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"Absolute breakthrough": New hope in search for Motor Neurone Disease cure

<p>Melbourne researchers are one step closer to finding a cure for Motor Neurone Disease, with the help technology and stem cell research. </p> <p>Scientists at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health have developed a world-first technology that will speed up the drug testing process to help find an effective treatment and maybe even a cure for the disease. </p> <p>New machines at the institute can now help determine whether drugs on the market could be used to treat MND in just weeks, a process which previously took decades. </p> <p>"This is an absolute breakthrough, it's at the cutting edge of technology," Florey MND researcher Professor Brad Turner said.</p> <p>Animal cells were previously used to test the efficacy of MND drugs, but now thanks to more than 100 MND patients who donated their skin cells to the institute, researchers have a library of stem cells to work with. </p> <p>The human stem cells can provide scientists with the full scope of the disease, something that they were previously unable to do with just animal cells. </p> <p>"This is really a game-changer in that we can use their own cells, and we can test drugs directly on their own cells," Florey MND researcher and neurologist Dr Thanuja Dharmadasa said. </p> <p>Large scale screening will commence thanks to a $5 million grant from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund.</p> <p><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">The research is expected to help people like Phil Camden who has been living with the disease for 10 years. </span></p> <p>"That's the key to all of us living with MND... we want to do what we can while we can," Camden said.</p> <p>"We know we're not doing it to find a cure for us. We're doing it for those in the future, my grandkids and their children."</p> <p>Scientists believe that medication or a cocktail of drugs tailored specifically to a patient is the way forward when it comes to treating the disease. </p> <p>"Therefore your drug treatments are tailed back to the clinical makeup in the dish and we call that personalised medical treatment," Turner said.</p> <p><em>Image: Nine News</em></p> <p> </p>

Caring

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What the “father of the cell phone” wants you to know

<p dir="ltr">The inventor of the mobile phone has shared his candid opinion about the obsession with smart devices. </p> <p dir="ltr">Martin Cooper, an American engineer dubbed the “father of the cell phone”, invented the very first mobile phone 50 years ago in 1973. </p> <p dir="ltr">Back then, the weighty block of wires and circuits were only used to make calls, a far cry from having the world at your fingertips with smartphones today. </p> <p dir="ltr">Cooper believes that despite all the good that can come from modern technology, the world has become a little obsessed with smart devices. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I am devastated when I see somebody crossing the street and looking at their cell phone. They are out of their minds,” the 94-year-old told AFP from his office in Del Mar, California.</p> <p dir="ltr">“But after a few people get run over by cars, they’ll figure it out,” he joked.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Cooper also indulges in the latest gadgets, as he wears an Apple Watch and uses a top-end iPhone, flicking intuitively between his email, photos, YouTube and the controls for his hearing aid.</p> <p dir="ltr">Despite keeping up with all the latest apps, updates and upgrades, he confessed that sometimes it can all seem a little overwhelming. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I will never, ever understand how to use the cell phone the way my grandchildren and great grandchildren do,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Each generation is going to be smarter … they will learn how to use the cell phone more effectively,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Humans sooner or later figure it out.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Technology

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Long COVID: How lost connections between nerve cells in the brain may explain cognitive symptoms

<p>For a portion of people who get COVID, symptoms continue for <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/6october2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">months or even years</a> after the initial infection. This is commonly referred to as “long COVID”.</p> <p>Some people with long COVID complain of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-and-what-isnt-brain-fog-190537" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brain fog</a>”, which includes a wide variety of cognitive symptoms affecting memory, concentration, sleep and speech. There’s also growing concern about findings that people who have had COVID are at <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(22)00260-7/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased risk</a> of developing brain disorders, such as dementia.</p> <p>Scientists are working to understand how exactly a COVID infection affects the human brain. But this is difficult to study, because we can’t experiment on living people’s brains. One way around this is to create <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00279-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organoids</a>, which are miniature organs grown from stem cells.</p> <p>In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01786-2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent study</a>, we created brain organoids a little bigger than a pinhead and infected them with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.</p> <p>In these organoids, we found that an excessive number of synapses (the connections between brain cells) were eliminated – more than you would expect to see in a normal brain.</p> <p>Synapses are important because they allow neurons to communicate with each other. Still, the elimination of a certain amount of inactive synapses is part of normal brain function. The brain essentially gets rid of old connections when they’re no longer needed, and makes way for new connections, allowing for more efficient functioning.</p> <p>One of the crucial functions of the brain’s immune cells, or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5768411/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">microglia</a>, is to prune these inactive synapses.</p> <p>The exaggerated elimination of synapses we saw in the COVID-infected models could explain why some people have cognitive symptoms as part of long COVID.</p> <p><strong>Parallels with neurodegenerative disorders</strong></p> <p>Interestingly, this pruning process is believed to go awry in several disorders affecting the brain. In particular, excessive elimination of synapses has recently been linked to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0334-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neurodevelopmental disorders</a> such as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0334-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">schizophrenia</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2019.00063/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neurodegenerative disorders</a> such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.</p> <p>By sequencing the RNA of single cells, we could study how different cell types in the organoid responded to the virus. We found that the pattern of genes turned on and off by the microglia in our COVID-infected organoids mimicked changes seen in neurodegenerative disorders.</p> <p>This may go some way in explaining the link between COVID and the risk of developing certain neurological disorders.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=425&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=425&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491380/original/file-20221024-17-9wi5pg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=425&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A brain organoid used in our study. You can see the microglial cells in red.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sellgren lab</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure> <p><strong>A possible target for treatment</strong></p> <p>One limitation of our research is that our organoid models closely resemble the foetal or early brain, rather than the adult brain. So we can’t say for sure whether the changes we noted in our study will necessarily be reflected in the adult brain.</p> <p>However, some <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33248159/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post-mortem</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35255491/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">imaging studies</a> report neuronal death and reduction in grey matter thickness in COVID patients, which hints at similar instances of synapse loss caused by an infection in adults.</p> <p>If this proves to be a fruitful line of enquiry, we believe our findings could point to a mechanism contributing to persisting cognitive symptoms after COVID and other viral infections that affect the brain.</p> <p>SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus and similar <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27337340/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">processes</a> have been seen in mice infected with other RNA viruses that can also cause residual cognitive symptoms, such as the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31235930/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">West Nile virus</a>.</p> <p>From here we want to study how different drugs could inhibit the changes we saw in the infected models, hopefully paving the way towards effective treatments. In <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6410571/">other research</a>, we’ve observed that an antibiotic called minocycline can reduce the degree to which microglia prune synapses in a dish. So we want to see if this drug can help in our brain organoid models following SARS-CoV-2 infection.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192702/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em>Writen by Samudyata and </em><em>Carl Sellgren</em><em>. Republished with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/long-covid-how-lost-connections-between-nerve-cells-in-the-brain-may-explain-cognitive-symptoms-192702" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Mind

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Brain cells in a dish learnt to play Pong

<p dir="ltr">In a feat that reads like the plot of a science fiction movie, scientists have been able to get a collection of brain cells living in a dish to play a video game.</p> <p dir="ltr">The team were able to prove that their collection of 800,000 neurons, which they call DishBrain, could perform goal-directed tasks, including playing the popular tennis-like game Pong.</p> <p dir="ltr">To create DishBrain, they took brain cells from mouse embryos, along with some human brain cells created from stem cells, and grew them on top of microelectrode arrays.</p> <p dir="ltr">These arrays are capable of both reading the signals these cells produce and stimulating the cells - allowing them to play a cheeky game of Pong.</p> <p dir="ltr">Electrodes on the left and right of the array told the cells which side the ball was on, while the frequency of signals told them how far the ball was from the paddle.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The beautiful and pioneering aspect of this work rests on equipping the neurons with sensations — the feedback — and crucially the ability to act on their world,” says co-author Professor Karl Friston, a theoretical neuroscientist at UCL, London.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Remarkably, the cultures learned how to make their world more predictable by acting upon it. This is remarkable because you cannot teach this kind of self-organisation; simply because — unlike a pet — these mini brains have no sense of reward and punishment."</p> <p dir="ltr">Having published their findings in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Neuron</a></em>, they now plan to find out what happens when they give DishBrain medicines and alcohol.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We’re trying to create a dose response curve with ethanol – basically get them ‘drunk’ and see if they play the game more poorly, just as when people drink,” lead author Dr Brett Kagan, the Chief Scientific Officer of the biotech start-up Cortical Labs, says.</p> <p dir="ltr">Because DishBrain was built using basic structures, rather than being modelled on AI, it can be used to understand how our brains function.</p> <p dir="ltr">“In the past, models of the brain have been developed according to how computer scientists think the brain might work,” Kagan explains. </p> <p dir="ltr">“That is usually based on our current understanding of information technology, such as silicon computing.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-8d90678c-7fff-f57f-0817-60d1c6980ffc"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“But in truth we don’t really understand how the brain works.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/10/dishbrain-gif1.gif" alt="" width="1326" height="946" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>DishBrain viewed under a microscope, where fluorescent markers show different kinds of cells. Where multiple markers appear, the colours merge and look yellow or pink. Image: Cortical Labs</em></p> <p dir="ltr">Dr Adeel Razi, the Director of Monash University’s Computational &amp; Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, says this experiment could open the door for more discoveries.</p> <p dir="ltr">“This new capacity to teach cell cultures to perform a task in which they exhibit sentience – by controlling the paddle to return the ball via sensing – opens up new discovery possibilities which will have far-reaching consequences for technology, health, and society,” he says.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We know our brains have the evolutionary advantage of being tuned over hundreds of millions of years for survival. </p> <p dir="ltr">"Now, it seems we have in our grasp where we can harness this incredibly powerful and cheap biological intelligence.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The creation of DishBrain also creates the possibility for an alternative to animal testing for scientists investigating how new drugs work and gain insights into how conditions such as epilepsy and dementia affect our brains.</p> <p dir="ltr">“This is brand new, virgin territory. And we want more people to come on board and collaborate with this, to use the system that we’ve built to further explore this new area of science,” Dr Hon Weng Chong, Chief Executive Officer of Cortical Labs, says.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7ca96709-7fff-9046-4ac1-c1ed62769dbc"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“As one of our collaborators said, it's not every day that you wake up and you can create a new field of science.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Cortical Labs / Flickr</em></p>

Mind

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Scientists have mimicked an embryo’s heart to unlock the secrets of how blood cells are born

<p>Stem cells are the starting point for all other cells in our bodies. The <a href="https://www.eurostemcell.org/blood-stem-cells-pioneers-stem-cell-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first such cells to be found</a> were blood stem cells – as the name suggests, they give rise to different types of blood cells.</p> <p>But there’s much we don’t know about how these cells develop in the first place. In a study published today in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111339" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cell Reports</a>, we have shown how a lab simulation of an embryo’s beating heart and circulation lead to the development of human blood stem cell precursors.</p> <p>The tiny device mimics embryonic blood flow, allowing us to directly observe human embryonic blood formation under the microscope. These results may help us understand how we can produce life-saving therapies for patients who need new blood stem cells.</p> <h2>Growing life-saving therapies in the lab</h2> <p>To treat aggressive blood cancers such as leukaemia, patients often need extremely high doses of chemotherapy; a <a href="https://www.cancer.nsw.gov.au/myeloma/diagnosis-and-treatment/treatment/types-of-treatment/stem-cell-transplant#:%7E:text=A%20stem%20cell%20transplant%20involves%20killing%20blood%20cells,they%20are%20collected%20beforehand%20and%20kept%20in%20storage." target="_blank" rel="noopener">blood stem cell transplant</a> then regenerates blood after the treatment. These are life-saving therapies but are restricted to patients who have a suitable tissue-matched donor of blood stem cells.</p> <p>A way around this problem would be to grow more blood stem cells in the lab. Unfortunately, past experiments have shown that harvested adult blood stem cells lose their transplantation potential if grown in the lab.</p> <p>The discovery of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell" target="_blank" rel="noopener">induced pluripotent stem cells</a> – stem cells made out of adult cells – in 2006 led to a promising new approach. Induced pluripotent stem cells are made from the patient’s own cells, so there is no problem with tissue rejection, or the ethical issues surrounding the use of IVF embryos.</p> <p>These cell lines are similar to embryonic stem cells, so they have the potential to form any tissue or cell type – hence, they are “pluripotent”. In theory, pluripotent stem cell lines could provide an unlimited supply of cells for blood regeneration because <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortalised_cell_line" target="_blank" rel="noopener">they are immortalised</a> – they can grow in the lab indefinitely.</p> <p>But the development of processes to allow us to grow particular types of tissues, organs and cell types – such as blood – has been slow and will take decades to advance. One must mimic the complex process of embryogenesis in the dish!</p> <h2>Engineering an embryonic heart</h2> <p>Current understanding of how embryonic blood stem cells develop is based on animal models. Experiments with anaesthetised zebrafish embryos have shown that blood stem cells arise in the wall of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20154733/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the main blood vessel, the aorta</a>, shortly after the first heartbeat. For ethical reasons, it’s obvious this type of study is not possible in human embryos.</p> <p>This is why we wanted to engineer an embryonic heart model in the lab. To achieve this, we used <a href="https://www.elveflow.com/microfluidic-reviews/general-microfluidics/a-general-overview-of-microfluidics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">microfluidics</a> – an approach that involves manipulating extremely small volumes of liquids.</p> <p>The first step in generating blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cells is to coax the latter to form the site where blood stem cells start growing. This is known as the AGM region (aorta-gonad-mesonephros) of the embryo.</p> <p>Our miniature heart pump and circulation (3 by 3 centimetres) mimics the mechanical environment in which blood stem cells form in the human embryo. The device pumps culture media – liquids used to grow cells – around a microfluidic circuit to copy what the embryo heart does.</p> <h2>A step closer to treatment</h2> <p>Once we got the cells to form the AGM region by stimulating cells on day two of starting our cell culture, we applied what’s known as pulsatile circulatory flow from day 10 to day 26. Blood precursors entered the artificial circulation from blood vessels lining the microfluidic channels.</p> <p>Then, we harvested the circulating cells and grew them in culture, showing that they developed into various blood components – white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, and others. In-depth analysis of gene expression in single cells showed that circulatory flow generated aortic and blood stem precursor cells found in the AGM of human embryos.</p> <p>This means our study has shown how pulsatile circulatory flow enhances the formation of blood stem cell precursors from pluripotent stem cells. It’s knowledge we can use in the future.</p> <p>The next step in our research is to scale up the production of blood stem cell precursors, and to test their transplant potential in immune-deficient mice that can accept human transplants. We can do this by using large numbers of pluripotent stem cells grown in bioreactors that also mechanically stimulate blood stem cell formation.</p> <p>If we can easily produce blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cell lines, it would provide a plentiful supply of these cells to help treatments of cancer or genetic blood diseases.</p> <p><strong>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-mimicked-an-embryos-heart-to-unlock-the-secrets-of-how-blood-cells-are-born-190530" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</strong></p> <p><em>Image: UNSW</em></p>

Body

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Misdiagnosed student learns she has incurable cancer

<p dir="ltr">A young woman who suffered from severe pains was told it was due to her excessive drinking – when actually she had an incurable form of cancer.</p> <p dir="ltr">Georgia Ford would occasionally cough up blood, lose her breath easily and struggle to walk or exercise – but was told it was because of how much alcohol she drank.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 20-year-old was given stomach-lining tablets but over time her condition worsened - this time with weight loss and back pain.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Originally the GP said the sickness was acid reflux from the amount that I was drinking because I was a student,” Georgia told Kennedy News.</p> <p dir="ltr">However, when the law student came back from holiday she limited her drinking. But the pains persisted.</p> <p dir="ltr">She kept going back and forth with her doctor, who told Georgia that the pains she was feeling were all in her head due to anxiety. </p> <p dir="ltr">“They basically said that this was all in my head and I wasn’t ill at all. I said ‘I fail to believe that I’m having this many severe symptoms and it’s all in my head’.</p> <p dir="ltr">For almost a year-and-a-half Georgia searched for answers as to why she was feeling the way she was.</p> <p dir="ltr">It was only in November 2021, after Georgia booked a private appointment, that she was diagnosed with papillary renal cell carcinoma – a rare and aggressive form of kidney cancer.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I was just so shocked. Just any hope I had of it maybe being something else, it was just the most sinking feeling to be told basically the worst-case scenario and I was just so disappointed in everything,” she said. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Honestly it’s not been the same since that; that one moment has literally changed my life.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Doctors explained to the young student that the cancer had started off in her kidneys and spread to her lungs, liver, lymph nodes and bones.</p> <p dir="ltr">And it was then they told the aspiring lawyer that her condition was incurable, forcing her to accept that this is her life now.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s just like this overwhelming sadness that just fills you at the time,” she explained.</p> <p dir="ltr">Since the shocking diagnosis, Georgia has begun immunotherapy, which involves taking medication every day and having an intravenous drip every two weeks. </p> <p dir="ltr">She is always required to take portable oxygen tanks when she goes out, and when it’s time to sleep she requires an oxygen pipe to help her breathe. </p> <p dir="ltr">Doctors say this treatment will help Georgia’s cancer shrink to the point of having a “normal life” as much as possible. </p> <p dir="ltr">A <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/fightagainstprcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GoFundMe</a> page has been set up to help Georgia with her treatments. </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: 7News/GoFundMe</em></p>

Body

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Woman celebrates 100th birthday in jail cell

<p>Ruth Bryant celebrated her centennial birthday by crossing off a wish on her bucket list: to be arrested and sent to jail.</p> <p>The US woman was celebrating her 100<sup>th</sup> birthday on Wednesday at her assisted living community in North Carolina when deputies from the Person County Sheriff’s Office showed up and served her a warrant for “indecent exposure” at a fire department.</p> <p>Friends and family members present at Bryant’s birthday celebrations weren’t aware of the plan, <em>WRAL </em>reported.</p> <p>“I know that she is a hundred years old, but I didn’t know ... they’d be going this far,” the 100-year-old’s daughter Marian Oakley told the outlet.</p> <p><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FKATVChannel7%2Fvideos%2F2729937517059685%2F&amp;show_text=1&amp;width=560" width="560" height="445" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p> <p>Police handcuffed Bryant to her walker and loaded her into the front seat of the police car before driving her to prison.</p> <p>She spent a few minutes inside a cell and was given a free phone call, a mug shot and an orange jail t-shirt.</p> <p>“I’m in the jailhouse now! I finally got here!” she said.</p> <p>She was released after paying bail in the form of a hug to the chief jailer and returned to her residence for cakes with friends.</p>

Retirement Life

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What it was like to share a prison cell with Anita Cobby's murderer

<div> <div class="replay"> <div class="reply_body body linkify"> <div class="reply_body"> <div class="body_text "> <p>A former convict has shared a chilling glimpse into the mind of one of Australia’s most notorious murderers.</p> <p>Sydney man Greg Fisher was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in jail for corporate fraud and drug-related charges, including using and dealing cocaine and crystal meth.</p> <p>When he got incarcerated in 2005 at the Lithgow Correctional Centre, he was allocated a cell with an inmate whose crimes had been described as “one of the most savage and brutal … the state has ever known”.</p> <p>Only later did Fisher find out that the man on the top bunk of his cell was John Travers, one of the five men who abducted, raped and killed Sydney nurse Anita Cobby in 1986.</p> <p>“I hadn’t put two and two together,” he told <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/jailed-sydney-businessman-reveals-what-it-was-like-to-share-a-cell-with-notorious-killer-john-travers/news-story/1cb9241c3f0e6997c1984bbe54410c50"><em>news.com.au</em></a>. “I think I was numb anyway from the first six months I was in jail.”</p> <p>But even without knowing Travers’s true identity, Fisher said he could tell that his cellmate “simply wasn’t normal”.</p> <p>“The thing that struck me immediately was his eyes,” said Fisher. “He had eyes like I’d never seen before. Before I spoke to him, it was like I could see through them to the back of his head.</p> <p>“There was no reflection. There was no emotion. There was no soul, and I’m not a spiritual-type person at all. It was absolutely like a physical thing that I could see to the back of his head. He simply wasn’t normal.”</p> <p>He finally found out who Travers was from another inmate. </p> <p>“I immediately worried and called my lawyer and the governor,” he said. “The governor came to see me and said: ‘Look, he’s a model prisoner, and it’s up to you. I can move you if you want’.”</p> <p>However, Fisher decided against moving out due to fears that it might put him “on show”, making him a target to be beaten by other inmates.</p> <p>“It was confronting to say the least because John’s never to be released, so that’s his home,” he said. “I was given the ground rules by him straight away. I had to take the top bunk and everything had to be kept meticulously tidy. I accepted the rules, therefore we got on well.”</p> <p>Fisher said they began getting to know each other afterwards. He said Travers showed no feelings of guilt over raping, torturing and leaving 26-year-old Cobby to die at a rural farm in Prospect, NSW.</p> <p>“He kept saying he wanted to get a group of law students and a professor to take him on as a project to get him released,” said Fisher.</p> <p>When asked whether he would like to apologise to Cobby’s family, Travers said his prison sentence was enough of a punishment already. </p> <p>“He said it was all about his future now, and there was absolutely no indication of remorse,” said Fisher.</p> <p>“He was the victim now, in his eyes, because he’d been there too long.”</p> <p>In a 2015 interview with <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/greg-fisher-property-developer-turned-drug-dealing-convict/6697466" target="_blank"><em>Life Matters</em></a>, Fisher said spending time behind bars with Travers made him feel conflicted. </p> <p>“John was pretty decent to me, and almost protective. But he also sickened me. So it was very mixed emotions for me.”</p> <p>Fisher was released from prison in 2012 and has since worked for charities such as Our Big Kitchen and Thread Together.</p> <p>In 1986, Travers and four other men captured Cobby near Blacktown railway station and took her to Prospect, where they beat, raped and slit her throat.</p> <p>The five men were later arrested and charged with a range of offences in what was dubbed “<a rel="noopener" href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/finance/legal/how-anita-cobby-s-murder-destroyed-her-husbands-life/" target="_blank">the trial of the century</a>”. The crimes prompted public outrage and some calls for the <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-22/anita-cobby-killer-michael-murphy-dead/10836460" target="_blank">death penalty</a> to be reinstated. </p> <p>In 1987, the men were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

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Packing cells will change how you travel in 2019

<p>Packing cells – people either love them or think they are a huge waste of money. We’ve detailed the pros and cons of packing cells so that you can make your own mind up.</p> <p><strong>1. What are they?</strong></p> <p>Packing cells are little cubes or zippered bags of various sizes that act as removable compartments for your suitcase or backpack.</p> <p><strong>2. How do you use them?</strong></p> <p>Packing cells allow you to organise your suitcase. You sort the items you need into individual bags. Put your dirty clothes in one, underpants in another. Put your socks in one, camera gear in another. You get the point. If you’re sharing a suitcase with a travelling companion, you can put your clothes into individual packing cells – that way your clothes won’t get all mixed up.</p> <p><strong>3. What do fans say about them?</strong></p> <p>A Facebook thread on packing cells went viral this week due to the number of people commenting. Comments such as: “Best things ever – saves so much room and keeps things tidy and organised” were common. Here’s a few more comments: “They have really changed our packing. Highly recommend. No more digging through the whole bag trying to find a pair of undies.” – Alicia thoman “We use them all the time now. Each person has their own pack and then you just take it out of the case – so much easier.” – Clare Ditchburn “They are the best, love mine, make so much more room in your suitcase.” – Kathy Stringfellow</p> <p><strong>4. What do the critics say?</strong></p> <p>Critics say that packing bags are a waste of money. Some argue that the bags are just more stuff you don’t need. Why pay the money when it doesn’t really take that long to find something in your bag. Is the 20 seconds really worth the cash?</p> <p><strong>5. Tips for using them</strong></p> <p>Generally, most people we found who have used the packing bags say they love them. So how do you use them effectively?</p> <ul> <li>Use a different colour per traveller</li> <li>Make sure you buy enough of them</li> <li>Get packing bags that have a clear window or mesh to allow you to see what is in the bag. Otherwise you’re going to spend just as much time hunting for the stuff you need.</li> <li>You can make your own packing bags from laundry bags, old airline amenities bags or plastic zip-lock bags.</li> <li>Buy a selection of different sizes</li> <li>Use them for small and necessary items.</li> <li>Use one for medications</li> <li>Keep one for chargers and phones</li> <li>Have a waterproof one for wet clothes</li> <li>Have one for dirty clothes</li> <li>Where do you buy them?</li> </ul> <p>You don’t need to pay much for packing bags. They are available in loads of places from Kathmandu to Big W, ALDI, Bags to Go, eBay. A simple web search will bring up dozens of different types.</p> <p><em>Written by Alison Godfrey. Republished with permission of </em><a href="https://www.mydiscoveries.com.au/stories/packing-cells-hack/"><em>MyDiscoveries</em></a><em>.</em></p>

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Exercise slows ageing of cells

<p>The secret to keeping your body youthful may be found in the way you move.</p> <p>A new study has found that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can essentially stop cellular ageing in its tracks and, in some cases, rejuvenate the cells that repair damage in the body.</p> <p>For the study, researchers from the Mayo Clinic took 36 men and 36 women split into younger (aged between 18 and 30) and older (aged between 65 and 80) age groups.<br /> <br /> The participants were then assigned a three-month programme of HIIT, strength training or a combination of the two.</p> <p>They already knew that both <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/time-to-get-fit-a-guide-to-hiit-20160518-goxmgm.html">HIIT</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/fitness/the-science-of-strength-seven-ways-muscle-makes-us-healthier-20170312-guwcpv.html">strength training</a> provided enormous health benefits to our bodies, they just didn't know exactly how or why, or which was better.</p> <p>So, to understand the way exercise affects us at a molecular level, the researchers then took biopsies from the participants' thigh muscles and compared them with samples from sedentary volunteers.</p> <p>The strength-training group predictably saw the greatest improvements in muscle mass, but the findings that have been described as "<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201703/mayo-clinic-study-identifies-how-exercise-staves-old-age">earth shattering</a>" were at a cellular level in the HIIT group. </p> <p>Mitochondria are the "<a href="https://www.umdf.org/what-is-mitochondrial-disease/">powerhouses" of our cells</a>, responsible for creating more than 90 per cent of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support organ function. Their function typically declines with age.  </p> <p>However, in the HIIT group, the mitochondrial functioning improved by 69 per cent among the older participants, and by 49 per cent among the younger group. </p> <p>As well as improving their insulin levels, heart and lung health, some in the high-intensity biking group also saw a reversal of the age-related decline in mitochondrial function and proteins needed for building muscle.</p> <p>The research provided an explanation for the many health benefits of exercise said the lead senior author, Sreekumaran Nair.</p> <p>"Based on everything we know, there's no substitute for these exercise programmes when it comes to delaying the ageing process," says Nair, of the study published in the journal <a href="http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(17)30099-2?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413117300992%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">Cell</a>. "These things we are seeing cannot be done by any medicine."</p> <p>He adds: "If people have to pick one exercise, I would recommend high-intensity interval training, but I think it would be more beneficial if they could do three to four days of interval training and then a couple days of strength training."  </p> <p>Emmanuel Stamatakis of the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney says it is a "fascinating piece of research".</p> <p>"This not only sheds light on how high-intensity interval exercise works at the cellular level, but [also] on the potential of vigorous exertion in general," says Stamatakis, who was not involved with the research. </p> <p>It also shows what is happening beneath the sweat that makes HIIT more beneficial to our bodies than other forms of exercise. Which aspect of HIIT is responsible for such dramatic changes, however, is still an unknown.</p> <p>"Assuming that the key attribute of HIIT is the vigorous intensity that challenges the human physiology to make rapid adaptations, this research supports well what we saw recently <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2596007">in a large epidemiologic study</a> where even one to two sessions per week of  predominantly sport/ exercise of vigorous intensity were associated with substantial all-cause, CVD and cancer mortality benefits," Stamatakis explains.</p> <p>"These benefits were comparable with meeting the physical activity recommendations by doing regular physical activity of mostly moderate intensity."</p> <p>Now the question is whether HIIT is right for everyone. Given how few of us manage to meet the recommendations, Stamatakis remains unsure.</p> <p>"There <a href="https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-015-0254-9">is a big debate</a> as to whether HIIT is the way to go for better population health, but it is certain that it has a time and a place," he says. "Although not every physically inactive person would be willing or able to join a HITT program, this new piece of research highlights that in addition to  public health messages like 'move as often as possible, a little is better than nothing', we need to also add 'aim to huff and puff sometimes'."</p> <p>This might be as simple as taking the stairs whenever you can – both a form of incidental and HIIT exercise. </p> <p>"For many people, stair climbing will involve bouts of high-intensity activity lasting one or more minutes, and if this is repeated regularly enough in everyday life it could potentially improve fitness and other aspects of cardiovascular and metabolic health quite rapidly," Stamatakis says.   </p> <p>And of course, it will keep us young.</p> <p>"There are substantial basic science data to support the idea that exercise is critically important to prevent or delay ageing," says Nair, who plans to look at the effect of exercise on other tissues in the body. "There's no substitute for that."</p> <p><em>Written by Sarah Berry. Appeared on <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Stuff.co.nz.</a><br /></strong></span></em></p>

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Crackdown on drivers using cell phones

<p>A record number of drivers have been caught paying more attention to their cellphones than to the road.</p> <p>Police say a West Aucklander with a beer in one hand and a phone in the other was among the 4195 drivers caught and fined a total of $331,680 during a crackdown in September.</p> <p>The latest police figures show a more than threefold increase in the number of drivers caught nationwide on their phones that month, compared with the average monthly numbers.</p> <p>In the entire Auckland region, 1932 drivers were caught on their phones in September, compared with 963 in August. </p> <p>The number of Wellingtonians snapped increased 75 per cent to 273, and the number of Cantabrians caught almost doubled, with 830 drivers fined.</p> <p>Road policing national manager Superintendent Steve Greally said the figures were horrifying. "People are just flouting it. They don't understand the risk of taking your eyes off the road even for just two seconds.</p> <p>"Even for just a second, you could kill a cyclist, another driver – even yourself. It's a huge issue for us."</p> <p>Greally said he understood how drivers idling in gridlock or at a red light might think it was safe to use their phones, but it was illegal because it was risky.</p> <p>"Even if you're going 5 or 6 kilometres per hour, you're going to cause a nose-to-tail. Or a small child might run out in front of you who doesn't know any better."</p> <p>A record number of drivers were fined in September for using mobile phones while driving.</p> <p>He said officers had not been given quotas during the two-week September sting, but all officers, including detectives who did not usually do road policing, were asked to pull over drivers on cellphones when they spotted them.</p> <p>Breaking the rules results in an $80 fine and 20 demerit points. If 100 points are accumulated within two years, drivers automatically lose their licences for three months.</p> <p>Greally said he was unaware of anyone who had lost their licence purely for repeated phone offences, but thought it likely.</p> <p>"With technology, you've getting a lot more things that you can do with your phone.</p> <p>"They are not just used for calling or for texting. It's apps – the more that increases, the more we'll be having people using phones while driving."</p> <p>The Automobile Association congratulated police on the crackdown, saying multi-tasking impaired drivers' judgment.</p> <p>"There's no doubt it takes your attention away from your driving and increases your risk," spokesman Dylan Thomsen said.</p> <p>"There's a reasonable difference between talking on your phone and to passengers who are in the same environment as the driver and more likely to realise what is going on. Passengers tend to mute their conversation." </p> <p>As many people's phones doubled as music players, the AA's interpretation was that "infrequently" touching a phone attached to a car stereo to change a song would not be breaking the law, any more than changing the radio station would be, Thomsen said.</p> <p>Ministry of Transport figures from 2014 showed distracted drivers were a factor in 12 per cent of crashes.</p> <p>Distracted driving killed 22 people, seriously injured 191, and chalked up an estimated $297 million in social costs.</p> <p>Between 2011-13, 163 fatal or injury crashes were attributed to drivers using cellphones.</p> <p>Backing up the NZ data, a new report out of the US has suggested that smartphones and other driving distractions could be making roads there more dangerous.</p> <p>Preliminary stats released Thursday (NZ time) showed US road deaths for January-June 2015 had risen 8.1 per cent to 16,225 which is a rate more than double an increase  in overall driving spawned by falling fuel prices and a growing economy.</p> <p>"The increase in smartphones in our hands is so significant, there's no question that has to play some role. But we don't have enough information yet to determine how big a role," said Mark Rosekind, who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US government's auto safety watchdog.</p> <p>While US officials said it was too early to identify contributing factors. But Rosekind told reporters that officials are looking at likely causes including distracted driving and the possibility lower fuel prices have encouraged more driving among "risky drivers" such as teenagers.</p> <p>Unlike NZ's laws, Rosekind also criticised an absence of effective laws in US states that prohibit hand-held smartphones by drivers or require the use of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets.</p> <p>The New Zealand Transport Agency has even looked at independent research into hi-tech mobile phone detectors as it considered whether to nationally trial the devices in 2014.</p> <p>They are designed to detect transmissions from passing drivers' phones and sort them from the background noise of other phones in the area.</p> <p>The researchers concluded the detectors would be useful alongside visual observation – but there were concerns the detectors might pick up emails, calls and texts being received by a phone without the driver touching it.</p> <p>Written by Talia Shadwell. First appeared on <a href="http://www.Stuff.co.nz" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Stuff.co.nz</strong></span></a>.</p>

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Stems cells could be used to treat macular degeneration

<p>A study at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has found that an injection of stem cells in the eyes could be an effective treatment for vision loss caused by age-related macular degeneration. Currently, there is no treatment that slows the progression of the disease, which is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 65.</p> <p>The study’s lead author, Shaomei Wang, MD, PhD explained, “This is the first study to show preservation of vision after a single injection of adult-derived human cells into a rat model with age-related macular degeneration.” Published in the journal STEM CELLS, the study resulted in 130 days of preserved vision in laboratory rat; this equates roughly to 16 years for a human.</p> <p>When animals with macular degeneration were injected with stem cells created using adult skin cells, healthy cells began to migrate around the retina, forming a protective layer. This shield prevented ongoing degeneration of the vital retinal cells responsible for vision.</p> <p>For those who don’t know, age-related macular degeneration occurs when the small central portion of the retina – the macula – deteriorates. Aside from age, other causes of macular degeneration include a genetic predisposition, and environmental factors.</p> <p>The next steps in the process include testing the safety of the stem cell injection in preclinical animal studies. In the future, clinical trials will be designed to test any potential benefit in patients with later-stage age-related macular degeneration.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150414093554.htm" target="_blank">Source: Science Daily</a></strong></span></p>

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