Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,118
It could decrease reliance on palm oil to produce biofuel. Have you ever guessed that a leftover coffee could turn into biodiesel? Here’s a remarkable development for bioscience.
- High quality biodiesel produced from microalgae ‘fed’ on leftover coffee grounds
- Breakthrough in the microalgal cultivation system
- Could decrease reliance on palm oil to produce biofuel.
Turns out, altering bacteria from within could be the solution to antibiotic resistance. In an ironic twist, researchers used viruses engineered with the CRISPR-Cas system to alter bacterial defense mechanisms and edit their genomes selectively in complex environments. Significantly, the novel approach may help address the pressing issue of antibiotic resistance.
Glaucoma impacts tens of millions of people globally, and is the second leading cause of blindness, after cataracts. Now, Purdue University researchers have developed smart contact lenses that may help save people’s sight.
Glaucoma is a multifactorial optic degenerative neuropathy characterized by the loss of retinal ganglion cells. It is a combination of vascular, genetic, anatomical, and immune factors. Glaucoma poses a significant public health concern as it is the second leading cause of blindness after cataracts, and this blindness is usually irreversible. It is estimated that 57.5 million people worldwide are affected by primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). People over 60 years of age, family members of those already diagnosed with glaucoma, steroid users, diabetics, as well as those with high myopia, hypertension, central cornea thickness of.
Video on prosthetic Esper hand.
New York-based engineering startup Esper Bionics has developed a flexible prosthetic mind-controlled hand that learns how to suggest the best grip faster than similar prosthetics.
Esper Bionics’ robotic arm is designed to be lighter and learn faster than many of the prosthetics currently available for amputees. The more the wearer uses the hand, the better and quicker it is to suggest the right grip.
Called Esper Hand, the arm uses an electromyography-based brain-computer interface (BCI) – a computer-based technology system that gathers brain signals and information from nerve stimulation of the muscle.
Over 30 sensors on the wearer’s forearm and shoulder skin pick up on this muscle activity or “electrical cues” and relay the information to trigger an action in the hand.
Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=1768536
Mental health practitioners and meditation gurus have long credited intentional breathing with the ability to induce inner calm, but scientists do not fully understand how the brain is involved in the process. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiology, researchers in the Penn State College of Engineering identified a potential link between respiration and neural activity changes in rats.
Their results were made available online ahead of publication in eLife. The researchers used simultaneous multi-modal techniques to clear the noise typically associated with brain imaging and pinpoint where breathing regulated neural activity.
“There are roughly a million papers published on fMRI—a non-invasive imaging technique that allows researchers to examine brain activity in real time,” said Nanyin Zhang, founding director of the Penn State Center for Neurotechnology in Mental Health Research and professor of biomedical engineering.
Watch any episode of “CSI,” and a character will use forensic DNA profiling to identify a criminal. A new study from San Francisco State University suggests that these forensic profiles may indirectly reveal medical information—perhaps even those of crime victims—contrary to what the legal field has believed for nearly 30 years. The findings, now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have ethical and legal implications.
“The central assumption when choosing those [forensic] markers was that there wouldn’t be any information about the individuals whatsoever aside from identification. Our paper challenges that assumption,” said first author Mayra Bañuelos, who started working on the project as a San Francisco State undergraduate and is now a Ph.D. student at Brown University.
Law enforcement uses the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a system organizing criminal justice DNA databases that uses specific genetic markers to identify individuals. Crime labs from national, state and local levels contribute to these databases and provide profiles from samples collected from crime scene evidence, convicted offenders, felony arrestees, missing persons and more. Law officials can use the database to try to match samples found in an investigation to profiles already stored in the database.