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February 2015 | Read this issue and more at www.healthandwellnessmagazine.net |
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No Cure For A
Broken Heart
White Noise to
Cancel Bad Smells
Scottish researchers at the University
of Aberdeen have found time does
not necessarily heal ‘broken heart
syndrome.’ There is no treatment for the
disorder which was previously thought
to recover in due course. The syndrome
was first described in Japan in 1990 and
is medically known as Takotsubo stress
cardiomyopathy (TSM). It is usually
sparked by stress following life events
such as losses of family members or
friends, involvement in an accident or
rueful feelings caused by relationship
break-ups. TSM mostly affects women;
sufferers might experience severe chest
pains associated with a heart attack but
no blockages are found. However, there
are heart abnormalities in TSM patients.
For instance, the ability of the heart to
generate the energy it needs to produce
pumping action can be very much
reduced. The researchers’ 4-year study
concluded time did not cure TSM.
Two brother researchers at IBM Thomas
J. Watson Research Center in New York have
found the mathematical formula to create an
olfactory equivalent of white noise that could
be used to cancel out pungent odors. Calling it a
different approach than traditional ones for odor
cancellation, the researchers take advantage of the
perceptual properties of human smell to ensure
what is perceived is this white smell. Engineering
doctors Lav and Kush Varshney found that the
chemical compounds in any smell we are able to
detect have an opposing set of odor compounds.
When the two sets are mixed together they
cancel each other out. The Varshney brothers
have put together a database of scents, matching
odor compounds with ratings of various smell
properties. They then built a model that uses the
database to take a scent you want to eliminate and
find its compounds with opposite smell ratings.
Using this model