are very slow growing and usually do not kill the patient. Long before the prostate cancer becomes life-threatening, it is more likely that a man with prostate cancer generally dies of some other cause. It questions us whether PSA screening is really necessary for healthy men.  It is still a very controversial topic, but I cautiously  suggest avoiding PSA screening as part of normal checkups, and I recommend digital rectal examination which is sufficient to detect prostate cancer without any medical complication. PSA screening should be done on patients only when there is an enlarged prostate or other related symptoms.

Andy Byun

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Does Green Coffee Extract Really Change Your Life?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by | 2 comments

One day when I was on the phone with my cousin, she suggested that to take green coffee extract to lose weight. Since then, I was wondering what green coffee is and how it would help me to lose weight. So, I did some research. Green coffee is simply coffee bean that have not been roasted. Chlorogenic acid in those unroasted beans decreases the absorption of glucose by small intestine after eating a meal, and this seems to help in losing weight. The reason why the regular coffee doesn’t have the same effect as green coffee is that unfortunately, roasting process causes the loss of chlorogenic acid in coffee beans.

Green-Coffee-Bean

Green coffee extract is taken in capsules that aren’t that cheap. The average monthly supply costs 20 to 30 dollars.

The market for this notion of weight lost has been growing since DR. OZ show has been suggested the medical of green coffee extract in September. Does this really work and at what cost? To prove the effectiveness of green coffee extract on weight lost, DR. Mehmet OZ conducted an experiment on 100 volunteer women and found out that those individuals who took the green coffee extract on average have lost 2 pounds in two weeks. Another double blind study by specialists at the University of Scranton shows significant weight lost in 16 overweight individuals who lost an average of 17 pounds in 22 weeks without altering their calories intake and life style.

Green Coffee Bean Extract for Weight Loss on The Doctors TV Episode

This extraordinary effect of green coffee extract has not been able to hide from the sharp eyes of critics. Even though the results of these two studies have been published widely, experts are concerned over the validity of the result since this have been tested only on small group of people. DR. Arya Sharma, a professor of medicine and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta, said “Clearly there’s nothing magical about it.”  Many critics believe that it is impossible to lose weight without any alteration in daily calories intake, and the weight lost during this studies might be the effect of   monitored diet plan offered as part of these studies.

Study done by Igho Onakpoy and his colleges confirms the short-term effectiveness of green coffee extract on weight loss but it also suggested that the significance of green coffee extract is too small between those who took the green coffee extract capsule and those who took the placebo version of it.

As we know obesity is one of major problems in our modern world, and as time goes by, there would be more increase in average weight of human population. In my opinion, taking green coffee extract is not a bad idea if  it would at least mentally encourage one to loss weight and be healthier.

As a result, many of us would like to believe that green coffee extract is the best thing that science has found to answer our hopes for losing weight so fast, but there are still some controversies about it; thus, we have to wait and see what it would happen in the future of green coffee extract.

Simin Yahyavi

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Science in the News, Uncategorized

Knees: A New Form Of Identification?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by | 2 comments

Computer scientist Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University will be publishing his idea of using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to scan people’s knees as a form of identification in the International Journal of Biometrics. After scanning the person’s legs, the bone structure of their knees will be matched to a biometric record for identity confirmation; the software capable of this was developed by Shamir. During initial tests, Shamir found that of 2,686 people tested, his software could recognize 93% of the individuals by their knee scan.

Image By John Rensten (corbisimages.com)

Shamir is targeting his software for moving lineups of people. This way office buildings and airports can quickly identify and register the people as they walk past the MRI system. This software could not be used to replace identification such as a passport. Instead it is to be used along with other forms of biometric identification, such as fingerprints or iris scans. Although these other forms of biometric identification can be deceived by wearing coloured contact lenses or making fingerprints unrecognizable by sanding them down, altering one’s bone structure would be more difficult to do without record. I think that this may seem like an inconvenience to people when going to work or travelling, but overall it would be in everyone’s best interest as it has the potential to prevent identity fraud.

“There is a distinct problem with the implementation of MRI scanning in a security setting in that MRI scanners are very large machines that take a long time to acquire an image of even a small body part such as the kneecap” the researchers admit. Although these seem like major issues, technological advances will ensure that smaller , faster MRI systems are developed.

Image By Todd Gipstein (corbisimages.com)

One of the main problems that people associate with idea of an MRI scan is radiation. Fortunately MRI scans do not have the risk of ionizing radiation that X-rays so infamously have, so there in no health risk involved. This simple scan also would not raise any privacy issues, such as with tetrahertz scanners which are used in order to ‘view’ under the scanned person’s clothing as a security measure.

Despite some skepticism from the public, Shamir believes that his new software will be worthwhile once people realize how much more secure their identity would be from fraud for the small inconvenience of walking past the scanner on their way through security.

 

Kathleen Leask

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A Top Scientific Discovery: Would You Want To Know Your Baby’s Genetics?

Posted on January 22, 2013 by | 1 comment

Genome Sequencing For Fetuses

Can you imagine being able to know more than just the gender of your baby before it is even born? You may soon be able to learn personality and physical traits of your unborn baby!

A discovery in 2012 was made by researchers at the University of Washington when the successful sequencing of a complete fetal genome was made. This sequencing is unlike any previous techniques because it does not pose any risks to the baby. The technique is noninvasive and can create a genome sequence of the developing fetus from as early as the first trimester.

Fetus. source: flickr.com

Today’s common prenatal genetic tests include amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling. These tests require a needle inserted into the amniotic sac to test for certain genetic diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. They are invasive and pose a 2% risk of miscarriage.

The newly discovered technique is possible because there is circulating cell-free DNA. A portion of which, in a pregnant woman’s blood, is derived from the fetus. This can be isolated and further sequenced. The test requires a sample of blood from the mother and blood or saliva from the father. Once the parents’ genomes are determined, one can determine which DNA comes from the fetus.

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 The main benefit is early medical warnings that were previously unknown. Importantly, scientists are interested in identifying conditions that can be treated before birth.  Is there a limit though to how much genetic information parents should know?

 Not all genetic irregularities are expressed. Whole genome mapping merely predicts the possibility of disease. Consequently, parents could be living in fear or even abort the baby that may never actually have the disease appear.

 In just five years time this testing could be clinically available. I think this topic is so interesting and controversial, and the future debates on this topic will be fascinating.

By Ashley Dolman

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Science in the News

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Manly Meats: Why Vegetables Just Don’t Cut It

Posted on January 21, 2013 by | 1 comment

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach once said “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt”; “you are what you eat”. But what does meat eating have to do anything with manliness? According to a recent study at UBC, Matthew Ruby and Steven Heine polled 273 local individuals and concluded that although vegetarians were considered more virtuous and moral, meat eaters were seen 16% more masculine than their vegan counterparts. But wait a sec, where is this all coming from?

Meat eaters are percieved more masculine. Photo credit: Shuttershock http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/meat-men-masculinity_n_1524224.html

The Journal of Consumer Research attempted to unravel the reasonings behind this phenomenon. Interestingly enough, out of all the gender assigning languages, they found 23 associating the male gender to the word meat. They also found that in Western culture, manliness correlated with meat intake, especially “meatier” cuts like steak.  Even advertisements today capitalize on such social values; that manly men must be on a “Guy-et“, or are “Meatatarians“.

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This meat association to manliness may be a reflection of historically macho activities like hunting, but today’s society largely agrees a pure carnivorous diet is an absurdity for any human being. But contrary to common belief, people who only eat meat exist, and such a diet may have its roots earlier than you might think. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a Canadian ethnologist, reaccounts his all-meat diet during his arctic exploration. In his article published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, January 1930 Edition, he explained a typical Inuit diet in detail, including the different types of meats he ate, from basic fish, to penguins and seals. Of the decade he spent with the Inuits, nine of the years composed of a pure carnivorous diet, with no signs of major health problems throughout the entire endeavor. It was also concluded from his observations that Inuits did not show any signs of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or obesity, albeit their lack of vegetables in their diet.

                  An Inuit meal of raw fish. Photo Credit: Arctic Photo                http://www.arcticphoto.co.uk/gallery2/arctic/peoples/inuitcan/ba0929-08.htm

But before you consider to purge yourself of vegetables and eat like an Inuit, it should be noted that this kind of high fat, high meat diet that Stefansson followed reflects on the extreme living conditions during the process. Even North American versions of exclusive meat diets, like one from the Livestrong Foundation, consider the additive effect of animal fat ontop of the caloric contents of starches and carbohydrates from other food groups, and suggest to consider low fat meats, like fish and turkey or leaner cuts of beef like top sirloin, or round roasts. Heck, if I had the option, I would whole-heartedly try a pure meat diet and live like the Inuits, if I were manlier and could handle the cold frosts of the Artic, or had triple the grocery budget to switch meats for veggies.

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Science in the News

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – A floating plastic island

Posted on January 20, 2013 by | 2 comments

 Plastics are ubiquitous, we use them everywhere in our daily lives: The bottles for our drinks, the packaging of our goods, even the insulation in our homes. But while these chemical polymers are undeniably useful, they are also everlasting. Every piece of plastic ever made is still here.

But where does it all go?

    The sad truth is, while some are recycled, a lot of it ends up in our oceans, where it is swept up in the ocean currents and deposited in Gyres. This process has continued unabated for close to 60 years, the result is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a 3.4 million square kilometer swath of plastic debris sitting on the surface of the North Pacific Ocean (Perkins 2010), three times the size of B.C. The vortex-like current of the gyre ensures the plastic remains localized to the area (Maximenko et al. 2012), and as it doesn’t degrade, it does nothing but affect the fragile ecosystem of the ocean and its inhabitants.

Plastic is left to gather in the Gyres

      In 2009, a team of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego journeyed 1000 miles off the California coast to the eastern edge of the Garbage Patch.  There they collected samples and ran tests on the impact of the plastic on the area (Asian News International, 2009). They discovered  that the stomach contents of over 9% of the fish in the area contain plastic pellets . It might not seem like a large number but that accounts for over 12-24 thousand tonnes of ingested plastic a year (Ecology, Environment & Conservation, 2011) .

     And this garbage patch isn’t the only one floating in the vast expanses of the Pacific. The patch studied by the Scripps team was located in the northern region of the Pacific, but another patch has been discovered in the southern hemisphere by a team from the 5 Gyres Institute in California (Marcus et.al., 2013) .

How Does it Impact Us?

    There are a few answers to this, one of them is bio-accumulation of bisphenol A through ingestion of contaminated fish. Bisphenol A is a component of all manufactured plastics. The fish ingest the plastics and are in turn eaten by us, adding to the stores of bisphenol A in our systems (Canavan, 2010).

Chemicals affect a host of animals which we then eat.

         Even though the effects of plastic ingestion on humans hasn’t been well documented, there has been enough research done on its carcinogenic properties (Richter et al., 2007)  and neurological effects (Hajszan & Leranth, 2010)  that we can conclude it is in our best interests to keep our internal concentrations low. The presence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch directly opposes this.

So What Can be Done?

    Thanks to pioneering efforts by people such as Capt. Charles Moore, awareness of the environmental effects of ocean plastic are better understood. As individuals, we can help by reducing the amount of plastic we waste by limiting our use of them, using cloth shopping bags and recycling bottles whenever we can.

Here Cpt. Moore describes his work on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:

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     Until we as a global community are better educated about the possible harm our negligence is causing, the garbage patch will remain, a monument to our environmental apathy.

By Ammar Vahanvaty

References: 

 Anonymous. (2009, ). Ocean garbage patch. Journal of College Science Teaching, pp. 10.

DAVID CANAVAN. (2010, ). ‘Garbage island’: Lost at sea. The Bangkok Post

Eriksen, et al. Plastic pollution in the south pacific subtropical gyre. Marine Pollution Bulletin, (0) doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.12.021

Hajszan, T., & Leranth, C. (2010). Bisphenol A interferes with synaptic remodeling. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 31(4), 519-530.

Maximenko, N., Hafner, J., & Niiler, P. (2012). Pathways of marine debris derived from trajectories of lagrangian drifters. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 65(1–3), 51-62.

Perkins, S. (2010). Oceans yield huge haul of plastic. Science News, 177(7), p. 8.

Richter, C.A., et. al. 2007. In vivo effects of
bisphenol A in laboratory rodent studies. Reprod. Toxicol. 24, 199–224

Scientists discover extensive plastic debris in ‘great pacific ocean garbage patch’. (2009, ). Asian News International

Scripps study finds plastic in 9 percent of ‘garbage patch’ fishes. (2011). Ecology, Environment & Conservation, , 501.

 

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If you do not start, you never have to worry about stopping

Posted on January 20, 2013 by | 2 comments

Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking cigarettes. Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain of smoking effects on the body often causes years of suffering. Smoking also contributes to a number of cancers. While you smoke, temporarily increased heart rate and blood pressure can cause heart attacks and stroke. Also, heart disease and strokes are more common among smokers than non-smokers. In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking. From the above, smoking kills and that quitting makes sense.

Smoking (Source:http://www.wallsave.com/wallpaper/1680×1050/smoking-hd-place-397661.html)

However, nicotine addiction is a relatively simple process. When people smoke, the nicotine enters the body and activates receptors in the brain. These receptors stimulate the activity of dopamine, which makes people feel good. If the nicotine level drops, the activity of dopamine also decreases. Because your body has become used to the higher activity level of dopamine, people feel the desire to resume smoking. In addition, the nicotine in your body is broken down within a day or so, but the craving for a cigarette remains for months.

I would like to introduce Terrie Hall to those who are making a struggling decision whether to quit or continue smoking.

left: Terrie’s senior year in high school, right: after she started smoking

Terrie started smoking regularly at age 17. She would come to smoke up to two packs a day. In 2001, she was diagnosed with oral cancer at the age of 40. So, she had to go through radiation. The time she was going through radiation, she had a really sore throat and she simply thought that she was just smoking too much. Later that same year, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. The doctors informed her that they would need to remove her voice box, larynx. Unfortunately, cancer has returned numerous times since she was first diagnosed. At 51, she continues to battle tobacco-related illness today.

Terrie is a laryngectomee that she has a hole in her neck now. Therefore, she speaks often with the help of her electrolarynx. These days, she works to educate young people about the dangers and consequences of tobacco use through the tips from former smoker campaign. She joined the ad campaign because it will save lives. She said, “Quit. If you don’t start, you never have to worry about stopping”. She believes that if she could prevent just one person from smoking, then she has done something great.

I think Terrie’s advertisements have the potential to significantly influence smokers at any ages to understand the range and magnitude of smoking-related risks, while encouraging them to quit.

Here’s Terrie’s ad.

KiWon Min

Online references

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/stories/terrie.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/16/health/smoking-campaign-hall/index.html

 

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The promising future of transplantation

Posted on January 20, 2013 by | 4 comments

Are you wearing a donor wrist band? Well! Take it off. Soon no one will need your organs any-more . ‘Printing‘ the organs is a new technology which can revolutionize all transplantation procedures performed in today’s medical world. Tissue engineering technology or ‘printing’ is a new way of producing human organs by means of computers and organ printers. 

Organ Printing or cell printing are very recent ideas which were introduced to the world of biotechnology in 1987. The technology has been rapidly developing ever since. Synthetic blood vessels are the first body-parts which were made by this technology.

Organ Printer

Luke Massee is the first patient who has experienced this new technology successfully. Luke was born with dysfunctional kidneys a condition know as CKD.  He was chosen over tens of candidates after 10 years of investigations. His case proved that not only this procedure is possible but also safe and cheap to use.

What is organ printing?

organ printing is a biomedical version of rapid prototyping technology which is based on tissue fluidity. Computer-assisted printers put natural component of an organ together in the right shape and form.

How does it work?

“It’s like making a cake” said Anthony Atala of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.  A 3D scan of the wanted organ is captured first. Then, a sample from the recipient tissue is taken in order to make the organ with the right material. ‘Printer’ starts producing the organ layer by layer in the final step.  Thus, the procedure of organ printing can be divided into three main steps: preprocessing, processing and postprocessing. In preprocessing computer-aided design ( CAD) or blue print of the organ is done. in processing step, materials are put together by means of tissue scaffold. Printers play the main role in this step. postprinting is the final step and organ is double checked for functionality.

The progress of the stem cell technology has also greatly contributed to progress of the organ printing technology. Stem cells can be used to produce any organ in the body. They can be used for the tissue culturing and the produced culture can later on be used in producing the organ.

Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney

Even though there has been one successful case of organ transplantation, there is still a lot not understood about human body and I believe it will take a long time for this technology to become accessible for everyone.  And until the day that science can solve every problem about our mysterious bodies it is much wiser to keep your donor wrist band on!

Refrences:

1. Mironov V, Boland T, Trusk T, Forgacs G, Markwald RR. Organ printing: Computer-aided jet-based 3D tissue engineering. Trends Biotechnol. 2003;21(4):157-161.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167779903000337#

 

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