The Month of Love: February

From the start of February; the cool and smiley breeze give us the welcome note from the spring season. Side by side it is the month of love celebration and happiness. People distribute and share their love and feeling with their love one. The world is running due to the power of love otherwise the difficulties of life destroy a man, it weakens the strength of a man, and it closes the window of mind and kills him. February is consider the month of intimacy, the month of celebration, the month of love and passion, the month of smile, the month of festivity.

From the start of that month, the festivity of Valentine’s Day is start without knowing their history and importance. It is also known as Feast of Saint Valentine, it is begun to celebrate from the Christian saint of Rome Valentinus. He was buried on the Via Flaminia.

In England, people express their love for each other by giving gifts, flower and greeting cards.

In Europe, people express their love and unlock the giver’s heart to giving them heart shape cards, flowers, chocolates, sweets and gifts. In 19th century the hand written techniques are famous in front of your love ones.

In Pakistan, people aware from that terminology in 1990 with different TV programs. Despite that how many people favor that event or not celebration of Valentine’s grabs the viewer’s attention on TV. The shopkeeper get bundle of profit on that day and look happy.

Romance is the communicative and pleasing emotion from an exciting attraction towards another person connected with love. And month of February is connected with romance and happiness of spring.

On that occasion people use some symbols like Cupid which is the God of love. He is portrayed as a son of love Goddess Venus, Heart is used as a symbol of love, Red roses is also used to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

In that month hotels, resorts, beech, parks, party corners, tea cafes, coffee centers and all gathering places are booked for their friends, spouse and partner. And the celebration starts from the 13th February night and on the start of tick 12 o’clock and its 14th February start. Many people planned to become engaged or wed on that special day. History proof on that day $1 billion chocolate are sold and the red color usage is most prominent on that day. Every shop is full of red things on that day. Economy review itself on that type of Days.

We think every month should be full of love, every moment should be full of care and help, every eye should be full of hope, every shoulder should be full of power and energy, every thought should be pure and sincere, every friend shout be a trustful person. We just think and celebrate one day then run away from the scene…..

If you want to share your experience of Valentine’s Day then write and share with us. If you celebrate every day as a Valentines’ day then write to us and tell us about what you think on that celebration.

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Pak-India challenge at UN

WITH Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York this week for the 70th UN General Assembly session, there is an opportunity for some serious diplomacy to be undertaken. Unhappily, the one meeting that the world at large would have been hoping for — between Mr. Sharif and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi — has not been scheduled, leaving perhaps only room for a scripted handshake.

Instead, the Pakistani prime minister is expected to use the occasion of his address to the UNGA to bring the global community’s attention to tensions along the Line of Control and Working Boundary and the broader Kashmir dispute.

He will have his work cut out for him.

While the outside world has been concerned by the persistent tensions along the LoC and Working Boundary, it is also keen to do a great deal of business with India, be it in terms of trade, investment or military contracts.

Moreover, the US-India Joint Declaration on Combating Terrorism, following the first ever US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue, indicated just what a tough sell Pakistan faces: while the two countries specifically called on Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks to justice, Kashmir was only mentioned in the context of the militant attack in Udhampur on Aug 5.

Mr. Sharif’s task will be further complicated by the memory of Ufa. The joint statement following the July prime ministerial meeting proved to be a foreign policy debacle and a public relations disaster for the PML-N government.

However, Ufa is not dead and the recent meeting of the directors general of the Pakistan Rangers and the Indian BSF proved that the two sides can in fact get work done.

How then does Mr. Sharif balance the need to put the Kashmir dispute front and center again – as demanded by the hawks domestically and supported by the security establishment – while also keeping the door open to dialogue with a reluctant Mr. Modi?

Thus far the Pakistani prime minister has not given much reason for confidence that he can pull off such a delicate balancing act. What is also disappointing is that there have been few ideas emanating from the political government on how to move the relationship forward.

Where there has been movement, it has seemingly been done in an ad hoc manner and with a view to doing whatever it takes to bring the Indian government around to talking. Ufa epitomised that careless thinking.

If there is to be no forward movement in the bilateral relationship in New York, what next? Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry has already outlined the substance of Prime Minister Sharif’s speech at the UNGA on Wednesday: reiterating Pakistan’s commitment to regional peace and briefing the world community on the situation along the LoC and Working Boundary.

That though does not suggest there is much thought being given to, for example, resurrecting the cancelled NSA talks or working on the other steps in the Ufa road map. Unless the political leadership shows some initiative, Pak-India ties could be set to drift for a while.

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Mitochondria Play Important role in Human Evolution and Disease

A pioneering scientist in mitochondrial biology, Douglas C. Wallace, synthesizes evidence for the importance of mitochondria in a provocative Perspective article today in the journal Cell.

Residing in large numbers outside the nucleus of every cell, mitochondria contain their own DNA, with unique features that "may require a reassessment of some of our core assumptions about human genetics and evolutionary theory," concludes Wallace, director of the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Wallace has investigated mitochondria for more than 40 years. In 1988, he was the first to show that mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can cause inherited human disease. His body of research has focused on how mtDNA mutations contribute to both rare and common diseases by disrupting bioenergetics -- chemical reactions that generate energy at the cellular level.

Wallace and colleagues previously showed in the late 1970s that human mitochondrial DNA is inherited exclusively through the mother. They then used this knowledge to reconstruct the ancient migrations of women by comparing variation in mtDNA among populations throughout the world. From such studies, scientists have concluded that humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago and that only two mtDNA lineages successfully left Africa about 65,000 years ago to colonize the rest of the world.

Based on insights from these human migration studies, Wallace takes up a longstanding scientific question raised by Darwinian evolution -- both in humans and other species. As subpopulations moved into isolated areas, how did they remain isolated over a long enough time for new species-defining traits to arise in nuclear genes and become enriched by natural selection to permit speciation?

The vast majority of our 20,000 or so genes exist in the DNA within each cell's nucleus, as distinct from the 13 protein-coding genes inside mtDNA. However, Wallace argues that mtDNA mutations provide faster and more flexible adaptations to changing environments than do nuclear DNA mutations. The mtDNA has a much higher mutation rate than nuclear DNA, which by itself might imperil species survival, because most DNA mutations are deleterious. However, mtDNA mutations alter physiology at the single-cell level. Therefore, cells in the mother's ovary that harbor the most deleterious mtDNA mutations can be eliminated by natural selection prior to fertilization. Thus only mild mtDNA variants, a subset of which may be potentially beneficial, are introduced into the population.

The high mutation rate in mtDNA plus ovarian selection thus provides a powerful tool for humans (and animals) to adapt to an environmental change, without endangering a population's overall survival. Mitochondrial DNA also exchanges signals with nuclear DNA, and the interaction helps drive the evolution of physiological processes over time. Populations that expand into a marginal environmental space, Wallace argues, adapt their physiology through mtDNA mutation to better exploit the limited food sources and other resources in that environment. This permits prolonged occupation of the marginal environment, giving sufficient time for nuclear DNA mutations to generate anatomical structures appropriate for exploiting more abundant food resources in the new environment.

To support this hypothesis, Wallace proposes that mitochondria variation can result in crucial energy tradeoffs. At the cellular level, mitochondria convert oxygen and nutrients to the energy-rich chemical ATP, while also producing heat. In tropical climates, this coupling process is maximally effective, permitting more efficient production of ATP with minimal heat production. In the Arctic, the conversion of food to ATP is less efficient, requiring more calories to be consumed for the same amount of ATP, and this generates more heat. So different patterns of mtDNA variation are likely beneficial in warm versus cold climates. Similarly, certain mtDNA variants are enriched in Tibetan populations, suggesting that mtDNA variation may permit adaptation to the low oxygen tension at high altitude.

Wallace also cites multiple studies that show that regional mtDNA variation correlates with predilection to a wide variety of metabolic and degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

Biologists have long known that adaptations that confer an advantage in one environment can become less beneficial in another environment. Wallace suggests an important contributor to this phenomenon could be the physiological adaptation of mtDNA variation. He postulates that as populations migrate and dietary patterns become globalized, people with mtDNA optimized to one environment, where they eat a sub-Saharan African diet, may not be well adapted to another environment, where they may consume a Central European diet. "Because mitochondria have such a crucial role in our physiology, changes in mitochondrial DNA can have profound effects on human biology," he adds.

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Nearly Half of U.S. Seafood Supply is Wasted

The findings, published in the November issue of Global Environmental Change, come as food waste in general has been in the spotlight and concerns have been raised about the sustainability of the world's seafood resources. In the U.S. and around the world, people are being advised to eat more seafood, but overfishing, climate change, pollution, habitat destruction and the use of fish for other purposes besides human consumption threaten the global seafood supply.

"If we're told to eat significantly more seafood but the supply is severely threatened, it is critical and urgent to reduce waste of seafood," says study leader David Love, PhD, a researcher with the Public Health and Sustainable Aquaculture project at the CLF and an assistant scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The new study analyzed the food waste issue by focusing on the amount of seafood lost annually at each stage of the food supply chain and at the consumer level.

After compiling data from many sources, the researchers estimated the U.S. edible seafood supply at approximately 4.7 billion pounds per year, which includes domestic and imported products minus any exported products. Some of the edible seafood supply is wasted as it moves through the supply chain from hook or net to plate. They found that the amount wasted each year is roughly 2.3 billion pounds. Of that waste, they say that 330 million pounds are lost in distribution and retail, 573 million pounds are lost when commercial fishers catch the wrong species of fish and then discard it (a concept called bycatch) and a staggering 1.3 billion pounds are lost at the consumer level.

The researchers found the greatest portion of seafood loss occurred at the level of consumers (51 to 63 percent of waste). Sixteen to 32 percent of waste is due to bycatch, while 13 to 16 percent is lost in distribution and retail operations. To illustrate the magnitude of the loss, the authors estimate this lost seafood could contain enough protein to fulfill the annual requirements for as many as 10 million men or 12 million women; and there is enough seafood lost to close 36 percent of the gap between current seafood consumption and the levels recommended by the 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

The 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommended increasing seafood consumption to eight ounces per person per week and consuming a variety of seafood in place of some meat and poultry. Yet achieving those levels would require doubling the U.S. seafood supply, the researchers say.

Waste reduction has the potential to support increased seafood consumption without further stressing aquatic resources, says Roni Neff, PhD, director of the Food System Sustainability & Public Health Program at CLF and an assistant professor with the Bloomberg School of Public Health. She says that while a portion of the loss could be recovered for human consumption, "we do not intend to suggest that all of it could or should become food for humans."

"It would generally be preferable for the fish that becomes bycatch to be left alive in the water rather than eaten, and due to seafood's short shelf life, it may be particularly challenging compared to other food items to get the remaining seafood eaten or frozen before it decays," she says. Instead, focusing on prevention strategies involving governments, businesses and consumers can reduce seafood loss and create a more efficient and sustainable seafood system.

The researchers offer several approaches to reduce seafood waste along the food chain from catch to consumer. Suggestions range from limiting the percent of bycatch that can be caught at the production level to packaging seafood into smaller portion sizes at the processing level to encouraging consumer purchases of frozen seafood. Some loss is unavoidable, but the researchers hope these estimates and suggestions will help stimulate dialogue about the significance and magnitude of seafood loss.

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Bunny The Hero Full Movie

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Hematology

Hematology is the study of blood and its components.

Hemopoiesis:

The formation of blood cells is called Hemopoiesis.

The blood consists of a fluid medium, Plasma in which blood cells are suspended. The blood cells are of three types

1.      White blood cells (WBCs)

2.      Red blood cells (RBCs)

3.      Platelets

WBCs are further divided into 3 main groups

1.      Granulocytes (Neutrophils, Eosinophils, and Basophils)

2.      Monocytes

3.      Lymphocytes

The blood cells are continuously destroyed either by aging or as a result of their functional activities and are replaced by new cells. There is a fine balance between the rates of formation and destruction of these cells.

Sites of blood formation:

Mesoblastic Phase:

In first 19-20 days of embryonic stage, blood cells are formed in the wall of the yolk sac. These cells are mesodermal in origin hence this phase is called Mesoblastic phase. Mesoblastic phase only produces RBCs. The hemoglobin in these RBCs is called Embryonic Hemoglobin.

Hepatic Phase:

The liver is the main site of hemopoiesis in the fetus from 5^th to 30^th week of intra-uterine life. This is termed as hepatic phase. All type of blood cells are produced in later part of this phase .

RBCs produced at this stage are larger than adult RBCs. The RBCs contain hemoglobin at this stage is called fetal hemoglobin.

Medullary Hemopoiesis:

The bone marrow gradually takes over hemopoietic functionfrom the 5^th month until when the bone marrow is the only major site for blood cells formation. Lymphocytes precursors are formed in liver and bone marrow but the main sites for lymphocytes development are spleen, lymph nodes and other lymphoid tissues.

Initially hemopoiesis takes place in the marrow of all bones but after birth it slowly and gradually reduces to get confined to marrow of flat bones and vertebrae.

Origin of blood cells:

All blood cells formed from the undifferentiated primitive cell which resembles a large lymphocyte and is called Plueripotent stem cell or totipotent stem cell.

It gives rise to lineage specific stem cells termed as colony forming units (CFU). The stem cells maintain their numbers by self replication or self renewal. All of this takes place under the influence of certain proteins called hemopoietic growth factors such as Interleukins (IL) and colony stimulating factors (CSF).

Self renewal and cell cycle

Erythropoiesis:

The formation of red blood cells is called as Erythropoiesis. The process of erythropoiesis is characterized by following progressive changes.

1.      Decrease in cell size

2.      Hemoglobinization

3.      Extrusion of the nucleus

Stages of Erythropoiesis

Pronormoblast:

Ø  It is a round cell with a diameter of 12-20u.

Ø  It has a large nucleus surrounded by a small amount of cytoplasm

Ø  Cytoplasm is deep blue in color with small ear shaped projections

Ø  The nucleus is round and consist of a network of uniformly distributed chromatin strands, which is reddish purple in color and contain several nucleoli.

Basophilic Normoblast:

Ø  It is 10-16u in diameter

Ø  It has a large nucleus with thick chromatin strands and no nucleoli

Ø  Cytoplasm is basophilic in color

Polychromatic Normoblast:

Ø  It is 8-14u in diameter

Ø  The nucleus occupies a smaller part of the cell and stains deeply

Ø  Hemoglobin synthesis start at this stage which turns cytoplasm into a slight reddish color

Orthochromatic Normoblast:

Ø  It varies in size from 8-10u in diameter

Ø  The cytoplasm is red due to hemoglobinization

Ø  The nucleus is small and appears as deeply staining blue black homogeneous mass called pyknotic in appearance

Ø  It becomes eccentric in position and is finally extruded out from the cell.

Reticulocytes:

Ø  It is a flat disc shaped cell

Ø  It has no nucleus and is slightly larger than mature RBCs

Ø  It has threads of remnants of RNA in cytoplasm which can be visible after staining with supravital stains e.g Brilliant Cresyl Blue stain.

Ø  The reticulocytes becomes a mature RBCs in about 24 hours in circulation

Red Blood Cells:   

Ø  The mature RBC is a non-nucleated cell

Ø  It is a biconcave disc with average diameter of 7.2u

Ø  The cytoplasm is pink-red due to hemoglobin

Ø  Anaerobic glycolysis occurs in RBCs as source of energy

Granulopoiesis

The formation of granulocytes is called as granulopoiesis. The earliest recognizable cell of granulopoiesis is myeloblast. The process of granulopoiesis is characterized by

1.      Change in the size of cell

2.      Maturation and lobulation in nucleus

3.      Production of specific granules in cytoplasm

Myeloblast:

Ø  It has a large round or oval nucleus, which occupies most of the cell and contains 2-4 nucleoli

Ø  The cytoplasm is non-granular and deep blue in color

Promyelocyte:

Ø  It resemble myeloblast but is larger in size

Ø  It has more cytoplasm which contains purplish red granules (azurophilic granules)

Ø  The nucleus still may contain some nucleoli or their remnants

Myelocyte:

Ø  The granules develop their specific character (purplish for neutrophils, orange and large for Eosinophils and Basophilic for basophils)

Ø  Nucleus has no nucleoli

Ø  The diameter of myelocyte  may be upto 25u

Metamyelocyte:

Ø  The nucleus of this cell is small, eccentric and slightly indented

Ø  The cytoplasm contains specific granules

Ø  The cell is smaller in size than myelocyte

Band/Stab Form:

Ø  It is a mature metamyelocyte, which has a band like nucleus, adapted to a U shape

Mature Granulocytes

Neutrophils:

Ø  It is 12-14u in diameter

Ø  The nucleus is lobulated having 2-5 lobes that are connected by thin chromatin strands

Ø  The cytoplasm is pink and contains numerous fine purplish granules

Eosinophils:

Ø  The mature eosinophil is about 16u

Ø  The nucleus usually has two lobes

Ø  The cytoplasm is packed with relatively larger granules which do not overlap the nucleus

Ø  These granules stain reddish orange with Romanowsky stains

Basophils:

Ø  Basophils rarely contain more than two lobes

Ø  The cytoplasm is pink and contain a number of large oval or round deeply stained basophilic granules

Ø  They do not pack the cytoplasm as eosinophils but they overlap the nucleus

Monopoiesis

Monocytes are formed mainly in the bone marrow and migrate to the spleen, lymphoid and other tissues.

Monoblast:

Ø  It is the earliest recognizable cell of the series

Ø  It is a large cell similar in structure to the myeloblast

Pro-Monocyte:

Ø  It is a large cell about 20u in diameter

Ø  It has abundant cytoplasm, gray blue in color and may contain fine azurophilic granules

Ø  The nucleus is usually round or kidney shaped giving folded appearance

Monocyte:

Ø  It is slightly smaller than pro-monocyte

Ø  Its cytoplasm has typical ground glass appearance

Ø  The nucleus is like a band folded upon itself to assume a spherical shape

Lymphopoiesis:

Mature lymphocytes develop mainly in the lymphoid tissue of the body namely lymph nodes, spleen, appendix and tonsils. Bone marrow makes only a smaller contribution to lymphocyte produntion. Colony Forming Unit Lymphoid (CFU-L) probably migrates to lymphoid tissue early in life. The maturation of lymphocyte is characterized by

Ø  Maturation of nucleus and cytoplasm

Ø  Adaptation to their function by expression of specific proteins

Lymphoblast:

Ø  It is the earliest recognizable cell of series

Ø  It measures 15-20u in diameter

Ø  It contains a large, round or oval nucleus

Ø  Nucleoli are present usually 1-2 in number

Ø  The cytoplasm is non-granular and deep blue in color forming a narrow rim around the nucleus

Pro-Lymphocyte:

Ø  It is the next stage in formation of lymphocytes

Ø  Nucleus contains a prominent nucleolus usually centrally placed

Ø  Cytoplasm is variable

Large Lymphocyte:

Ø  It is about 12-16u in diameter

Ø  Cytoplasm is sky blue in color and may contain few granules, which stain purplish red

Ø  The nucleus is slightly indented or round

Ø  Nucleoli are absent

Small Lymphocyte:

Ø  The large lymphocyte matures into small lymphocytes

Ø  It is about 9-12u in diameter

Ø  The cytoplasm is scanty and stains blue

Ø  The nucleus is round or slightly indented

Ø  The size of nucleus is roughly equal to mature normal RBC

Thrombopoiesis

Platelets are formed from the cytoplasm of a large cell in the bone marrow known as megakaryocyte

Megakaryoblast:

Ø  It is a large cell of 20-30 u in diameter

Ø  It has a large, oval or indented nucleus that contain several nucleoli

Ø  The cytoplasm is blue, small in amount and contains no granules

Ø  Cytoplasm may show budding

Pro-Megakaryocyte:

Ø  It is formed from the megakaryoblast

Ø  It is larger than megakaryoblast

Ø  It has deep blue cytoplasm that contains azurophilic (pinkish) granules

Ø  The nucleus is non-lobulated or partly lobulated

Ø  From this stage to onward only nucleus divides while the cell enlarges without division (endomitosis)

Megakaryocyte:

Ø  It is a large cell from 30-90u in diameter

Ø  It contains a single multi-lobulated or indented nucleus

Ø  The cytoplasm is abundant and stains light blue

Ø  It contains fine azurophilic granules

Platelets:

Ø  It is a smaller discoid structure 1-2u in size

Ø  These are formed by partition of cytoplasm of megakaryocytes into numerous structures that separate to form platelets

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