Doxycycline can help MS patients by reducing the level of an enzyme that attacks human beingÕs nervous system.

An Iranian professor at Louisiana University, Alireza Minagar, and his colleagues have found that using doxycycline antibiotic in present treatment methods of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) disease can postpone the advanced stages of the disease.
Minagar noted that this antibiotic can prevent an enzyme from destroying special cells in nervous system, ISNA reported.
The results of Minagar’s research have been published in neurology magazine.
Interferon is currently the drug which is used for treating patients suffering from MS.
In Minagar’s treatment method, the MS patients used 100 milligram of doxycycline antibiotic for a period of four months beside Interferon drug.
Minagar and his team believe that doxycycline and other antibiotics from tetracycline family can help MS patients by reducing the level of an enzyme that attacks human being’s nervous system.
Scan images from brains of 15 patients who have taken doxycycline drug for a period of four months shows that they have shown much improvement if compared with other patients who have not.

Harry Potter may not have talked much about plasmonics in J. K. Rowling’s fantasy series, but University of Maryland researchers are using this emerging technology to develop an invisibility cloak that exists beyond the world of bespectacled teenage wizards.
A research team at Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering comprised of Professor Christopher Davis, Research Scientist Igor Smolyaninov, and graduate student Yu-Ju Hung, has used plasmon technology to create the world’s first invisibility cloak for visible light, according to ScienceDaily.
The engineers have applied the same technology to build a revolutionary superlens microscope that allows scientists to see details of previously undetectable nanoscale objects.
Generally speaking, when one sees an object, he/she sees the visible light that strikes the object and is reflected.
The Clark School team’s invisibility cloak refracts (or bends) the light that strikes it, so that the light moves around and past the cloak, reflecting nothing, leaving the cloak and its contents invisible.
The invisibility cloak device is a two-dimensional pattern of concentric rings created in a thin, transparent acrylic plastic layer on a gold film. The plastic and gold each have different refractive properties.
The structured plastic on gold in different areas of the cloak creates “negative refraction“ effects, which bend plasmons--electron waves generated when light strikes a metallic surface under precise circumstances--around the cloaked region.
This manipulation causes the plasmon waves to appear to have moved in a straight line. In reality they have been guided around the cloak much as water in a stream flows around a rock, and released on the other side, concealing the cloak and the object inside from visible light.
The invisibility that this phenomenon creates is not absolutely perfect because of energy loss in the gold film.
The team achieved this invisibility under very specialized conditions. The researchers’ cloak is just 10 micrometers in diameter; by comparison, a human hair is between 50 to 100 micrometers wide. Also, the cloak uses a limited range of the visible spectrum, in two dimensions.
It would be a significant challenge to extend the cloak to three dimensions because researchers would need to control light waves both magnetically and electronically to steer them around the hidden object.
The technology initially may work only for small objects of specific controlled shape.
The team also has used plasmonics to develop superlens microscopy technology, which can be integrated into a conventional optical microscope to view nanoscale details of objects that were previously undetectable.
The superlens microscope could one day image living cells, viruses, proteins, DNA molecules, and other samples, operating much like a point-and-shoot camera.
This new technology could revolutionize the capability to view nanoscale objects at a crucial stage of their development.
The team believes they can improve the resolution of their microscope images down to about 10 nanometers--one ten thousandth of the width of a human hair.
A large reason for the success of the group’s innovations in both invisibility and microscopy is that surface plasmons have very short wave lengths, and can therefore move data around using much smaller-scale guiding structures than in existing devices.
These small, rapid waves are generated at optical frequencies, and can transport large amounts of data.

Cannabis is the most commonly used illegal drug.

Inhaled cannabis smoke has more harmful toxins than tobacco, scientists have discovered.
The Canadian government research found 20 times as much ammonia, a chemical linked to cancer, NewScientist said.
The Health Canada team also found five times as much hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides, which are linked to heart and lung damage respectively.
But tobacco smoke contained more of a toxin linked to infertility. Experts said users must be aware of the risks.
About a quarter of the population in the UK smokes tobacco products, while a sixth of 15 to 34-year-olds have tried cannabis in the past year, making it the most commonly used drug.
Previous research has shown cannabis smoke is more harmful to lungs than tobacco as it is inhaled more deeply and held in the lungs for a longer period.
However, it has also been acknowledged that the average tobacco user smokes more than a cannabis user.
Researchers from Health Canada, the government’s health research department, used a smoking machine to analyze the composition of the inhaled smoke for nearly 20 harmful chemicals.
They also looked at the sidestream smoke, given off from the burning tip of the product and responsible for 85 percent of the smoked inhaled through passive smoking.
In most cases, the comparison on sidestream smoke broadly mirrored that of inhaled smoke.
However, in the case of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the toxin linked to infertility, the researchers found concentrations were actually higher in cigarette smoke.
The study also showed little difference in the concentrations of a range of chemicals, including chromium, nickel, arsenic and selenium.
Lead researcher David Moir said: “The consumption of marijuana through smoking remains a reality and among the young seems to be increasing.
“The confirmation of the presence of known carcinogens and other chemical is important information for public health.“
Dr Richard Russell, a specialist at the Windsor Chest Clinic, said, “The health impact of cannabis is often over-looked amid the legal debate.
“Evidence shows it is multiplied when it is cannabis compared to tobacco. “Tobacco from manufacturers has been enhanced and cleaned whereas cannabis is relatively unprocessed and therefore is a much dirtier product.
“These findings do not surprise me. The toxins from cannabis smoke cause lung inflammation, lung damage and cancer.“
Stephen Spiro, of the British Lung Foundation, added the findings were “a great worry“.

New material, nano flakes, may revolutionize the transformation of solar energy to electricity. If so, even ordinary households can benefit from solar electricity and save money in the future.
If researcher Martin Aagesen’s future solar cells meet the expectations, both your economy and the environment will benefit from the research.
Less than one percent of the world’s electricity comes from the sun because it is difficult to transform solar energy to electricity. But Martin Aagesen’s discovery may be a huge step towards boosting the exploitation of solar energy, ScienceDaily reported.
“We believe that the nano flakes have the potential to convert up to 30 percent of the solar energy into electricity and that is twice the amount that we convert today,“ says Martin Aagesen who is a PhD from the Nano-Science Center and the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen. During his work on his PhD thesis, Martin found a new and untried material.
“I discovered a perfect crystalline structure. That is a very rare sight. While being a perfect crystalline structure we could see that it also absorbed all light. It could become the perfect solar cell,“ says Martin Aagesen.
The discovery of the new material has sparked a lot of attention internationally and has led to an article in Nature Nanotechnology.
“The potential is unmistakeable. We can reduce the solar cell production costs because we use less of the expensive semiconducting silicium in the process due to the use of nanotechnology.
At the same time, the future solar cells will exploit the solar energy better as the distance of energy transportation in the solar cell will be shorter and thus lessen the loss of energy,“ says Martin Aagesen who is also director of the company SunFlake Inc. that pursues development of the new solar cell.

A new robotic surgical system shows promise in the removal of cancer involving the tonsils, researchers say.
According to a team at the University of Pennsylvania, the transoral robotic surgery (TORS) system includes three instrument-holding robotic arms and a central arm with an endoscope, an optical instrument with two video cameras that offers a three-dimensional view for the surgeon, who uses handles on a console to control the movement of the robotic arms, HealthDay reprted.
This study included 27 patients who had radical tonsillectomy to treat cancer. In 25 (93 percent) of the patients, surgeons were able to use TORS to remove all cancerous tissues. The average length of stay after surgery was just under two hours. After the procedure, 26 of the patients were able to swallow without the use of a stomach tube.
Complications occurred in five (19 percent) of the patients, and most of those were resolved without significant consequences, the study authors said.
“Radical tonsillectomy using TORS is a new technique that offers excellent access for resection of carcinomas of the tonsil with acceptable acute morbidity,“ or complications, the researchers concluded. “Future reports will focus on long-term oncologic and functional outcomes.“
Two of the study authors received payment from Intuitive Surgical Inc. for time, materials and teaching a TORS workshop.
The findings were published in the December issue of the journal Archives of Otolaryngology--Head & Neck Surgery.