【推荐1】CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation 心肺复苏术) and first aid are related topics. It could be said that first aid is the more general of the two, and training in first aid might include instructions and practice on how to respond to a variety of medical emergencies that could be causing danger to life or to a part of a person’s body. One such medical emergency could be the stopping of breathing or heartbeat, and the right response, in this case, might be to perform CPR. Thus, CPR can be seen as a type of first-aid response.

There can be differences in the amount of first-aid training people learn, and courses can sometimes be broken down into emergency and standard training. Standard training is actually the more extensive of the two, and would include teaching and learning how to handle a variety of medical situations like bites from insects or animals, broken bones, poisoning, childbirth, and care of wounds. Emergency first aid tends to be limited to the teaching of CPR, how to handle choking emergencies, and instructions on wound care for heavy bleeding.

CPR and first aid may be taught together or are sometimes taken as separate courses. People may need a whole day of practice or longer before getting CPR certification, which should be obtained from recognized agencies like the Red Cross. The big difference between CPR and first aid, in terms of taking classes, is that CPR focuses only on learning to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and recognize those situations as soon as possible in which it should be performed, while first-aid classes may teach this too, but they will teach in the broader context of how people need to respond to lots of different injuries or illness.

The issue of CPR and first aid may get confusing when people are asked to get training in one or both of these. Some people may be asked to take a first-aid course and have CPR training. Those who need more extensive training in standard first aid certainly won’t satisfy this need by only taking a CPR course. Those confused about what training they need should get this issue clear with the person (usually an employer) requesting the training.

Being able to respond first in a medical emergency usually means needing to know CPR, but other knowledge could be just as necessary. For instance, how to stop uncontrollable bleeding or how to handle an episode of anaphylactic shock (过敏性休克) could be vital too.

【推荐2】It has been around for centuries, but up until very recently, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) wasn’t fully accepted abroad. Proof of this can be found in The Treatment (《刮痧》), a 2001 film that tells the story of a Chinese man in the US who’s accused of abuse after he uses guasha, a form of TCM treatment, to cure his grandson’s disease.

During the last 10 years or so, however, TCM has been getting increasingly popular all over the world. A report released by the State Council Information Office on Dec. 6 says this style of health care, which includes different forms like herbal medicine and exercise, has spread to 183 countries and regions.

“We have set up 10 TCM centers outside China, and all of them are popular among locals,” Wang Guoqiang, head of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said at a news conference on Dec 6. “Governments of 86 countries and regions have signed agreements with the Chinese government on TCM corporation.”

One of the reasons behind the growing popularity of TCM is the increase of scientific research into it. And after Tu Youyou-the Chinese scientist who discovered the anti-malaria (抗疟疾) drug qinghaosu (青蒿素)-won the Nobel Prize last year, TCM became even more famous internationally.

However, all these achievements in TCM don’t mean that it’s problem-free. Over the years, TCM has faced challenges in being able to prove that it has certain effects.

Some researchers have suggested TCM should be more exact and work together with Western medicine.

“Bringing together with Western medicine and TCM, rather than being in competition, is where the potential for great effects is,” said Bernhard Schwartlander, the China representative of the World Health Organization.

【推荐3】AIDS may be one of the most undesirable diseases in the world. Luckily, there is now hope for AIDS patients.

According to a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Chinese scientists have successfully used CRISPR technology – a method of gene editing – to treat a patient with HIV. While it may not have cured the patient fully, it still represents a huge step forward in fighting the disease.

The patient was a 27-year-old Chinese man who was diagnosed with both AIDS and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (急性淋巴细胞白血病), a type of blood cancer. Despite his hopeless situation, doctors offered him a glimmer of hope: a bone marrow (骨髓) transplant to treat his cancer and an experimental treatment for his HIV.

They used this opportunity to edit the DNA in bone marrow stem cells from a donor before transplanting the cells into the patient.

Specifically, the treatment involved using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to delete a gene known as CCR5, which encodes a protein that HIV uses to get inside human cells. Without the gene, HIV is unable to infiltrate cells.

Talking about the gene, lead scientist Deng Hongkui told CNN, “After being edited, the cells — and the blood cells they produce — have the ability to resist HIV infection.”

Nineteen months after the treatment, the patient’s leukemia was in complete remission (缓解) and donor cells without CCR5 remained, according to the research paper.

Though the transplant did not cure the man’s HIV, it still showed the effectiveness of gene-editing technology, as there was no indication of any unintended genetic alterations – a major concern with past gene therapy experiments.

Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in the United States, who was not involved in the study, praised the treatment.

“They did a very innovative experiment. It was safe,” he told Live Science. “It should be viewed as a success.”

Deng believes gene-editing technology could “bring a new dawn” to blood-related diseases such as AIDS and sickle cell anemia (镰刀形细胞性贫血).

“Thanks to this new technology, the goal of a functional cure for AIDS is getting closer and closer,” he said.