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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,950

Metalens Retinal Projection Using The Eye’s Inherent Structure

The human eye does not work like a camera, contrary to common belief. Consider the following key factors:

1) Both the cornea and the lens COMBINE to give the focusing effect. Thus it is TWO lenses, not one that allow human vision. In fact the cornea is responsible for two-thirds or more of the focusing effect. The lens compounds that focusing, projecting it from past the pupil onto the curved retina at the back of the eye.

2) The eye corrects for CHROMATIC ABERATION by having a central pit, the FOVEA, where the blue cells are concentrated along the outer rim and the red cells concentrated in the center. Blue light focusses slightly closer to an objective lens and red light slightly further. Thus the red cells are concentrated further back, at the base of the pit, so that the human eye has a natural color correction without the need for complex color corrected lenses.

3) The retina is a curved “screen” at the back of the eye, allowing human vision to encompass an entire hemisphere of 180 degrees in the forwards direction. The retina is mostly rod cells except for at the central fovea, for seeing light but not color and detail, which is why it is easier to see faint objects through a telescope by using what astronomers call “averted vision,” not looking straight at it.

There are thus several factors in trying to use metamaterial lenses to create retinal projection, including:

1) Since the cornea is curved, a tailored curved contact metalens, instead of a flat metalens is ideal.

2) That lens must be able to project a wide-angled view through the lens of the eye, in such a way that the lens distributes the image widely onto the curved retinal screen.

3) If using a third exterior projection system onto that metalens, as with a pair of glasses, googles, or another metalens on top of the first one, it will be a four-lens projection system: projector metalens, contact metalens, human cornea lens, human eye lens. These elements will have to be coordinated into a single system with the final effect.

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Solar and Covid lead change as grid demand, prices and emissions tumble to record lows

Rooftop solar, Covid and more large scale renewables push Australia’s main grid to record low levels of demand and emissions intensity, and the lowest prices in years.

The combined impact of growing rooftop solar and the Covid-19 pandemic – along with the continued influx of large scale wind and solar – has create a suite of new records in Australia’s electricity grids in the September quarter, sending demand, emissions and prices to new lows.

The latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics for the September quarter, compiled by the Australian Energy Market Operator, also noted record highs for wind and solar output, which along with falling gas prices and cut-price bidding by coal generators trying to stay competitive led to the lowest wholesale prices in more than five years, and in some cases, record low prices.

Importantly, the emissions intensity of Australia’s main grid also fell to a record low of 0.7 tonnes of Co2 equivalent – thanks to the big reduction in black coal output and the increase in renewables, and despite a rise in the dirtiest fuel source, brown coal.

Can We Trust AI Doctors? Google Health and Academics Battle It Out

So now, there are AI doctors.

Machine learning is taking medical diagnosis by storm. From eye disease, breast and other cancers, to more amorphous neurological disorders, AI is routinely matching physician performance, if not beating them outright.

Yet how much can we take those results at face value? When it comes to life and death decisions, when can we put our full trust in enigmatic algorithms—“black boxes” that even their creators cannot fully explain or understand? The problem gets more complex as medical AI crosses multiple disciplines and developers, including both academic and industry powerhouses such as Google, Amazon, or Apple, with disparate incentives.

This week, the two sides battled it out in a heated duel in one of the most prestigious science journals, Nature. On one side are prominent AI researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, MIT, and others. On the other side is the titan Google Health.

Restaurants Prolong Outdoor Dining With Igloos, Heaters

Restaurant owners say they have grown accustomed this year to constantly reinventing themselves to survive. Getting around Mother Nature as the U.S. heads toward winter may be their biggest challenge yet.

Sales from outdoor dining, reduced indoor dining, delivery, and takeout haven’t equaled what most restaurants expected to earn this year before the pandemic upended public life, some owners say. Adding heaters and other fixtures to draw diners to outdoor tables as the weather cools adds to the costs of sustaining a modest revenue stream.

But determined restaurant operators say they have no other choice. They say running at a loss while they have funds to do so—in the hope that the threat of the virus abates—is better than the challenges they would face after closing temporarily, such as finding reliable staff.

Faces of hope: Meet Israel’s first vaccine volunteers

This includes volunteering to test the new vaccine being developed by the Israeli Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona. Meet some of the heroes who are doing their bit for humanity.

The research center said it will begin the clinical trials phase of its COVID-19 vaccine in November and about one hundred Israelis aged 18–55 are expected to participate by the time the trials are over. The first phase will include three brave volunteers and will take place in Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer and Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

As with any other clinical trials, participants will be divided into two groups: those who will receive the real vaccine and those who will receive a fake vaccine, also known as placebo.

Breakthrough Shows Neuropilin-1 Drives SARS-CoV-2 Infectivity

In a major breakthrough an international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has potentially identified what makes SARS-CoV-2 highly infectious and able to spread rapidly in human cells. The findings, published in Science today [20 October] describe how the virus’s ability to infect human cells can be reduced by inhibitors that block a newly discovered interaction between virus and host, demonstrating a potential anti-viral treatment.

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