Latest news with #plasma
ABC News
21 hours ago
- Health
- ABC News
Blood donation eligibility rules change
Over the past few months, Lifeblood has announced a series of changes around who can donate blood. In June, it changed the rules around gay and bi-sexual men's eligibility to donate blood and plasma. Now, those in remission from cancer no longer have to wait five years to donate.
ABC News
2 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Bloody Good Tour aims to save lives and beat blood donation record
Simon Braun is out for blood. Quite literally. The father of three has spent the past year driving around the country with his kids, visiting the nearly 80 Lifeblood centres across Australia. "Simmo" said he hoped to enlist more than 33,000 new blood donations, donating plasma himself about every fortnight. But tens of thousands of kilometres in a caravan, distance education, and regular donations have not drained him. "Donating blood energises me," he said. Donating blood has been a constant bright spot through Mr Braun's challenges. He recalled sitting in the donor chair during a "dark time" in his life, and feeling "genuinely happy" for the first time in a long time. He joined the dots. There have long been barriers to blood donation for many people. This month, Lifeblood relaxed its rules around sexual activity and donation. Gay and bisexual men and transgender women who have sex with men were allowed to donate plasma. Lifeblood said it was working towards similar changes for whole blood and platelet donation. In 2022, people who were in the UK during the "mad cow disease" outbreak were allowed to donate again after a 22-year ban. Lifeblood researcher Rachel Thorpe said while safety for donors and recipients was the priority, the organisation hoped to get as many people as possible in the blood donation chair. "Ultimately we would like more people to be eligible to donate blood," she said. Being in the regions has also stopped people donating, with Lifeblood centres concentrated in cities. WA has no permanent centres north of Perth, and the NT's only permanent centre is in Darwin. There are pop up centres in some regional towns, and Lifeblood also has mobile "blood buses" to allow country people to donate. But ultimately, cities and regional centres have the most potential with 90 per cent of Australians living within half an hour of a donor centre. And for people who could not regularly donate, Dr Thorpe said having people such as Mr Braun start the conversation was a big help. "A lot of people don't really talk about blood donation, it's one of the big barriers to donating blood," she said. Dr Thorpe said common "misunderstandings" often stopped people donating. One of those was people believing they were too old to donate — a myth Dr Thorpe was keen to bust. Australians can be a first-time donor until they are 75, and if they have already donated in the past, there is no upper age limit. Fear of needles has been another common setback. But Mr Braun said that was not necessarily a bad problem to have. "It's actually quite a privilege to be able to, with courage, face your fear head-on," he said. He encouraged nervous donors to keep recipients front of mind. "Maybe that's the five-year-old with leukaemia who doesn't get a choice about whether they get the needle or not," he said. But in the thousands of conversations Mr Braun has had about blood donation in the past year, the common theme was not fear, or lack of information, or distance. It was time. "Everybody's busy these days," he said. "In fact, you ask someone how they are and they say 'busy'." His answer to the dilemma was simple. "A blood donation takes maybe seven minutes with a needle in the arm for whole blood, and you're in and out in half an hour," he said. Mr Braun and his family have been documenting each leg of their journey on The Bloody Good Tour website. The culmination of the tour will be a national record attempt on July 31. Mr Braun will be donating in Sydney, where the tour wraps up. But he has asked people from all over the country to sign up to his donor team, to reach the most donations in a single day by one team. The number to beat is 523: a record set by Commonwealth Bank employees in May. "With a bit of cheek, we can't let a bank hold the record," Mr Braun said.
Gizmodo
20-07-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Astronomers Detect Entirely New Type of Plasma Wave Above Jupiter's North Pole
Since entering Jupiter's orbit in 2016, NASA's Juno spacecraft has been hard at work unveiling the many mysteries of our solar system's largest planet. And its latest discovery may be one of the most intriguing yet: an entirely new type of plasma wave near Jupiter's poles. In a paper published Wednesday in Physical Review Letters, astronomers describe an unusual pattern of plasma waves in Jupiter's magnetosphere—a magnetic 'bubble' shielding the planet from external radiation. Jupiter's exceptionally powerful magnetic field appears to be forcing two very different types of plasmas to jiggle in tandem, creating a unique flow of charged particles and atoms in its polar regions. Plasma is a key force in shaping Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. As such, the researchers believe the new observations will further advance our understanding of not only Jupiter's weather events but also the magnetic properties of distant exoplanets. For the study, the researchers analyzed the behavior of plasma waves in Jupiter's magnetosphere containing highly magnetized, low-density plasma. The team, a collaboration between researchers from the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa, and the Southwest Research Institute, Texas, found an unexpected oscillation between Alfvén waves and Langmuir waves, which reflect the movement of the plasma's atoms and the movement of the electrons in the plasma, respectively. Electrons are much lighter than charged atoms, meaning that, normally, the two wave types ripple at very different frequencies—which was clearly not the case for Jupiter's magnetosphere, prompting the researchers to take a closer look. The ensuing investigation unveiled a never-before-seen type of plasma oscillation near Jupiter's poles. 'The observed plasma properties are really unusual, not found before and elsewhere in our solar system,' John Leif Jørgensen, a planetary scientist at the Technical University of Denmark who wasn't involved in the new work, told New Scientist. Unlike Earth's auroras, which are caused by solar storms, Jupiter's auroras—a barrage of frisky, superfast particles that are hundreds of times more energetic than auroras on Earth—sometimes emerge as a product of its powerful magnetic field. Getting a better grasp on how such phenomena work could be valuable information for future missions in the search for alien life on exoplanets, according to the study authors. Detailed New Images of Jupiter's Aurora Reveal Strange and Unexplained Brightness 'While such conditions do not occur [on] Earth, it is possible that they apply in polar regions of the other giant planets and potentially in strongly magnetized exoplanets or stars,' the astronomers wrote in the paper. 'Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system,' said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator, in NASA's introductory page for the spacecraft. 'Juno is going there as our emissary—to interpret what Jupiter has to say.' Initially, NASA expected Juno's mission to conclude in 2017, when they would intentionally steer the spacecraft into Jupiter's atmosphere, a decision that adheres to NASA's planetary protection requirements. But Juno's flight path evolved over time, and NASA concluded that the spacecraft no longer posed a threat to Jupiter's moons. As a result, the agency authorized extensions to the mission. Heck Yes, NASA's Juno and InSight Missions Are Getting Bonus Time That being said, the scientists do believe that, by September this year, Juno's orbit will degrade naturally, and it will be gobbled up by Jupiter's atmosphere. However, this by no means ends humanity's exploration of Jupiter; Europa Clipper is slated to reach Europa, Jupiter's moon, in 2030 (the last time we checked, it did some sightseeing near Mars). Of course, even after Jupiter consumes Juno, scientists will still have loads of invaluable data from the spacecraft that they'll continue to meticulously analyze for years to come.
Japan Times
15-07-2025
- Health
- Japan Times
Freezer glitch affects blood products at Red Cross center in Tokyo
A freezer glitch rendered about 13,700 units of fresh frozen plasma blood unusable at the Japanese Red Cross Society's blood center in Tokyo in May, it was learned Tuesday. The incident did not affect deliveries of blood products to medical institutions, and the affected units will be used as materials for other products that can be stored at higher temperatures, officials of the center said. On May 11, a freezer at the blood center in Tokyo's Koto Ward lost power around 10:30 p.m. Before the power was restored about four hours later, the temperature of the fresh frozen plasma blood units inside was above the standard level of minus 20 degrees Celsius for about two and a half hours. The power cut was caused by a faulty device installation in the temperature control panel, the officials said. The Japanese Red Cross Society reported the incident to the health ministry on June 10. At a news conference on Tuesday, health minister Takamaro Fukuoka said the ministry strongly demanded the society report any incident in a timely manner.
ABC News
14-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Thousands from LGBTQI+ and sex worker communities can now donate plasma
Thousands of members of the LGBTQI+ and sex worker communities can now donate plasma in Australia without having to wait three months from the last time they had sex. On Monday, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood removed most wait time restrictions for gay and bisexual men, transgender people, sex workers and those on the common HIV prevention drug pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This change means an estimated 625,000 additional Australians are now eligible to donate plasma. Often referred to as the "liquid gold" part of blood, plasma is used to treat more than 50 medical conditions. During the HIV crisis in the 1980s, Australia introduced an indefinite ban on men who have sex with men from donating blood and plasma in order to prevent transmission through blood transfusion. Skye McGregor from the Kirby Institute said this was in part due to the lengthy time it took to confirm if HIV was present in test results. "To have no deferral now around sexual activity through the plasma pathway is really significant," Dr McGregor said. Other factors such as a 33 per cent drop in HIV diagnoses since 2014, and increased sensitivity of HIV tests — which can detect an infection within a week — have also contributed to the lifting of restrictions. "Whilst these changes were necessary in the past to ensure that blood safety, we also know that they did contribute to stigma within particularly the gay and bisexual community," Lifeblood chief executive officer Stephen Cornelissen said. From July 14, people in these previously restricted groups can donate plasma immediately, regardless of sexual activity. The only exception is for those who've recently had sex with a partner known to have HIV or another blood-borne virus. "It's a beautiful moment," Joshua Smith said, who donated for the first time on Monday. "Blood and plasma donations was one of the last things it felt like gay and bisexual people and trans communities were excluded from. Fellow donor Kane Wheatley added: "It's one of those things that you spend your whole life thinking this is just not going to get across the line, and when it does it feels really nice to be able to be here to support it, normalise it for people as well." Lifeblood estimates an additional 625,000 Australians may now be eligible to donate plasma. It is hoping for 24,000 new donors and 95,000 additional donations a year. The next step is for gay, bisexual and other members of the LGBTQI+ community to be able to donate what's known as "whole blood", not just plasma. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has recently approved a gender-neutral risk assessment for blood and platelet donations, which is the first step in the process. This means everyone — regardless of gender or sexual orientation — will be asked if they have had sex (excluding oral sex) with a new or more than one partner in the past six months. If they answer yes, they will be asked whether this included having anal sex in the past three months. Anyone who answers yes will be deferred from donating blood for six months, but will be able to donate plasma. This means gay and bisexual men in long-term, monogamous relationships will be able to donate whole blood without abstaining from sex. This change will be implemented sometime next year, Adjunct Professor Cornelissen said. Let Us Give, a campaign to ensure equality when it comes to blood donation, welcomed the change to giving plasma but said the whole blood rules remain "discriminatory" as they stand currently. Spokesperson Rodney Croome said policy should centre on "the safety of a donor's sexual activity rather than the gender of their sexual partner". He said an approach change like this would "open up a new source of safe blood for those in need and remove discrimination from Australia's blood collection system". Those who have recently had sex with a partner known to have HIV or another blood-borne virus will still be unable to donate blood or plasma. There are also restrictions that prevent people taking some medications, those who have medical conditions such as MS or cancer, people who are pregnant or less than nine months postpartum, and those who have recently undergone surgery from making donations. The rule preventing people who lived in the UK between 1980 and 1996 from donating in Australia was lifted in July 2022.
