Elderly mice suffering from age-related heart disease saw a significant improvement in cardiac function after being treated with the FDA-approved drug rapamycin for just three months.
The research, led by a team of scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, shows how rapamycin impacts mammalian tissues, providing functional insights and possible benefits for a drug that has been shown to extend the lifespan… read more
Microsoft Research is developing a prototype of a haptic feedback touch screen called TouchMover, IEEE Spectrum reports.
The robotic system behind a curtain pushes back with a pressure that reflects the physical properties of virtual objects on the screen.
Researchers uploaded a full set of MRI brain scans and demoed how doctors might scroll through them and annotate specific slides.
Wth some additional programming, the… read more
A bipartisan coalition of 86 civil liberties organizations and Internet companies — including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reddit, Mozilla, FreedomWorks, and the American Civil Liberties Union — are demanding swift action from Congress in light of the recent revelations about unchecked domestic surveillance, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
In an open letter to lawmakers sent today, the groups call for a congressional investigatory committee, similar to… read more
Researchers at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille and ICFO, Institute for Photonic Sciences in Barcelona have designed and built the smallest optical device capable of detecting and sensing individual biomolecules at concentrations similar to those found in cells.
The device consists on a tiny dimer (dual) sensor made out of two gold semi-spheres, separated from each other by a gap as small as 15nm (size… read more
Conventional treatments such as drugs for diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease can carry harmful side effects, mainly because the treatments are not targeted specifically to the cells of the body where they’re needed.
Now a new study has found that rod-shaped nanoparticles (nanorods) — as opposed to spherical nanoparticles — appear to adhere more effectively to the surface of endothelial cells (which line… read more
Ohio State University engineers are developing low-cost electronic devices that work in direct contact with living tissue inside the body.
The initial objective is to develop an in vivo biosensor to detect the presence of proteins that mark the first signs of organ rejection in the body. Such biosensors could also be used for detecting glucose, pH, and diseases such as cancer.
Doctors would… read more
The RoboRoach, a Kickstarter project, is the “world’s first commercially available cyborg” — part cockroach and part machine.
The backpack communicates directly to the roach’s neurons in its antennas via small electrical pulses.
The cockroach undergoes a short surgery (under anesthesia) in which wires are placed inside the antenna. Once it recovers, a backpack is temporarily placed on its back.
When you send a command… read more
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have uncovered important clues about a biochemical pathway in the brain that may one day expand treatment options for schizophrenia.
This research focused on key components of the brain known as NMDA receptors. These receptors are located on nerve cells in the brain and serve as biochemical gates that allow calcium ions (electrical charges) to enter the… read more
Apple shared details of the next version of its iOS mobile operating system (due out this Fall) during the opening keynote address at its annual developer conference Monday. Nick Bilton at The New York Times offers a detailed blow-by-blow account, and Tech Crunch has a good summary. Or watch the keynote.
Notable:
The elegant new flat look:
The forthcoming… read more
An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population — projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century — in the face of climate change.
In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, Members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models.
AgMIP’s… read more
Patients needing knee replacements at the San Mateo Medical Center in California are being coached by a digital avatar, MIT Technology Review reports.
The avatar, Molly, interviews them in Spanish or English about the levels of pain they feel as a video guides them through exercises, while the 3-D cameras of a Kinect device measure their movements.
The ultimate goal is for the routine to be… read more
The connections make the clock precise but also let it adjust to changes in day/night cycles.
The World Health Organization lists shift work as a potential carcinogen, says Erik Herzog, PhD, Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
And that’s just one example among many of the troubles we cause ourselves when we override the biological clocks in our brains… read more
Oregon Health & Science University neurosuirgeons have developed a safer new way to perform the surgery for Parkinson’s disease. It allows for more accurate placement of the brain electrodes and is likely safer for patients.
The success and safety of the new surgical technique could have broad implications for deep brain stimulation,(DBS) surgical procedures.
With traditional DBS surgery, there is a small chance of… read more
Publishing, music, shopping, journalism – all revolutionized by the Internet. Next in line? Education.
Now U.S. academics are offering world-class tuition — free — to anyone who can log on, anywhere in the world, is this the end of campus life?
The Guardian explores.
The Guardian says it has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.
The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or… read more