ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) - The driving bass rhythm of rap music can be harnessed to power a new type of miniature medical sensor designed to be implanted in the body. Music within a certain range of frequencies, from 200-500 hertz, causes the cantilever to vibrate, generating electricity and storing a charge in a capacitor, said Babak Ziaie, a Purdue University professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering. "The music reaches the correct frequency only at certain times, for example, when there is a strong bass component," he said. "The acoustic energy from the music can pass through body tissue, causing the cantilever to vibrate." When the frequency falls outside of the proper range, the cantilever stops vibrating, automatically sending the electrical charge to the sensor, which takes a pressure reading and transmits data as radio signals. Because the frequency is continually changing according to the rhythm of a musical composition, the sensor can be induced to repeatedly alternate intervals of storing charge and transmitting data. "You would only need to do this for a couple of minutes every hour or so to monitor either blood pressure or pressure of urine in the bladder," Ziaie said.

Following one round of inoculation with the vaccines ducks were completely protected when challenged with a lethal dose of the H5N1 virus. "The vaccines provided complete protection against the lethal challenge of the homologous and heterologous H5N1 avian influenza A virus with no evidence of morbidity, mortality, or shedding of the challenge virus," say the researchers. "The complete protection offered by these vaccines will be useful for reducing the shedding of H5N1 avian influenza A viruses among vaccinated agricultural avian populations." The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Society for Microbiology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. .

For the first time, parasitologists from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) have gathered data on the occurrence of the parasitic worm and have modelled the worldwide distribution of individual species in the ocean. The resulting maps not only enable statements to be made on the occurrence and migration behaviour of certain hosts of the parasites, such as Baleen or toothed whales, but also provide conclusions on the risk of human infection. The result of the different data sets is a model that demonstrates the distribution of the individual Anisakis species in the various oceans of the world. This means that the distribution and migration behaviour of each whale host can be derived from the model of parasite occurrence. "By means of our molecular analyses and the model based upon them we can draw detailed conclusions about the occurrence of whale species in very specific areas and thus make statements with regard to the size of their population and stock," says Klimpel. For example, the researchers expect that some of the distribution area boundaries of the whales can be examined by means of the parasite data.

The study, conducted at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, examined 23 years of water quality data and concluded that significant trends in acidity will have mixed impacts on juvenile oyster growth, with some areas becoming more acidic and others more alkaline. "The regional changes in acidity revealed in our analysis are greater than what could be caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide alone," said lead author Dr. George Waldbusser of Oregon State University. "We are seeing a complex pattern of increasing acidity in the more saline regions of the Bay, but the opposite trend of decreasing acidity in the less saline waters of the Bay." "Current average pH values in intermediate salinity waters of the Chesapeake Bay were found in our laboratory studies to decrease rates of shell formation leading to thinner shells of our native oyster," said marine biologist Dr. The respiration of this phytoplankton organic material results in the release of the same carbon dioxide taken up by the phytoplankton, which remains dissolved in the water making it significantly more acidic.

The scientists have examined the effects of man-made carbon dioxide under business-as-usual emissions and provide projections of the magnitude, time scale, and regional extent of changes in underwater acoustics resulting from ocean acidification. This is the reason why changes in seawater pH affect ocean acoustics. "If we continue to emit carbon dioxide at business-as-usual rates, the pH of surface seawater will drop by 0.6 units by the year 2100. For example, the middle C of the piano is tuned to 261.6 Hz; in the ocean, sound around this frequency is produced by natural phenomena such as rain, wind, and waves), by marine mammals, and by human activities such as construction, shipping, and use of sonar systems. "Most people know that when they turn on the air conditioner or drive a vehicle, they emit carbon dioxide, which causes climate change and ocean acidification. As a result, ocean acidification may not only affect organisms at the bottom of the food chain by reducing calcification in plankton and corals, but also higher trophic level species, such as marine mammals by lowering sound absorption in the ocean.