Minamata Disease

What is Minamata disease? 

What causes this disease?

What is mercury?

What is meant by "heavy metal"?

How does mercury get inside fish?

How much mercury can accumulate inside fish flesh?

What is the food chain?

What is biomagnification?

Where is Minamata?

Where is Minamata Bay?

What incident occurred at Minamata Bay that led to the disease?

What is the effect of heavy metal poisoning?

What are synonyms of Minamata disease?

Fish and shellfish have a natural tendency to concentrate mercury in their bodies, often in the form of methylmercury, a highly toxic organic compound of mercury. Species of fish that are high on the food chain, such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, albacore tuna, and tilefish contain higher concentrations of mercury than others. This is because mercury is stored in the muscle tissues of fish, and when a predatory fish eats another fish, it assumes the entire body burden of mercury in the consumed fish. Since fish are less efficient at depurating than accumulating methylmercury, fish-tissue concentrations increase over time. Thus species that are high on the food chain amass body burdens of mercury that can be ten times higher than the species they consume. This process is called biomagnification. The first occurrence of widespread mercury poisoning in humans occurred this way in Minamata, Japan, now called Minamata disease. - Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease

Rejuvenating Properties of Serum

Serum is used for improving skin properties. Serum is obtained from clotted blood after centrifugation. Who collects blood? How is blood processed to obtain serum? What are the characteristics of serum? What are the functional properties of serum?

Processed serum is used in the beauty industry, mainly for rejuvenation of the skin. Why? Serum has many chemical ingredients that help towards rejuvenation of cells. It is used a lot in creams and lotions that remove wrinkles (crow's feet) and ugly folds of the face, especially when aging sets in.

Women are targeted as they cannot do without beauty creams and lotions. Women want to look young and younger, and they refuse to accept an old face, especially when the heart is young. So working women are the biggest group of people who use serum to rejuvenate their skins in order to look young. They are happy when others tell them they do look young.

Two anti-wrinkle or anti-aging compounds which are much talked about are the Veloura anti-aging serum wrinkle, and the BellaGenix anti-aging complex. Others prefer facial whiteners and softgels (to swallow) to stay young. For women, looking young means the whole world and happiness.

http://malaysiahealthnews.com/health/anti-aging

UC Davis Medical Center

These are the medical specialties and facilities:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/healthconsumers/specialties/

Minimally Invasive and Robotic Surgery:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/surgicalservices/minimally_invasive_surgery.html

UC Davis Children's Hospital

University of California, Davis campus is an ideal place to study. I had visited the campus in 1976-1980. It is a lively campus and the students are international. UC Davis then was mainly serving the agricultural technologies, much like our Universiti Pertanian Malaysia before it became Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Now UC Davis has a hospital, the UC Davis Children's Hospital.

Website:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/children/

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/UCDavisChildrensHospital

Hospital info:
http://www.facebook.com/UCDavisChildrensHospital/info

Doctor Job

http://doctorjob.com.my/

New Salary Scheme for Doctors 2013

Gaji Pensyarah Pelatih dan Pensyarah Perubatan/Pergigian di MOHE
http://docs.jpa.gov.my/docs/pp/2012/pp152012.pdf

Arabic Manuscripts in Medicine

How did medicine originate? What happened in our past? Who invented medicine? What exactly went on and what events happened such that we have medicine as it is today?

Medicine has a long origin. Primitive medicine helped saved the lives of ancient communities. The ancient doctors used whatever they had and could do to manage their patients. Word of mouth spread and communities began to learn treatments from communities which knew how to treat diseases that existed. The Indians and the Chinese may be the first in Asia to invent medical practices for their specific communities. In Egypt and the Mediterranean region, the Egyptians were the first to learn and practise medicine, which then spread to the Greeks and Romans. The Arabs and Persians learned from the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and improved the medical practices and expanded the materia medica. This led to the medicine during the Golden Ages of Islam. The Europeans were living in the Dark Ages before they came to know of Arabic or Persian medicine, also termed as Islamic medicine. Prophetic medicine is a subset of Islamic medicine.

Today, these ancient Arabic manuscripts that have survived the ages, have been gathered and made available online at: http://wamcp.bibalex.org/home. This link was made known to me by Simona Milazzo, an Italian postgraduate student who wishes to do a research on Arabic medical manuscripts. Simona Milazzo is with SOAS University of London in LinkedIn.

This online archive has been made possible by a pioneering partnership between the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Wellcome Library, and King's College London, with funding from the JISC Islamic studies programme.

JISC:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/islamdigi.aspx#

JISC Contact us:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/contactus.aspx

Bibliotheca Alexandrina:
http://www.bibalex.org/Home/Default_EN.aspx

Wellcome Library:
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/

Belimbing buluh

Pokok belimbing buluh is a big tree with a fat trunk and small leaves that are deciduous and exfoliate daily. The tree fruits every 2 weeks and requires a lot of water for bigger fruits. The fruits are called buah belimbing buluh. Buah belimbing buluh is used in Malay cuisine. The tiny fruits are approx 2 inches when ripe and are plucked while still green and firm. The exterior feels waxy and has a thin light green skin. The interior is filled with clear colourless juice, which is very sour. The fruit and juice are used by the Malays to reduce high blood pressure. The fruits are also sun dried till wrinkled dry and stored for future use in cooking. The dried fruits are used for making an Indian delicacy such as chutney but modified to make the Malay acar buah, a sweet and tasty fruit preserved that is often served with nasi minyak at Malay weddings. In Johor cuisine, buah belimbing buluh is made into masak lemak udang.

Belimbing buluh

Rumput Jarum Mas

Rumput jarum mas or the golden needle grass is used by the Malays for female health. It is also called pokok jarum mas which is a misnomer as the plant is not a tree but just a type of weed in the big school playing field or on the slopes of newly opened highways.

More at Blogtumbuhan:
http://fazlisyam.com/2011/04/30/pokok-jarum-mas/

Senduduk

Young senduduk leaves (shoots) are boiled with the florets of a male papaya tree to remove the bitterness of the papaya florets. Then the boiled florets (less bitter or bitter-free after boiling) can be eaten as ulam or made into a vegetable dish.

Senduduk shoots

Senduduk flower and berries. The berries are a good source of vitamin C for rural kids where the plant grows wild in semi-sandy soils.

Gout

Bunga betik jantan has many uses in Malay culinary and for the treatment of gout. Bunga betik jantan are the florets of a male papaya tree. The florets will not ever turn into papaya fruits, so the Malay folks make full use of it for cooking or for treating gout.

This is an old traditional Malay treatment for gout or gouty problems. I've taken it from Facebook. It was written by Zainal Sin in Blogtumbuhan. You can research it and see if there is a scientific basis for the claimed action (reduces gout). Here, gout is spelled as gaut.

Zainal Sin: Betik tua tapi belum kekuningan tetapi bijinya telah kehitaman, dipotong lebihkurang 1 - 2 inci dari tangkai, masukkan segenggam bunga betik jantan ke dalam betik tua tadi dan tambahkan secubit garam kasar. Kemudian masukkan air panas yang menggelegak. Tutup dengan keratan betik tadi dan biarkan suam. Minum tiga kali sehari. Amalkan selalu untuk pengidap gaut. Petua orang tua-tua untuk perubatan alternatif.

Other uses of bunga betik jantan include salad:

dicelor campo daun senduduk atau daun jambu batu untok hilang kan pahit....sedap...wat kerabu.

 ni bunga betik jantan...celur dia...buat ulam cicah sambal belancan..emmmm

 Sedap dibuat kerabu. Celur atau rebus dahulu bersama daun jambu batu atau tanah liat untuk menghilangkan rasa pahit.

 rebus buat ulam....ubat darah tingggi dan ubat gastrik...my mom say...

It is advised that these florets are first boiled with the shoots or young leaves of the senduduk plant to remove bitterness of the florets.

Florets of a male papaya tree. Photo from Blogtumbuhan.

More at Blogtumbuhan:  http://www.facebook.com/fazlisyamdotcom

Gout:
http://www.health24.com/Medical/Arthritis/News/Gout-may-raise-diabetes-risk-20141006

Genetic Hyperlipidaemias

There are 2 types of hyperlipidaemias, one is genetic and the other is acquired. In genetic hyperlipidaemias, one or more defective gene(s) is/are involved, either in the enzymes of synthesis of the lipoproteins or in the metabolism of lipoproteins. When one gene is involved, it is termed monogenic hyperlipidaemia. When more than one gene is involved, it is termed polygenic hyperlipidaemia. Which is worse or more severe? It depends.

In Perth, Prof. Frank van Bockxmeer has set up his lab to look at genetic hyperlipidaemias. He is no stranger to lipid research and hyperlipidaemia research or genetics research involving hyperlipidaemias. Please take a look at some of his 65 publications to date here:
https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?offset=0&query=frank+van+bockxmeer

Acamedicum

Acamedicum offers jobs in medicine, life science and related research.
http://www.acamedicum.com/announcement,a102.html
http://www.acamedicum.com/announcement,a67.html

Mycetoma

The University of Khartoum in Sudan has quite a big department on traditional medicine. There is also the Mycetoma Research Center. It has a slideshow of the traditional folk medicine for mycetoma. Among the stuffs used are beans, grass, resins, and letters written in Arabic script.

http://mycetoma.uofk.edu/
http://mycetoma.uofk.edu/archive/Image.pdf
http://mycetoma.uofk.edu/museum/index.html