Sleeping Sickness | Sleeping sickness can now be cured with pills

Sleeping sickness is a parasitic infection which can kill. There are 60 million people at risk.

Sleeping sickness is a parasitic infection that kills

Generally known as sleeping sickness, human African trypanosomiasis is transmitted by tsetse flies.

Tsetse flies are found in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, putting 60 million people at risk. The infection attacks the central nervous system, causing severe neurological disorders. Without treatment the disease is fatal.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 95 percent of reported cases are caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, which is found in western and central Africa.

The other 10 percent of cases are caused by Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, which is found in eastern and southern Africa.

Seventy four percent of all cases are reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The reported number of new cases fell by 77 percent between 1999 and 2014 (from around 28,000 to 3,700).

What causes sleeping sickness?

The parasite causing sleeping sickness is transmitted to humans through infected tsetse flies, which breed in warm and humid areas.

Inhabiting the vast savannah across sub-Saharan Africa, tsetse flies come into contact with people, cattle and wild animals, all acting as reservoirs for the Trypanosoma parasites.

Symptoms of sleeping sickness

The first stage of sleeping sickness presents with non-specific symptoms such as fever, headache, weakness, itching and joint pain.

At this stage, sleeping sickness is easy to treat but difficult to diagnose.

If no treatment is given, the parasite will invade the infected person’s central nervous system and the second stage sets in.

The second stage may be characterised by more specific symptoms, such as confusion, violent behavior or convulsions.

Named after one of its most striking symptoms, patients with sleeping sickness experience an inability to sleep during the night but are often overcome by sleep during the day.

Diagnosing sleeping sickness

Diagnosing sleeping sickness before the second stage of the disease is difficult due to the non-specific symptoms of the early stage.

Once the parasite is detected, a painful lumbar puncture must be made to examine the patient’s cerebro-spinal fluid.

This will determine the stage of the disease and the appropriate treatment.

Treating sleeping sickness

The type of treatment depends on the stage of the disease.

Drugs used in the first stage of the disease are of lower toxicity and are easier to administer. However, treatment success in the second stage of the disease depends on a drug that can cross the blood-brain barrier. Nifurtimox-eflornithine combination therapy, or NECT, is now the WHOs recommended course.

NECT is much safer than melarsoprol, the drug previously used to treat the disease. Developed in 1949, melarsoprol is often described by patients as ‘fire in the viens’; between five and 20 percent of those treated die of complications from the toxic drug.

New molecules are currently under clinical trial in the hope of developing a safe, effective treatment for both stages of the disease that can be administered orally.

MSF is currently responsible for the efficient supply and distribution of all sleeping sickness drugs used in the world today.

Prevention efforts such as vector control are crucial to our efforts to keep sleeping sickness at bay. However, exhaustive screenings require a major investment in human and material resources.


Sleeping sickness can now be cured with pills:

For the first time, researchers have cured the deadly neurological disease sleeping sickness using pills instead of a combination of intravenous infusions and pills. The investigators presented the results from final clinical trials on 17 October at the European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health in Antwerp, Belgium, providing hope that the treatment will help to eliminate the malady within a decade.

The oral therapy — called fexinidazole — cured 91% of people with severe sleeping sickness, compared with 98% who were treated with the combination therapy. It also cured 99% of people in an early stage of the disease who would typically undergo a spinal tap to determine whether they needed infusions. The relative ease of the treatment with fexinidazole means that if approved, it might save more lives than the current option, say the investigators leading the phase 3 trial, the final phase of testing before the drug goes to regulators for approval.

Sleeping sickness is endemic to Africa and generally infects extremely poor people who live in remote regions. The sick often suffer from the disease for years before seeking treatment, causing them and those caring for them to miss work and spend their savings on traditional medicines. Trekking to a hospital and remaining there for intravenous infusions is costly as well.

“It’s not just the person with sleeping sickness, it’s the family that takes care of them during years of this neurological, very serious disease,” says Philippe Büscher, a sleeping-sickness specialist at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, who was not involved in the study. “Whatever money they have, they’ll spend on this instead of anything else.”

Büscher commends the team for conducting a quality clinical trial under extraordinary circumstances in countries hit hardest by the disease, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. Investigators had to carry equipment to remote clinics over rugged terrain; one study site was repeatedly robbed; and early on in the trial, some participants fled armed conflict. “I need to congratulate them for beautiful work,” Büscher says.

A better way
Sleeping sickness — also known as human African trypanosomiasis — is spread through the bite of tsetse flies carrying parasites, most commonly Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. The organism infects the central nervous system, and patients can experience confusion, daytime sleepiness, night-time insomnia and various psychiatric symptoms, including manic episodes and aggression. If left untreated, they enter a coma and die. For decades, the only treatment was a toxic arsenic-based drug that killed one in 20 patients.

In 2009, researchers introduced a safer option: nifurtimox–eflornithine combination therapy, or NECT, which consists of pills and 14 intravenous infusions. For the first time in 50 years, the incidence of sleeping sickness slipped below 10,000 new cases per year; it’s currently around 2,200, according to the World Health Organization. But the need for infusions, along with the spinal tap required to qualify a patient for the treatment, still present obstacles in regions where sterile equipment, electricity and doctors are in short supply.

The group that developed NECT — a non-profit research organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) — continued searching for a better therapy. In 2007, it discovered fexinidazole, a compound that had been shelved by Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi. With the firm's agreement, the DNDi took the drug through clinical trials. It estimates that developing the therapy through to approval will cost a total of around US$50 million — a fraction of what pharmaceutical companies often spend on new drugs.

Just the beginning
Sanofi will soon submit an application for drug approval through the European Medicines Agency, whose sign-off could pave the way for regulators in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The drug might get a green light by the end of next year, says Nathalie Strub Wourgraft, the DNDi’s medical director. Because it is a simple oral treatment, she suggests that patients might even be treated at home, which would save them and their families the expense of hospital stays.

However, Büscher argues that home treatments could be dangerous because people who don’t respond to fexinidazole could die of the disease if not seen immediately by medical staff. It’s imperative that patients follow up with health workers, he says, and he suggests offering people incentives to return to the clinic, such as money or staples including salt or sorghum. “This is a success,” he says, “but it is not the end.”

DNDi researchers and their colleagues are currently working on what they hope will be an even better oral treatment to cure the disease in a single dose, and more reliably than fexinidazole.

Laptops in Checked Bags Pose Fire and Explosion Risk, FAA warns airlines about electronics in checked bags

A TSA official removes a laptop from a bag for scanning. Joe Penney / Reuters file

The U.S. government is urging the world airline community to ban large, personal electronic devices like laptops from checked luggage because of the potential for a catastrophic fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a paper filed recently with a U.N. agency that its tests show that when a laptop’s rechargeable lithium-ion battery overheats in close proximity to an aerosol spray can, it can cause an explosion capable of disabling an airliner’s fire suppression system. The fire could then rage unchecked, leading to “the loss of the aircraft,” the paper said.

The U.N. agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization, sets global aviation safety standards, although member countries must still ratify them. The proposed ban is on the agenda of a meeting of ICAO’s panel on dangerous goods being held this week and next week in Montreal.
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The FAA has conducted 10 tests involving a fully-charged laptop packed in a suitcase. A heater was placed against the laptop’s battery to force it into “thermal runaway,” a condition in which the battery’s temperature continually rises.

In one test, an 8-ounce aerosol can of dry shampoo — which is permitted in checked baggage — was strapped to the laptop. There was a fire almost immediately and it grew rapidly. The aerosol can exploded within 40 seconds.

The test showed that because of the rapid progression of the fire, Halon gas fire suppressant systems used in airline cargo compartments would be unable to put out the fire before there was an explosion, the FAA said.

The explosion might not be strong enough to structurally damage the plane, but it could damage the cargo compartment and allow the Halon to escape, the agency said. Then there would be nothing to prevent the fire from spreading.

Other tests of laptop batteries packed with potentially dangerous consumer goods that are permitted in checked baggage like nail polish remover, hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol also resulted in large fires, although no explosions.
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As a result, the paper recommends that passengers shouldn’t be allowed to pack large electronic devices in baggage unless they have specific approval from the airline.

The paper says the European Safety Agency, the FAA’s counterpart in Europe; Airbus, one of the world’s largest makers of passenger airliners; the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Association, and the International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Association, which represents aircraft makers, concurred in the recommendation.

The paper doesn’t address whether the ban should extend to domestic flights, but points out the risk that baggage containing a large electronic device could be transferred from one flight to another without the knowledge of the airline.

The FAA said it believes most devices larger than a smartphone are already being carried by passengers into the cabin, rather than put in checked bags.

Rechargeable lithium batteries are used in consumer products ranging from cellphones and laptops to electric cars. Manufacturers like them because they pack more energy into smaller packages, but the batteries can self-ignite if they have a manufacturing flaw, are damaged, exposed to excessive heat, overcharged or packed too closely together.
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The fires can burn up to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, close to the melting point of the aluminum used in aircraft construction.

Since 2006, three cargo jets have been destroyed and four pilots killed by in-flight fires that investigators say were either started by batteries or made more severe by their proximity.

Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed a ban on laptops in the cabins of planes coming into the country from 10 Middle Eastern airports for security reasons. The ban was fully lifted in July after U.S. officials said airports in the region had taken other steps to increase security. 

FAA warns airlines about electronics in checked bags

As airlines flying into the United States adjust to new, tighter security rules designed to catch bombs or explosives hidden in electronic devices, the Department of Transportation is weighing in on the safest place in a plane for laptops, tablets and other devices powered by lithium-ion batteries.

It is not in the cargo hold, according to the FAA. The agency's Office of Hazardous Materials Safety says portable electronic devices pose less of a fire threat when carried on-board instead of being packed into checked bags.

In a notice the agency issued earlier this week, the FAA said, "devices containing lithium metal or lithium ion batteries (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.) should be transported in carry-on baggage and not placed in checked baggage."

The primary reason laptops are safer in the passenger cabin is because the flight crew or passengers at least have a chance to put out a fire if one is sparked by the batteries in an electronic device.

That conclusion is not an edict banning airlines from allowing passengers to put their electronics in checked bags.
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In fact, the agency says if devices are packed in bags that will go in the cargo hold of flights, they "should be completely powered down to the OFF position (they should not be left in sleep mode), protected from accidental activation, and packed so they are protected from damage."

The advisory backs up a complaint issued by many in the airline industry after the Department of Homeland Security issued tighter security rules for certain flights from the Middle East to the U.S. earlier this year. Those rules, which have since been modified, banned passengers from having electronic devices larger than a cell phone in their carry-on bags. At the time, Homeland Security was acting on intelligence that indicated terrorists may try to hide an explosive in an electronic device or use several devices to detonate a bomb.

As soon as that rule went into effect in March, safety advocates warned of the potential risk of lithium-ion batteries igniting in a checked bag and sparking a larger, uncontrollable fire in the cargo hold that could bring down a commercial airplane.

That concern prompted the Fire Safety Branch of the FAA to conduct tests looking at the potential hazards of putting laptop computers and other electronic devices in checked bags.

It's conclusion was clear: large electronics are safer in the passenger cabin than in the cargo hold.

In late June, the U.S. modified its security protocol for all international flights, requiring enhanced security ranging from tighter screening to the use of new, more advanced, carry-on bag screeners that can more easily detect a potential bomb.

"It is time we raise the global baseline of aviation security," said John Kelly, secretary of Homeland Security in announcing the tighter security rules.

Since then, several airlines say they have enhanced security and have announced the TSA has approved their procedures.
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Italian scientists have created a new type of pasta that could help us survive heart attacks

Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

It could only have happened in Italy, the land of linguine, vermicelli and tagliatelle - scientists in Tuscany have developed a new type of pasta that can help ward off heart attacks.

While health experts might frown on people gorging on too much spaghetti carbonara or creamy linguine, the new pasta is being touted as beneficial to well-being.

It is made from a mixture of standard durum wheat flour mixed with whole-grain barley flour, which is rich in a fibre called beta-glucan which enchances the growth of new blood vessels.

Those blood vessels then form “natural bypasses” in the event of a heart attack, according to the researchers in Pisa.
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Scientists tested their theory on laboratory mice, feeding them the newly-developed pasta and then inducing cardiac arrest.

Mice which had been fed the barley pasta survived in greater numbers than a control group of mice which had eaten ordinary durum wheat pasta.

Eat spaghetti, cheat death: it might sound too good to be true, but Italian researchers say they’ve cracked a recipe that could help reduce deaths from heart attacks.

"Long-term Intake of Pasta Containing Barley (1–3)Beta-D-Glucan Increases Neovascularization-mediated Cardioprotection through Endothelial Upregulation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Parkin"

Read Complete published study, medical researchers at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna’s Institute of Life Sciences in Pisa developed a special kind of pasta enriched with barley flour.

The barley contains a substance called beta-glucan that is known to help the body form new blood vessels – which could serve as a “natural bypass” in the event of a heart attack, the researchers said.

To test their theory, the team fed barley-enriched pasta to mice and then induced cardiac injury. They found that more of those mice survived than mice that had received regular wheat pasta.

In addition, the mice that survived in the control group had more damage to their hearts than the barley-fed mice that made it.
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“It’s the first time that the formation of natural bypasses was encouraged via functional food, such as pasta with barley beta-glucan,” lead researcher Vincenzo Lionetti told Ansa news agency.

The team hopes that enriched pasta will eventually prove “a friend to the heart” in humans. 

The newly-developed pasta, which contains barley, can help ward off heart attacks, researchers sayCREDIT: ALAMY

The barley-munching mice also sustained less damage to their hearts, examination revealed.

The researchers, from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, revealed the results of their research on the website Scientific Reports.

They said the new pasta “makes the body more resistant to stress and to coronary artery disease.”

“It’s the first time that the formation of natural bypasses was encouraged via functional food, [in this case] pasta with barley beta-glucan,” said Prof Vincenzo Lionetti, who led the study.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to show that a sustained dietary intake of pasta enriched with [beta-glucan] safely increases coronary collaterals…and reduces mortality.”

Until now, “techniques to promote collateral artery growth required surgical treatments, the use of stem cells extracted from bone marrow or gene therapy,” said Prof Lionetti.

But the barley-enriched pasta had the effect of creating a “biological bypass” that naturally enhanced heart health.

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Happy Diwali Festivals Celebration Around the World : TechSavvy

These Are Some Of the Awesome And Amazing Beautiful Pictures of Diwali Celebration.Peoples Celebrate this festivals Around the World, these are some of the Diwali Celebrating Pics. 

Amazing Fireworks Lighten UP Your Life Like the fireworks Lighten up the Diwali Night Sky. This Diwali May God Lighten Up Your Life & Fulfill All Your Dreams and Desire’s. Share These Beautiful Awesome Pictures to Your Family Friends & Love One. And Make Someone Happy & Spread Some Smiles ☺☺ . This is a time for Lights , A Time for Victory of Good over bad, A Time World See the example of Power of Good against evil, Let Us Continue the Same “TRUE” Spirit. MAy God Bless You !!! HAPPY DIWALI !!!!

Elon Musk revealed about the ITS, SpaceX’s Mars ambitions, Details on design changes, Mars and what’s to come between now and 2022

Last month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a presentation before the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, a followup to his 2016 talk where he unveiled SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System and his ambitions to colonize Mars. This year’s presentation showcased some updates and design changes to his plans and the rocket itself — he wants to put all of SpaceX’s resources into the BFR, and use it to provide long-distance travel around planet Earth.

On Saturday evening, Elon Musk hosted an Ask Me Anything session in r/space, where he answered questions about his the ITS, the engines that power it, and more.
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INTERPLANETARY TRANSPORT SYSTEM
The key focus of the AMA was on the ITS vehicles that Musk hopes to use to travel between Earth and Mars — otherwise known as the Big Fucking Rocket. SpaceX made some changes to the design between the 2016 and 2017 presentations, and one user asked about the change to a more cylindrical shape. Musk noted that he wanted to get the “best mass ratio” and that “the propellant tanks need to be cylindrical to be remotely mass efficient and they have to carry ascent load, so lowest mass solution is just to mount the heat shield plates directly to the tank wall.” Some users also asked about the changes to the design of the propellant tanks, going from a series of spherical tanks to something more elongated. Musk replied that it was to “avoid/minimize plumbing hell, but we don't super love the current header tank/plumbing design,” but that “further refinement [are] likely.”

Another user observed that the 2016 design appears to have its wings and heat shield integrated into the airframe, while in this year’s presentation, they seemed to be modular, prompting them to ask if could be detached. Musk pushed back on the characterization that they were delta wings, and said that they’re not designed to generate lift, but to ensure that the ship “doesn't enter engines first from orbit,” and to “provide pitch and yaw control during reentry.” However, he didn’t really speak to whether or not they could be detached. In another question about the wings, someone noted that while there were two on the ship, there wasn’t a tail (noting that the space shuttle had one), and asked how vertical stabilization worked for the rocket. Another user jumped in, saying that the shuttle didn’t really use it for reentry, and that it’s likely that the BFR doesn’t need it either, to which Musk affirmed, and followed up by saying that “tails are lame.”

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Another user asked about the heat shield, asking if it was mounted on the ship or embedded into the skin of the rocket, to which Musk said that they would be mounted to the primary tank wall.

Other questions concerned the cargo that the ship would carry between Earth and Mars, with a user asking about what the BFR tankers might carry: will they go over empty, or will they include extra propellant? Musk replied that the first tanker will “just be a ship with no payload,” but that he plans to build a rocket with an “extremely high full to empty mass ratio” that will be used as a tanker, adding that it “will look kinda weird.”

Keeping the ship’s propellant cool during the trip to Mars was the source of another question: one user pointed out that a rise in temperature in the tanks would eventually boil off the fuel, and asked insulating the tanks will be enough, or if they would require liquid methane and oxygen to keep cool. Musk explained the tanks will be insulated, but that they might add a cryocooler.”

When it came to landing the rocket, someone crunched some numbers of the available thrust and weight of the rocket, and asked if the BFR would perform a “hoverslam” landing when being used on Earth. Musk noted that the “landing will not be a hoverslam, depending on what you mean by the ‘slam’ part. Thrust to weight of 1.3 will feel quite gentle. The tanker will only feel the 0.3 part, as gravity cancels out the 1. Launch is also around 1.3 T/W, so it will look pretty much like a launch in reverse....”

Another minor change between the 2016 and 2017 renders was the number of landing legs, going from three to four. When asked about the change, Musk simply replied, “because 4,” and followed up with “Improves stability in rough terrain.”

Finally, someone asked one of the big questions left unanswered by Musk’s 2016 talk: what about the threat of radiation for astronauts? Musk said that “Ambient radiation damage is not significant for our transit times,” and that the BFR would just “need a solar storm shelter, which is a small part of the ship.” He followed up by saying that Buzz Aldrin is 87, seemingly implying that his short trip to the moon and back left no lingering damage.
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RAPTOR ENGINES
Another major topic that users focused on was on the ITS’s Raptor engines. During this year’s presentation, Musk unveiled a scaled-down version of the ITS, one that utilizes 31 Raptor engines, rather than 42, as initially planned, along with some other changes. One user asked why the Raptor engine was reduced from 300 tons to 170 tons of thrust. Musk first said that they chickened out, but explained that “The engine thrust dropped roughly in proportion to the vehicle mass reduction from the first IAC talk.” He went on to explain some of the thinking behind it:

In order to be able to land the BF Ship with an engine failure at the worst possible moment, you have to have multiple engines. The difficulty of deep throttling an engine increases in a non-linear way, so 2:1 is fairly easy, but a deep 5:1 is very hard. Granularity is also a big factor. If you just have two engines that do everything, the engine complexity is much higher and, if one fails, you've lost half your power. Btw, we modified the BFS design since IAC to add a third medium area ratio Raptor engine partly for that reason (lose only 1/3 thrust in engine out) and allow landings with higher payload mass for the Earth to Earth transport function.
Another user asked for an update on scaling up the prototype Raptor engines to their final size. Musk replied that scaling up the engines is the easy part, and went on to explain that their objective “is to meet or exceed passenger airline levels of safety.”
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The flight engine design is much lighter and tighter, and is extremely focused on reliability. The objective If our engine is even close to a jet engine in reliability, has a flak shield to protect against a rapid unscheduled disassembly and we have more engines than the typical two of most airliners, then exceeding airline safety should be possible.
This is, he noted, critical for SpaceX’s ambitions to use the BFR to travel around Earth. “The advantage of getting somewhere in 30 mins by rocket instead of 15 hours by plane will be negatively affected if ‘but also, you might die’ is on the ticket.”

Another question was about the engine’s autogenous pressurization system, in which the propellent is pressurized in the tanks, rather than using a system using helium. The user asked if the engines would use a heat exchanger system, where the propellent is heated in the engines, with hot gas routed back into the tanks to help pressurize the propellent. If that was the case, would all of the raptor engines would use them? Musk was a bit snarky about this, saying that they’ll be using the Incendio spell from Harry Potter, but followed up with a “yes and probably.” Another user asked about the control thrusters, and if they’ll be “derived from Raptor or from SuperDraco engines,” to which Musk noted that they’ll be “closer in design to the Raptor main chamber than SuperDraco and will be pressure-fed to enable lowest possible impulse bit (no turbopump spin delay).”

One detail Musk unveiled during his talk was that the BFR has two different types of Raptor engines: four that can operate in a vacuum, while two others are designed to operate at sea level. When asked if those vacuum engines could work at sea level in the case of an emergency, Musk replied that they could but that it wasn’t recommended.

Finally, someone asked Musk whether the rocket engines would be 3D printed, given that the company already has experience 3D printing with its SuperDraco engines. Musk replied that some components would be printed, but that “most of it will be machined forgings.” He went on to note that the company has “developed a new metal alloy for the oxygen pump that has both high strength at temperature and won't burn.”

MARS
Another line of questions was about SpaceX’s ambitions on Mars, and how the company would set up infrastructure for its colonists. The first question was about whether or not SpaceX would put more satellites around the planet, or if the satellites in place would be sufficient. Musk answered yes, but it’s not clear what question he was answering. He also didn’t quite answer a question about specific landing sites for SpaceX’s base, saying only that the site needs to be in a “low altitude to maximize aero braking, be close to ice for propellant production and not have giant boulders.” He also noted that somewhere near the equator will be good for solar panels.

Musk did say that SpaceX will design the ISRU (in-situ-resource utilization) system designed to collect materials for propellant on Mars and that the design is pretty far along. Someone also asked if they’ll transport one of the boring machines that Musk has been using with his Boring Company, to use to mine ice or build tunnels. Musk only replied “more boring!,” so take that as you will.

Another big question about SpaceX’s Mars plans have been how the company would keep a colony supplied: one user asked “what companies are you working with to provide the technology that SpaceX isn’t focused on?” Musk didn’t really provide any details on the first two points, but did lay out that their “goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place,” comparing it to the development of the transcontinental railway. Importantly, he noted that industry on Mars would “need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.” It looks as though Musk will have to get help from other companies to realize his vision of a self-sustaining colony.

When asked about the illustrations of the Martian city in his 2017 presentation, where some rockets are depicted as permanently anchored, Musk said that we shouldn’t “read too much into that illustration.”

PREPARATIONS FOR 2022
Finally, Musk answered a questions about the preparations to get to Mars. One was about what to expect between now and 2022: would SpaceX perform hop tests with the BFR, build new facilities, and test out propellant? “Yes, yes, and yes,” was his reply.

He elaborated by saying that SpaceX will start off with short, hops of a “few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance,” and then will begin “orbital velocity Ship flights, which will need all of the above.”
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Bitter or not? New tool predicts which compounds taste Bitter

Everything from coffee to beer to dark chocolate to medicines contain a diverse array of bitter compounds.                                        Image: Shutterstock/AndreyCherkasov

Humans have 25 different taste receptors that register a range of bitter chemical compounds in everything from coffee and beer to dark chocolate and medicine. And yet, while humans can easily recognize bitterness, predicting whether a chemical compound will taste bitter is no simple task. Now, researchers have developed BitterPredict, a machine learning tool that predicts whether a chemical tastes bitter. The approach, described in Scientific Reports, could help food scientists and pharmaceutical developers pick up on the bitter drivers in their products.
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Bitter compounds are incredibly diverse, notes chemosensory scientist and co-author Masha Niv of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They can be ions, peptides, glucosinolates, and more. So the researchers began by compiling a set of known non bitter compounds drawn from the scientific literature, as well as a set of known bitter ones drawn primarily from BitterDB, a database that Niv curates. They then used these compounds to build BitterPredict, which evaluates the relationship between bitterness and physical and chemical characters like molecular mass, bond number, and electric charge. And because bitterness is sometimes linked to poisons, BitterPredict also considers indicators of toxicity, such as possessing a similar structure to a molecule known to cross the blood-brain barrier. By associating particular combinations of characters with bitterness, the model can then predict whether a new compound is bitter.
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The team tested the model using the sets of known bitter and non bitter chemicals and found that it could correctly classified a compound as bitter or not around 80 percent of the time. Compounds with positive charges were more likely to be bitter while water soluble ones were more likely not to be. But no single trait could predict bitterness alone. Indeed, the team’s approach is interesting because it shows how multiple chemical properties can combine to make a compound taste bitter, says chemist Matthew Hartings of American University.

Niv also used BitterPredict to explore a random set of around 30,000 molecules, as well as additional sets of molecules found in food, drugs, and natural products (primarily derived from plants). The tool predicted that around 40 percent of the random and food sets were bitter, as well as 66 percent of the drug and 77 percent of the natural product sets.

Niv doesn’t know why bitterness is so abundant in nature. But one possibility stems from an arms race between plants and herbivores. “The evolutionary idea is that plants evolved toxic compounds to not be eaten,” she explains. “Then we evolved the ability to identify toxic compounds by bitter taste receptors. Then maybe some of these compounds are no longer toxic because being bitter is enough to not be eaten.”

The ability to predict bitterness could be powerful. Pharmaceutical companies have already contacted Niv about her new tool. If a medication tastes bad, a patient might resist taking it. An HIV drug was recalled in Uganda, for example, because the pills were so bitter that many patients stopped treatment. Pharmaceutical companies would like to know early on if the drugs they’re developing are bitter pills to swallow. “In food, it’s also really important to understand which component is responsible for a bitter taste, especially in cases where you get bitterness that is undesirable in milk and soy products,” says Niv.
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Hartings sees other applications. “These types of studies speak more broadly to questions about how our nervous system works, how we experience flavor, how our cells interact with the molecules that come in contact with them,” he says. “It’s a much more interesting question than ‘Is it bitter or not?’” Still, he’s excited about Niv’s next question: How bitter is it? Niv’s group is collecting more data so they can begin to predict the intensity of bitterness.

For researchers who want to test their own compounds, the team shares the BitterPredict code and they plan to make the tool available on a publicly accessible server in the near future.
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You Really Need to Stop Using Public Wi-Fi without a VPN right now | Stop using public Wi-Fi......

On Monday, security researchers disclosed a severe flaw in the protocols used by all modern Wi-Fi networks that gives hackers a way to steal personal information from nearly all of your internet-connected devices, including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and smartwatches. The weakness leaves your credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos, and other personal information at risk. It could even let attackers inject and manipulate data by adding ransomware or malware onto a website.
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Yes, we all hear these dire warnings about scary “hackers” all the time. But this one is serious. So serious, in fact, that you should avoid connecting any of your tech to public Wi-Fi unless you’re certain its received patches to fix a critical weakness in the wireless standard.

Here’s what you need to know before working remote results in a full-blown disaster.

Every Wi-Fi device is vulnerable

While all Wi-Fi-enabled devices are affected by the flaw, Android smartphones and Linux computers are most vulnerable to a particularly devastating variant of the attack.

The most effective attack was used against “clients,” not access points (like your home router), but you should still avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi services. The attack, dubbed “KRACK,” is only effective if the hacker is in proximity to your device, so you’re likely more safe at home or at work. But popular areas for public Wi-Fi, like your local coffee shop or airport, remain at risk.

Not only do these networks allow access without authentication, but there is also the uncertainty that the equipment providing the connection is outdated and, therefore, unsecure. There’s virtually no way of knowing if a public access point has received the necessary updates to fix the KRACK flaw or whether those updates were ever installed.
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When can I reconnect?

None of the online guides for safely browsing public Wi-Fi will save you from this latest vulnerability. We recommend staying away from public Wi-Fi until your devices receive software updates that fix the issue. If you’re not sure, search your device’s manufacturer to see if they’ve released a statement on the matter or created a support page with links on how to update your device’s Wi-Fi security. Until then, use cellular networks when possible or connect your gadgets directly to a router to bypass the wireless protocol.

The good news is that you don’t need to rely on businesses and venues to update the firmware on their routers. The security researchers who discovered KRACK, Mathy Vanhoef, explained here.

“No, luckily implementations can be patched in a backwards-compatible manner. This means a patched client can still communicate with an unpatched access point, and vice versa. In other words, a patched client or access points sends exactly the same handshake messages as before, and at exactly the same moments in time. However, the security updates will assure a key is only installed once, preventing our attacks.”

Even without KRACK, public Wi-Fi is considered extremely insecure. To bolster your defenses, you should always use a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting to a public Wi-Fi access point. A VPN will encrypt your traffic and give you an added layer of protection.

Consider the following seven security tips to keep prying eyes out of your devices:

Don’t use public Wi-Fi to shop online, log in to your financial institution, or access other sensitive sites — ever
Use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, to create a network-within-a-network, keeping everything you do encrypted
Implement two-factor authentication when logging into sensitive sites, so even if malicious individuals have the passwords to your bank, social media, or email, they won’t be able to log in
Only visit websites with HTTPS encryption when in public places, as opposed to lesser-protected HTTP addresses
Turn off the automatic Wi-Fi connectivity feature on your phone, so it won’t automatically seek out hotspots
Monitor your Bluetooth connection when in public places to ensure others are not intercepting your transfer of data
Buy an unlimited data plan for your device and stop using public Wi-Fi altogether

The more you take your chances with a free network connection, the greater the likelihood that you will suffer some type of security breach. There is a saying in the cybersecurity industry that there are three types of people in the world: those who have been hacked, those who will be hacked, and those who are being hacked right now and just don’t know it yet. The better you protect yourself, the greater your chances of minimizing the potential damage. Remember: Falling victim to public Wi-Fi’s dangers is a question of when, not if.

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