The polar oceans are not biological deserts

The polar oceans are not biological deserts after all.

A marine census released recently documented 7,500 species living in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science.
Most of the discoveries were simpler life forms known as invertebrates, or animals without backbones.
Researchers, for example, doubled the number of jellyfish-like Arctic ctenophore known to science from five to 10. One of those was the size and color of an orange, had bungee cord-like tentacles streaming off it and was living at a depth of two kilometers.
"The textbooks have said there is less diversity at the poles than the tropics but we found astonishing richness of marine life in the Antarctic and Arctic oceans," said Victoria Wadley, a researcher from the Australian Antarctic Division who took part in the Antarctic survey. "We are rewriting the textbooks."

The survey－which included over 500 polar researchers from 25 countries－took place during International Polar Year which ran in 2007-2008.

New technology helped make the expeditions more efficient and productive than in the past. Researchers used cell-phone-like tracking devices, for example, to record the Arctic migration of narwhals, a whale with a long twisted tooth, and remotely operated submersibles to reach several kilometers down into the oceans to study delicate marine animals that are impossible to collect.

Locally developed device offers hope for aortic dissection patients

Some 28.5 percent of patients with the condition known as aortic dissection who make it to surgery die. But now patients may have a greater chance of survival if surgeons have access to a device that cuts operating times and limits the loss of blood.

The head of the local surgical team that developed the device, Dr. Jeng Wei, director of the Heart Center at the Cheng Hsin Rehabilitation Center in Taipei, said he has used the device, called the vascular ring connector (VRC), with positive results on a total of 20 patients.

In 2006, the VRC became the first implanted cardiovascular device developed by Taiwanese researchers to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Wei and his team then submitted the device for approval in Taiwan before using it successfully on patients.
Aortic dissection is a condition in which a tear occurs in the aorta's inner lining, often caused by a sudden surge in blood pressure. Blood then flows between the wall's layers and forces them apart.

"The surgical risks of the (traditional) suturing method are very high due to the fragility of the dissected aorta," Wei noted.
"The VRC allows surgeons to do a quick sutureless anastomosis in less than two minutes, compared with the conventional suture technique that generally takes more than 30 minutes," he said.