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Credit card-sized device could analyze biopsy, help diagnose pancreatic cancer in minutes

Use in diagnosis of other cancers also planned
March 6, 2014

uw-microfluidic-device

University of Washington scientists and engineers are developing a low-cost device that could help pathologists diagnose pancreatic cancer* earlier and faster.

The prototype can perform the basic steps for processing a biopsy, relying on fluid transport instead of human hands to process the tissue.

“This new process is expected to help the pathologist make a more rapid diagnosis and be able to determine more accurately how… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Supplement added to a standard diet improves health and prolongs life in mice

March 5, 2014

Representative photographs from blinded histopathological analysis of kidney, liver, and lung panels for mice on standard diet (SD) and SRT1720 supplementation

Activating a protein called sirtuin 1 extends lifespan, delays the onset of age-related metabolic diseases, and improves general health in mice. The findings, which appear online February 27 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports, point to a potentially promising strategy for improving health and longevity.

Sirtuin 1, or SIRT1, is known to play an important role in maintaining metabolic balance in multiple tissues, and studies in… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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Robotic-assisted prostate surgery offers better cancer control, study finds

March 5, 2014

da Vinci Si robot (credit: Intuitive Surgical)

An observational study from UCLA‘s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that prostate cancer patients who undergo robotic-assisted prostate surgery have fewer instances of cancer cells at the edge of their surgical specimen and less need for additional cancer treatments like hormone or radiation therapy than patients who have traditional “open” surgery.

The study, published online Feb. 19 in the journal European Urology, was led… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity

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Study pinpoints protective mutations for type 2 diabetes

March 5, 2014

In the new study, researchers describe the genetic analysis of 150,000 patients showing that rare mutations in a gene called SLC30A8 reduce risk of type 2 diabetes by 65 percent (credit: Lauren Solomon, Broad Communications)

An international team led by researchers at the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified mutations in a gene that can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even in people who have risk factors such as obesity and old age.

The results focus the search for developing novel therapeutic strategies for type 2 diabetes; if a drug can be developed that mimics the… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Human Longevity Inc. launched to promote healthy aging using advances in genomics and stem-cell therapies

Building world’s largest genotype/phenotype database
March 5, 2014

hli_logo

Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), a genomics and cell therapy-based diagnostic and therapeutic company focused on extending the healthy, high performance human life span, was announced today by co-founders J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., Robert Hariri, M.D., Ph.D., and Peter H. Diamandis, M.D.

The company, headquartered in San Diego, California, is being capitalized with an initial $70 million in investor funding.

Largest human sequencing… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Two-dimensional ‘electron gas’ creates radical microelectronics devices

March 4, 2014

Atomic structure of strontium titinate (credit: Vienna University of Technology)

Vienna University of Technology researchers have created a two-dimensional “electron gas” in strontium titanate. In a thin layer formed by the gas just below the surface, electrons can move freely and occupy different quantum states.

The new material represents a potential future alternative to standard semiconductors. Strontium titanate or other metal oxides could also exhibit other novel phenomena, such as superconductivity, thermoelectricity (converting heat to electricity), or magnetic… read more

Topics: Electronics

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How to generate new neurons in brains, spinal cords of living adult mammals

No stem-cell transplants required
March 4, 2014

Induced adult neuroblasts (iANBs) generated from astrocytes develop into functionally mature neurons

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have created new nerve cells in the brains and spinal cords of living mammals without the need for stem cell transplants to replenish lost cells.

In a comment to a KurzweilAI news article, “Brain signals from a primate directly move paralyzed limbs in another primate ‘avatar,’” “Cazbot” wondered if “a sort of ‘neural jumper’ could be used to bridge damaged sections… read more

Topics: Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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How memory and thought alter the meaning of odors

Neuroscientists monitor inhibitory neurons that link sense of smell with memory and cognition in mice, shaping perception from experiences
March 4, 2014

Granule cells at work (credit: iStock)

Odors have a way of connecting us with moments buried deep in our past. But researchers have long wondered how the process works in reverse: how do our memories shape the way sensory information is collected?

In work published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) demonstrate for the first time a way to observe this process in awake animals.

The team, led… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Evidence of former life on Mars?

Carbon-rich tunnel, microtunnel, and spheroidal features on meteorite suggest past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite
March 4, 2014

meteorite_mars

A team of scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found evidence of past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite, reviving debate in the scientific community over life on Mars.

The team reports that newly discovered structures and compositional features within the a 30-pound (13.7-kilogram) Yamato meteorite suggest biological processes might have been at work on Mars hundreds of millions of years… read more

Topics: Biotech | Space

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Making nanoelectronics last longer for medical devices and ‘cyborgs’

March 3, 2014

Silicon nanowires.Top: bare, bottom, coated with aluminum oxide. The coated version lasts for 100 hours without damage.

Harvard scientist Charles Lieber and colleagues have developed a coating that makes nanoelectronics much more stable in conditions mimicking those in the human body.

The advance could aid in the development of very small implanted medical devices for monitoring health and disease, and could speed up the debut of cyborgs who are part human, the researchers say.

Nanoelectronics devices with nanowire components are much smaller than most… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Are you ready for the Internet of Cops?

March 3, 2014

FirstNet-challenges

FirstNet — a state-of-the-art communications network for paramedics, firemen and law enforcement at the federal, state and local level — will give cops on the streets unprecedented technological powers, and possibly hand over even more intimate data about our lives to the higher ends of the government and its intelligence agencies, Motherboard reports.

According to a series of presentation slides from December last year, FirstNet… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Survival/Defense

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Future Day: a 24-hour global conversation

March 3, 2014

Future Day events

Future Day 2014, a third annual global event, combined Google hangouts and live events, bringing together people around the world to brainstorm ways to create a radically better future.

Future Day was organized by Humanity+, an international nonprofit membership organization that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities, and The Millennium Project — an independent non-profit global participatory futures… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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Moore’s law and neural networks collude to address grand challenge

March 3, 2014

The median complexity of a heuristic, compared with the other frameworks (credit: B. Torrent)

“Moore’s Law and neural networks can collude to address a grand challenge: understanding the World Wide Web. Virtual machines can be made atomic, real-time, and ‘smart,’” says computer scientist B. Torrent, in “An Improvement of DHTs Using Beild,” published today in the Journal of Internet Analytics.

“To accomplish this purpose, we use read-write archetypes to validate that the little-known collaborative algorithm for the improvement of forward-error correction… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Internet/Telecom

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Ultra-thin capacitors could acclerate development of next-gen electronics

February 28, 2014

All-nanosheet ultrathin capacitor (credit: C. Wang et al./ACS Nano)

Japanese researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science and Shinshu University have developed a way to shrink capacitors — key components that store energy — further, which could accelerate the development of more compact, high-performance next-gen electronic devices. The study appears in the journal ACS Nano.

Takayoshi Sasaki and colleagues note that current technology has almost reached its limit in terms of materials and processing, which in turn… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Selective nanopores in graphene dramatically improve desalination and purification

February 28, 2014

holes_graphene

A team of researchers at MIT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and in Saudi Arabia succeeded in creating subnanoscale pores in a sheet of graphene, a development that could lead to ultrathin filters for improved desalination or water purification. Their findings are published in the journal Nano Letters.

The new work, led by graduate student Sean O’Hern and associate professor of mechanical engineering Rohit Karnik, is the first… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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