| Scientists design simple dipstick test for cocaine, other drugs | | Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:46:23 AM by Blog57 Team | | CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple "dipstick" test for detecting cocaine and other drugs in saliva, urine or blood serum. The test is based upon DNA-gold nanoparticle technology, and can be packaged in user-friendly kits similar to those used for home pregnancy tests. "Building upon our earlier work with lead (Pb) sensors, we constructed colorimetric sensors that are based on the lateral flow separation of aptamer-linked nanostructures," said Yi Lu, a chemistry professor at the U. of I., and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. "The new sensors offer a quick and convenient test that can be utilized by first responders or emergency room staff to quickly screen individuals for a variety of drugs and other chemicals." Lu said.... | |
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| | | Federal 'partial-birth' ban faces test at high court today | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 6:46:45 PM by Blog57 Team | | When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, it will consider a variation of a centuries-old constitutional question: Who gets the final say, Congress or the court? Six years ago, the justices threw out Nebraska's ban on a procedure generally used in the second trimester of pregnancy because it lacked an exception to protect a woman's health. In 2003, President Bush signed into law a similar ban passed by Congress, which declared that the procedure was never medically necessary. The case raises fundamental separation-of-powers questions, asking whether lawmakers can substitute their factual conclusions for those of the court. Today's arguments, coming a day after congressional elections, will test the court's mood under Chief Justice John G.... | |
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| | | Corby had pregnancy test: magazine | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 12:49:22 PM by Blog57 Team | | An Indonesian prisoner who claims he was Schapelle Corby's jailhouse boyfriend has said the former Gold Coast beauty student was forced by prison officials to take a pregnancy test mid-way through her trial because of their relationship. New Idea magazine published an interview yesterday with Tjin “Eddy" Yu, who has been moved to remote Madura Island, on the east coast of Java, to serve his sentence for drug offences. The magazine claimed Yu was Corby's secret jail lover, a claim which was angrily rejected by the Corby family yesterday. In the interview, the 28-year-old former surf instructor said he fell for Corby, saying “we were good for each other at that time". “She's gorgeous," he said. “She's beautiful. “What normal red-blooded guy would not want her? “I'm not going to make this into a kiss-and-tell story like movie stars and celebrities often do.... | |
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| | | Researchers test antibacterial effects of healing clays | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 10:47:41 PM by Blog57 Team | | Clay is most commonly associated with the sublime experience of the European spa where visitors have been masked, soaked and basted with this touted curative since the Romans ruled. If ASU geochemist Lynda Williams and microbiologist Shelley Haydel's research on the antibacterial properties of clays realizes its full potential, smectite clay could one day rise above cosmetic use to take its place comfortably with antibacterial behemoths like penicillin. .... | |
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| | | SCREEN TEST | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:46:31 AM by Blog57 Team | | Flicka (PG, 1 hour, 34 minutes) A high school girl's love for a wild mustang and her determination to tame it against her father's wishes is the crux of Flicka, a new film adaptation of the 1941 novel My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara. (It was filmed in 1943 and done as a TV series in the 1950s.) The teen-boy hero in the book is now a teen heroine, Katy McLaughlin (Alison Lohman), a bright 16-year-old who irritates her dad (country-western star Tim McGraw) with her rule-breaking. Katy lassos a mustang filly she finds in the hills and names it Flicka (Swedish for beautiful young girl, a ranch hand tells her). Her dad is struggling to keep the ranch solvent by raising quarter horses and has no time for her mustang project, so he sells Flicka to a rodeo. Her easygoing mom (Maria Bello) tries to maintain peace, but Katy rebels.... | |
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| | | Custody of jute baron and associates extended | | Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006 6:46:15 AM by Blog57 Team | | Kolkata, Oct 17: The judicial custody of jute baron Gobind Sarda and associates Anand Maloo and Bimal Daga, arrested for supply of diagnostic kits past expiry dates to several blood banks as well as pregnancy test kits in place of HIV testing devices, was extended to October 27.Rejecting their prayers for bail, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jaladhar Mondal extended their judicial custody by ten days.Sarda is the majority shareholder and director of Monozyme India Private Limited, a Secundrabad-based company, which supplied the kits with fudged expiry dates and also HIV testing devices that were pregnancy testing kits, to the Central Blood Bank here as also eight other regional blood banks since 2005.Anand Mallu, the managing director of Monozyme was arrested from Secundrabad besides Bimal Daga, a close associate of Sarda.... | |
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| | | Judge suggests abortion of pregnancy to save girl`s future | | Posted Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:46:20 PM by Blog57 Team | | A circuit court judge at cape Coast, Mr Mustapha Logoh has ordered that a test be conducted on a 14-year old junior secondary school girl, who was defiled and became pregnant, to determine the duration of the pregnancy, to see whether it could be aborted, to save her future. Mr Logoh, who gave the order, said not only was the victim too young to give birth, but it was evident that there would be no one to cater for her, if her assailant, who claims to be an orphan, were sent to prison. He, therefore, deferred sentencing a 25-year old drivers mate at Assin Fosu, Fredrick Essimah, who pleaded guilty to defilement, until Tuesday, October 24. Prosecuting, ASP Akwasi Sarfo-Adjei had earlier, told the court that in July 2006, Essimah befriended the victim and slept in her room every night.... | |
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| | | The truth about miscarriages | | Posted Thursday, October 05, 2006 10:46:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | Having a baby should be one of the most amazing experiences that will happen in your life. From the moment you go to the store to pick up a pregnancy test to the day of delivery can be the most exciting, nerve-racking, intense happenings a person can have. You start thinking of names for your unborn child, go to the Babies-R-Us store to start picking out clothes, accessories, furniture, and start planning which schools your child will attend and which room in the house will be theirs. Unfortunately, however, no matter how prepared or healthy you may be, one of the things that you most likely cannot predict or plan on is a potential miscarriage. All of a sudden this once joyous occasion becomes a crushing heartache. Miscarriages, a.k.a. spontaneous abortions, are "a devastating experience that has been largely ignored in our society," stated in the book Human Sexuality (written by authors Bryan Strong, Christine DeVault, Barbara W.... | |
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| | | The Supreme Test: Center for Reproductive Rights' Abortion Case to be Heard in Supreme Court's Fall Term | | Posted Friday, September 29, 2006 6:46:18 AM by Blog57 Team | | On Monday, October 2, the first full term of the newly constituted Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts and including the newest justice, Samuel Alito, will convene. During this term, the Court will rule on a case that will have far reaching implications on the direction of the Court and the judicial philosophy of the Roberts Court. The issue, yet again, is abortion. On November 8, the Court will hear the Center for Reproductive Rights' case Gonzales v. Carhart. The case is a challenge to the Federal Abortion Ban, also known as the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003," a law which fails to include an exception when a woman's health is at stake and would ban what doctors say are the safest abortions starting as early as 12 weeks in pregnancy. To date, every lower court has declared this abortion ban unconstitutional citing previous law established by the Supreme Court over the last thirty years.... | |
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| | | Pregnancy test cuts risk to baby | | Posted Monday, September 25, 2006 12:46:25 PM by Blog57 Team | | A simple blood test to identify the sex of foetuses at just seven weeks could cut the need for further risky tests during pregnancy, say scientists. Many genetic disorders affect only boys or girls - and so knowing a foetus's sex renders further tests unnecessary in around 50% of cases. The UK's Institute of Child Health successfully trialled the test on more than 70 pregnant women. Details will be presented at a British Society of Human Genetics meeting. .... | |
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