Pregnant women:A Nurse Cloth

Pregnant women who drink a certain quantity of milk every day could have a healthy baby, says a study.

Milk is an important source of vitamin D, calcium, riboflavin, protein and energy during pregnancy, but some women are advised to cut down their consumption for various reasons including the prevention of allergies in their children.

Dr Kristine Koski and other researchers at McGill University in Canada found that babies of mothers who drank at least half a pint of milk a day during pregnancy weighed more at birth than those born to women who drank less, reported the online edition of Telegraph.

Restricting milk or vitamin D intake during pregnancy lowered infant birth weight in otherwise healthy, non-smoking, well-educated mothers, the study published in the latest issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal said.

"This is an important finding because increasing numbers of women are restricting milk consumption during pregnancy believing that it will lower fat intake, minimise weight gain, treat self-diagnosed lactose intolerance or prevent their children from developing allergies," Koski said.

"Although most nutrients in milk may be replaced from other foods or with supplements, vitamin D is found in few commonly consumed foods except for milk.

"Mothers and health professionals need to understand that this dietary practice may restrict essential nutrients and negatively affect foetal development," the researchers said. Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

Baby milk, lose extra flab

Getting back into shape after pregnancy is a priority for most urban women. Most new mothers opt for an extreme workout schedule and diet plan to lose weight quickly. A new study gives you an easier option to lose that flab. The study that sourced data from more than 25,000 women participating in the Danish National Birth Cohort, measured how long women breastfed and also how intensely. Results showed that women with higher breastfeeding scores were more likely to lose their pregnancy weight six months after giving birth. Researchers concluded that women who gain a reasonable amount during pregnancy and breastfeed exclusively are likely to lose all pregnancy weight six months after giving birth.
How celeb moms got their figures back

Maria Goretti, former Veejay

Maria Goretti, former Veejay To lose weight post delivery, you need strong will power. I told myself, "It took me nine months to gain, and within nine months, I shall lose". Two months after delivery, I ran every day for 45 minutes. After four months, I altered my diet and began having eight meals a day. Sheru, my trainer, gave me a guide to eating right. I only ate a lot of fresh salads, fruits, soups, fish and chicken. I'd begin my day with green tea, followed by four egg whites with a roti or brown bread. Then I'd go for a run. A fresh vegetable juice would follow. Lunch was dal (without tadka), rice, one vegetable and chicken/fish. Two hours post lunch, I'd have some fruit. At 7.30 pm, I'd have a salad, soup and chicken/fish. Lillete Dubey, theatre and film actor I had gained only 17 pounds, so shedding it wasn't tough. Crash dieting is not possible immediately after delivery. I was never an exercise or diet person, so I regulated my eating habits minimally. My ultimate test was trying to fit into my jeans. Perizaad Zorabian, actor and model I've never been fat, but during pregnancy, I just let myself go. I was 13 kgs heavier. When I went to my dietician Zarine Watson, I was low on self-confidence and self-esteem. She made sure I ate the right stuff and followed a correct exercise regime. Post-delivery my tummy was sagging, but exercise made sure I got leaner. Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

The perfect baby who died five days after she was born - poisoned by her mother's milk

As Natasha Clarke held her newborn baby for the first time she felt herself brimming with pride. 

Ava, born a healthy 7lb 2oz, looked perfect and was the daughter the former Vogue model and singer had always wanted. 

'She was just beautiful,' says Natasha.

Natasha's pregnancy had been normal, and the birth itself was straightforward. It was with huge happiness that she and Ava went home the day after the birth. 

But already in those idyllic first hours a terrible story was unfolding. 

Ava had been born with a genetic condition called methylmalonic acidaemia (MMA). This meant her body didn't produce an enzyme to break down protein. 

In the womb, Natasha, 33, had been breaking the protein down for her. 

But on her own, Ava's tiny body was unable to cope with any protein and even her own mother's milk was highly poisonous, leading to a build up of toxic substances, methylmalonic acid and ammonia. Untreated, it can lead to a coma, brain damage and death. 

In America, newborns are routinely tested for this condition. There are no such tests in the UK and Natasha and her husband Grant, 37, were unaware of Ava's condition. 

The first time they suspected something was wrong was when Ava was three days old and she stopped feeding properly. But reassured by the midwife that this was completely normal, they kept Ava at home. 

But, by the next day, Natasha says maternal instinct  -  the couple already had a son, Harrison, then three  -  told her something was wrong and she arranged to see the midwife again. 

'I told her Ava really hadn't fed very well. She would startle to loud sounds but she was not waking up. Her body felt a little bit rigid. 

'I could see the midwife was slightly concerned and when she took Ava's temperature, it was only 35C, worryingly low. I realised then it was serious.' 

Natasha immediately drove Ava to Frimley Park hospital, Surrey, where she was born. There, doctors carried out a series of tests. 

'They put a needle into her and she didn't flinch,' recalls Natasha. 'Then they asked me if I was related to my husband  -  which of course I am not. I think they were trying to rule out a genetic abnormality. They then started treating her with intravenous antibiotics to try to get her temperature up. 

'I sat there expressing milk for her because I thought she'd get better'. Little did she realise that her milk was toxic to her baby. 

By then Ava's condition was deteriorating rapidly and it was clear she was gravely ill. 'When I asked the doctor: 'Is she going to die?' he told me: 'I hoped you wouldn't ask me that.' I couldn't speak.' 

Ammonia levels in Ava's body were off the scale  -  a normal reading would be around 20, hers was more than 1,000  -  a sign that her body was being poisoned by the by-products created by unbroken down protein. 

Doctors desperately needed a drug to clean her blood and bring down the ammonia levels and, with the readings getting higher each time, every minute counted. 

But a frantic attempt to find the medication needed in the local hospitals failed and Ava didn't receive the drugs until several hours later, when specialists from London's Evelina Children's Hospital arrived to transfer her to their unit. 

'I am sure it would have saved her life if she'd had the drug earlier,' said Natasha.

When the drug didn't bring down her soaring ammonia levels doctors put a tube into Ava's stomach to try to flush the blood that way. But it was to no avail: a scan of Ava's brain showed it was no longer functioning. 

And, just hours after she'd arrived in hospital, the doctors said they would have to turn off the life support machines. 

'We asked them how long Ava would live without the machines, they said about an hour. But Ava stayed with us for another 12 hours until 6am the next day. She was only five days old. 

'During those last hours she had her eyes closed most of the time. 

Nurses brought us a camera so we could take photos, and we took a lock of her hair and did hand and footprints. Then, while I was holding her, she opened her eyes and had a really good look at me. Moments later she died.' 

Ava suffered from the severest form of the condition. Had she survived, she would have been severely brain damaged because her ammonia levels reached such high levels. 

'I would have taken that over a dead baby,' says Natasha quietly. 'It's your worst nightmare going through the birth, the joy of having a baby girl, going home with what you think is a healthy baby and then, days later, watching your baby die. 

'I'd have traded every success I'd had in my life to have my daughter alive and healthy today.' 

Ava's symptoms developed within days of birth. However, other children are often not diagnosed until they are two or even older. With careful management, including a strict low-protein diet people can live with MMA (kidney problems are common, and some need an organ transplant). 

As Dr Mike Champion, a consultant in paediatric metabolic medicine at the Evelina Children's Hospital, explains: 'The earlier you make a diagnosis the more you can tailor the treatment to reverse the problem.' 

After their baby's death the Clarkes faced another ordeal. MMA is caused by a defective gene passed on by both parents  -  though the chances of getting together with someone who has the same faulty genes to create a condition such as MMA is one in 50,000, Natasha and Grant's risk of another child with MMA are high, one in four. 

One way of preventing this was to have IVF  -  doctors could have checked any embryos against Ava's DNA to see if they were affected before being put back into the womb. 

But this option was not available  -  the biopsy taken from Ava after she died was contaminated. 

So, when she became pregnant again, Natasha had to wait until she was 17 weeks pregnant before doctors were able to determine from blood tests whether the baby was affected. 

'I kept telling myself if I could do it once with Harrison I could do it again. I knew that if the baby was affected this was treatable but, thankfully, it was good news  -  the baby was free of MMA.' 

Austin is now 11 months old. 

Following Ava's death on August 18, 2006, Natasha and Grant set up the Ava 
Clarke Foundation in her memory to raise money for children affected by life-limiting inherited genetic disorders. 

One in 800 babies is born with one of these conditions, which also cause 40 per cent of neonatal deaths. 

The Clarkes are trying to raise money towards the cost of a new piece of equipment known as a tandem mass spectrometer (TMS) for the Children's Metabolic Unit at the Evelina Hospital. 

These machines can identify rare metabolic conditions, but there are only a few in the UK. 

The current TMS machine at the Evelina Children's Hospital has analysed nearly one million samples as well as helping with research. But the latest model, which the Clarkes are hoping to help fund, is more sensitive than previous models and will radically increase the range of genetic disorders that can be diagnosed from a single blood sample within 10 minutes. 

'We want something positive to come from Ava's death,' says Natasha. 

'And the Foundation will raise awareness of all types of genetic disorders as well as raising money for new equipment to help diagnose and treat children like Ava. 

'I am so grateful to have two healthy boys but you never get over the death of a child. When you carry them for nine months, you are planning their future and thinking about their name and how they will fit into the family. 

'On Ava's second birthday, I sang happy birthday to her picture. I will never watch my little girl go to school. Losing a child is like losing part of yourself. You learn to live with it but you never get over it.' 

For more :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1140366/The-perfect-baby-died-days-born---poisoned-mothers-milk.html

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

Biotechnology's potential barely exploited: scientists

New research tools will bring a boom in biotechnology that will unlock the enormous potential of usingsynthetic life to cure disease and develop environmentally friendly fuels, scientists say.

"If you look at all the things biology can do with technology, we have not yet scratched the surface," said Drew Endy, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.

The past 35 years of biotech development have introduced a number of "tremendous applications," particularly in the area of bioengineered drugs, Endy said at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here.

Research is now moving ahead at a rapid clip, with "geometric improvements" in tools used to construct DNA from scratch, he said.

And in the area of gene sequencing, it took researchers just six years to go from reading a simple bacteria genome to being able to sequence a human genome.

Last year, researchers at the Venter Institute built a bacteria genome from scratch, he noted.

"I bet we will be able to construct a human chromosome, and the yeast genome," Endy said, offering a six-year forecast. "It sounds a little bit crazy because it's an exponential improvement in the tools."

There is both public and private interest in making these basic tools more relevant.

"We are advocating now a national initiative in synthetic biology that would include in part a route map for getting better in building genetic material, constructing DNA from scratch and assembling it into genes and genomes," Endy said.

An open technology platform "where the genetic componentry is available for anybody who might want to start a biotechnology company" is critical to advancing the field.

"In the next month we will announce a public agreement as a new legal framework for sharing standard biological parts," Endy added.

An open platform could significantly reduce the amount of time and money it takes to develop new drugs, saidJay Keasling, professor of biochemical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

Keasling is using a microbe to produce a lower cost anti-malaria drug to replace Artemisinin, a plant-based drug to which resistance is growing and which faces expected supply shortages.

"We anticipate in one or two years that the optimization process will be completed and that production of the drug will commence and have it in the hands of people in Africa shortly thereafter," Keasling said.

Meanwhile, Christina Smolke, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University spoke about her efforts to design molecules that go into the cell and analyze the cellular state before delivering a therapeutic effect.

"Our goal is to make more effective therapies by taking advantage of the natural capabilities of our immune system and introducing slight modifications in cases where it is not doing what we would like it to do," she said.

Smolke said she hoped to translate her technologies into intelligent cellular therapeutics for glaucoma cancer patients in the next five years.

"That's a very optimistic view... but so far things are moving quickly," she said.

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

8 Insane Modded and Customized Laptops

1. The Xbox 360 Laptop

Another work of artistic brilliance/insanity from Mr. Benjamin J Heckendorn, this is a laptop fashioned from an Xbox 360 (complete with a comedic conversation between him and the sales rep at the store he bought it from) and, like the rest of his stuff, actually works! Now you can show your friends just how “hueg liek ecksbawks” this laptop really is.

2. The Duke Nukem-style Laptop

Limited to just 300 units and mentioned a few years back (so most likely sold out), thiscrazy-looking laptop comes with a bunch of cool stuff to customize the look with, including stickers and wallpapers. Brought to you by NEC and Takara, the TYPE-N01 even comes with an “emergency” power-off button, which turns the laptop off immediately. Whilst I’m sure this was meant for when “intruders” try to hack the laptop whilst you’re on it, I’ll bet it was actually used to prevent embarrassing situations when someone barges into your room without knocking.

3. The Pimp-Yet-Kitsch Laptop

Customized by the seemingly-pretentious Testa Motari, this is a laptop which has been lovingly decked out in authentic Brazilian Rosewood with solid 18kt gold. The keyboard is laser-etched and gold plated, as is the touchpad and the mouse. Truly quite decadent, yet also leaves you with a feeling somewhat akin to “…meh”.

4. The Custom Laptop Shop

Not technically a laptop, but a place that customizes them. Based in Miami, NVousPC are willing to personalize a laptop in a number of crazy ways, including paintjobs (of just about anything) and engravings. It seems that for the design of your laptop, the sky is the limit as long as it involves putting a picture on the back of your laptop, which is pretty cool but not mind-blowingly epic.

5. The Do-It-Yourself Laptop

A person by the name of Torquil was fed up with the prices of computer parts, so decided to make one. Wanting to build a laptop that could be upgraded at any point as components grew too old and needed to be replaced. As you can see from the pictures, it seemed like tricky business, but the end result is a very shiny laptop that works, even if it is a bit big and resembles an up-market hairdryer.

6. The Wii Laptop

Another fantastic console mod from Mr. Heckendorn, but this time it’s a Wii console that gets the portable treatment. Sporting a 7-inch LCD screen, controller port, built-in power supply and even a short-range sensor bar, it’s possible with this to finally be able to randomly play the Wii console in the street.

7. The Wooden Laptop

Ok, so the whole laptop isn’t made from wood, which would (ha ha) be much more of a technological feat of awesomeness. However, the wood apparently comes from a case of Sicilian wine that the modder had to down in 1 minute in order to make the laptop casing. I may have made that last bit up. Combined with some more wood, silk, screws and leather, this is the final result.

8. The Guitar Laptop (or maybe the Laptop Guitar?)

Guitarist and all-round technical wizard Ben Lewry chopped up a laptop and smooshed itinto an electric guitar. The result is a lot more pleasing than the description makes it out to be. The awesome thing is that both the guitar and the laptop function, so Ben’s made it so that the laptop displays a strange audio/visualization program that reacts to whatever is being played on the guitar, a lot like that thing on windows Media Player.

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

Google gobbling up $7 bn of taxpayers’ money every year: study

Online search giant Google, known for promoting free web-based alternatives to costly software products, has been charged with using 21 times more bandwidth than what it pays for, thus making the internet costlier for others and costing taxpayers about $7 billion a year.

On its part, Google has challenged the study labelling charges against it, saying that the report has been authored by someone being paid by phone and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner to be a full time Google critic.

The study, by Scott Cleland of the Precurser Group, a research and consulting firm specialising in the converging telecom sector, claimed that Google was by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth in the US and its bandwidth usage, which was rising rapidly, was greater than its payment for its cost.

The study estimated that Google has used 16.5% of all US consumer internet traffic this year and it is estimated to grow to 25% in 2009 and 37% in 2010.

However, the company’s payment to fund the US consumer broadband internet segment is estimated at $344 million for 2008, which is just 0.8% of the US consumer’s flat-rate monthly internet access costs of $44 billion.

“Thus, Google’s 16.5% share of all 2008 US consumer bandwidth usage is about 21 times greater than Google’s 0.8% share of US consumer bandwidth costs — on an implicit about $6.9 billion subsidy of Google by US consumers,” Cleland wrote in the study.

Cleland said that the findings of the study were important in the wake of Google being the driving force behind InternetForEveryone.org, which is pushing to adopt a national plan to bring open, high-speed internet connections into every home, at a price all of us can afford.

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

MySpace-Google team up to connect more users

MySpace.com is teaming up with Internet search leader Google Inc. in a campaign to extend MySpace’s reach and counter the expansion of their common rival Facebook Inc.

The alliance, unveiled late on Monday in Paris, builds upon MySpace’s seven-month-old effort to make it easier for the 127 million worldwide users of its online hangout to connect with their social circles while they’re at other Internet destinations.

MySpace is trying to pull it off by making its login system, called “MySpaceID,” compatible with any Web site that wants to embrace it.

By working with a similar service offered by Google, MySpace is betting more sites will welcome its audience. Blogs and other small sites with limited technical help probably will find it easier to use Google’s system, known as “Friend Connect,” said Max Engel, who oversees MySpaceID.

The collaboration between News Corp.’s MySpace and Google represents their latest shot across Facebook’s bow. MySpace and Google previously joined forces a year ago to promote a service, called “OpenSocial,” that competes against Facebook’s warehouse of online software programs.

Facebook also is peddling its own universal login service to create more ways for its roughly 130 million worldwide users to share their personal profiles and favourite applications wherever and whenever they want on the Web. The privately held company expanded “Facebook Connect” last week after seven months of testing.

By loosening their grip on the personal information stored on their own sites, both MySpace and Facebook are vying to shape and steer even more social interaction than they already do.

In the process, they hope to become the command centers of their users’ online activities. By extending their networks on to other sites, Facebook and MySpace also could emerge as more alluring marketing vehicles, particularly as they glean more information about the interests of individual users.

Google is keenly interested in tapping into the advertising potential of social networks, but the Mountain View-based company has had little success with its own online hangout, called Orkut.

MySpace already relies on Google to sell some of its ads, so the companies are natural allies.

Palo Alto-based Facebook, in contrast, has aligned itself with Microsoft, perhaps Google’s biggest antagonist. Besides relying on Microsoft to sell some of its ads, Facebook also sold a 1.6% stake to the software maker for $240 million last year.

Facebook also has rankled Google by hiring some of its top employees. The defectors include Facebook’s current chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, who oversaw global online sales.

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

Facebook cuts ties with Project Playlist

Project Playlist, which allows users to upload music and create and share playlists, is being sued by the RIAA and three major music labels for alleged copyright violations

Washington: Social network Facebook has severed ties with Project Playlist, just days after rival MySpace cut its links with the fast-growing music-sharing startup over copyright violation fears.

Facebook’s move came a day after the Palo Alto, California-based Project Playist announced its biggest coup yet -- an agreement with Sony BMG to make its library of digital music available to users of playlist.com.

Project Playlist, which allows users to upload music and create and share playlists, is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and three major music labels for alleged copyright violations.

Just days after MySpace made a similar move, Facebook on Tuesday said it was removing a Project Playlist application from the social network.

In a statement obtained by several technology blogs, Facebook said the RIAA “initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications.

“We have forwarded the RIAA’s letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organisation and music labels on a resolution,” Facebook said.

“In the meantime, the application must be removed to comply with the Facebook Platform Terms of Service,” it said.

Project Playlist has more than 40 million users according to online research firm comScore and recently hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta to head the startup.

Announcing the agreement with Sony BMG on Monday, Project Playlist founder Jeremy Riney said he hoped the deal would lead to similar agreements with other music labels.

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)

Microsoft Patch Internet Explorer (Again) - Is It Time To Switch?

You have probably heard of the AZN Trojan which has been causing havoc in the Internet world over the last week, but if you haven’t you really should so read on. But for those who have, you will be relieved to know that Microsoft has released a patch for the vulnerability which should stem the problems occurred when browsing using Internet Explorer (IE). This is great news for those IE lovers out there who have been using an alternative for the last week, or the more foolish ones that have been using IE regardless.

Those that are ignorant and righteous may be laughing at those stupid enough to download dodgy material, and thinking that it couldn’t happen to them. But they would be horribly wrong because this exploitation of invulnerability means that all you have to do is go on infected website to “contract” the virus, and suffer the consequences of it.

And the results of this have been fairly devastating; an estimated 10,000 websites are infected, and Microsoft says that over two million Windows users have succumbed to this Trojan. It has in fact been touring the web since the beginning of December, but was only last week that it was brought to the public attention due to its devastating consequences. The reason for this is that it can record keystrokes allowing the Trojan to record all your credit card details, any information about you and every password that you use. This is obviously a massive problem, and understandably has brought a very quick response from Microsoft.

The response comes in the form of a patch that contains more than 300 distinct updates which Microsoft hope will irradiate this threat, although they still retain that it is by no means over and are encouraging people to download and test this solution. Although so far we have only seen it effecting IE7, it would appear that its predecessor and successor aren’t safe either with them both being labelled “potentially vulnerable”.

So what are your options now? Well you could put complete trust in the Microsoft security department and continue to use IE regardless, but to be honest that isn’t a good idea until it has been proven to work. Personally I would advise moving to a different internet browser and this opens up a whole new world of choices.

You may be surprised at how many different programmes do the same job as Internet Explorer especially if you are the kind of person who only uses IE because it comes with Windows. You could use PhaseOut, Deepnet, Avant, Flock, Maxthon, Safari, Opera, Chrome or Firefox all of which have different strengths and weaknesses – Safari for example has slightly inferior security whilst Avant has a large start up time. But really that is too many to look at, so we will narrow it down to IEs biggest two competitors: Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

Google Chrome Browser is built on an entirely different system regarding tabs, meaning that one slow tab does not slow your whole window down, and also looks very nice and is dead easy to navigate. It is also very quick, but there is that niggling feeling that you are helping Google onto world domination, and it also doesn’t work very well with Hotmail.

Firefox also has a nice layout, and is normally rated slightly higher than Chrome due to the fact that you can customise it making it unique to you – a very nice feature. However make sure you get Firefox 3.0 and not 2, because following the recent update (aimed to prevent what happened to IE) they have promised not to continue support or patches for Firefox 2.

So maybe you were already using these, or maybe you are new to this world of choices, but either way it is probably best to steer clear of IE for a bit or you would end up out of pocket. If you want my personal opinion I would say you should install both and use Firefox for e-mail and Chrome for everything else – it is not a bad idea to have your details split over two internet browsers, it makes you less subject to vulnerabilities. Any way good luck and Merry Christmas!

Hey Have a Facebook Comment :) :)