use Archives

Scientists have found a surprising use for sperm

April 8, 2017 by administrator

Picture: AFP / GETTY / HENNING BAGGER

A group of German scientists have come up with an ingenious use for excess sperm… Yes, you read that correctly.

They realised that sperm is the perfect carrier for medications that need to be delivered into the female reproductive tract. After all, sperm has one job: to get to the female egg, and it does its darn best to do it. And medicines are most effective when they target the area they’re aimed at, and nowhere else.

The researchers tested this by creating a “micromotor” that drives sperm, which they call a “cargo-delivery system,” to help treat gynaecological cancer – and tested it in a lab.

The mini structure they made consisted of four arms that released the drug-loaded sperm when it bends upon reaching the tumour. The structure is coated with iron, which was used to guide and release the sperm in the right place using an external magnet.

In their paper, the researchers write:

Here, the single sperm cell serves as an active drug carrier and as driving force, taking advantage of its swimming capability.

If this all sounds a bit heavy for the sperm cell, it is. The structure only traps the head, so the sperm’s tail is free to propel ahead, but the average velocity of the sperm-motor dropped by 43 per cent.

But in their tests, 15 out of 22 of the sperm/motor couples successfully release the sperm cells.

They found a higher tumour cell-killing efficacy within the first 48 hours than the drug solution with the same dosage.

They conclude that their system may be considered in the future for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Neat.

Source: https://www.indy100.com/article/scientists-found-another-use-sperm-drugs-delivery-7673781

Turkey Erdogan and social media: use and abuse

July 20, 2016 by administrator

(DW) After using social media to publicly quash the coup, Turkey’s government is cracking down on news sites and purging state institutions again. Here is how censorship works in the country – and how Turks react to it.

After recent terrorist attacks, Turkey’s authorities have generally been restricting access to the most important social media platforms through throttling. An organization called Turkey Blocks has been monitoring this closely over eight different crises including the terrorist attacks that have occurred since September 2015. Turkey Blocks says that these restrictions can be observed for an average of 12 to 14 hours following a crisis.

After the coup attempt, the social media block was also observed:

“We were hearing the jets here in Istanbul and monitoring at the same time. It was pretty crazy,” Alp Toker, initiator and coordinator of Turkey Blocks, told DW.

However, this time, the block was way shorter than usual – a little less than two hours, according to Toker.

As soon as the restrictions were lifted, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a social media blitz, sending a call to the population via different platforms, Facebook, WhatsApp, directly to their mobile phones, and through Twitter.

This tweet, asking the population to go out to airports and public squares to resist the coup, went out to his over eight million followers:

Erdogan also contacted the TV station CNN Turk through the video chat app FaceTime. The president was shown sitting in front of a simple curtain on the chat screen of an iPhone in the hand of the news host, Hande Firat: “First my hands were shaking,” she told the German newspaper “Bild.”

“That was extraordinary,” said Alp Toker. “He usually likes his appearances to be very formal.” The improvised setting added to the sense of emergency, all while creating “another milestone in digital messaging’s growing influence in shaping world events,” wrote “The Globe and Mail” media reporter James Bradshaw.

“I have to congratulate their promptness that night. That’s probably the quickest response the government issued to anything you can imagine,” Istanbul-based social media strategist Serdar Paktin told DW.

As thousands of Erdogan supporters answered the call, they made their own use of social media. “There were remarkable Periscope live stream videos showing the extent of the damage. That influenced more people to take to the streets,” said Toker.

In comparison, “The soldiers did not have a well developed mass-communications strategy.” They simply stormed major TV stations, “the old-fashioned way,” Erkan Saka, lecturer at Bilgi University’s Communication department, told DW.

How Turks react to the blocks

The Turkish president is renowned for condemning social media when he fears that it could serve the purposes of protestors. Back in 2013, during the Gezi Park protests, Erdogan called Twitter “the worst menace to society.”

However, the Turkish president joined the platform himself in 2009 and uses it regularly – or at least, his communication team does. Erdogan himself has always declared he doesn’t have a Twitter account, according to Paktin.

The Turkish president has the same contradictory approach with Facebook. Yet Turks are “so used to these double standards that no one complains anymore,” said Saka.

“Turkey is a country of paradox, dilemma and oxymoron,” added Paktin.

Internet users in Turkey know how to circumvent the blocks using VPNs – virtual private networks – or software allowing people to surf the net anonymously, such as Tor. “Most of the Turks are quite knowledgeable,” explained Saka. He noticed that ordinary people have already started using Telegram, or Signal, which is an encrypted voice messaging service that was recommended by Edward Snowden, instead of WhatsApp.

This is what internet restrictions in Turkey look like

However, a large part of the Turkish population has not bothered finding alternative ways to access those sites, explains Toker. Many tourists looking for information on Friday night didn’t know how to circumvent the blocks either. In such cases, this is what restricted access looks like:

Turkey Blocks was the first organization to prove through concrete data that there is a form of throttling going on.

Their monitoring has also demonstrated that YouTube was added to the list of restricted sites only last month: It was down after the terrorist attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport in June. “It’s a new shift in their policy,” said Toker, adding that YouTube videos following the terror attacks in Ankara in March might have influenced this decision.

Toker also said that these blocks are “not centrally controlled, NSA-style.” Although these directives are given by the country’s Telecommunications Directorate, TiB, each internet service implements these restrictions individually, he explained.

Censorship and institutional purges post-coup attempt

After the attempted coup, the government appears to be further cracking down on freedom of expression. TiB has blocked access to some 20 Turkish websites, according to different sources. Once again, alternatives allow many Turks to access to these sites, but the drop in readership can “affect the advertising income of these sites,” Saka pointed out.

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/erdogan-and-social-media-use-and-abuse/a-19413205

SYRIA Mustafa Muslim: World powers will abandon the Kurds again after use

May 30, 2016 by administrator

According to Professor Mustafa Muslim, the great powers will abandon the Kurds again once their objectives achieved.
Mustafa Muslim, older brother Salih Muslim, co-chairman of the PYD, analyzed the situation of the Kurdish population in the region to the official Anadolu news agency.
He believes that the support of major world powers to the Kurds PYD leads to an uncertain future, recalling that already in the past, the Kurds were “used and then abandoned” by the

ABC7 Says Won’t Use Bigoted Cameraman

April 27, 2016 by administrator

ABC7 reacts to Asbarez article exposing bigoted cameraman

BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

GLENDALE—President and General manager of KABC TV sent an email to Asbarez, in which she said that the cameraman that insulted Armenians while interviewing Turkish Genocide deniers on April 24 will not be used in the future by the channel’s news operations.

“We thank the community for bringing this video to our attention. ABC7 does not condone what was said on the video and apologizes to those offended. The photographer in question was not a staff employee of ABC7 and the station has determined his services will no longer be used,” said KABC TV President and General Manager, Cheryl Kunin Fair, in an email in response to an Asbarez article exposing a cameraman hired by ABC7 Eyewitness news who called Armenians “thug-like idiots” while conducting an interview with Ergun Kirlikovali, the former president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations and another Turkish Genocide denier Nur Hostetler on April 24 during the Armenian Genocide Rally for Justice in front of the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles.

Our readers and community members deserve credit for their swift response to this insult.

ABC7 also said: “Most importantly, ABC7 believes the story that resulted from the coverage that day is fair and accurate. We would appreciate it if you watch the story and judge for yourself.”

This is where ABC7’s approach to this issue gets a bit thorny. I viewed the segment aired on Channel 7 on Saturday and was disturbed by three critical points in the coverage which the station touts as being “fair and accurate.”

The anchor Michelle Tuzee does not use the word Genocide to describe the day’s events calling it “massacres” and Eyewitness News deploys an old—and rather stale—trick by including the Turkish denialist perspective. The reporter also describes a gathering of a handful Turks at the Turkish Consulate on April 24 as a “counter protest,” without mentioning that Turkish flags that were propped up outnumbered the Turkish protesters.

This begs the question: In their quest for fairness and accuracy, would ABC7 invite a Holocaust denier on its air when covering the Jewish Holocaust?

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region and the Armenian Youth Federation framed the issue properly, by thanking ABC7 for its prompt response to the insult, but also pointing out that featuring Armenian Genocide deniers on its air is not “fair” coverage of the issue.

“The Armenian National Committee of America -Western Region and the Armenian Youth Federation – Western US commend ABC7 for taking the right first step in committing to no longer use the services of the cameraman who made the bigoted anti-Armenian comments. However, we remain outraged after learning that the station believes providing a genocide denier a platform in media is fair and accurate reporting,” said the statement, which was posted on their respective Facebook and other social media pages.

“Just like Nazis would not be given the platform in media coverage of a Holocaust commemoration event, the same standards must be applied to the Armenian Genocide. ABC 7 is headquartered in Glendale, CA where over 95,000 Armenians who are descendants of Genocide survivors live and to highlight the perpetrator is to condone its actions. The utter lack of sensitivity toward such a large segment of the community is deeply concerning to us, and we expect ABC7 to take appropriate measures to address and rectify this situation. The ANCA-WR and the AYF-WR request an immediate meeting with the station leadership to further discuss this issue. We look forward to your prompt response,” concluded the statement.

In our quest for fairness and accuracy we return to Ergun Kirlikovali, whose video exposed the bigoted cameraman, and let his actions and words speak for themselves.

On Tuesday he shared the Asbarez story on his Facebook page and included a rant, in which he defended the cameraman, accused Asbarez of employing “Armenian pressure tactics designed to trample upon the free-speech-rights of Americans,” and said that he and his fellow demonstrators on Sunday “outclassed” the “vulgar and violent behavior of some 60,000 Armenians,” urging Armenians “to choose reasoned debate over vandalism, violence and thuggery.”

Azerbaijan uses tank for first time since ceasefire signing, NKR Defense Army soldier killed by sniper bullet

December 9, 2015 by administrator

The situation on the frontline remains tense. It is the first time since the signing of the ceasefire that Azerbaijani troops used a tank opening fire at military positions of Defense Army of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in the southern direction of the line of contact between the armed forces of Karabakh and Azerbaijan, according to the press service of NKR Defense Army.

On December 8 and the night of December 9 the Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire about 180 times on the line of contact.

During that period Azerbaijani frontline units fired over 1,500 shots at Armenian positions from small arms of various calibers, 60mm (101 shells), 82mm (193 shells) and 120mm (35 shells) mortars, and RPG-7 (3 shells) and AGS-17 (27 shells) grenade launchers.

Azerbaijan also used a Turkish-made TR-107 rocket launcher (17 shells) and a tank (5 shells).
A contract serviceman of NKR Defense Army, 24-year-old Garik Gurgeni Avanesyan, died from a gunshot wound after a bullet was fired from a large-caliber sniper rifle from the Azerbaijani side. The incident happened around 9:10 pm December 8 in a military unit located in the eastern direction of the line of contact. An investigation is underway. NKR Defense Ministry expressed condolences to the family, friends and fellow soldiers of Garik Avanesyan.

NKR Defense Ministry said that the destabilizing actions of Azerbaijan will not go without a response and the consequences of the situation will be grave and irreversible.