What Leonardo taught us about the heart

Da Vinci was the first anatomist known to correctly note the number and root structure of human teeth

He found that the heart had four chambers and it connected the pulse in the wrist with the contraction of the left ventricle.

He worked out that currents in the blood flow, created in the main aorta artery, help heart valves to close.

And he suggested that arteries create a health risk if they fur up over a lifetime.

Mr Wells also believes that Leonardo realised that the blood was in a circulation system and may have influenced William Harvey's discovery in 1616 that blood was pumped around the body by the heart.

Yet none of Leonardo's theories or drawing were ever published during his lifetime.

In fact, his notes were not rediscovered until the late 18th century - more than 250 years after his death.

Mr Wells explains: "It wasn't his job. Scientific stuff was his hobby."

Mother's op book helps ill children

Helen Sadler wrote Monkey Has An Operation for her daughter

Now, almost six years later, the character forms part of a schools education pack aimed at teaching youngsters about situations they might encounter in hospitals, at the doctors and even in life.

It is also educates pupils about the National Health Service and encourages them to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Mrs Sadler was told at her 20 week scan, in April 2007, that the baby she was carrying had a condition that resulted in lung cysts being formed and that her child would need major surgery at 18 months old.

But, as she began to prepare Josephine for the operation at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Brighton, Helen found there were no books to explain to her daughter what was happening.

"When we went in for the pre-operative appointment it was all pretty traumatic and quite terrifying," she said.

"The hospital had some really good photographs that talked you through the journey but we were not allowed to take them away.

"It was all very quick and you could not take anything on board and children are terrified just as much as parents are."

So, she decided to draw a character of a soft toy Monkey and created a story of him going into hospital for an operation.

Older sperm donors 'just as good'

Dr Meenakshi Choudhary told the BBC: "It doesn't matter up to the age of 45 years, there was no decline observed in this study.

"Sperm donors are a select group of the population, they are healthy fertile donors who go through a stringent recruitment criteria.

"Based on this we can say that age does not matter as long as the sperm quality is good."

'Men not invincible'

Dr Allan Pacey, a senior lecturer in sperm at the University of Sheffield, said men should not be tempted by complacency.

He told the BBC: "I think there is a perception out there that men are invincible from reproductive ageing - we just need to look at Charlie Chaplin who was 73 when he had his eleventh child.

"We know that as men go above the age of 40 and go into their fifties, their chances of getting a woman pregnant does reduce as a consequence of age.

"I don't think you can take this data and apply it uncritically to the general population, the advice would still be you should be trying to have a child before the age of 40 or 45."

Clotting balls 'may stop bleeding'

The extremely small particles have several protein arms which form bonds with blood cells

The tiny spherical particles - some 200 times thinner than a human hair - have tentacle-like arms made of protein chains. These arms form links with natural clotting cells present in blood, clumping them together.

The body then continues with a cascade of processes, leading to a web-like mesh which stops blood flow.

In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found injecting these particles into the bloodstream of injured mice helped improve survival rates from 60% to 90%.

'Just add water'

Prof Erin Lavik of Case Western Reserve University and senior author of the study, told the BBC: "In the blast trauma model there is bleeding from many different organs so being able to administer something simply that can stop bleeding at many sites and improve survival is very exciting."

The super-clotting balls can last up to two weeks as a dry powder and can be made into a solution rapidly by just adding a salt or sugar water mixture.

Currently most blood products used to treat major bleeding need to be refrigerated and have a shelf-life of a few days.

Mark Morrison of the Institute of Nanotechnology, who was not involved in the research, says: "The materials used to synthesise these particles are well-known and have been used for sometime so this should help avoid interactions with the human immune system.

"However, there needs to be further work on how the particles affect the natural clotting cascade and other body processes. We need to know how long they last in the body too."

The researchers plan to do further studies in larger animal models before considering human trials.

The Kaua'i Cocktail: Why Residents of Hawai'i Are Outraged by GMO Farming on Kaua'i

By Paul Koberstein
WAIMEA, HAWAI'I - The island of Kaua'i, Hawai'i, has become Ground Zero in the intense political battle over genetically modified (GMO) crops in the United States. But the fight isn't just about the concerns over GMO technology. It's also about chemical pesticides.

The four transnational corporations that are experimenting with genetically engineered crops on Kaua'i have transformed part of the island into what could be one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of U.S. agriculture.

For the better part of two decades, Syngenta, BASF Plant Science, DuPont Pioneer and Dow AgroSciences have been drenching their test crops near this small town on the southwest coast of Kaua'i with some of the most dangerous synthetic pesticides in use in agriculture today, at an intensity that far surpasses the norm at most other American farms, an analysis of government pesticide databases shows. Residents of "Poison Valley"

Perhaps no one personifies the battle better than Klayton Kubo, who lives at the east end of Waimea, at the heart of what he calls "poison valley." He showed this reporter a brief video of himself cleaning the screen covering the window on the street side of his house. Clogged with reddish dirt similar in appearance to volcanic soils found throughout the island, the screen is his house's last line of defense against the dust. However, it blocks only the biggest chunks, and can do nothing to stop smaller pieces of grit, toxic vapors and chemical odors that appear to be emanating from test fields located just beyond the street and the Waimea River in front of his house.

Kubo began looking for answers to his questions about what's in the air some 15 years ago. More than once, he says, a DuPont representative came to his house only to lower his head and mutter that it's "against company policy" to reveal any information about activities on the test fields.

Kubo is among 150 of his neighbors who have joined a class action lawsuit against DuPont Pioneer, a subsidiary of DuPont that leases several thousand acres on Kaua'i. They are seeking an injunction against the use of chemicals that are suspected to be toxic. At the other end of town, the Waimea Canyon Middle School, a health clinic, and a veterans' hospital line up in front of another GMO test field operated by Syngenta.

Steady northeasterly trade winds averaging between 8 and 9 mph blow daily across the test fields and into town.

In two incidents in 2006 and 2008, students at the Waimea school were evacuated and about 60 were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, and nausea. Many people in town blamed the outbreak on blowing dust from the GMO test fields. The companies blamed nearby fields of stinkweed.  

How 'The New DDT' Wreaks Havoc on the Bottom of the Food Chain

By Stephen Leahy
The same insecticide nerve poison that is contributing to the shocking declines in bees and other pollinators is also behind the sharp declines in many other insect species, along with insect-eating birds and bats. Even important creatures like earthworms, which keep our soils healthy, are being damaged by systemic insecticides called neonicotinoids (neonics) and fipronil, a new four-year international meta-analysis has found.

"It's the new DDT but different," said Ole Hendrickson, a former scientist at Environment Canada and member of the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides that complete the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) analysis. It's the first examination of all the science on the topic-more than 800 studies. The task force is compromised of 50 independent scientists from all over the world who spent the last four years trying to figure out why so many bees, butterflies, and other insects are disappearing.

"Instead of wiping out the top of the food chain, killing hawks and eagles as DDT did, neonics are wiping out the bottom of the food chain," Hendrickson told me. "Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once said if we wipe out the world's insects, we will soon follow them to extinction." 

Over the past 15 years, neonics have become the most widely used insecticides on the planet. They're everywhere: in homes, gardens, farms, lakes, rivers and forests. The six main types of neonics in use are very, very good at destroying the nerve cells of anything that ingests them.

"Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT," said Jean-Marc Bonmatin of The National Centre for Scientific Research in France.   

A High-Stakes Initiative Could Ban GMO Farming in Maui County

By Anita Hofschneider
Civil Beat
Hawaii's rising movement against genetically modified farming has seen successes in Kauai County and Hawaii County, but the latest proposal in Maui County will test how far residents are willing to go to get rid of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The Maui County Council - which represents Maui, Molokai and Lanai - recently began considering the county's first-ever citizens initiative, which seeks to temporarily ban genetically modified farming until biotechnology companies pay for a study to analyze its health effects. Critics say the proposal could have a huge negative economic impact in the county, where hundreds of people are employed by the biotechnology industry.

The voter initiative is significantly more restrictive than the regulations approved in Kauai County and Hawaii County last year. Kauai's ordinance focuses on increasing disclosure requirements for biotechnology companies about their use of pesticides and genetically engineered seeds, while the Big Island's ban on genetically modified farming exempts all existing crops.