New HIV Virus Found In Gorillas

Scientists who found a new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a Cameroonian woman living in Paris, have discovered it is an unusual variant of HIV-1 that could have come from gorillas.

The research that led to the findings was headed by Dr Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen in France and is published in the 2 August online issue of Nature Medicine. Drs David Robertson and Jonathan Dickerson from the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester, UK, were also involved in the study.

There are three established lineages of HIV-1, known as M, N, and O, which came from chimpanzees, but this new variant appears to be the prototype of a new lineage derived from gorillas and shows no evidence of recombination with the other known lineages, wrote the researchers.
They propose that the new lineage be called HIV-1 group P.
There are 33 million people worldwide living with AIDS which is caused by the HIV-1 virus group M (groups N and O are mainly confined to Cameroon).
HIV is a product of cross-species transmission of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) found in chimpanzees, thought to have crossed to humans from eating infected bush meat.
While first recognized in 1980, HIV is thought to have started some 80 years earlier in and around the African country that is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The 62-year old Cameroonian woman at the centre of the study moved to Paris in 2004 and began to have symptoms shortly afterwards. Her blood sample showed discrepancies in her viral load, and further tests revealed she was infected with a new strain of HIV that more closely resembled SIV from gorillas than HIV from humans.
However, before moving to Paris the woman had lived in a semi-urban part of the central west African Republic of Cameroon; she had not come into contact with bush meat or gorillas.
Because of this information and the fact further tests showed that the virus was able to replicate in human cells, the scientists suggest the strain may well appear elsewhere.
Robertson told the media that:
"The discovery of this novel HIV-1 lineage highlights the continuing need to monitor closely for the emergence of new HIV variants."
"This demonstrates that HIV evolution is an ongoing process. The virus can jump from species to species, from primate to primate, and that includes us; pathogens have been with us for millions of years and routinely switch host species," he added.
In the same way as the current swine flu pandemic is showing us, this is another example of how viruses can now move very quickly around the world because nowadays large numbers of humans travel long distances in a short space of time.
Plantier's team in France are part of a network of laboratories that has been monitoring HIV genetic diversity, while the The Manchester Life Sciences team helped with the computer-based evolutionary analysis.

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Live Long and Prosper---Doctor's lounge (3)

It was a late fall Monday, during my third year of medical school. I had just finished a horrifically boring month of Geriatric Psychiatry at the VA hospital, and now was doing a month of Adult Psychiatry at the local psychiatric hospital. It was a locked ward, and every day we had to be buzzed in to the unit, and be buzzed out at the end of the day.
There were three medical students working the ward. We each took turns taking new patients when they were admitted and working them up. It was my turn to work up a new patient that had been brought in Sunday night.
The senior resident handed me the patient’s folder. It was a thin folder, suggesting that this was her first stay at the hospital – generally a good sign. The resident quickly dashed that hope.
“Mrs. D was brought to the ER last night for severe depression. There was no suicide attempt; her family was worried because she was staying in bed and not willing to move for the past week. Since being brought to the ward last night, she hasn’t moved at all; she’s just lay in bed staring at the ceiling.” She smiled a crooked smile at me. “Good luck.”
I looked through her chart and ER notes. There was nothing particularly alarming or interesting. She had been on outpatient treatment for depression on and off for about five years. No suicide attempts. No significant medical or family history. She was divorced with two teen-aged children.
I walked to her room, the last door on the left, opened it up and looked in. The room was dark, and a large woman was lying unmoving on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Her breathing was slow and steady and she did not seem to be in any kind of distress. I knocked and entered the room.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m the medical student, Scott. How are you doing today?”
There was no response. Not even a twitch of muscle or a flicker of eyelids.
I pulled a chair next to the head of the bed and sat down. I tried again, “Are you in any discomfort? Is there anything I can do?”
There was no change. She continued lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.
I pulled out the history form, and asked the first question. “How long have you been feeling depressed?”
No answer. No movement. It was like trying to talk to a brick wall. It was time to try a different tack.
“Tell me about your children. How old are they?”
This time there was a brief twitch of the eyes, but no other movement.
“Are you and your children getting ready for Thanksgiving?”
There was another eye twitch, but nothing else. Clearly, she could hear and probably respond, but was choosing not to.
“You were brought to the ER last night,” I said, getting no response. “So you missed Star Trek, (Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise) then.” This was Star Trek the Next Generation’s last season, and it was shown on Sunday nights in St. Louis.
Her eyes opened, and she turned her head my way. “Why? Did I miss anything important?” she asked. I laughed, and we spent the next hour talking about Star Trek.
Once up and out of bed, she recovered quickly and was home by the end of the week. We established a good rapport, and had many long talks. I was glad to see her get to go home, but also sad, because she was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dreary rotation.
There was an important lesson to be learned: Where standard dialogue had failed, where even family concerns were not enough, Star Trek had triumphed.

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Emotional Difference Between Males and Females

Everyone knows that men and women are different, But, aside from external anatomical and primary and secondary sexual differences, scientists know also that there are many other subtle differences in the way the brains from men and women process language, information, emotion, cognition, etc.

One of the most interesting differences appear in the way men and women estimate time, judge speed of things, carry out mental mathematical calculations, orient in space and visualize objects in three dimensions, etc. In all these tasks, women and men are strikingly different. This may account for the fact that there are many more male mathematicians, airplane pilots, bush guides, mechanical engineers, architects and race car drivers than female ones.
On the other hand, women are better than men in human relations, recognizing emotional overtones in others and in language, emotional and artistic expressiveness, esthetic appreciation, verbal language and carrying out detailed and pre-planned tasks. For example, women generally can recall lists of words or paragraphs of text better than men.

Medical Reasoning Of Emotions:

The human brain has two distinct hemispheres, left and the right brain. Left brain is responsible for logic reasoning, planning, orderly thinking and the right half governs emotions, imagination and interpersonal skills. Both halves work together by exchanging information through a bundle of nerve fibers connecting them.

As a baby boy grows into school going child, more emphasis is laid on the use of left brain skills, leading to development of the right brain at a much slower rate. Men have less communication between two halves of brain due to the degeneration of neurons under the action of Testostorone. Thus men with less connection between two parts, tend to be predominantly governed by the left brain by being less emotional and more logical.Exactly, opposite things happen in case of baby girl.

So, Females are "more" Emotional Than Males.

Why is this so?

A recent medical research states that in case of boys, while developing in the mother's womb a hormone called testosterone is produced in excess, this hormone mildly damages the nerve fibers connecting the two halves and makes the connection weaker. This difference in connectivity of two halves in baby boys and girls have some intriguing aftermaths. Testosterone is the hormone which is responsible for Fertility in Males.

Man handle emotions differently:

Men are not emotionless, it's just that men handle emotions differently than women do. They usually don't talk about it. Most men dislike to share their innermost thoughts.

To end with, there is stigma about men and their feelings. Women are often accused of being too emotional and men the vice versa. However, sometimes women can be insensitive and men hypersensitive. The truth is, neither men nor women are emotionally centered and masterful. Both genders struggle with emotions. Its just that one masters slightly than the other. Remember men are not emotionless automatons. They articulate their fears, dreams, likes and dislikes with more sense of love and sensitivity.

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Seven Medical Myths

Turkey makes you drowsy. Dim light ruins your eyes. Drink at last eight glasses of water a day. These are some of the medical myths that even doctors believe, reports the British Medical Journal.

Myth 1. People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
The source may be a 1945 article from the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, which noted that a “suitable allowance” of water for adults is 2.5 liters a day, although the last sentence noted that much of it is already contained in the food we eat. “If the last, crucial sentence is ignored, the statement could be interpreted as instruction to drink eight glasses of water a day,” Dr. Vreeman and Dr. Carroll noted. “Existing studies suggest that adequate fluid intake is usually met through typical daily consumption of juice, milk and even caffeinated drinks.”

Myth 2. We use only 10 percent of our brains.
The belief that we use only 10 percent of our brains has persisted for nearly a century, the authors noted. Sometimes the claim is attributed to Albert Einstein, but no reference or statement has ever been recorded. The study authors found references to this myth as early as 1907 and noted that it’s often repeated by people advocating the power of self-improvement. “Numerous types of brain imaging studies show that no area of the brain is completely silent or inactive,” wrote the authors. “Detailed probing of the brain has failed to identify the ‘non-functioning’ 90 percent.”

Myth 3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.
The claim has been repeated in movies and talk-show monologues, but it’s not true. The growth of hair and nails requires “a complex hormonal regulation” that stops after the body dies. The reason for the long-held belief may be that dehydration of the body after death, and subsequent shrinking of soft tissue, can create the illusion of growth of hair and nails.

Myth 4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker or coarser.
This common belief is often repeated in the media and reinforced when coarse stubble appears on the body after shaving. A 1928 clinical trial showed that shaving had no effect on hair growth, a finding confirmed by more recent studies. When hair grows back after shaving, it seems coarse because it doesn’t have the fine taper of unshaved hair. It seems darker because it hasn’t been exposed to the sun like the previously unshaved hair.

Myth 5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.
The idea that dim light ruins eyesight probably has its origins in eye strain, said the study authors. Bad lighting makes it hard to focus, makes you blink less and leads to dry eyes, particularly if you’re squinting. So reading in dim light is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t cause permanent damage.

Myth 6. Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy.
This myth stems from the fact that turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid found in proteins and essential to the human body. Scientific studies show that sleep and mood are affected by tryptophan.

Myth 7. Cellphones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.
Anecdotal reports persist that cellphones create false alarms on monitors and malfunctions in infusion pumps. But the study authors found no evidence to support it.In contrast, a large survey of anesthesiologists found that use of cellphones by doctors was associated with a 22 percent reduction in medical error resulting from delays in communication.

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Funny Doctor's Stories-----Doctor's Lounge (2)

1. A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife‘s going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady‘s dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs -- and I was in the wrong one.
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald

2. At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient‘s anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," replied the patient.
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes

3. One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a "massive internal fart."
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg

4. During a patient‘s two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one? " I asked. "The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new patch every six hours and now I‘m running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn‘t see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair

5. While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, "How long have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion she answered..."Why, not for about twenty years -- when my husband was alive."
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson

6. I was caring for a woman and asked, "So how‘s your breakfast this morning?" "It‘s very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can‘t seem to get used to the taste," the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly."
>>>>>Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf

7. A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room, when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient‘s dressing, which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn."
>>>>>Submitted by RN no name

8. As a new, young MD doing his residency in OB, I was quite embarrassed when performing female pelvic exams. To cover my embarrassment I had unconsciously formed a habit of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom I was performing this exam suddenly burst out laughing and further embarrassing me. I looked up from my work and sheepishly said, "I‘m sorry. Was I tickling you?"She replied, "No doctor, but the song you were whistling was, I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener!”
>>>>>Dr. wouldn‘t submit his name

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