Nerdy Science Blog

Children often have perception about hospital and feel anxious when visiting doctor.  Irum Sunderji and Pri Vijayakumar, medicine students from Monash University, Gippsland, Australia, try to reduce children’s anxiety when visiting a doctor by establishing a Teddy Bear Hospital.

Establishment of the hospital is helped by students at Morwell Park Primary School.  The primary school students will act as parents of their Teddies to visit Teddy Bear Hospital.  They will learn about surgery, ambulance, nutrition, exercise and related medical practises in medical environment with their Teddies.  The aim of the program is to make children involve and understand the process of visiting doctors is a positive experience.

(news)

If you are a vegetarian, the following news might be useless to you.

Scientists from University of Adelaide discovered a bacterium cause disease among meat lovers.  The discovery led by microbiologists Dr Adrienne Paton and Professor James Paton was published in Nature on 30 October.

E. coli bacteria will release Subtilase cytotoxin, a potent bacterial toxin, to target Neu5Gc sugar on cell surface.  This will cause bloody diarrhoea and haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) in humans.  However human does no make Neu5Gc naturally, and we the toxin release by the bateria should do us no harm.  The secret to the triumph of the bacterium is because we eat too much meat and fairy products.  While we are creating more carbon emmission by eating the food we love, we also uptake Neu5Gc sugar which is rich in these food into our body.  Scientist emphasized that it is important to eat well-cooked meat and pasteurised dairy products as the bacteria are killed in these food products.

Other researchers involved in this study included scientists from Monash University, the University of California and Emory University.

(news)

Two separate research groups from Monash University and Melbourne lab of the Australian Stem Cell Centre submitted licence requests for creating cloned human embryos.  By working with Sydney IVF, the teams could create cloned human embryos using fertility treatment left over spare eggs.  The cloned embryos would be destroyed within seven days old and once stem cells were collected.  This could lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, and type 1 diabetes in less than 10 years.  National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) will decide approval of the applications this week.  Tomas Stojanov, Sydney IVF research director, was confident that both applications would be approved.

(news [pic])

Dr. Chua Tock Hing was my lecturer for the unit “THE DESIGN OF SCIENCE” back in Monash Malaysia University.  He was kind of funny in his own way and he can remember names of almost every students in the lecture (around 100).

Monash University:

According to Monash University researcher Dr Chua Tock Hing, the particular strain of bacteria was found in the Malaysian state of Pahang and produces a toxin that kills mosquito larvae by destroying their gut tissue.

Toxin was isolated from the strain of Bacillus thurigiensis bacteria.  The isolated toxin only affect mosquito larvae, according to Dr. Chua.  It was a joint research between Monash University’s Sunway campus and the Malaysian government’s Institute of Medical Research.

I would prefer this method to control mosquito population (if it really works and doesn’t cause any other environmental problem) to using chemical pesticides, which is bad to our health as well.

I remembered one sarcastic thing Dr. Chua mentioned during his lectures, which was that he was the first and only person in Monash Malaysia campus who had paper published in Nature.

Just in case some of you who study in Monash don’t know about this, tomorrow (6th March) is the “Graduate Careers Fair” for ngineering, Computing/IT and Science.

It will be held at the sport centre (building 1), from 3 pm to 6 pm.

Monash University

A Monash University PhD student has developed a new technique that could revolutionise stem cell treatment for Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury.

David Nisbet from Monash University’s Department of Materials Engineering has used existing polymer-based biodegradable fibres, 100 times smaller than a human hair, and re-engineered them to create a unique 3-D scaffold that could potentially allow stem cells to repair damaged nerves in the human body more quickly and effectively.

news.com.au

The deep, slow inhalation and long breath hold is predisposing cannabis smokers to a condition of rapid lung destruction much younger in life, a study by Melbourne researchers has found.

A team from the Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine at Monash University reviewed the lung condition of middle-aged chronic cannabis smokers.

They found high rates of bullous lung disease, a debilitating condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the organ.

It is often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke.

Studies have shown the disease will most likely strike tobacco smokers around the age of 65, but the new review, published in the journal Respirology, shows dope smokers are being hit 20 years earlier, while in their early 40s.