Virology: West Nile Virus

West Nile virus is a type of virus known as flavivirus. It was from an infected mosquito carrying vector from infected bird and spread it through bite into other host, human and other animals. There is no evidence for transmission from person to person. Although many people are bitten by mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus, most do not know they've been exposed. Few people develop severe disease or even notice any symptoms at all. Most cases of West Nile Virus are mild and go unreported.

According to the statistical data recorded from Centre for Disease control (CDC) in 2002, there are 4156 Americans were infected and 6.73 percent cases ended in death. In 2006, it was noted that the expected number of cases was decreasing as the American population was being more and more exposed to the disease. This is because as the person become adult, they became fully immune to the illness, based on studies done in Egypt and Uganda. However, after a few months the CDC reported that there are also cases in U.S. and it was the highest number of infections happens in the history of West Nile virus. This is because the conditions of the weather on that time, which is hot and warm promotes the breeding of the mosquitoes. In 2006, the total number of West Nile virus cases in the U.S. surpassed the totals of 2004 and 2005. Since 1999, cases of the West Nile virus have been reported in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.

West Nile virus is distributed in North America is discovered as long term effects of West Nile virus distribution in North America are yet to be determined. After a few decades passing by this virus is assumed to be spread eventually integrated in more of our North American eco-systems and will persist. The extent range is increasing uncertainty at that point of time, regarding to the environmental variables change, like in weather conditions and migration patterns. The risk of infection is dependent on many factors, and cannot be based on geographical regions anymore. The West Nile virus poses a substantial threat to the population, but being aware of its history, how it spreads, and how to reduce risk of infection is a first step towards individual protection.


References
Nicholas K. West Nile Virus; Epidemiology and Ecology in North America. In: Advances of Virus Research Vol 61
Alan DT. Barret (2011).Current status of West Nile vaccine development 2011; University of Texas Medical Branch
Karen Foster (2005).West Nile Fact ; Department of Health and Human Services Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Shannon L. et al (2007).West Nile emergence and large scale declines of North American Populations.In : NATURE letters

biodegradable plastics: Chitosan-Lignin

Assalamualaikum

Its been a while. just need some time to back in track. New semester begin, and its my last semester in University. Of course we want the best in our last opportunity right? I will try my best though. chaiyok3! So subject for this semester quite challenging, suits us well as the final year students. What is more I concern is job opportunity offered for us after graduated..Biotechnology is a very tough industry , so I really hope I can get through of it, get a good job and all. YA ALLAH please guide me well, Ameen.

In last semester break,i 've been at home about a month, so . nothing really interesting during that time, its just I have done some research about green technology to help my friend do assignments. Have you ever heard about biodegradable plastics? Yes. its a plastics but biodegradable. eco- friendly. owesome right?

This idea comes from USM, they do the research to produce plastics which can degrades in time when it was throw up to the land. Its have been made by natural feature compound but still function as good as plastics, durable, strechable, strong and low cost. This biodegradable plastics is made from chitosan-lignin interaction. Chitosan is N-deacetylated chitin, although the deacetylation in most chitosan preparations is not complete. Chitin itself is usually prepared from crab or shrimp shells or fungal mycelia. Chitosan also nontoxic, biodegradable and biocompatible cationic polysaccharide isolated from naturally occurring crustacean shells and insects.Lignin is an abundant non-toxic amorphous natural polymer and an inexpensive by-product of paper industry. Lignin is a widely available natural polymer well suited for composite fiber applications .


By using eco-friendly material, the structure of plastics might be a little bit different, which the plastics now can degrades, but test had been made they also very strong same as usual plastics. Now, a lot of company change their product by use plastic cover for food and many more products using biodegradable plastics.This is because its not only good for the environment, its also cuts the budget cost in marketing industry. 


Start reducing the use of non-biodegradable plastics. GO FOR GREEN! :) 

biodegradable plastics

p/s: lack of idea,not writing for a looooonggg time..

Allergy

Assalamualaikum..

Today is my bad day. suddenly my motorcycle punctured in the middle of the road. I am very lucky i am safe without accident because I am clearly unable to control my motorcycle and nearly hit by a car.. luckily the car driver hit the break, and i am back safe.. :)

Then again, i am rather not writing about my bad day, but you know, some other times i always go through page by page in this blog so that  I can  remember this day. its kind of my thing. :) As i am back, i am thinking about bad things that happened to me..  for the record, I once got a severe bruise on my back, dislocated my jaws, and had a very bad allergy.. 

Despite other things, I want to share about my allergy reactions. Note that I am finally studying those things now, I think this might be interesting science fact to write about. When my age is 7 -12 years old, i am having a very bad allergy in my life. It was like, everything is inconsiderate with my body. First I know that my body cannot accept certain type of food like fish and prawn... If I eat some of that, my body will burns into flames, so to speak. my body started to feel itchy and started to bruise like i am bite by a mosquitoes. Its started with some parts and grows to all of my part of the body. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. its too hurtful.

not me

I am always go to the emergency room like 2 am in the morning because my father cannot stand me crying the whole night mentioning that my body is hurt. Then we will go to hospital,and i will get an injection and the allergies reactions started to stop few hours later. I always wonder why. Of course on that time I think that doctor has a power to kill things that burning me, (for god sake I was 7 years old, hehe) 

Now that i am studying hypersensitivity reactions, which included my type of allergy, I finally understand the mechanism in my body and in what cause do I feel like that 14 years ago.This type of allergy is fall in the type 1 in hypersensitivity reactions in which the high production of IgE antibodies in my body. When allergen is comes in my body, its reveal as foreign substance in my body thus secreted the chemical interaction to produce more antibodies to you know, attached with them.but as the number of allergen is more, the IgE antibody will highly proliferates and the cross linking between them might cause symptoms towards allergies effect.As antibody attached to the mast cell, the allergen anticipate will will degranulates the mast cell and release a chemical signal like histamine and thus cause the inflammation to occur. 

that is why, when my allergic got worse, the doctor will stick in a needle and after a while i will be fine. That syringe is actually antihistamine that blocks the signal towards inflammation. therefore, after that, i will be fine...

Wow, its very amusing when you know what actually happened in your body after all..Even its just a single thing.

As I quote my lecturer ."You will not taking any food you like if you know what actually happen in your body when you consumed it. Don't take things for granted. " (Dr Ivy,2011)

think before eat

p/s: after 6 years suffering, know i am lowly in allergic symptoms. even sometimes i am still cannot stand with certain things.. Thanks for my immune system... :)

thanks to them.

Assalamulaikum.. Alhamdulillah, we still  alive. Everyday after awake from sweet dream, remember to say alhamdulillah. syukur.. we still alive. What purpose we live? to be a better person, to pursue better luck , and hopes all better in everything we do. 

As i said in this entry i wanna do redemption about all entry that full in my draft but i never post it. here is one of them. this is about all the well known peoples,geniuses who contributed to our life, society and especially to the science discoveries. Boring enough to read i am talking about science, so you can click x.my blog is about me and anything i like, so i am really obsess with science discoveries, so... since not everyone like what i like.its up to you to choose. 

-->> last week i went to immunology lab. we learn about enzyme determination of blood. as we all know, enzyme is very important in our body. once its stop functioning, we will die. all the reaction is mostly depends on the existence of enzymes in our body.to learn this isolation, we need to kill 4 very cute mice!! oh. ok. i am repeatedly said i am sorry before kill them.(hope they understand).We need to get blood from the mice about 2 eppendorf tube. its about 1-2 ml i guess.How do we get the blood?we remove their EYES and squeezed from it!!!

but still, the blood we got was not enough. then we need to cut their body and get in from heart! oh.. i am really sorry mice, i wanted to learn. i promise i will do my best in my study and help peoples. make your death worthy!


See, do you know, in other to success in anything,we need to sacrifice. either us, or others. they must be something we need to let go. just like we study, to get success we actually need to spend more time on studying, we sacrificed our time to do that. same like any experiment i recently learn, we used mice and as i overhear from my supervisor i will also use mice for my final year project. to obtain a nice good result,i probably need to kill 100 mice a day!!! can you imagine that???


Back to the story, while we waiting for the blood homogenized, the lab assistant(demonstrater) tell stories about famous scientist in the world. as all of us  are biotechnologist to be, he tell us about how all these scientist actually succeeded in their research. And mostly they actually died because of their own research!!


Not only that,once,there are scientist was trying to test Cynide. Cynide was really strong acid and really dangerous. as this scientist really want to know about what it taste, he actually test it on himself! before he taste it, he said to his sister "after i taste this, i will died, before i died i will write what is the taste on this paper so people will know what the cynide taste like"

Then he really taste it, but sadly..... before he died, he just manage to write S on the paper. because of that,we still don't know is it sour,sweet,or salty....


i am so amazed after heard the story and i really want to thanx to them...We might died after having fever if they don't find the antibody to fight it. We might died because of small injury if there is no cure. so.. thanx to them. thanx to all the researcher, we still survive.. and of course, thanx to ALLAH for giving us chances to live everyday. ALHAMDULILLAH.... :)


p/s: 2 weeks to go for the final exam, i must work hard!
p/s 2: sejak 2 menjak A.J beli drum ni, maen sokmo dye. sya pun nak tumpang sekaki nanti!hehee :P

Botol air ajaib?

Yes kuliah pagi ni abes awal.tapi ptg ada lab. peduli.ada masa nak update blog. update la jap.wahaha. takpe,jap je ni. tak banyak pun nak merepek. masa suntuk.

Botol Air Ajaib?

Air penting dalam kehidupan. tapi botol air pentingkah? kenapa cerita pasal air ni? suka hati lah. tengah dahaga.. hehe.. sya teringat satu program tv yang sya tengok dulu. tentang botol air yang lengkap dengan filter. macamana tu?? Tak ke semua filter water berat2 and besar gedabak? macamana boleh jadi botol air plak??inilah inovasi. and sya memang suka benda inovasi ni. biarlah. mood tgh kat kampus, semua pun tentang sains je.. boring ke sains? sukalah hati sya nak tulis sya suka. hehe

balik pada tajuk. memang ada botol air sekali dengan filter ni. tapi kat negara omputehje  la kot. setakat ni sya tak jumpa lagi kat malaysia. kalo ada bagitau sya eh.. nak beli! hehe,,senang botol air jenis ni.kalo kepada siapa2 yang suka mengembara, boleh amek je ais paya ke, yang cloudy2 tu.. kaler pun dah macam air teh tarik.. tapi masuk dalam botol ni, squeeze filter kedalam botol, terus jadi clear water...Its remove over 99% contaminants!!

As we all know,only 3 % of the earth's water is available for consumption since 97% of the earth's water is salt water. Dan proses penyulingan air masin requires very high energy consumption.Dah tu lagi 3 % tu hanya boleh jumpa bila air hujan,sungai,salji... And mostly dah polluted! aiseh...Manusia.

air macam kotor je kan?tapi tak dah bila guna filter ni.

 Jadi bagoslah kalo air ni boleh difilter dengan cara yang senang macam botol air ni.Just filled up the water from the bottom and just squeeze towards the bottle then we can have fresh water that is great to drink.So kalo ada botol air jenis ni, senang la sket. tak perlu risau air yang kotor lagi. asal ada air paip pun dah ok..harga?? haha.. entah. tak tahu. search la sendiri kat google .sya bukan agen jual2 pun. just nak kongsi je..

p/s: tgh tension lupa bawak air,melayang seringgit beli air mineral. aishhh

p/s 2: jangan la tapis air longkang plak kalo dah ada botol air ni,microorganism tak mati afta filter camni je...kang tak pasal2 sakit plak . huhu

salam tulis cepat2 dari sya. weee :)





Lelaki tidak diperlukan lagi??

pilih mana nk.semua hensem, tapi perlu ke???

Assalamualaikum

Evening semua. sya baru balik dari kuliah,tiba2 rasa nak update blog. Tadi bersembang dengan kawan-kawan pasal tikus. Bilik kawan sya kena masuk tikus. sama pulak dengan bilik sya. baru semalam ada tikus di bilik air adik bilik jumpa...aishh...Mungkin pembiakan tikus ni berleluasa kat kampus ni sekarang. 

Kaitan dengan tajuk? 

Sabar. memang la. pasal tikus la ni. kenapa pasal tikus pulak? tadi kata lelaki tak diperlukan? haa.. sya nak kongsi apa sya belajar,teringat tentang tikus yang diberi nama Kaguya.Mungkin ada yang dah tau,tapi sya nak cerita jugak...Seorang saintis jepun, Tomohiro Kono buat kajian, lelaki (male)tidak lagi diperlukan untuk produce offspring. maksudnyer, tak perlukan sperm lelaki untuk menghasilkan anak. wah! hebat tak? ini hasil biotechnologist laa.. 

Seperti yang semua tau kan, kita mesti perlukan sperm lelaki untuk menghasilkan anak, ala, cerita sperm yg berenang laju, yang attach ovary dulu, dia lah yang berjaya disenyawakan.Kita(mammals) tak sama macam amphibians,fish or insects that can reproduce eggs alone(parthenogenesis).Normal mammal need genetic contributions from mom and dad....Penyelidikan mesti la guna tikus kan.nanti canggah dengan ethic pulak.

So,Tikus ni telah diubah genetiknya iaitu penggabungan kandungan genetik oleh dua telur(eggs) male and female.Akhirnya tikus ni telah berjaya menghasilkan anak, tanpa tikus jantan! 

"

Akhirnya berjaya lah saintis jepun ni menghasilkan tikus yang diberi nama Kaguya ni. mesti dia blur2 siapa ayah dia kan?  Pelik kan bentuk dia? 

Tak silap sya tikus ni mati sebelum sempat dibuat further research. emm. biasalah... genetic recombination ni memang susah nak berjaya. need a lot of trial and a lot of perfection. 

Itulah. mana boleh lawan kuasa tuhan.Memang segala yang diciptakan tu berpasangan kan. Ada lelaki, ada perempuan. ada siang, ada malam. ada gula, ada semut. eh. tu peribahasa kan. haha. apa2 lah. yang penting. my point. lelaki bagi sya memang diperlukan dalam kehidupan. bukan untuk dapatkan zuriat je. 

Oh!sya tak dapat bayangkan kalau hidup sya takde ayah.love him so much!!

kalau berminat nak tau research tentang tikus ni boleh la search pasal Kaguya Mouse. mesti ada keluar kat engine turbo google nuh..Sya hanya share apa yang sya belajar dalam lecture je. banyak lagi sebenarnya yang saintis ni cuba buat. ubah sana, ubah sini.. tu belum lagi yang langgar ethics.

kesian jugak tikus2 ni jadi mangsa, tapi demi perkembangan teknologi kan.. sya tak rasa research itu salah, sebab memang harus pun kita menuntut ilmu, discover tentang pelbagai perkara. macam niat saintis jepun ni la, dia cakap macamni::

The goal of our study was to discover why sperm and eggs were required for development in mammals," Kono said..

Kalau research ni berjaya dengan approval ,publish lagi... adakah lelaki tidak diperlukan lagi untuk dapat zuriat???so lelaki-lelaki yang dihormati,jangan la berkasar dengan isteri/girlfren anda ya...hehehe

p/s: patutlah tikus ni semakin byk membiak, mungkin ada yang kahwin dengan tikus Kaguya kot. hehe

p/s lagi: lelaki2 yang baca jangan marah ye.sekadar bicara ptg mengisi lapang. :)