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August 19, 2019 — An international team of researchers developed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that can capture an image of a brain thinking by measuring changes in tissue stiffness. The results show that brain function can be tracked on a time scale of 100 milliseconds – 60 times faster than previous methods. The technique could shed new light on altered neuronal activity in brain diseases.

The human brain responds almost immediately to stimuli, but non-invasive imaging techniques haven’t been able to keep pace with the brain. Currently, several non-invasive brain imaging methods measure brain function, but they all have limitations. Most commonly, clinicians and researchers use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity via fluctuations in blood oxygen levels. However, a lot of vital brain activity information is lost using fMRI because blood oxygen levels take about six seconds to respond to a stimulus.

Since the mid-1990s, researchers have been able to generate maps of tissue stiffness using an MRI scanner, with a non-invasive technique called magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Tissue stiffness can not be measured directly, so instead researchers use MRE to measure the speed at which mechanical vibrations travel through tissue. Vibrations move faster through stiffer tissues, while vibrations travel through softer tissue more slowly; therefore, tissue stiffness can be determined. MRE is most commonly used to detect the hardening of liver tissue but has more recently been applied to other tissues like the brain.

For the first time, scientists have added microscopic tracking devices into the interior of cells, giving a peek into how development starts.

For the first time, scientists have introduced minuscule tracking devices directly into the interior of mammalian cells, giving an unprecedented peek into the processes that govern the beginning of development. This work on one-cell embryos is set to shift our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin cellular behavior in general, and may ultimately provide insights into what goes wrong in aging and disease. The research, led by Professor Tony Perry from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, involved injecting a silicon-based nanodevice together with sperm into the egg cell of a mouse. The result was a healthy, fertilized egg containing a tracking device. The tiny devices are a little like spiders, complete with eight highly flexible ‘legs’.

Summary: Exposure to anesthesia causes lipid clusters to move from an ordered state to a disordered one, then back again. These changes lead to subsequent effects that cause changes in consciousness.

Source: Scripps Research Institute

Surgery would be inconceivable without general anesthesia, so it may come as a surprise that despite its 175-year history of medical use, doctors and scientists have been unable to explain how anesthetics temporarily render patients unconscious.

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To just solve a puzzle or play a game, artificial intelligence can require software running on thousands of computers. That could be the energy that three nuclear plants produce in one hour.

A team of engineers has created hardware that can learn skills using a type of AI that currently runs on software platforms. Sharing intelligence features between hardware and software would offset the energy needed for using AI in more advanced applications such as self-driving cars or discovering drugs.

“Software is taking on most of the challenges in AI. If you could incorporate intelligence into the circuit components in addition to what is happening in software, you could do things that simply cannot be done today,” said Shriram Ramanathan, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University.

Moderna Therapeutics has just entered phase two of its clinical trials. Here’s how mRNA vaccines work and what the latest developments mean.

A Bristol academic has achieved a milestone in statistical/mathematical physics by solving a 100-year-old physics problem—the discrete diffusion equation in finite space.

Circa 2017 face_with_colon_three

For the first time, scientists have found a genetic mutation that appears to offer a measure of protection against some of the biological effects of ageing.

Continue reading “First Ever Anti-Ageing Gene Discovered in a Secluded Amish Family” »

Since there is no treatment or vaccine for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19 — the disease to which it leads — the only way to stop its spread is through social distancing and good hygiene. As such, long-term protective immunity could impact the overall course of the pandemic, the post-pandemic period and any subsequent waves. Until now, this concept has been a key component of the Health Ministry’s second wave strategy.

The Health Ministry recently revealed that it had purchased serological tests with the aim of surveying as many as 1 million people to determine how much of the public has been infected. Since around 80% of people who get the virus show little or no symptoms, they can carry and spread it without knowing.

However, “serology-based tests that measure previous infections for SARS‐CoV‐2 may have limited use if that infection has occurred more than one year prior to sampling,” the Amsterdam researchers explained.