Archive for year: 2014

Unfortunately, most of us have seen loved ones who have suffered the effects of a brain abnormalities such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia. According to the W.H.O. (World Health Organization) we spend $400 billion per year on mental health patients, half of which goes solely to those plagued by Alzheimer’s. In other countries such as China, as many as 975,000 citizens die each year from brain trauma, and despite health insurance coverage these patients cannot escape the costs of healthcare. All signs point to global cooperation to dramatically downsize the devastating effects of brain disease worldwide.
Leaders from around the world are currently working toward a solution. President Obama added $100 million to FY14 and doubled that amount for the following years budget as part of the BRAIN initiative. This is great news for the NIH, DARPA, and NSF who now have new funding for increased scientific brain research. The new Prime Minister of Australia also added to Australia’s federal budget for dementia patients to the amount of $200 million. Budgets are expanding for an important reason, seeing as understanding human brain function is one of the greatest challenges we face in science today.
Partnering organizations such as SBMT (Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics) and the E.U. Human Brain Project provide great strides into translational science and now Australia will be hosting the 2014 Group of 20 developing nations. SBMT is the world’s leader in studies of translational neuroscience. As stated by Dr. Sean Hill, (Co-Director of Informatics Research at E.U. Human Brain Mapping Project) “Global collaboration is key to advancing neuroscience and understanding genes to cognition.”  (Www.dddmag.com)
So what does this mean for our future? Well if we can globally harmonize our policies pertaining to neurological disorders and increase the commercialization of effective therapeutics across the globe then we might begin to see big changes in brain wellness as a whole. Mapping changes in the progression of brain diseases would also be a useful way of turning Big Data into assessable future predictions and possible cures when tracking symptoms and digression in patients with these major disorders. Results from predictive analytics could be one key factor in determining future cures for our planet. Tools such as “the Cloud” that can store excessive amounts of data are already being used by some medical facilities right now. These high-tech tools will begin to make great changes in the way we are able to turn stored data into predictions. What an amazing way to change the world of medicine and disease. (2014 dddmag.com)

With the recent launch of NASA’s OCO-2 craft, we can see new promises of reducing global warming’s harmful effects on the horizon. This Orbiting Carbon Observatory is NASA’s lone successful space craft responsible for tracking the atmosphere’s carbon activity. The importance of this project is to begin analyzing data collected from OCO-2 as well as ground stations and air craft or other satellites. This data will answer major questions posed around the increasingly large amounts of carbon in the air. Deforestation and every day human habits are causing most of this pollution.
The second day in July this year, NASA launched its new vessel from the Vandenberg Air Force Base to begin its life monitoring “sinks” in geography that naturally suck carbon out of the earth’s atmosphere for later use. These are very significant new sets of data points to analyze which may help scientists on this job to predict how much damage will be done to our atmosphere prior to it happening. Right now NASA estimates that 40 billion tons of Co2 are launched into the air by environmental contributors annually. Michael Gunson is the brilliant scientist behind this assignment at the Jet Propulsion Lab. He said, “Data from this mission will improve the accuracy of global climate change predictions.”
So how can these millions of data points be utilized? Pushgraph posses the technology to assess and create visualizations in real-time, featuring predictive analytics for Big Data problems, which occur when large  entities collect too much information and lack a way to use it for predicting trends or preventing downfalls in business. The complex system of our earth’s atmospheric gasses can be charted with input from OCO-2. Combining technology with science can amplify discovery of solutions for earth’s pending dilemmas. Suppose we collect all of OCO-2’s useful data and analyze the potential future trends of carbon sinks and emissions so we can create a more balanced atmosphere in the future? With the cutting edge technology we possess to analyze and store Big Data, we have all the more reason to use data to achieve a more hopeful perspective when it comes to our ever-changing planet.                                      (2014 Science.NASA.gov).

Focusing our attention  on who eats what could be one of the more important topics this country has seen lately. Health has always been at the top of our daily list but it has become a priority again as we look at different options for nutrition. Some countries are now utilizing their oat and barley sources to improve public health instead of using those grains for livestock. Evolution toward increased longevity is just around the corner thanks to studies pinpointing ways to improve nutritional content in our food sources. According to the USDA, we are developing more efficient wet and dry methods to transform healthy food resources such as oats and barley into affordable ingredients marketable to the public as human food instead of just animal feed. Other new and improved feed options are currently being tested in the U.K. ‘Super-dosing’ is a term coined for the adding of the enzyme Phytase to poultry diets and may bring great savings to consumers, farmers, and nutritional benefits to broiler chicks. Current methods of feed include phosphorus, which is extremely expensive and is always bonded to other elements, making it harder to work with. Now, a study led by Nottingham Trent University has found that by adding high levels of Phytase to rapeseed meal (a cheap home-grown protein source) is just as nutritious as higher costing soybeans which is imported from us, here in the U.S. So in turn, a change in food means a change in feed which leads us to an overall improvement in our economy due to lessened health costs and smaller feed bills.  Future gains could be charted and easily followed with the input of data from the contributors of this project. We can change the way we eat as well as the way our food sources eat by taking better care of how we utilize resources. All it takes is a bit of global collaboration. (2014 Phys.org)