Touche

Do you  think that life isn't fair? 

Do you believe that all things are possible?

Do you recognize that your thoughts become things, that give rise not only to dreams, but to worlds. 

Do you know that your very existence in time and space proves that you are loved beyond imagination?

Do you believe that the cards of life are indeed stacked in your favor. 

If so I say to you "Touché!" 

N'est-ce pas?'

Ain't life Grand

The smartphone and your health

Contrary to the condition's name, heart failure doesn't mean the heart has stopped pumping - it's just not working at full strength. It can often be managed with medications and lifestyle changes, but its progression needs to be monitored closely. Now scientists have developed a new test strip that could potentially allow patients to do this at home for the first time. Their study appears in the journal ACS Nano.

In the U.S., nearly 6 million people live with heart failure, and about 1 million hospitalizations occur each year are related to the condition, according to the American Heart Association. Closely tracking the condition after diagnosis is important for adjusting treatment and preventing emergency room visits. Antigens called ST2 and BNP are good indicators of heart failure and how it's progressing. But currently, analyzing the levels of these biomarkers requires both trained personnel and sophisticated lab equipment. Feng Xu, Min Lin and colleagues wanted to devise a simple test to enable doctors and patients to carry out the same analysis at the office or at home.

The researchers developed a paper-based test that requires only a small blood sample of 10 microliters. A blue dot glows on the strip if ST2 is present in the sample, and a green dot glows if it contains BNP. The colors' intensities increase with concentration, which indicates a person's heart failure is likely becoming worse. A smartphone app can analyze the readout and send the results to the patient's doctor, who can adjust the patient's treatment accordingly. Testing 38 serum samples from people with heart failure showed that the paper test closely matched conventional techniques.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China, the National Instrumentation Program (China), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Open Funding Project of Key Laboratory of Space Nutrition and Food Engineering Laboratory.

Article: Household Fluorescent Lateral Flow Strip Platform for Sensitive and Quantitative Prognosis of Heart Failure Using Dual-Color Upconversion Nanoparticles, Feng Xu, Min Lin et al., ACS Nano, doi: 10.1021/acsnano.7b02466, published online 8 May 2017.

Direct-Current Stimulation Does Little to Improve the Outcome of Working Memory

Memory or loss of memory is a big concern for many seniors. We can improve our working memory, working memory - our capacity for holding information in mind at any given moment - underlies many fundamental cognitive processes and is linked with some aspects of intelligence. Research has shown that working memory training improves working memory performance but it's unclear whether one type of specific training that is now being used can yield improvements to broader cognitive abilities

This training is called transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) - a non-invasive technique for applying electric current to areas of the brain. This type of training is growing in popularity, but new research suggests that it probably does not add any meaningful benefit to cognitive training. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Our findings suggest that applying tDCS while older participants engaged in daily working memory training over four weeks did not result in improved cognitive ability," explains researcher Martin Lövdén of Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University.

"The study is important because it addresses what has arguably been the most promising cognitive application of tDCS: the possibility of long-term cognitive enhancement from relatively limited practice on select cognitive tasks," Lövdén adds. "Cognitive enhancement is of interest not just to scientists, but also to the student studying for final exams, the gamer playing online games, and the retiree remembering which pills to take. Because of this large audience, it is of utmost importance to conduct systematic research to disentangle hype from fact."

The researchers enrolled 123 healthy adults who were between 65 and 75 years old in a 4-week training program. All participants completed a battery of cognitive tests, which included tasks that were incorporated in the training and tasks that were not, at the beginning of the study and again at the end. Those randomly assigned to the experimental group trained on tasks that targeted their ability to update mental representations and their ability to switch between different tasks and rules, while those in the active control group trained on tasks that focused on perceptual speed.

As they completed the training tasks, some participants received 25 minutes of tDCS current to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that plays a central role in working memory; other participants were led to believe they were receiving 25 minutes of current, when in actuality the current was only active for a total 30 seconds.

Comparing participants' performance before and after training indicated that those who received working memory training did improve on the updating and switching tasks they had encountered during training and on similar tasks that they had not encountered previously.

But there was no evidence that tDCS produced any additional benefit to the working memory training - at the end of the study, participants who received tDCS did not show greater improvement than their peers.

When the researchers pooled the data from this study with findings from six other studies, they again found no evidence of any additional benefit from working memory training that was combined with tDCS.

Given strong public interest in cognitive enhancement, Lövdén and colleagues urge caution when it comes to this as-of-yet unproven application of tDCS:

"A growing number of people in the general public, presumably inspired by such uninhibited optimism, are now using tDCS to perform better at work or in online gaming, and online communities offer advice on the purchase, fabrication, and use of tDCS devices," the researchers write. "Unsurprisingly, commercial exploitation is rapidly being developed to meet this new public demand for cognitive enhancement via tDCS, often without a single human trial to support the sellers' or manufacturers' claims."

"These findings highlight exactly how limited our knowledge is of the mechanisms underlying the potential effects of tDCS on human cognition and encourages the research community to take a step back and focus its resources on developing strategies for uncovering such mechanisms before using the technique in more applied settings," Lövdén concludes.

Article: Direct-Current Stimulation Does Little to Improve the Outcome of Working Memory Training in Older Adults, Jonna Nilsson, Alexander V. Lebedev, Anders Rydström, Martin Lövdén, Psychological Science, doi: 10.1177/0956797617698139, published 16 May 2017.

Never end our sentences with a preposition

On my 70th birthday, I got a gift certificate from my wife. The certificate paid for a visit to a wise man living nearby who was rumoured to have a wonderful natural cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, I drove to see him, handed my ticket to the wise man and wondered what would happen next.

The old man slowly, methodically produced a potion, handed it to me, and with a grip on my shoulder, warned, "This is powerful medicine and it must be respected.You take only a teaspoonful and then say '1-2-3.'  When you do that, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life and you can perform as long as you want."

I was encouraged. As I walked away, I turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?" "Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,' he responded. "But when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

I was very eager to see if it worked so I went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited my wife to join me in the bedroom.

When she came in, I took off my clothes and said, "1-2-3!" Immediately, I was the manliest of men. My wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes. And then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition!

ONE COULD END UP WITH A DANGLING PARTICIPLE