This Biotech Discovery Means You’ll Never Need a Painful Flu Shot Again

Dissolving Needle Technology - MicroHyala

Diseases are infectious and are the major cause of death all over the world and hence the need of safe and effective vaccines is of great importance. Though the vaccinations are given with subcutaneous or intramuscular injection that has been administered by medical personnel having technical skills, it is also accompanied with the risk of needle related disease as well as injuries.

Besides this antigen solution need cold chain storage as well as transportation system and hence the development of vaccine which could be easy to use and administered, together with superior in stability of formulations is essentially important.Getting vaccinated is now no longer a painful ordeal since a group of researchers in Japan have tested a new `dissolving needle’ which seems to be a painless patch that one can stick to the arm and which tends to work well.

The dissolving needle technology is known as MicroHyala. Scientists have created a new micro needle patch that is made of dissolvable substance which makes flu vaccination safer, easier and painless by eliminating needle connected risks of injuries and diseases. Flu vaccination are delivered utilising micro needles which dissolve in the skin and protects a person against infection much better than the standard needle delivered vaccine according to researchers.

Readily Adaptable for General Practical Use

Transcutaneous microneedle delivery device that meets the requirements of the only application’ vaccination system, has been developed. The technique is readily adaptable for general practical use especially in developing countries with inadequate public health resources.

However microneedles which are made of metal, stainless steel or silicon tend to pose risks of fractures, with fragments left in the skin. Hence the development of a dissolving microneedle patch has been fabricated from hyaluronic acid a component of skin tissue. Researcher from Osaka University in Japan state that their dissolvable patch which is the only vaccination system of its kind tends to make vaccination less painful. Microneedles on MicroHyala tend to penetrate the stratum corneum that acts as a physical barrier on the outer layer of the skin and are dissolved by water in the skin.

The MicroHyala efficiently delivers the various substances which can be loaded in the microneedles to ample immune-competent cells like Langerhans cells, dermal dendritic cells and keratinocytes in the epidermis as well as dermis beneath the stratum corneum. They found that when they used the MicroHyala in delivering the flu vaccination, it was quite effective as the standard needles.

The New Microneedle Patch

Most of the vaccinations are administered under the skin or into the muscle with the use of needles. Though this is an effective method in delivering a vaccination, it needs medical personnel with technical skills, bringing about the risk of needle related diseases and injuries.The new microneedle patch is made of dissolvable material which eliminates the needle connected risks.

It is easy to use without the requirement of trained medical professionals and makes it appropriate for use in developing countries, especially where healthcare means tends to be limited. Professor Shinsaku Nakagawa, one of the authors of the study from Osaka University states the `their novel transcutaneous vaccination using a dissolving microneedle patch is the only application vaccination system which is readily adaptable for widespread practical use’.

He further added that since the new patch is easy to use, they believe that it will be particularly effective in supporting vaccination in the developing countries.MicroHyala, the new micronneedle patch is dissolvable in water and the miniature needles are made of hyaluronic acid which is a naturally occurring material which cushions the joints. When a patch is applied like a plaster, the needles tend to pierce the top layer of the skin and dissolve into the body taking the vaccine with them.

Designed to Dissolve in the Skin

The new system was compared by the researchers with the traditional needle delivery by vaccinating two groups of people against three strains of influenza namely A/HINI, A/H3N2 and B. There was no sign of any bad reaction to the vaccine to any of the subjects, indicating that it is safe to be used in humans. The patch also seemed effective wherein the people, who were given the vaccine using the micro needles, had an immune reaction which was equal or stronger than those that were injected with the vaccine. Nakagawa said that they were excited to see that their new micro needle patch was effective as the needle delivered flu vaccine and in some cases it was even more effective.

 The earlier research had assessed the use of micro needles made of silicon or metal though they were not considered to be safe. The materials used for micro needles also tend to run the risk of breaking off in the skin and could leave tiny fragments behind. With the new dissolvable patch this risk is eradicated since the microneedles have been designed to dissolve in the skin.

Nakagawa states that they have shown that the patch tends to be safe and works well. Besides this, it is also painless as well as easy for non-trained individuals to use it and that it could bring about a major change in the way vaccine is administered globally. The research had been published in the journal Biomaterials – SAR AKJ SAR.

Earth Heading For ‘Mini Ice Age’ Within 15 Years

Prediction – Earth to Face a New `Mini Ice Age’

Scientist predict that the Earth would face a new `mini ice age’ in the next 15 years which would cause severe cold winters during which rivers like the Thames may tend to freeze. As Antarctic Vortex grips Australia, solar researchers from the University of Northumbria in UK state that solar activity is set to drop by 60 percent by 2030.

Professor Valentina Zharkova, research head, informed that the fluid movements in the Sun, which is believed to create 11 year cycles in the weather would cancel each other out causing a dramatic temperature drop which would lead to a weather phenomenon known as a `mini ice age which had earlier hit between 1645 and 1715. The discoveries are established on new model that the scientist believes produces `unprecedentedly accurate prediction of irregularities’, within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat.

According to Professor Zharkova, he states that between the cycle 2030 and around 2040, two waves will mirror each other exactly, peaking at the same time though in opposite hemispheres of the sun. Their interaction would be disruptive or they will nearly cancel each other and predicts that this would lead to the properties of a `Maunder Minimum’.

Maunder Minimum – Europe/North America Experienced Cold Winters (1645-1715)

Maunder Minimum was the name that was given when Europe and North America had experienced very cold winters, during the period between 1645 and 1715 and during that time the Thames River in England was said to be frozen over. Research findings were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales and also published in the papers of the Royal Astronomical Society.

This surprising news has been given as the Antarctic Vortex whirled into eastern Australia bringing about a freak phenomenon known as thunder-snow. The tropical style thunderstorms, accompanied by heavy snowfalls thundered through the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney and town as far as Orange recently. Several areas of the country are expecting destructive winds, which could reach blizzard intensity of 90km/h while the snow tends to continue to fall and the big freeze begins to bite.

Snow that falls as the big freeze tend to start to affect the nation’s south east where sub-zero temperature are predicted in some places for much of the coming week. According to the Bureau Meteorology, in the coming days, it is said that strong cold front with low to the south would be moving through the state, bringing in cold vigorous, westerly winds.

Sun’s Activity Differs – Cycle of 10 to 12 Years

Scientists had first discovered that the sun’s activity differs over a cycle of 10 to 12 years in 1843. Variations within that cycle became difficult to predict though several solar physicists were aware that the fluctuation were due to a dynamo of moving fluid deep within the sun. Professor Zharkova’s team found that adding a second dynamo near the surface of the sun created a far more accurate model.

They found magnetic waves in two various layers of the sun’s interior that varied between the northern and the southern hemispheres of the sun.According to Professor Zharkova, on combining both waves together and comparing the real data for the current solar cycle, they observed that the predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent. The magnetic wave patterns indicated that there would be few sunspots in the next two solar cycles. Cycle 25 that peaks in 2022 and Cycle 26, between 2030 and 2040 will be having both a significant reduction in solar activity.

Facebook’s New Video Ad Feature Could Worry Google

These days Facebook is testing its new video advertising feature, which can be big challenge for the dominance of YouTube in the market of digital video advertising. On this project Facebook is working with selected media companies and video creators such as; Funny or Die and NBA.

It is expected that soon Facebook users will see a new section in their newsfeed known as "Suggested Videos”. And whenever users will click on the video, so pop-up will appear with recommended videos and scrolling stream, however; all the recommended videos will be the outcome of previous videos, which you may will watch in your newsfeed.

According to Facebook officials, “We are planning to split our revenue from video advertising as; 45 per cent will go to our social network and remaining 55 per will cent will go with video creator” (owner of content advertisement). As per the statement of a Facebook spokesperson, “Currently, we are running the test process for new video advertising feature, as it will help the users to discover more videos with similar choices. We are running a monetization test in suggested videos where we will show video advertisement in feed-style and share revenue with some of the media companies and video creators”. Currently, project is being tested for the people who are suing an iPhone in America.

Big challenge for Google: 

Currently Google’s YouTube is dominating on the digital video advertising market, but in future, Facebook’s new video advertising feature could be big challenge for Google because this social networking site has great number of followers. According to Facebook strategy, users will see only one advertisement for three videos. And in that particular case, 55 per cent revenue will split between three video creators and it will depend that for how much time you have watched their videos. According to tech experts, Facebook will focus on the news-driven shares as core strength, however; YouTube has strong search engine and channel based strategy.

However; its well known fact that YouTube has helped many stars to get dedicated number of followers and to watch latest clips you can easily switch to YouTube stars' page, but Facebook doesn’t have these kinds of pages.

Game changing payout structure: 

According to Richard Broughton, Research director of Ampere Analysis, “It’s true that Facbook’s pay-out structure is bit complex, but it’s good enough to attract content partners”. The more he added that Facebook is offering incentive for the content creators, if they will put their content on this social networking site and because of this content creators will create more content for this platform. It is expected that in 2015, video views will exceed two trillion, which is two-thirds of YouTube’s total views for same period, as per Ampere Analysis, which emphasis the social media advertisements.

From past two years Facebook is making big moves and now Facebook is testing on the video experience. Now Facebook is planning to show more content including auto-playing videos in newsfeed as it has one billion daily views in September 2014 and four billion in April 2015.

In Tests, Yahoo Uses Google to Power Search Results and Ads

Presently, Yahoo is already in the deal of 10 years to use Microsoft's Bing to power its search results and due to that this software giant is not happy as Google is entering in its territory.

To work together, Yahoo and Google is testing:

According to the reports of New York Times, Yahoo and Google are entering into partnership to test the Google powered search results and search ads for Yahoo. However; the discovery was first time reported by Aaron Wall of, owner of SEO Book (One of the best company in industry). The more he added that this arrangement is only for the test and may be in future it will not convert into actual deal. According to Yahoo spokeswoman, “We are working together to provide the best experiences to our users and it’s our regular work to run small test or pilot projects with different partners to power up the search results for users benefit. The more she added that at this time we don’t have anything more to share.

Microsoft and Google didn’t respond immediately:

Google is the leading and its most popular search engine as it has more than 71 per cent market share in all over the world, as per the reports of NetMarketShare. However; in this list Yahoo lead by Marissa Mayer, former Google executive is at the third position with 9.6 per cent share in all over the world and Microsoft powered Bing search engine is at second position with 10 per cent market share. Only in US Google has more than 64.40 per cent share in search market, followed by Bing with 20.20 per cent and Yahoo with 12.70 per cent market share in search industry, as per the latest reports of ComScore.

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo have seen the same search results in her career earlier when she was in Google and due to that she signaled that now our company is focusing on powering up the Yahoo search engines to cover more market share. But any search deal between Yahoo and Google will definitely come under antitrust scrutiny because European Commission has already antitrust pending cases about Google’s dominant position. However; earlier in April 2015, Yahoo and Microsoft have announced the agreement, which will provide flexibility to yahoo to enhance the search experience of users across multiple devices such as; mobile, tablets, and desktops. Whereas; the key component of agreement was that yahoo is free to get in partnership with other companies to power up its own search platforms.

In past, Microsoft has lost few important deals including recent deal with Facebook as in December 2014, Facebook announced that they have ended the deal with Bing to provide web search results through Bing because now we are focusing on helping the users to find what people are sharing on their walls through our Facebook search box. According to tech experts, its clear indication that Google is trying to enter in the Microsoft's territory.

Team Leads Google Expedition to Create 'Internet of Things' Technology

Google had given the first and fore most major Internet of Things gadget in the form of S Watch just a few years back. Now it is all set to bring great revolution in this segment by offering funding support to the unique expeditions by a team of different universities in creating a new robust platform for Internet of Things devices.

Under this great initiative, Carnegie Mellon University will be turning its university into a living laboratory. The aim of this expedition is to create a new and more novel robust platform, which will greatly improve the communication between the internet-connected devices and people.

Projects aims at improving the connectivity issues

The aim of this project is to radically enhance the human to human as well as human to computer interaction while bringing in a large scale deployment of Internet of things technology. There is also a focus upon ensuring privacy as well as improvement of features over time, which will enable the users to design application as per their needs and requirements for daily usage.

Carnegie Mellon University is at the helm of this project and it will be working in close with other prominent universities namely Cornell, Illinois, Standford and Google to create a new platform called GIoTTO to support IoT applications.

The initial plan is to focus on sensors, which are inexpensive in nature and offer easier deployment in GIoTTO. New middlewares will be developed to facilitate app development along with addressing privacy concerns by efficiently managing privacy and security issues. Most importantly new tools will be made available to the end users in order to enable them to develop their own IoT experiences.

Google funding this project to create a more consistent platform

Google believes in bringing collaboration of best of minds and ideas spread across universities in order to accelerate the innovation and IoT adoption on larger scale. Google will be initially providing $500,000 to Carnegie Mellon University for launching the expedition. The privacy and security related aspects will be taken by second CMU team, which will be led by Computer Science Professor Norman Sadeh.

Sadeh has stated that he will be demonstrating the use of various personalized privacy assistants, which will help users in configuring the privacy settings in order to retain control over their data.

The future prospects of this expedition

Internet of Things brings in a lot of promises which even appear to be futuristic at the moment but their wide scale adoption and deployment will bring a whole new level of experience for the end users. Sensors embedded in the building and everyday objects can eventually help in creating smart environments. CMU researchers had created Snap2It, it is a very unique system which allows the users to link the printer or projector by simply taking a smartphone photo of it.

Google’s aim here is to fulfill the IoT’s promise and potential by creating such complete system of interoperable IoT technology in a better manner through preserving privacy and ensuring security at the same time.