Potpouri

First CT scan equipped ambulance launched in China

Beijing: China has launched its first stroke ambulance, equipped with a CT scan to screen victims of traffic accidents and stroke patients on the spot in the country’s central Henan Province. The van was assembled by a Beijing-based company specialising in medical vehicle trade and refitting. “The ambulance allows stroke patients to have their brains scanned and blood samples analysed before they are sent to hospital,” said Li Tianxiao, director of the hospital’s intervention therapy centre.

“This helps stroke patients who can’t receive treatment in time due to traffic congestion or long distances from hospitals with suitable facilities,” he said. A CT scan can distinguish strokes caused by blood clots from hemorrhagic strokes. For patients with blood clot-related strokes, the time window to bust clots is 4.5 hours.

Removing clots must be done within 6 hours after symptoms begin. Li said that even in developed countries, less than 10 per cent of stroke patients are treated within this window. Strokes are on the rise among middle-aged and younger Chinese because they tend to smoke, work under stress, and exercise less compared to older generations, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Figures released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in 2014 showed that the average age of stroke for Chinese patients was 63 ten years younger than for Americans. (PTI)

Two World War II-era aircraft missing for 70 years found

Washington: Scientists have located two B-25 bombers – one of the most iconic airplanes of the Second World War – that went missing over 70 years ago in the waters off Papua New Guinea. During World War II, nearly 10,000 B-25 bombers were deployed to conduct a variety of missions – such as bombing, submarine patrols, and the historic raid over Tokyo in April 1942.

Present-day Papua New Guinea was the site of military action in the Pacific from January of 1942 to the end of the war in August 1945, with significant losses of aircraft and servicemen, some of whom have never been found. Project Recover, consisting of a team of scientists from University of California San Diego and University of Delaware, along with members of the nonprofit organisation BentProp in the US, combined efforts to locate aircraft and associated missing items from World War II.

In February, the team set out on a mission to map the seafloor in search of missing WWII aircraft, conduct an official archaeological survey of a known B-25 underwater wreck, and interview elders in villages in the immediate area. In its search of nearly 10 square kilometers, the team located the debris field of a B-25 bomber that had been missing for over 70 years, associated with a crew of six.While speaking to village elders about the two B-25 cases, team members were told about local terrestrial burial sites and an additional aircraft that had crashed on land. (PTI)