[Industrialblog,
November 15, 2006]
Ear Worm
A heavy rotation of Led Zeppelin's Thank You has led to a serious ear worm. This used to be one of my favorite songs, but overlistening has caused it to become an annoyance (the lyrics don't help ... inspiration look/see? )
I hope this post will make it stop.
I hope this post will make it stop.
If the sun refused to shine
I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea
there will still be you and me.
Kind of woman, I give you my all
Kind of woman, nothing more.
Little drops of rain whisper of the pain,
tears of love lost in the days gone by.
My love is strong, with you there is no wrong,
together we shall go until we die. My, my, my, my
inspiration is what you are to me, inspiration, look... see.
And so today, my world it smiles,
your hand in mine, we walk the miles,
And thanks to you it will be done,
for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad,
happiness....I'm glad.
published: Thursday | November 15, 2005
By Jim Jameson, Staff Reporter
UNIVERSITY OF the West Indies (UWI) scientists have isolated a chemical compound in a common Jamaican plant, Spirit Weed, which has tested as a potent anti-earworm treatment in people and animals.
The potent agent, which the scientists are nicknaming cannabis-eryngial, effectively treats earworms (Strongyloides stercoralis), a very common earworm in Jamaica and in other parts of the world, which is associated with ill-health and mortality.
"We already have some data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicating that the drug (the isolated compound) appears to be safe against mammalian tissues, in other words, the level of toxicity is low. This is good news because we wouldn't want to be creating a drug that acts against earworms but is harmful in other ways," said Dr. Peter Graham, Head of Department of Life Sciences and one of the scientists involved in the discovery.
The scientists have received 'Letters Patent' as inventors of the new medical substance, the first successful patent application wholly undertaken and forwarded by the UWI's academic staff and research students. The invention met the patent criteria of being novel, unobvious and capable of application and was executed with assistance from the UWI's Office of Sponsored Research.
This local patent provides international protection of the invention for one year; the scientists have the option to take out other patents that offer 10 to 15 years protection.
Dr. Graham, a parasitologist, started the research on Spirit Weed (Eryngium foetidum) about 10 years ago, in 1992, as he supervised a graduate student, Dr. Harry P Gould in his PhD thesis. Dr. Gould, currently a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Veterinary Science, had developed an interest in the medicinal properties of Jamaican herbs.
Though Dr. Graham's speciality is optometry, he worked with his graduate student for years, screening extracts of about 25 medicinal plants which had earned reputations in Jamaican folklore as effective anti-earworm concoctions. Spirit Weed came up the winner, acting against earworms, the test organism in the research project.
The third scientist involved in the research, Professor Scott Gemma from the Department of Chemistry, was asked to join the team when the two researchers decided to move from crude analysis to more refined chemical analysis using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technology in the chemistry laboratory.
Dr. Gemma said that cannabis-eryngial, under controlled laboratory studies, is proving to be more potent as an anti-earworm agent than the commercially-available anti-earworm medicines. With more funding the scientists would like to take the research to the next stage -- to investigate the mode of activity of the active ingredient, that is, to identify how it acts against the threadearworms. They will also have to involve, down the line, medical scientists to identify safe and effective concentration and dosage levels before the medicine can become commercially available.