Hydrogen Sulfide: not just a malodorous gas?

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Hypocholesterolemia: a blessing or a problem?

We are all accustomed to face serum cholesterol as a potential threat for our health and so wish and try to have its levels as low as possible. So, in clinical practice we are rather indifferent or even satisfied when we find very low serum cholesterol levels -what we can call “hypocholesterolemia- in a certain individual. Is this practice right or it should be reevaluated? Since cholesterol is an important component of all cell membranes and its concentrations affect membrane permeability and fluidity it is highly probable that very low levels of it may disturb some cell functions and participate in the pathogenesis of diseases. Let’s start with a definition of the term, although this is not generally accepted. It can be described as a serum total cholesterol level under the fifth percentile of a general population adjusted for sex and age.1 In a less complicated manner it can be defined as less than 115 mg/dl.  In a study of 7,000 healthy blood donors, a percentage of 7,8% were found to meet the criteria for hypocholesterolemia. Hypocholesterolemia may be congenital or acquired. Congenital conditions are either combined with low LDL- (low density lipoprotein) or low HDL- (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol levels

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: LETTER

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Human disease on stage

Theater, being in most cases a representation of real life, can refer to anyone of its aspects, including disease. Human disease is a specific condition associated with several effects in the behavior of both, the patient and his environment, as well as their interrelationship. Several play writers, even from the ancient years, have tried to present these effects. Furthermore, another topic for the theater can be the way Medicine is practiced, usually with a critical approach. Of course play writers have not in general studied Medicine and so their references to disease may not be always absolutely right, especially if they represent aspects of past time. Furthermore, if we refer to poetic or symbolic drama it may express unrealistic situations only to serve the main idea of the author

Artificial Intelligence: Are we creating a new Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is an English novelist best known for her Gothic novel[1] Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, written in 1818. In this novel, Victor Frankenstein, an excellent young scientist specialized in chemistry but also connoisseur of other sciences, develops a genius technique to impart life in a huge humanoid that he constructed using parts of dead human bodies. However, when he sees his creature come into life he abandons it terrified. As the creature wanders without an aim or help, it faces human enmity and that transforms it to a maniac for vengeance, extremely directed against its creator. It does not hesitate to murder the persons who are most precious to Victor, including his younger brother and even his bride at the night of their wedding. Victor starts a desperate chase of his creature that leads him to the North Pole, where he dies of exhaustion. The Creature, seeing him dead, mourns for him and, having decided to die too, drifts away on an ice raft and is  soon "lost in darkness and distance", never to be seen again.1 Although the “Creature” remains nameless in the novel, it is usually referred in every-day practice with the name of its creator. That’s why the name “Frankenstein” is often used metaphorically to describe an evil existence that causes death and destruction (fig. 1)

Tools for optimizing management of a spatially variable organic field

Geostatistical tools were used to estimate spatial relations between wheat yield and soil parameters under organic farming field conditions. Thematic maps of each factor were created as raster images in R software using kriging. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) calculated the principal component analysis raster images for soil parameters and yield. The correlation between the raster arising from the PC1 of soil and yield parameters showed high linear correlation (r = 0.75) and explained 48.50% of the data variance. The data show that durum wheat yield is strongly affected by soil parameter variability, and thus, the average production can be substantially lower than its potential. Soil water content was the limiting factor to grain yield and not nitrate as in other similar studies. The use of precision agriculture tools helped reduce the level of complexity between the measured parameters by the grouping of several parameters and demonstrating that precision agriculture tools can be applied in small organic fields, reducing costs and increasing wheat yield. Consequently, site-specific applications could be expected to improve the yield without increasing excessively the cost for farmers and enhance environmental and economic benefits.Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia), Portugal [SFRH/BD/8303/2002]; Research Center of Spatial and Organizational Dynamics (CIEO); Ministery of Science, Culture and Sport, Israel; Bundesmenisterium fuer Bildung and Forschung (BMBF