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Future

Key Ingredient In Cough Syrup Could Help With Down Syndrome

ABC NEWS, HERALD SUN, MONASH UNIVERSITY (Australia)

Worldcrunch

MELBOURNE – An ingredient used in cough syrup could hold the key to improving memory, language skills and learning in people with Down syndrome.

Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, believe BTD-001, an ingredient in cough syrup that was discovered in the 1920s, could help with Down syndrome, reports Australian public broadcaster ABC News.

BTD-001 is used as a respiratory stimulant, but in the 1950s and 60s, it was also prescribed to patients with dementia, says Associate Professor Bob Davis from Monash University.

“People with dementia seemed to improve their memory and cognitive ability,” says Professor Davis. Since then, it has been established that BTD-001 improves the conductivity of the nerves in the brain.

Monash University has announced the launch of a trial to investigate the effectiveness of the ingredient, which has the “potential to significantly improve the quality of life of people with Down syndrome,” a disability that effects six million people worldwide.

Down Syndrome is a genetic condition where a person has an extra copy of the chromosome 21, leading to physical, developmental and intellectual disability, says the Herald Sun.

The first-ever clinical study involves trialing a lower dose formulation of the drug on 90 people with Down syndrome, aged between 13 and 35. Researchers are currently recruiting all around Australia. To take part in the trial, visit: compose21.com

Award-winning Belgian actor Pascal Duquenne has Down syndrome. Photo Pascal Duquenne.

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Society

Big Brother For The People: India's CCTV Strategy For Cracking Down On Police Abuse

"There is nothing fashionable about installing so many cameras in and outside one’s house," says a lawyer from a Muslim community. And yet, doing this has helped members of the community prove unfair police action against them.

A woman is walking in the distance while a person holds a military-style gun close up

Survellance and tight security at the Lal Chowk area in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India on October 4, 2022

Sukanya Shantha

MUMBAI — When sleuths of the National Investigating Agency suddenly descended on human rights defender and school teacher Abdul Wahid Shaikh’s house on October 11, he knew exactly what he needed to do next.

He had been monitoring the three CCTVs that are installed on the front and the rear of his house — a chawl in Vikhroli, a densely populated area in suburban Mumbai. The cameras told him that a group of men and women — some dressed in Mumbai police’s uniform and a few in civil clothes — had converged outside his house. Some of them were armed and few others with batons were aggressively banging at the door asking him to immediately let them in.

This was not the first time that the police had landed at his place at 5 am.

When the policemen discovered the CCTV cameras outside his house, they began hitting it with their batons, destroying one of them mounted right over the door. This action was captured by the adjacent CCTV camera. Shaikh, holed up in his house with his wife and two children, kept pleading with the police to stop destroying his property and simply show them an official notice.

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