Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) ::

Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) is a term given to various heart conditions including a Heart Attack (Myocardial Infarction) and Unstable Angina. These conditions are due to there being a reduced amount of blood flowing to a part of the heart. Various treatments are given and these usually depend on the type of ACS. Treatments help to ease the pain, improve the blood flow and to prevent any future complications.

Myocardial Infarction : 
If you have a myocardial infarction, a coronary artery or one of its smaller branches is suddenly blocked. The part of the heart muscle supplied by this artery loses its blood (and oxygen) supply. This part of the heart muscle is at risk of dying unless the blockage is quickly undone. (The word infarction means death of some tissue due to a blocked artery which stops blood from getting past.) In addition to being known as a heart attack, a myocardial infarction is sometimes called a coronary thrombosis.

Unstable angina :
Unstable angina occurs when the blood clot causes a reduced blood flow, but not a total blockage. This means that the heart muscle supplied by the affected artery does not die (infarct).

Causes
Acute coronary syndrome is most often a complication of plaque buildup in the arteries in your heart (coronary atherosclerosis) These plaques, made up of fatty deposits, cause the arteries to narrow and make it more difficult for blood to flow through them.

Eventually, this buildup means that your heart can't pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body, causing chest pain (angina) or a heart attack. Most cases of acute coronary syndrome occur when the surface of the plaque buildup in your heart arteries ruptures and causes a blood clot to form. The combination of the plaque buildup and the blood clot dramatically limits the amount of blood flowing to your heart muscle. If the blood flow is severely limited, a heart attack will occur.
Various other uncommon conditions can also block a coronary artery. For example :
- Inflammation of the coronary arteries (rare).
- A stab wound to the heart.
- A blood clot forming elsewhere in the body (for example, in a heart chamber) and travelling to a coronary artery where it gets stuck.
- Taking cocaine, which can cause a coronary artery to go into spasm.
- Complications from heart surgery.

Sign & Symptoms
1. The most common symptom of a ACS is having severe Chest Pain. The pain often feels like a heavy pressure on your chest. The pain may also travel up into your jaw and down your left arm, or down both arms.
2. Nausea / Vomiting
3. Shortness of Breath (dyspnea)
4. Sudden, heavy sweating (diaphoresis)
5. Feel sick and feel faint
6. Abdominal Pain
7. Pain similar to heartburn
8. Clammy skin
9. Lightheadedness
10. Dizziness or fainting

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Copper clusters capture and convert carbon dioxide to make fuel

Capture and convert—this is the motto of carbon dioxide reduction, a process that stops the greenhouse gas before it escapes from chimneys and power plants into the atmosphere and instead turns it into a useful product.

One possible end product is methanol, a liquid fuel and the focus of a recent study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. The chemical reactions that make methanol from carbon dioxide rely on a catalyst to speed up the conversion, and Argonne scientists identified a new material that could fill this role. With its unique structure, this catalyst can capture and convert carbon dioxide in a way that ultimately saves energy.

They call it a copper tetramer.

It consists of small clusters of four copper atoms each, supported on a thin film of aluminum oxide. These catalysts work by binding to carbon dioxide molecules, orienting them in a way that is ideal for chemical reactions. The structure of the copper tetramer is such that most of its binding sites are open, which means it can attach more strongly to carbon dioxide and can better accelerate the conversion.

The current industrial process to reduce carbon dioxide to methanol uses a catalyst of copper, zinc oxide andaluminum oxide. A number of its binding sites are occupied merely in holding the compound together, which limits how many atoms can catch and hold carbon dioxide.

"With our catalyst, there is no inside," said Stefan Vajda, senior chemist at Argonne and the Institute for Molecular Engineering and co-author on the paper. "All four copper atoms are participating because with only a few of them in the cluster, they are all exposed and able to bind."

To compensate for a catalyst with fewer binding sites, the current method of reduction creates high-pressure conditions to facilitate stronger bonds with carbon dioxide molecules. But compressing gas into a high-pressure mixture takes a lot of energy.

The benefit of enhanced binding is that the new catalyst requires lower pressure and less energy to produce the same amount of methanol.

Carbon dioxide emissions are an ongoing environmental problem, and according to the authors, it's important that research identifies optimal ways to deal with the waste.

"We're interested in finding new catalytic reactions that will be more efficient than the current catalysts, especially in terms of saving energy," said Larry Curtiss, an Argonne Distinguished Fellow who co-authored this paper.

Copper tetramers could allow us to capture and convert carbon dioxide on a larger scale—reducing an environmental threat and creating a useful product like methanol that can be transported and burned for fuel.

Of course the catalyst still has a long journey ahead from the lab to industry.

Potential obstacles include instability and figuring out how to manufacture mass quantities. There's a chance that copper tetramers may decompose when put to use in an industrial setting, so ensuring long-term durability is a critical step for future research, Curtiss said. And while the scientists needed only nanograms of the material for this study, that number would have to be multiplied dramatically for industrial purposes.

Meanwhile, the researchers are interested in searching for other catalysts that might even outperform their copper tetramer.

These catalysts can be varied in size, composition and support material, which results in a list of more than 2,000 potential combinations, Vajda said.

The importance of right philosophy

It once happened, on a certain day, a bull and a pheasant were grazing on the field. The bull was grazing on the grass, the pheasant was picking ticks off the bull; they are partners, you know?

Then the pheasant looked at a huge tree which was at the edge of the field, and very nostalgically said, "Alas, there was a time when I could fly to the top most branch of the tree, but today I do not have the strength even to fly to the first branch of the tree"

The bull very nonchalantly said, "That's no problem! Eat a little bit of my dung every day, you will see, within a fortnight's time you will reach the top of the tree."

The pheasant said, "Oh, come off it! How is that possible?"
The bull replied, "Really, please try and see. The whole humanity is on it, you could try, too."

Very hesitantly, the pheasant started pecking at the dung, and lo, on the very first day it reached the first branch of the tree. In a fortnight's time, it reached the topmost branch of the tree. It just went and sat on the topmost branch and just enjoyed the scenery. The old farmer saw a fat old pheasant on the top of the tree. He took out his shotgun and shot him off the tree. So the moral of the story is: even bullshit can get you to the top, but never lets you stay there.

So if you are seeking a life of fulfilment, joy, peace and well being within yourself, don't try to fool yourself in some way. You must do the right thing, otherwise it won't work.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev