First Full-Face Transplant Is A Success

6:52pm UK, Friday April 23, 2010

Jo Couzens, Sky News Online


Spain has performed the world's first full-face transplant in a 24-hour operation carried out by more than 30 medics.




VDO on youtube by itnnews


The patient, a young farmer, had been left unable to breathe, swallow or talk properly after accidentally shooting himself in the face five years ago.


He received new facial muscles, skin, nose, lips, jaw, teeth, palate and cheekbones in the surgery on March 20 at Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron University Hospital.

The man, believed to be in his 30s, had been dependent on artificial equipment to breathe and eat since 2005.

According to the hospital, he had been operated on nine times previously without success and was therefore considered for the complete facial transplant.

"The operation was carried out by a multidisciplinary team led by Dr Joan Pere Barret," the hospital said in a statement.

He has seen himself when he told us he wanted to and psychologists said he was ready. It was a week after the operation and he reacted well, he was calm and satisfied.


Dr Joan Pere Barret on the full-face transplant recipient's recovery

The surgery incorporated "plastic surgery and micro-neurovascular reconstructive surgery techniques", it added.


"This is the first full face transplant performed worldwide, as the 10 operations performed previously had been only partial."

In the first part of the operation, the soft parts of the donor's face, including veins and arteries, were extracted before firmer tissue was removed.

The young man's arteries and veins were then isolated and the donor's face checked to ensure there was a complete flow of blood.

A computer-generated sequence of part of the operation

The final part of the surgery involved transplanting bones and connecting nerves to the new face.

The recipient is thought to be recovering well and apparently has already seen his new face.

Dr Barret said: "The patient has scars on his forehead and his neck but they will become invisible in the future.

"He has seen himself when he told us he wanted to and psychologists said he was ready.

"It was a week after the operation and he reacted well, he was calm and satisfied."

British experts have welcomed the news.

Professor Peter Butler, head of the UK's Facial Transplantation Research Team, has been ready to perform a full face transplant for several months.

Isabelle Dinoire received the first successful partial face transplant in 2006

His team is understood to still be looking for donors that provide an exact match for several British patients.


Prof Butler said: "We congratulate Dr Barret and his transplantation team in Spain on what may well be the most complex facial transplantation operation carried out so far worldwide."

The first successful face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog.

Since then, face transplants have been carried out in China, the US and Spain, which carried out its first such operation in August 2009.




credit as above via  http://news.sky.com/

Interesting teapots

Source: forward email

Annie's Song

This is another song I listen to from time to time. Denver's voice and the lyrics he wrote is very nice. When we love someone, we want to give the one we love the special thing. And he is the singer and song writer, so this is why the song has Annie, his wife, as the title of the song! The song is from John Denver's best album "Back Home Again and was featured in a scene in the movie My Best Friend's Wedding.

Since it is the old song, the quality of record at that time wasn't good enough. I chose the VDO on youtube post by Jstfmceh instead.

"Annie's Song" is a song recorded and written by singer-songwriter John Denver. It was his second number one song in the USA, occupying that spot for two weeks in July 1974. It also went to number one in the UK, where it was Denver's only major hit single (many of Denver's American hits were more familiar in the UK through cover versions by other artists).

Inspiration

"Annie's Song" was written as an ode to Denver's then-wife, Annie Denver (née Martell). Denver "wrote this song in about ten-and-a-half minutes one day on a ski lift" to the top of Bell Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, as the physical exhilaration of having "just skied down a very difficult run" and the feeling of total immersion in the beauty of the colors and sounds that filled all senses inspired him to think about his wife.

The song has since become a wedding standard and an expression of love for many people, due to its grand imagery and the fact it could apply to anyone (Annie is not mentioned by name in any part of the song).

Source: wikipedia





Annie's Song
by John Denver


You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain

like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean
you fill up my senses,
come fill me again.

Come let me love you,
let me give my life to you
let me drown in your laughter,
let me die in your arms

let me lay down beside you,
let me always be with you
come let me love you,
come love me again.

(instrumental)


You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain

like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean
you fill up my senses,
come fill me again.

Reflections

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign, which said: ' I am blind, please help '. There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, 'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning?  What did you write?'


The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what u said but in a different way.'


What he had written was: ' Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it '.

Do you think the first sign & the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course, both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.  Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?



Moral of the Story:


* Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

* Invite the people towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets.

* When Life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.

* Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.
Keep the faith and drop the fear.

*Don't believe your doubts and don't doubt your beliefs.

* Life is a mystery to solve not a problem to resolve.

* Life is wonderful if you know how to live.



Enjoy Life ....... and Make A Difference .....



Source: forward email

Hilarious USB keys

USB keys now are much cheaper than before and also there are tons of hilarious ones in the market. Some look cute while the others are a bit weird or even scary! I prefer the standard one which is flat and portable without difficulty. By the way, let's see these USB. Do you see any you like?

source:  forward email

Mona Lisa Coffee Art

Although this was created since last year, I'd like to post it in my blog and share with those we've never seen it before. When we talk about Mona Lisa, we firstly think of the popular painting. Here Mona Lisa was created with 3,604 cups of coffee and 564 pints of milk! Wow! That's amazing! can I have a cup of coffee?

The different colours were created by adding no, little or lots of milk to each cup of black coffee.

It measures an impressive 20 feet high and 13 feet wide and took a team of eight people three hours to complete.

It was created for The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia, and seen by 130,000 people who attended the one-day coffee-lovers event.

Elaine Kelly, from event organisers the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, was delighted with the result.


She said: "Each coffee cup was filled with varying amounts of milk to create the different sepia shades of the painting.

"We wanted to create an element of surprise and a sense of fun in the way we engaged with the public.


"Once we had the idea of creating an image out of coffee cups we searched for something iconic to reproduce - and opted for the most iconic painting in history.


"The Mona Lisa has been reproduced so many times in so many different mediums but, as far as we know, never out of coffee.


"The result was fantastic."


"After much planning it was great to see if coming together so well and the 130,000 people who attended the event certainly enjoyed it."

Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, is the 16th century portrait painted in oil by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance.


The work is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musee du Louvre in Paris, France, with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

It measures 770 millimetres by 530 millimetres and has prompted debate for years over the reason for her famously enigmatic smile.


Extensive scrutiny using X-ray apparatus suggests that restoration work has resulted in the original being painted over three times.



information, credit to telegraph.co.uk
photos: forward email

"ฮาจิเมะ" ใช้หุ่นยนต์เสิร์ฟแทนคน

“ฮาจิเมะ” ร้านอาหารญี่ปุ่นสไตล์ปิ้งย่างแนวใหม่ พลิกประวัติศาสตร์วงการร้าน อาหาร ทุ่มงบ 30 ล้านบาท ใช้หุ่นยนต์อัจฉริยะเสิร์ฟแทนพนักงานทั้งร้านเป็นแห่ง แรกในประเทศไทย สร้างประสบการณ์แปลกใหม่ให้เหล่านักชิม ณ ชั้น 3 โครงการ “โมโนโพลี พาร์ค” ถนนพระราม 3

ลภัสรดา ธนพันธ์ กรรมการบริหารและเจ้าของร้านอาหารฮาจิเมะ เปิดเผยว่า จุดเริ่มต้นของร้านฮาจิเมะ มาจากที่ตนเองเป็นคนชื่นชอบอาหารญี่ปุ่นเป็นพิเศษ เมื่อมีโอกาสจึงอยากสร้างร้านอาหารที่มีความพิเศษแปลกใหม่ไม่เหมือนใคร และให้ ความสำคัญอย่างยิ่งกับความสะอาดถูกสุขอนามัย ทั้งนี้ในปัจจุบันการทำอาหารหรือ การเสิร์ฟอาหารอาจเกิดการปนเปื้อนระหว่างทางมายังลูกค้า การนำหุ่นยนต์มาให้ บริการแทนคนตั้งแต่ในครัวจนถึงการเสิร์ฟอาหารจะสามารถรักษาความสดสะอาดของอาหาร และลดการปนเปื้อนได้เป็นอย่างดี ซึ่งจะเป็นผลดีต่อสุขภาพของลูกค้าที่มาใช้บริการ

จุดเด่นของร้าน คือ หุ่นยนต์อัจฉริยะ ซึ่งผลิตในประเทศญี่ปุ่น และได้รับการ พัฒนาระบบโดยคนไทย โดยมีความสามารถที่หลากหลาย อาทิ สามารถแสดงอารมณ์ได้ เต้นรำ ตามจังหวะเพลง เสิร์ฟอาหาร นอกจากนี้ยังสามารถทราบว่าอาหารในจานลูกค้าหมดและ เก็บจานอาหารโดยอัตโนมัติ ซึ่งภายในร้านจะใช้หุ่นยนต์ทั้งหมดจำนวน 4 ตัว แบ่งออกเป็นแบบ 1 แขน 2 ตัว ทำงานจัดเตรียมอาหารในครัว และแบบ 2 แขน 2 ตัว ทำ หน้าที่รับถาดอาหารและวิ่งตามรางนำไปเสิร์ฟตามโต๊ะ โดยลูกค้าสามารถสั่งอาหารผ่านทางหน้าจอ touch screen ที่โต๊ะอาหาร

VDO via Kapook


นอกจากนี้ทางร้านยังพิถีพิถันในการออกแบบตกแต่งร้านให้มีบรรยากาศอบอุ่นด้วย กลิ่นอายแบบญี่ปุ่น ผสมผสานกับความทันสมัย เหมาะสำหรับครอบครัวยุคใหม่ โดยใช้งบ ลงทุนกว่า 30 ล้านบาท บนพื้นที่กว่า 450 ตารางเมตร บนชั้น 3 ของ “โมโนโพลี พาร์ค” คอมมูนิตี้มอลล์ แนวใหม่แห่งแรกในย่านพระราม 3 “ฮาจิเมะ” มีเมนูให้เลือก กว่า 100 รายการ และยังมีเนื้อพิเศษคือ โกเบ ซึ่งจะส่งตรงมาจากญี่ปุ่นเพื่อความ สดใหม่สำหรับลูกค้าที่หลงใหลในเนื้อวัวโดยเฉพาะ

“ด้วยความพิเศษของหุ่นยนต์อัจฉริยะ อาหารที่สด สะอาด อร่อย พร้อมทั้ง วัตถุดิบที่นำเข้ามาเป็นพิเศษ เรามั่นใจว่าจะสามารถดึงดูดลูกค้าที่ชื่นชอบอาหาร ญี่ปุ่นระดับพรีเมียม รวมถึงผู้ที่สนใจเทคโนโลยีและต้องการพิสูจน์ความสามารถของ หุ่นยนต์ได้เป็นอย่างดี โดยเราได้ตั้งเป้ารายได้ในปีแรกไว้กว่า 60 ล้านบาท และ ต่อไปก็จะมีการพัฒนาความสามารถด้านการบริการของหุ่นยนต์ให้ดียิ่งขึ้นเพื่อความ พึงพอใจของลูกค้า” ลภัสรดา กล่าวทิ้งท้าย

ที่มา: ประชาชาติธุรกิจออนไลน์  วันที่ 05 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2553