This year’s Class Day Lecture at Stanford was given by Robert Sapolsky, a renowned neuroscientist who holds joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery. Here’s the fascinating talk he gave on what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom:

(hat tip: Richard Dawkins)

DiscoveryNews is reporting on a Bedford, Massachusetts company developing software that can detect the difference between a typical cough and one caused by a cold, flu, COPD, or a number of other respiratory diseases. STAR Analytical Services is working with a database of pre-recorded coughs to determine signatures that point to underlying conditions.

The final 100 to 150 milliseconds of the cough contains the distinctive sounds that could help doctors and nurses remotely diagnose a cough as the common cold or more serious pneumonia.
Even with a limited amount of data, scientists can distinguish between a healthy, voluntary cough and the involuntary cough of a sick person. Healthy people have slightly louder coughs, about 2 percent louder than a sick person.
After the initial burst of sound, a cough becomes increasingly complex. The vocal cords vibrate. Mucus in the lungs, throat and nose absorb certain wavelengths while emitting their own noises. Most of this mucousal music emerges from the mouth, but some of it also comes from head, neck and chest.
If a doctor already has a disease diagnosis, the sound of a cough could contain clues about how much fluid has built up in a patient’s lungs.
Before a definitive diagnose of cold or flu over the phone can be achieved, the scientists need more data. So far the scientists have gathered cough records from several dozen sick patients from a local hospital’s emergency department.

Full story @ DiscoveryNews: Cough Into Your Cell Phone, Get Diagnosis…
STAR Analytical Services press release: STAR Analytical Services Receives $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations Grant for Innovative Global Health Research…
Company homepage: STAR Analytical Services …
(Image: courosa)

A team from Boston University, MIT, and Harvard discovered how the H. pylori bacteria penetrate the stomach mucus to cause ulcers in the lining.

H. pylori secretes the enzyme urease, which interacts with urea in the stomach to produce ammonia–the ammonia is what neutralizes the acids in the immediate environment. The less-acidic environment de-gels the mucin, allowing the microbe to travel through it using standard, flagella-based locomotion, much like other swimming bacteria.
To confirm their findings, the researchers placed H. pylori into an acidic mucin gel in a laboratory setting. While its flagella moved, the organism could not. After the microbes secreted urease and acidity diminished, the microbes were able to forge through the gel.
Bansil and her colleagues next want to understand the progress of H. pylori-related diseases, particularly in the context of living hosts. The team is planning to work on new imaging techniques that may reveal even greater detail about the organisms and how they inflict damage on the human body.

H. pylori bacterium stuck in a mucin gel at pH4. The flagella rotate but the bacterium does not move freely. But it gains motility as it increases the pH level of the mucin:

This video clip shows H. pylori bacteria moving around in a mucin solution at pH 6. The higher pH level means the mucin is less solid and allows greater movement for the bacteria:

Abstract in PNAS: Helicobacter pylori moves through mucus by reducing mucin viscoelasticity …
Read on from the National Science Foundation: How Bacteria Get Past Our Defenses …