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Direct Flow Medical Announces Fifth Patent Issuance Of Their Unique Percutaneous Aortic Valve Technology
Direct Flow Medical, Inc. a privately held, emerging medical device Company developing a next generation, minimally invasive implant to treat patients with heart valve disease announced the issuance of its 5th patent on their Percutaneous Aortic Valve (PAV) Technology. The patent (USP# 7,534,259) entitled: "Nonstented Heart Valves with Formed in situ Support" provides further protection for this second generation PAV device.
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FDA: New Public Health Regulation To Improve Egg Safety And Reduce Salmonella Illnesses
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a regulation expected to prevent each year 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and 30 deaths caused by consumption of eggs contaminated with the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis.
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Study Shows Teen Contraception Use Declining, Level Of Sexual Activity Unchanged
After years of declining teenage pregnancy rates and improved teen contraception use during the 1990s and early 2000s, the trends appeared to have flattened or even reversed among some groups of teens in recent years, according to a study from Columbia University"s Mailman School of Public Health and the Guttmacher Institute, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Researchers found that from 2003 to 2007, teens" contraceptive use declined by 10%, while their level of sexual activity did not change. The decrease in contraceptive use was particularly prevalent among black teens. The figures take into account the rate of contraception use as well as the types of contraceptives used, as methods vary in effectiveness. Teen condom use leveled off and in some cases declined, according to the study. The study also reported that the teen birth rate increased by 5% from 2005 to 2007. According to the study"s authors, the findings suggest a link between declining teen contraception use and the rise in abstinence-only education during former President George W. Bush"s administration. President Obama"s fiscal year 2010 budget proposal calls for redirecting some abstinence-only funds toward increased comprehensive sex education, the Monitor reports. In addition to the effects of abstinence-only sex education, the decline in condom use also could be tied to lessening concern about sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. A shift in the teen population to include a higher number of Hispanics -- who have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and birth -- also could contribute to the findings. Laura Lindberg, one of the study"s authors and a senior research associate at Guttmacher, said, "In the end, this story is really about the loss of momentum." She added that although the statistical changes are small, "they raise concern about what the next few years will bring in this country." Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, noted that the proportion of births to unmarried women, particularly among women ages 20 to 24, also is on the upswing (Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor, 6/18).
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Brain Energy Use Key To Understanding Consciousness, Yale Researchers Find

High levels of brain energy are required to maintain consciousness, a finding which suggests a new way to understand the properties of this still mysterious state of being, Yale University researchers report. At its simplest, consciousness can be defined as the ability to respond meaningfully to external stimuli. Most studies of consciousness have used imaging technology to try to pinpoint areas of brain activity during tasks such as memorization or problem solving. There are two problems with such an approach, said Robert G. Shulman, Sterling Professor Emeritus of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale and lead author of the paper, to be published this week in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. First, functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that many areas of the brain, not just one or two, are recruited during tasks such as memory tests and are scant help in studying the state of being conscious. Second, the amount of energy used in such tasks is minute, about one percent of baseline energy available to the brain. "Neuroimaging has been looking at the tip of the iceberg," Shulman said. "We looked at the rest of the iceberg." What is the other 99 percent of energy consumption doing? Shulman and colleagues have proposed that it is needed to maintain a person in a state of consciousness. Heavily anesthetized people are known to show approximately 50 percent reductions in cerebral energy consumption. When the paws of lightly anesthetized rats with rather high baseline energy levels were stroked, fMRI signals were received in the sensory cortex and in many other areas of the brain. In heavily anesthetized rats the signal stopped at the sensory cortex. Both the total energy and the fMRI signals changed when the person or animal lost consciousness. "What we propose is that a conscious person requires a high level of brain energy," Shulman said. The finding has profound implications for our understanding of the connection between the brain and consciousness, Shulman said. "You can think of consciousness not as a property of the brain, but of the person." Anesthesiologists consider a person to be in a behavioral state of consciousness when he or she can respond to simple stimuli. Properties of this state, such as the high energy and the delocalized fMRI signals, allow the person to perform the interconnected activities that make up our everyday lives. Shulman suggests that these more energetic properties of the brain support human behavior and should be considered when interpreting the much weaker signals that are typically recorded during fMRI studies. Other Yale researchers involved in the study are professors Fahmeed Hyder and Douglas L. Rothman. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Yale University


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