Skin Colour and Tanning

SKIN TAN

Have you ever wondered how your skin gets a nice tan after a week of frolicking in the sun-kissed beaches and how it fades in a month?
Indian biologists now claim to know the answer, which may lead to the development of a therapy against leprosy. Besides, it would strengthen the ongoing battle against skin cancer. “Our aim would be to research on a new therapy for leprosy, exploiting the pathway we found,” Rajesh S Gokhale, director of Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, which led the study, told Deccan Herald.

One of the indications of leprosy is white patches on the skin, which happens when cells producing skin pigment melanin stop functioning. This is where the Indian team wants to chip in. Human skin gets its characteristic colour from melanin, packed in small granules that serve as soldiers shielding the DNA from harmful rays of the sun.

It is required in the body because too much sun can cause sunburn and cancer.

Whenever our body is exposed to the sun, these granules increase in number, strengthening the protective shield. It results in skin tanning. The tan remains for 28 days after which the skin gets back its colour. 

“Our study shows a protein named interferon-gamma is a crucial factor secreted by immune cells that maintains these checks and balances in human skin. It helps bring back pigmentation to a normal state,” said Gokhale. The research findings were published in the January 28 issue of “Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences”.

The IGIB team, along with researchers from National Institute of Immunology, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital here, besides National Chemical Laboratory, Pune found that the interferon pathway was involved in maintaining pigmentation balance in the skin. 

Yoga Meditation Benefit Research

Though for different reasons (300 Billion Loss per annum due to Stress and Desease); scientists are showing conclusive proof over its efficacy. 

London: 

Scientists are getting close to proving what yogis have held to be true for centuries—yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease.

John Denninger, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, is leading a five-year study on how the ancient practices affect genes and brain activity in the chronically stressed. His latest work follows a study he and others published earlier this year showing how so-called mind-body techniques can switch on and off some genes linked to stress and immune function.

While hundreds of studies have been conducted on the mental health benefits of yoga and meditation, they have tended to rely on blunt tools like participant questionnaires, as well as heart rate and blood pressure monitoring. Only recently have neuro-imaging and genomics technology used in Denninger’s latest studies allowed scientists to measure physiological changes in greater detail.

“There is a true biological effect,” said Denninger, director of research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of Harvard Medical School’s teaching hospitals. “The kinds of things that happen when you meditate do have effects throughout the body, not just in the brain.”

The government-funded study may persuade more doctors to try an alternative route for tackling the source of a myriad of modern ailments. Stress-induced conditions can include everything from hypertension and infertility to depression and even the aging process. They account for 60-90% of doctor’s visits in the US, according to the Benson-Henry Institute. The World Health Organization estimates stress costs US companies at least $300 billion a year through absenteeism, turn-over and low productivity.

Seinfeld, Murdoch

The science is advancing alongside a budding mindfulness movement, which includes meditation devotees such as Bill George, board member of Goldman Sachs Group and Exxon Mobil Corp., and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch recently revealed on Twitter that he is giving meditation a try.

As a psychiatrist specializing in depression, Denninger said he was attracted to mind-body medicine, pioneered in the late 1960s by Harvard professor Herbert Benson, as a possible way to prevent the onset of depression through stress reduction. While treatment with pharmaceuticals is still essential, he sees yoga and meditation as useful additions to his medical arsenal.

Exchange programme

It’s an interest that dates back to an exchange programme he attended in China the summer before entering Harvard as an undergraduate student. At Hangzhou University, he trained with a tai chi master every morning for three weeks.

“By the end of my time there, I had gotten through my thick teenage skull that there was something very important about the breath and about inhabiting the present moment, he said. I’ve carried that with me since then.”

His current study, to conclude in 2015 with about $3.3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, tracks 210 healthy subjects with high levels of reported chronic stress for six months. They are divided in three groups.

One group with 70 participants perform a form of yoga known as Kundalini, another 70 meditate and the rest listen to stress education audiobooks, all for 20 minutes a day at home. Kundalini is a form of yoga that incorporates meditation, breathing exercises and the singing of mantras in addition to postures. Denninger said it was chosen for the study because of its strong meditation component.

Participants come into the lab for weekly instruction for two months, followed by three sessions where they answer questionnaires, give blood samples used for genomic analysis and undergo neuro-imaging tests.

‘Immortality enzyme’

Unlike earlier studies, this one is the first to focus on participants with high levels of stress. The study published in May in the medical journal PloS One showed that one session of relaxation-response practice was enough to enhance the expression of genes involved in energy metabolism and insulin secretion and reduce expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and stress. There was an effect even among novices who had never practiced before.

Harvard isn’t the only place where scientists have started examining the biology behind yoga.

In a study published last year, scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn found that 12 minutes of daily yoga meditation for eight weeks increased telomerase activity by 43%, suggesting an improvement in stress-induced aging. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, shared the Nobel medicine prize in 2009 with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for research on the telomerase immortality enzyme, which slows the cellular aging process.

Build resilience

Not all patients will be able to stick to a daily regimen of exercise and relaxation. Nor should they have to, according to Denninger and others. Simply knowing breath-management techniques and having a better understanding of stress can help build resilience.

“A certain amount of stress can be helpful,” said Sophia Dunn, a clinical psychotherapist who trained at King’s College London. “Yoga and meditation are tools for enabling us to swim in difficult waters.” Bloomberg

Petrol Diesel Pumping tips

Petrol Diesel Pumping tips

(DO NOT DONATE FUEL to Service Stations)

Recently I came across a very useful tip. 

I was surprised to know it but had a doubt so I talked to one of the pump technicians and he too accepted it as a fact. 

1) Do not fill up the tank to the brim, with automated pumps with sensors fitted to the nozzles.

I think apart from providing space for the gas generated inside the petrol tank this is yet another reason why we fill the tank to the brim. Many of us are not aware that the petrol kiosk pump has a return pipe-line (in Pink). When the petrol tank (in the car) reaches full level, there is a mechanism to trigger off the pump latch and at the same time a return-valve is opened (at the top of the pump station) to allow excess petrol to flow back into the pump. But the return petrol has already pass through the meter, meaning you are donating the petrol back to the Oil Dealer. 

2) Fill up, when it is cold.

Also only fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the petrol, when it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your liter is not exactly a liter. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. 

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps. 

3) For Self Servicing pumps, slow pumping maximises benefit by reducing Vapours.

 

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money. 

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your Petrol tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more Petrol you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. petrol storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the Petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every litre is actually the exact amount. 

4) Do not fuel, if the storage tank is being filled up - to avoid dirt

Another reminder, if there is a petrol truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy Petrol, DO NOT fill up; most likely the petrol is being stirred up as the Petrol is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom. 

To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Petrol buyers. It's really simple to do.