Researchers find a use for jellyfish

Removing jellyfish from beaches is now big business, but that creates a new problem: what to do with all the jellyfish waste?

Researchers find a use for jellyfish
Removing jellyfish from beaches is now big business, but that creates a new problem: what to do with all the jellyfish waste? Researchers in Japan have come up with a potential solution. Akiko Masuda of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Saitama and colleagues have extracted a previously unknown glycoprotein—a repeating sequence of amino acids with sugars attached—from jellyfish. The compound is a type of mucin, a gelatinous, moisture-retaining substance secreted by animals (it’s a main component of human saliva and mucus, for instance), and it could find uses in cosmetics, as a food additive or in drug manufacturing. Since jellyfish mucin has a simpler structure than some other mucins, it may be usable as a building block for creating custom-tailored mucins with antibiotic or other specific properties. The researchers, who reported their findings in The Journal of Natural Products, extracted the mucin from several species including the moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita, one of the most abundant in the world) and Nemopilema nomurai, one of the biggest at up to 6 feet in diameter and 450 pounds. They found that the mucin made up as much as 3 percent of the dry weight of jellyfish. So there is an awful lot of mucin in the world as well.

Ok, CPR without mouth to mouth
The good news:millions of Americans know how to perform CPR. The bad news: when confronted with an apparent victim of cardiac arrest, most bystanders won’t do it because it includes mouth-to-mouth breathing. Now Dr. Gordon Ewy, director of the University of Arizona’s Sarver Heart Center, is championing a new form of CPR called cardio-cerebral resuscitation, or CCR, which focuses on rapid, forceful chest compressions, about100 per minute, minus the mouth to mouth. “Mouth to mouth inflates the lungs, but it’s not the lungs that need oxygen, it’s the heart and the brain,” says Ewy. “Chest compressions alone will help save those organs.” Bystanders who witness a cardiac arrest are urged to perform chest compressions until help arrives. Paramedics are to attempt CCR for two minutes, before they use a defibrillator. Several Arizona fire departments have adopted the new approach. An analysis of that data shows survival rates have nearly tripled.
Current American Heart Association and American Red Cross guidelines do recommend compression-only CPR for anyone who is unwilling or unable to provide mouth to mouth. The AHA also encourages emergency dispatchers to give instructions for compression-only CPR to bystanders at the scene of a presumed cardiac arrest.