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Helium discovery a 'game-changer'.

Scientists have discovered a large helium gas field in Tanzania. With world supplies running out, the find is a "game-changer", say geologists at Durham and Oxford universities. Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecraft, telescopes and radiation monitors. The precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling.Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. They say resources in just one part of the Rift valley are enough to fill more than a million medical MRI scanners. Prof Chris Ballentine, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: "This is a game-changer for the future security of society's helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away."Dr Pete Barry added: 'We can apply this same strategy to other parts of the world with a similar geological history to find new helium resources. Helium is formed by the slow and steady radioactive decay of terrestrial rock. However, global supplies are running low, with warnings that supplies cannot be guaranteed in the long term. Prof Jon Gluyas, of the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, who collaborated on the project, said the price of helium had gone up 500% in the last 15 years. "Helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe but it's exceedingly rare on Earth," Prof Gluyas told BBC News. "Moreover, any helium that you do find if you're not careful, will escape, just like a party balloon it rises and rises in the atmosphere and eventually escapes the Earth's gravity altogether. "It's used in a whole array of key instrumentation, particularly medical MRI scanning and so on, and so we have to keep finding more." The researchers say volcanic activity in the Rift Valley releases helium buried in ancient rocks, which rises up and becomes trapped in shallower gas fields.The amount of helium is estimated at more than 54 billion cubic feet - which could potentially meet global demand for several years. The next step is to find the best place to drill to exploit the gas and bring it to the surface. Helium is used for 1)It is used in the space industry to keep satellite instruments cool, to clean out rocket engines and was used to cool the liquid oxygen and hydrogen that powered the Apollo space vehicles 2) Helium is used as a cooling medium for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the superconducting magnets in medical MRI scanners 3)Helium is used to fill party balloons, weather balloons and airships because of its low density 4) A mixture of 80% helium and 20% oxygen is used by deep-sea divers and others working under pressurized conditions. 5) Helium-neon gas lasers are used to scan barcodes at supermarket checkouts. contributed by BBC NEWS.

3D Printing Pen that Uses Soap Suds Instead of Plastic.

This amazing new 3D printing foam pen that swaps melted plastic for soap bubbles. It seems like the type of thing that you would buy, use once and then think to yourself ‘why on Earth did I buy a pen that 3D prints with soap?’. But I’ll be honest, I’m still really tempted to pick one of these things up. If only because it looks easier to use than a regular 3D printing pen, and I’m a sucker for any gizmo that makes me feel smart when I figure out how to use it quickly. The Awamoko 3D Foam Pen, from Japanese toy manufacturer Shine, is clearly made for children, but considering foam is such a forgiving sculpting medium, it’s kind of perfect for the artistically impaired. The pen uses the same foaming hand soap that you find in public restrooms, so any mess that you make is going to be halfway cleaned up while you’re making it. There is no heating element like with standard 3D printing pens, so it is perfectly safe for anyone to use, even small children. And users don’t have to do anything to make the pen extrude foam, just press the button and the foam starts squirting out at a slow enough pace for you to start building up layers for a large soapy object. The foam pen comes with a ton of accessories so you can actually do some pretty serious foam sculpting. There are two different sized printing nozzles and three stamp extruders that produce three-dimensional foam shapes like a smiley face or a flower. The pen also comes with a sculpting spatula, so if you make any 3D printed soap bubble errors they can easily be fixed. The foam sculptures are meant to be printed on some flat, sponge material that comes with the pen, presumably because it won’t absorb the water or soap as quickly. And if all that you can manage to do with the foam pen is print big, gloopy mounds of soap, don’t worry — you can decorate them with cute faces, ears and various cutesy accessories so they will start to resemble cute animals. It seems that the pen will also include 3D animal shape forms that can be used as a cheat when sculpting animals. Just print the foam around the form, and then add the eyes, ears and tails. Contributed by 3DPRINT.COM

A DAY IN THE ABATTOIR.

Animal health ,my business.

Separating Conjoined Twins with the Aid of 3D Printing.

Surviving birth is already an achievement for them, but separating conjoined twins is only possible if they are not sharing vital organs. This was the situation twin girls Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith were facing. Until they were 10 months old, they were conjoined at the chest and abdomen, which included their chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac, diaphragm, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis. Surgeons at the Texas Children’s Hospital started planning the highly-complex separation surgery nearly a year in advance. To visualize the intertwined organs, they used Materialise’s Mimics software to design a 3D-printed model based on high-quality CT scans which were designed to generate optimal contrast within the shared organs and the vasculature. Following computerized segmentation of the anatomy, the color-coded output was subsequently exported for 3D Printing and showed in great detail the babies’ heart, lungs, stomachs and kidneys, and where exactly they were connected. “Having a 3D-printed model gives you an insight into what you’re going to encounter,” Dr. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, chief of radiology research and cardiac imaging at Texas Children’s Hospital, said in a video released by the hospital. “This type of surgical planning becomes very important when you decide to assign an organ to one twin or the other.” The key collaborators in this project were Mr. Nicholas Dodd, an advanced visualization expert at Texas Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Jayanthi Parthasarathy of MedCAD in Dallas, who supervised the 3D Printing process. In addition, the surgeons implanted tissue expanders into their torsos, stretching the skin ahead of the separation. The final surgery, which took nearly 30 hours and involved more than 26 clinicians of 13 different specialties, managed to successfully separate the two babies. Contributed by materialise

Mayo Clinic Helps 11-Year-Old with Blount’s Disease by Using 3D Printing.

For 11-year-old Amarachi Austin-Okoh, running, jumping and even walking was a struggle. She suffered from a condition called Blount’s Disease, where the tibia, or shin bone, doesn’t grow properly, causing the legs to develop a bow shape. The disease had progressed so far in Amarachi’s case that even walking caused her great pain, and she explained that “It was very painful and hard, and, then, if people were walking a distance or something, I would start walking slower and slower, because it got harder and harder.” Her family had already noticed the condition when Amarachi was just two years old, but despite having a few corrective surgeries in Nigeria, where the Austin-Okoh family is originally from, her legs continued to worsen. The family approached Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to see if they could make a difference. The doctors at the Limb Lengthening and Regeneration Clinic knew they could help Amarachi if they took a team approach to the problem. By making full use of Mayo Clinic’s 3D Anatomic Modeling Lab, they were able to print out exact models of Amarachi’s leg bones to make crucial decisions prior to surgery. Dr. Todd Milbrandt, the surgeon who operated on Amarachi, was able to use the model to figure out where he would make a cut in the tibia, so that the bones could regrow and align properly. During the operation, he knew what to expect due to the pre-operative planning, and made a cut just below each knee. Dr. Andrew Sems then attached external braces (or “fixators”) to Amarachi’s legs after the operation and carefully adjusted them over the next three months according to computer calculations. By making adjustments to the fixators, Dr. Sems was able to gradually straighten the bones – basically by growing and correcting the bones at the same time. The outcome was everything Amarachi and her family could have hoped for – she gained almost 25cm in height and now walks with straight legs and no pain. She concluded, “I’m excited now, because it has opened a whole new horizon. I can do anything and everything I want to do.” Contributed by materialise

THE RISK OF SNAKE BITE IN FARM ANIMALS.

Areas where cattle graze usually harbor venomous snakes which means the chance for snakebite is ever-present. The after-effects in a snake-bitten cow, horse or dog knows can be fatal unless urgent steps are taken to prevent the effect of the toxic venom . Rattlesnake venom contains two types of toxins—myotoxins and hemotoxins—according to Ginger Elliott, a veterinarian from Guthrie, Texas, who has seen many snake-bitten animals. The myotoxins create rapid swelling, pain and bleeding at the bite site and muscle necrosis, while the hemotoxins damage blood vessels, destroying red blood cells and hindering blood clotting. The damage is often relative to the size of the animal. Small rodents are immobilized by the toxins and die quickly, enabling the snake to eat them. The toxins (and amounts of each) can differ in various bites, and have different effects on the body. “Some rattlesnake venom contains more muscle toxins. Sometimes we see more swelling and lymph issues and more spread of the toxin systemically. Our western diamondbacks have venom containing mostly myotoxins,” explains Elliott. “As a general rule, the prairie rattler has more hemotoxins and we see some swelling but perhaps less tissue destruction. When toxins enter the bloodstream and lymph tissues, they can spread systemically. But many types of venom have several toxic components and consequently there are some unusual cases,” she says. The higher up the leg, such as near armpit or groin, the worse it might be, says Jacques Fuselier, a veterinarian with the Whittington Veterinary Clinic, Abbeville, La. “The toxins can get into the bloodstream quicker. We worry about that with some bites, because there’s more risk for anaphylactic shock. The toxins may rupture red blood cells, which could lead to organ failure, starting with the kidneys,” he says. Try to keep the toxin isolated and minimize its spread this can be achieved if you can get the animal into a pen where it won’t be moving around. Decreasing activity can slow down spread of the toxin, just from decrease in blood flow. A big dose of rattlesnake venom presents risk of it getting systemic and causing organ failure after it gets into the bloodstream. Every animal responds differently to the toxins. The toxin is a foreign protein, so some individuals will have an allergic-type reaction. In some animals, the toxins spread rapidly within the body, and in others they won’t. It’s not common to have two cases that are identical. The toxins don’t have as much negative long-term effects on large animals like adult cattle but could have more serious consequences for a small animal or young calf, according to Rob Callan, head of livestock veterinary services at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Colorado State University. The toxins can sometimes be more problem for horses, affecting the heart. Toxins may cause irregular rhythm, or damage the heart which can be fatal although this has not been reported in cattle. Tissue damage at the bite site may be severe enough to result in necrotic areas that slough away. “I don’t know why some bites have a tremendous amount of necrosis and others do not,” says Glennon Mays, a veterinarian with Texas A&M University. “I’ve read that all snakebites do not necessarily inject venom. In some cases maybe the snake is striking defensively, saying ‘leave me alone,’ and saving venom for killing prey,” he says. There is also the possibility that some bites might contain less venom if the snake had recently bitten and killed prey, temporarily depleting its venom supply. Then there’s the possibility that it’s not snakebite at all. Mays says that often a suspected snakebite turns out to be something else. Swelling on a lower leg, for instance, is more often due to foot rot or another infection rather than snakebite. Animal owners over the years have asked me to look at lumps on jaws, faces, necks and other body parts, swollen legs and feet, believing their animal has suffered snakebite. Snakebite wounds have a fairly typical appearance and often some bleeding. Signs vary, depending on the length of time transpired since the bite occurred, the environmental temperature, the amount [dose] of venom and other factors that might affect the appearance of the affected area,” he says. “Often a swelling that the owner is worried about turns out to be an abscess or seroma [collection of fluid] or reaction of body tissue, rather than snakebite. This is why it’s important to have a proper diagnosis and involve your veterinarian. “Most bites [in cattle] are on the lower legs, unless it’s a curious individual that approaches the snake to smell it. Contributed by Beef magazine.