UK Surgeons Perform First Robotic Eye Operation

                British surgeons have carried out the world’s first robotic operation inside the eye – potentially revolutionizing the way vision conditions are treated. Patient said his eyesight was retuning following the procedure, having previously experienced distorted vision similar to “looking in a hall of mirrors at a fairground”. The procedure was carried out by surgeons at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. The robotic eye surgery trial involves 12 patients undergoing operations with increasing complexity. On completing the operation, surgeon said: “We have just witnessed a vision of eye surgery in the future. Current technology with laser scanners and microscopes allows us to monitor retinal diseases at the microscopic level, but the things we see are beyond the physiological limit of what the human hand can operate on. With a robotic system, we open up a whole new chapter of eye operations that currently cannot be performed.” It was the first time a device had been available that achieved the three dimensional precision required to operate inside the human eye.

There Will Be No Wild Lands Left By 2100

                A tenth of the world’s world land – an area equivalent to half of the Amazon basin – has been lost in just 20 years in an “alarming” trend that requires urgent action on an international scale, experts have warned. At the current rate of decline there will be no significant areas of wilderness – area mostly free of human disturbance – left on the planet in less than 100 years. Mining, illegal logging, deliberately set fires to clear forest for agriculture, and oil and gas exploration were all contributing to the devastation of essentially natural environments, which are home to many endangered species. All wilderness areas, regardless of their size threshold, warrant immediate scrutiny for conservation action. The continued loss of wilderness areas is a globally significant problem with largely irreversible outcomes for both humans and nature: if these trends continue, there could be no globally significant wilderness areas left in less than a century.

Giraffes Are Four Species, Not One

                Genetic research on the world’s tallest land animal has found that there are four distinct species of giraffe, nor just one as long believed, with two of them at alarmingly low population levels. Scientists on 8 September unveiled a comprehensive genetic analysis of giraffes using DNA from 190 of the towering herbivores from across their range in Africa. The genetic data showed that four separate species of giraffes that do not interbreed in the wild inhabit various parts of the continent. Beyond genetics, the researchers identified differences among the four species including body shape, coloration and coat patterns. Genetic differences among the four species were comparable to those between polar bears and brown bears.

                Until now, scientists had recognized a single species, with the scientific name Giraffa camelopardalis. The study identified the four separate species as: the southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa), with a population of 52,000; the Masai giraffe (Giraffa tippelskirchi), with 32,500; the reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), with 8,700; and the northern giraffe(Giraffa camelopardalis), with 4,750. The conservation implications are immense and our findings will hopefully help put giraffe conservation on the map. The giraffe currently is not listed as endangered, although its population has declined dramatically over the past three decades from more than 150,000 to fewer 100,000.

Now, Pollution Linked to Diabetes Too

                Long term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes – especially for people with impaired glucose metabolism. Air pollution exposure at the place of residence increases the risk of developing insulin resistance as a prediabetic state of type 2 diabetes. Whether the disease becomes manifest and when this occurs is not only due to lifestyle or genetic factors, but also due to traffic related air pollution. For the current study, researchers from the German Centre for Diabetes Research (DZD) analyzed the data of nearly 3,000 participants of the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) study who live in the city of Augsburg and two adjacent rural counties.

                All individuals were interviewed and physically examined. The researchers took fasting blood samples, in which they determined various markers for insulin resistance and inflammation. In addition, leptin was examined as adipokine which has been suggested to be associated with insulin resistance. Non-diabetic individuals underwent an oral glucose tolerance test to detect whether their glucose metabolism was impaired. The researchers compared these data with the concentrations of air pollutants at the place of residence of the participants, which they estimated using predictive models based on repeated measurements at 20 sited (for particle measurements) and at 40 sited (for nitrogen dioxide measurements) in the city and in the rural countries.

                The results revealed that people who already have an impaired glucose metabolism, so-called prediabetic individuals, are particularly vulnerable to the effect of air pollution. In these individuals, the association between increases in their blood marker levels and increases in air pollutants concentrations is particularly significant. Thus, over the long term – especially for people with impaired glucose metabolism – air pollution is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.