Fear the needle no more. Ramat-Gan-based company Sindolor is planning to release a syringe, the EZject, which administers injections painlessly by cooling the area around the skin before inserting the needle.
The company has already developed the Auto Injector, which can be used at home for routine injections and to control dosage. EZject is expected to be available in the US by next year, in partnership with an as-yet unnamed pharmaceutical company.
CEO David Neuberg told ISRAEL21C that the EZject was “excellent for children. It does not involve pain and the child cannot see the needle.”
At the Hebrew University, the New Scientist reports, a team of physicists has apparently discovered a natural element heavier than anything, natural or artificial, known before.
Amnon Marinov’s team analysed a purified solution of thorium, finding some atoms with a mass count of over 292 — heavier than any known atom.
But Liverpool University nuclear physicist Rolf-Dietmar Herzberg was sceptical, telling the magazine that the paper had some “gaping holes”. He added that if the element existed in purified thorium, there should be more in the natural mineral. “Then it’s ludicrous to assume no one has spotted it before.” You’ll never get Jews to agree on weighty matters.
Blind people’s brains “reorganise” themselves to give them better verbal memory, Israeli scientists say.
A study headed by Ehud Zohary at the Hebrew University found that areas of the brain previously thought to be unused in blind people were actually used for other purposes. One example was the primary visual cortex, which showed verbal memory activity in blind people but not in sighted.
Dr Zohary, whose research was published in Nature Neuroscience, concluded that the visual cortex is “converted” for high-level cognitive functions in congenitally blind people. Evidence suggests that this conversion is more limited in people blinded later in life.
Breathing lapses during sleep can cause similar cardiovascular complications in toddlers as in older children and adults, a Ben Gurion University researcher has found.
Aviv Goldbart’s team examined 70 children aged 12 to 26 months who were to have their adenoids and tonsils removed due to obstructive sleep apnea (OSP). Forty-six of them had significantly higher levels of systemic inflammation than a control group. But when 20 were examined three months after surgery, inflammation was lower.
Dr Goldbart now plans a follow-up study to see whether such children are at greater risk of dying from cardiovascular abnormality as adults.
Flat carbonated drinks should not be used to rehydrate children suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea, two Jewish British doctors have found.
Consultant paediatrician Ashley Reece and emergency medicine consultant Michelle Jacobs, both of Watford General Hospital, researched to see whether there was any basis for giving children fizzy drinks gone flat. They found none.
Dr Reece said: “Carbonated drinks were found to contain too much sugar and not enough salts”, recommending oral-rehydration solutions instead.