In response to the Government’s policy to support the conservation of Thai culture, the airline is encouraging its employees to wear traditional Thai attire every Tuesday. The company recently held the “Revival of Traditional Thai Culture” event, where employees were asked to wear traditional Thai attire to work for the entire week in an effort to promote wearing traditional Thai clothing in everyday life.

During Songkran, flight attendants will dress in traditional Thai costume from the reign of King Rama V of Thailand on 40 domestic and international flights on routes to Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, and Yangon. The campaign continues through April 30.

THAI check-in counters at Suvarnabhumi Airport will be decorated with Northern Lanna flags while Thai scented water and fragrant white clay powder will be used in decorating the Royal First and Royal Silk lounges based on the Songkran theme. The Ground Customer Services Department also invites passengers to pour scented water over Buddha statues (a tradition called Song Nam Phra) at Premium Check-in Row A, Departure Hall, Fourth Floor, Exit One, and THAI lounges at Concourse D.

Special Thai desserts will be offered at all lounges from April 12 to 14. Rice soaked in cool water (khao chae), Mango Sticky Rice, and Mung Bean Paste (Luk Chup) are offered in the Royal First Class Lounge while pinched gold egg yolks (Thong yip), Mung Bean Paste (Luk Chup), Sticky Rice with Thai Custard, Steamed Cassava Cake, and Thai Jelly are available in the Royal Silk Class lounge, where passengers can experience Songkran and THAI hospitality.

The World Peace conference will be held in Stockholm City Hall, which also hosts the Nobel Prize awards.

The ceremony is being held by the Abbot of Wat Budharam, organiser of Stockholm World Peace International 2018, with Ingmarie Hedberg Kikuchi, chairman of the Universal Peace Federation, and the Swedish Government. Some 1,000 people are expected to attend.

Kai is one of 20 individuals chosen for the honour and is the first female designer from Thailand to become a Peace Ambassador.

The Abbot of Wat Budharam says that the International Word Peace Organisation wants this event to be global. It is not, he adds, about religion but totally focused on peace.

Peace can only be brought about by finding solutions to the world’s problems and ending terrorism and supporting cultural identity, he adds.

The jury decided to give this award to Kai because of her dedication to supporting culture and unity. She uses local fabrics, usually Thai silk, to represent the colourful of Thai and Asian cultures.

She said, “Clothing is more than just what we wear. It can support both peace and unity and help us learn to live with people that are different from us. Religion or faith cannot solve all problems, because there is believers and non-believer out there in the world. The main point to live peacefully is to respect each other.”

Kai has already received a number of awards including the De Fele De Mode [Golden Thimble] in 2000.

Admission to the historical parks is free this week.

The Culture Ministry kicked off the week with Thai Heritage Conservation Day on April 2 and has planned exhibitions, live performances and workshops.

The day has been celebrated annually since 1985, honouring Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who was born on April 2, 1955, and her contributions to the conservation of the nation’s heritage.

Through Friday at the National Museum Bangkok, there are guided tours for the exhibition on the Royal Cremation of His Majesty King Bhumibol. The thrice-daily tours are conducted in Thai, English, German and French.

Saturday and Sunday from 10am to noon, the museum will host events inspired by the popular TV soap opera “Buppesannivas” (“Love Destiny”).

Also on Saturday, museum visitors will be able to sample “Dishes from the Court” and learn how palace courtiers dressed in bygone days through a “Nung Jong Hom Sabai” demonstration conducted in Thai and English.

The entrance fee at the National Museum Bangkok is Bt30 (Bt200 for foreigners).

Grindr chief technology officer Scott Chen said in a Tumblr post that sharing data with partners such as Apptimize and Localytics was “industry practice” and that steps were taken to protect people’s privacy.

“As a company that serves the LGBTQ community, we understand the sensitivities around HIV status disclosure,” Chen said.

“Our goal is and always has been to support the health and safety of our users worldwide.”

Grindr users have the option of sharing their HIV status and when they were most recently tested.

Researchers worried that including the health information with other data such as location and email address could result in people being identified.

Online rights champion Electric Frontier Foundation called Grindr’s response “disappointing.”

The Los Angeles-based company said that it uses Apptimize and Localytics to test and validate its platform, and that data it shares with them could include users’ HIV status or location fields.

Sensitive data is encrypted when sent, and vendors are under strict contractual terms to keep it secure and confidential, according to Chen.

Norwegian nonprofit research group SINTEF uncovered the data sharing, and concern spread in the US after Buzzfeed reported the findings.

“Grindr has never, nor will we ever sell personally identifiable user information — especially information regarding HIV status or last test date — to third parties or advertisers,” Chen said.

He noted though that Grindr is a public platform, and that should be kept in mind when deciding what to put in profiles.

News website Axios reported that Grindr’s security chief said the company has stopped sharing users’ HIV status with its third-party vendors.

“You guys should just close up now,” read one of the few comments in an online chat forum under the Grindr post at Tumblr.

“No one cares about your efforts or industry standards. You betrayed the LGBT community in more than just the one way.”

BY 2021, more than 20 per cent of Thailand’s population will be over the age of 60, making Thailand what is known as a “complete ageing” society. In almost every sector, preparations are being made to handle the problems that come with an ageing population and among them is Siriraj Hospital, which has not only opened a department dedicated to gerontology but has also joined with SCG Group to demonstrate how seniors can live safely at home.

Despite its small size, the special “showroom” is on the third floor of Siriraj Piyamaharajkarun Hospital bathroom contains bathroom and bedroom, all equipped with fittings appropriate for the older generation..

“We deteriorate physically as we age and an older person having a fall is much more serious that it is for children or young people. The elderly have a high risk of fractures and complications. Fortunately this can be avoided. We have shared our knowledge and expertise in care and medication with SCG in designing rooms that are suitable for seniors,” says Professor Prasit Watanapa, dean of Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital.

The best place for an older person to live, he stresses, is at home with his/her family and that home should be turned into a safe place. The centre’s model shows how handrails should be installed to support the elderly as they walk and offers some ideas for functional space that focuses on accident reduction and prevention.

The centre does however appreciate that not everyone has the money to “senior-proof” their homes and also suggests cheaper but appropriate materials, such as a handrail made of pipe or bamboo rather than the purpose-made stainless steel rail.

Dr Prasit adds that Siriraj is planning to open a larger Elderly Learning Centre in Samut Sakhon province. The new centre, which will be located on a 25-rai plot, is currently awaiting budget approval from the cabinet and will need two years to complete.

The centre, he says, will be neither hospice nor home for the elderly, but a venue to provide knowledge in caring for the elderly to help both seniors and their families prepare for the days when they are not so mobile.

All too often, Dr Prasit adds, older people discharged from hospital are back soon afterwards because their homes haven’t been adjusted to make them accident proof.

“As a hospital, we have to discharge patients because we need the beds so we don’t have space and time for other matters that help them to live properly at home. The centre will step into the gap,” he says.

The new centre will open to all including those who are not registered patients of Siriraj Hospital. Guideline and procedures will later be set to screen patients wanting to use the facility.

WITH SLEEPING disorders at the forefront of many medical woes, correct diagnosis is essential to ensuring the right treatment is given.

Philips recently made this a whole lot easier by opening Southeast Asia’s first Sleep and Respiratory Education Centre at its regional headquarters in Singapore to train healthcare professionals across the region to better diagnose and treat this common disorder. The centre is the latest addition to Philips’ Singapore facilities, which are housed in a 38,000-square-metre, state-of-the-art building that already boasts a number of other world-class training and innovation areas.

The Sleep and Respiratory Education Centre is aiming to go beyond raising awareness through education about the importance of sleep. Work is being undertaken on sleep solutions rooted in clinical evidence and technical data that work together to promote better health – from clinical solutions designed to better manage sleep apnoea, to modern technology designed to help people start their days naturally.

The 102sqm facility is designed to accurately simulate a patient’s sleep journey – from a life-sized mock-up of a patient’s bedroom for sleep observation to a monitoring room where sleep technicians score and analyse sleep data, and a doctor’s consultation room. The innovative facility also uses virtual reality in an Interaction Room to simulate abnormal sleep patterns that may occur in a patient during a sleep study, such as limb movements, rapid eye movements and respiratory difficulties.

It is estimated that more than 100 million people worldwide suffer from sleep apnoea and 80 per cent of them undiagnosed and that globally, 30 per cent of people experience difficulty in initiating and maintaining sleep. Sleeping well is essential to good health, and yet only one-third of people who suffer from sleep disorders seek professional help. In a recent study, one of three Singaporeans suffered from moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) – a condition that can result in early death.

“We need to generate an awareness that a person who is snoring is not having great sleep. A child who snores is not cute. It means that the breathing is not smooth. And in an adult, snoring indicates that the oxygen levels are going down. These are the kinds of awareness that we need to generate in the public in order to give more patients the treatment they may need. Without that awareness, the only reason most people go to see a doctor is because their bed partner complains that he/she is disturbing his/her sleep. That’s not really the most optimal way to help them,” says Dr Han Hong Juan, consultant Ear Nose Throat surgeon and the medical director for the ENT, Voice and Snoring Clinic in Singapore.

Sleep apnoea is caused by the repeated collapse of a sufferer’s airway, leading to low oxygen levels and disruptive sleep. From a mild symptom that might cause daytime tiredness and poor work, it becomes for many a severe problem that weakens the heart.

“It’s not true that if you’re not overweight you don’t have severe sleep apnoea. Some patients will also have very small chins, a lower jaw that’s smaller than the upper jaw and a very narrow upper area,” says Dr Han.

Dr Han, a guest speaker at the opening of the Sleep and Respiratory Centre, adds that the loudness of the snoring is unrelated to sleep apnoea.

“In fact we are more concerned about the silence during snoring because the silence means that there is no more airflow. When there’s no airflow at all there’s no sound but at the same time there’s no air going into your lungs so it’s like suffocating.”

Men are more prone to having severe OSA than women because of the anatomy of the male airway. Dr Han demonstrated by placing his four fingers under his chin and asking participants to do the same. Those unable to get four fingers to fit comfortably have a higher risk of sleep apnoea – and the fewer the fingers, the more the risk goes up. Women who have plastic surgery to sharpen their jawline to create a V-shaped face are also more likely to develop sleep apnoea.

An increasing number of hospitals in Southeast Asia have opened sleep labs and those found to have problems are required to wear CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) masks wile they sleep. Cursed for being uncomfortable, the new generation of masks on show at the centre have a sleeker design that help you sleep comfortably.

While sleep apnoea often can’t be cured due to the anatomy of the airway, CPAP is often the best solution, albeit a life-long one. Medication is sometimes prescribed and for a few, surgery to alter the airway is a possible though not fail-safe solution.

And in some cases, losing weight can help.

“One of my patients, a man weighing 120kg and with severe sleep apnoea, was put on the PAP machine. He was very motivated because he had young children and didn’t want to die in his sleep. I told him to lose weight and he lost 50kg. We took him off the PAP machine and now he runs marathons,” Dr Han says.

LEARNING HOW TO COPE

– Regional healthcare professionals interested in the training programmes at the Philips’ Sleep and Respiratory Education Centre can contact Philips at src_sg@philips.com.

Information on a schedule of upcoming training courses and events can be found on Philips’ website.

DESIGNER TOM Dixon has conceived the “Delaktig” modular bed and sofa that can adopt different styles for Swedish furniture and home-furnishings retailer Ikea.

Delaktig means “involvement” in Swedish, and with this set, Dixon and Ikea have challenged current norms of seating production. It ticks all the right boxes – aesthetic, affordable, long lasting and “democratic”.

They chose to work with aluminium because it’s so well suited to the industrial process and it allows for a durable, lightweight frame. Because the frame is extruded, it works as a carrier of attachments, extensions or additions.

Ikea and Tom Dixon joined forces to create a modular bed and sofa that can be repeatedly reconfigured.

Its flexibility allows you alter the comfort or add new functions – like maybe a self-made room divider, or a cosy corner for two.

“I wanted to get involved in industrial production on a bigger scale,” says Dixon. “It’s about breaking out of the perceived boundaries of my trade and trying something new. I’ve always been anxious not be categorised.

“I started thinking about what we can’t do here at my company, but that I would like to do or have a point of view on. For Tom Dixon the company, it’s simply too difficult to do soft seating – it’s too size-driven, too mattress-driven, and has endless comfort requirements, depending on the country. But Ikea knows and can handle all of it.”

Dixon dropped out of at school, played bass in the band Funkapolitan and taught himself how to weld and eventually produce furniture. It’s safe to say he’s never been one to think inside the box – an obvious quality that both Dixon and Ikea share.

 Tom Dixon

For the Delaktig collection, though, it wasn’t their similarities that made the partnership such a success, but rather combining their differences.

“The grass is always greener on the other side,” Dixon says. “I look at Ikea and think, ‘If only I had a workshop like that, if only I had distribution like that, if only I had volumes like that.’ And they’re probably thinking, ‘If only we were smaller, everything would be so much faster and easier.’ I think in a collaboration, that mutual fascination needs to be there.”

But more than a collaboration, the collection is open for everyone to make it their own. During the design process, Ikea and Dixon decided to turn Delaktig into an open-source project. Inspired by the technology industry, they invited 75 design masters’ students to contribute their own fresh ideas. The result was add-ons that will be coming in the future.

“I became aware of the hacking community around Ikea – these people that turn Ikea products into something unique and personal. I knew I wanted to explore that somehow. When I saw the students’ ideas, it made me realise its potential, that our idea for an open-source platform actually works,” Dixon says.

This is a piece of furniture that can withstand the true test of time. Who knows what Delaktig might transform into from one generation to the next?

“You get married or you split up, and you might want a different configuration. Or, maybe you’re renting out a spare room to somebody. Don’t chuck Delaktig away if you’re finished with it – turn it into something else, something new. Or save it for the children so they can bring it with them when they move out.”

Delaktig collection is available at Ikea Bangna and Bang Yai.

“DRONES HAVE BECOME MY PASSION,” says Noursely Doumbia, who holds a degree in electronics and is currently learning to pilot drones as part of a pioneering programme in Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan.

The training is being offered at a new “drone academy” set up by Ivorian Electricity Co (CIE) in a bid to revolutionise the inspection of its infrastructure and ultimately to reduce costs.

Although common in Europe, the use of drones is still in its infancy in West Africa, but the commercial market for unmanned aircraft is expanding.

The aim is for CIE – which is majority-owned by France’s Eranove Group, a key provider of water and electricity in West Africa – to train around 20 local pilots to inspect its high-voltage lines that criss-cross the country, stretching more than 25,000 kilometres.

An employee of Ivorian Electricity Co pilots a drone from the Electricity Professional Centre to monitor the highvoltage electric network./AFP 

“We have a lot of problems with vegetation – we need to clear it all the time and it’s difficult because it’s all across the whole country,” explains Benjamin Mathon, a pilot who is in charge of CIE’s drone and youth training programme.

Dirt tracks that are impassable following heavy rain, widespread areas of lush tropical vegetation and a patchy road network often conspire to make access to electricity pylons difficult in a country which covers 322,000 square kilometres – nearly two-thirds the area of France.

After overflying an area with a drone equipped with cameras and thermal and laser sensors, “we use artificial-intelligence programs that analyse the images for any defects – a rusty bolt on a pylon, a damaged cable,” explains Mathon.

“The drone allows us to analyse a large number of lines in a short space of time, across great distances.”

Not only do students learn how to fly drones, as well as how to assemble and repair them, but they are also trained to use different software packages for analysing the images and resulting data, as well as geo-localisation and mapping.

“This is a major technological leap forward for CIE” and its 4,500 employees, says CIE director general Dominique Kakou.

The drones enable CIE to “to inspect our infrastructure and ensure its safety in a much more pinpointed way, and also to optimise our costs and expenses,” he says.

Previously, all inspections were done by helicopter or by teams on the ground, Mathon explains. “Using helicopters is expensive, and on foot, you have to send out teams to areas which can be difficult to reach, which can create problems.”

The financial savings are undeniable. The cost of purchasing a helicopter is around 500,000 euros (Bt19.4 million), with each one hour flight costing another 1,200 euros.

A drone, however, costs between 2,000 and 100,000 euros to buy, its upkeep is simple and flight costs are negligible.

The company is hoping to improve its quality of service by reducing the average length of power outages – which are still relatively frequent in parts of the country – for its 1.3 million customers in Ivory Coast.

And it hopes to do the same for its customer base in neighbouring Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali.

Since 2011, following a decade of political and military crisis, Ivory Coast has invested heavily in rebuilding its electricity grid, with the authorities planning to plough another 16 billion euros into the sector by 2030.

“The electricity sector is evolving very fast, we must adopt new technologies and innovation,” says Kakou, adding that the company has already invested in electronic-payment schemes and solar energy.

But the drone academy is not just serving the electricity sector – it’s open to any business in West Africa that could benefit from the technology, from farming to mining, says Paul Ginies, director of the Centre for Electrical Professions, CIE’s training division.

“These new professions provide a way in for young people,” he says. “I’m sure that young Africans are going to grab hold of this and surprise us by developing applications we haven’t thought of. It’s their generation.”

Alice Kouadio, another trainee pilot from the first group of students, has no doubt. “The world is a drone – it’s the promise of tomorrow.”

A FEW streets and several centuries apart, Iran’s gyms come in distinctive breeds, ancient and hyper-modern, reflecting a society torn between outside influences and the continuing strength of religious ritual.

The musical differences are among the most striking.

In the shiny new Sport Plus gym in central Tehran, the soundtrack is all pounding DJ mixes and dirty basslines imported from Europe.

Ten minutes down the road at the “zurkhaneh”, or “house of strength”, a bespectacled man sits in a booth with a large drum on his lap, beating out a rhythm with his fingers, occasionally clanging a bell and calling out mournful pleas to Imam Ali – the beat no less energetic, but doused in ancient history.

The workout takes place in an octagonal pit in front of him, using the same equipment, modelled on medieval weapons, that has existed for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years: huge wooden clubs called “meels”, clanging metal contraptions that resemble an archer’s bow, and a huge shield known as the “sang”.

The physique that comes from working out with these items – along with the ritualised press-ups, spins and wrestling – is the sort of barrel-chested heft that might fatally be confused for obesity.

Iranians take part in a workout session at the traditional Shir Afkan “zurkhaneh” (House of Strength) gymnasium in the capital Tehran./AFP

Meanwhile, under the soft neon lighting of the Sport Plus gym, the musculature is of a more preening variety. Quadriceps and abdominals are precisely sculpted and endlessly Instagramable, accompanied by nose jobs and tattoos, the objective being physical beauty as well as fitness.

Here they serve energy drinks and smoothies, while the zurkhaneh still brings you chai in a little white cup and saucer, with sugar cubes to stick between your teeth and suck through.

The contrasts might be stark, but neither feels out of place in today’s Tehran.

A globalised, consumer class has re-established itself in recent years, bringing hipster coffee shops, avant-garde galleries and Western-style gyms to every neighbourhood.

That has eaten away at Iran’s traditional culture, but not as much as sometimes feared. The deep roots of Persian culture, from the bazaar to the mosque to old pastimes like the zurkhaneh still command a powerful allegiance.

An Iranian trains with wooden shields during a workout session at the traditional Shir Afkan “zurkhaneh” (House of Strength) gymnasium in the capital Tehran./AFP

“This sport didn’t start yesterday. It goes back 700 or 800 years. Maybe people are busier these days and have other things to do, but it is still going on,” says Hossein Peykanfar, 62, a retired factory owner who comes regularly to this zurkhaneh in the Khosh neighbourhood of southwest Tehran.

In fact, zurkhaneh’s roots are unclear. Some see its history going back to Persia’s pre-Islamic martial societies, but today it has become entwined with Shiism, as much about modesty and religious devotion as brawn.

Peykanfar is older than most of the attendees but fearsomely agile and throws around the meels as if they were made of plastic.

“The very foundation of this sport is Islam. Without the prayer recitals, there is no point,” he said. There are still around 1,000 zurkhanehs in Iran, the government says, though some of the old mythology has certainly worn off.

“In olden times, people would come to the door of the zurkhaneh and take a handkerchief with the sweat from the brow of a sportsman and rub it on the face of a sick person to cure their illness,” says Peykanfar, smiling.

An Iranian trains with a metal bow and chain during a workout session known as “Zurkhaneh” – a unique mixture of weightlifting, wrestling, and dance. /AFP

Women are not admitted to the zurkhanehs, which survive thanks to small donations from members.

A modern mythology has taken root at the new gyms, too, though it is one built around social media. Many bodybuilders boast tens of thousands of followers on Instagram.

“You can make money offering training and diet programmes or selling supplements,” says Sadegh Ghasemi, 33, who has won numerous bodybuilding competitions.

He still goes to watch zurkhaneh events, and despite his own huge physique, is in awe of what they can do physically. “It’s too difficult for me. If I tried to lift those meels 200 times like they do, my shoulders would hurt,” he laughs.

But lifestyles are changing and the rigid rituals of the zurkhaneh no longer fit the routines of busy urbanites.

“You’re in charge of your time here,” says Pooryia Akhoondi, 35. “And with body-building, you get more attention.”

Modern life has wrought other changes, too.

“In old times, those doing this sport had a special kind of honesty, a gentlemanly behaviour. I’m not saying it’s not there now, but it’s faded,” says Ali Masoumi, 38, the “meshed” performing the music from the booth.

His grandfather, Khosro, set up this zurkhaneh 80 years ago and was the local “pahlevan” (“champion”), a status that carried weight far beyond the ring.

“There was no police station, so in case of difficulties everyone would refer to him. He would arrange money for people out of work or needing a dowry,” explains Khosro’s son, Majid Masoumi, 69, who now runs the place.

Their zurkhaneh still attracts a crowd of old and young, but they know others are struggling.

“The people in charge of the sport today don’t understand the rituals,” laments the younger Masoumi, complaining about the lack of support for mesheds.

“They build new buildings, but nothing is done to promote the sport itself. It’s like mosques – they build the mosques instead of making people want to pray.”

Nobody was looking for the interstitium, as the new quasi-organ is called, because no one knew it was there, at least not in complex form revealed in a study published this week.

As with many breakthroughs in medicine and science, it was — to paraphrase Louis Pasteur’s oft-quoted dictum — a case of chance favouring the prepared.

In 2015, a pair of doctors at New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center, David Carr-Locke and Petros Benias, found something unexpected while using the high-tech endoscopic probe to look for signs of cancer on a patient’s bile duct.

There on a screen, clear as day, was a lattice-like layer of liquid-filled cavities that did not match anything found in the anatomy chapters of medical school textbooks.

“These have no obvious correlate to known structures,” they noted dryly in the journal Scientific Reports.

And then the mystery deepened.

The doctors showed the images to a pathologist, Neil Theise, who used a thinly sliced fleck of tissue removed from the patient to prepare the kind of glass slides scientists have been peering at with microscopes for centuries.

But the novel layer of tissue simply wasn’t there — or at least it wasn’t visible.

Sacha Loiseau, founder and director of Mauna Kea Technologies, which made the camera-equipped probe that had revealed the phantom tissue, explained why.

“The classic microscope on a lab bench magnifies dead tissue from a biopsy that has been dehydrated and treated with chemicals,” he told AFP.

The meshwork of liquid bubbles visible in the patient’s body, in other words, had pancaked in the slides like a collapsed building, leaving hardly a trace.

A ‘highway of fluid’

“This made a fluid-filled tissue type throughout the body appear solid in biopsy slides,” Theise said in a statement.

“Our research corrects for this to expand the anatomy of most tissues.”

The probe bundles some 30,000 optic fibres topped by a camera barely bigger than the head of a pin. Lasers light up the tissue, and sensors analyse the reflected pattern.

“We have reinvented the microscope so that it can be inserted into the body of a patient to observe living tissue in its natural environment,” said Loiseau.

The result is a virtual, in-vivo biopsy.

The newly found network of fluid-filled pockets — held in place by collagen proteins, which are stiff, and more flexible elastin — may act like a shock absorber preventing tissue tear as organs, muscles and vessels go through their daily motions, the researchers said.

Once they knew what to look for, the scientists found interstitium throughout the body: below the skin’s surface, lining the digestive tract, in the lungs and urinary tract, and even surrounding arteries and veins.

Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue, it turned out, were in fact interconnected and fluid-filled compartments.

Described as a “highway of moving fluid,” the meshwork “may be important in cancer metastasis,” the study suggested.

Scientists have long known that half the fluid in the body is found within cells, and about 14 percent inside the heart, blood vessels and lymphatic system.

The remaining fluid is “interstitial”, or between the cells, and the new study argues that the interstitium should be considered as an organ in it’s own right — indeed, one of the largest in the body.

Organ or not, “this finding has potential to drive dramatic advances in medicine, including the possibility that the direct sampling of interstitial fluid may become a powerful diagnostic too,” said Theise.