Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2038
Sep 14, 2018
People wearing virtual reality headsets have worse balance and increased mental exertion
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience, virtual reality
New research published in PLOS One has found that virtual reality use impairs physical and cognitive performance while trying to balance.
“I became interested in this topic because virtual reality headsets have recently become widely available, with great potential to make rehabilitation more enjoyable and varied for patients,” said study author Steven M. Peterson of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“While many studies have explored upper-limb activities, I wanted to understand how immersive and mentally challenging a virtual reality headset is when the user is walking around and not seated. We decided to test the realism of virtual reality by looking for stress at high heights because just the perception of heights can affect how people walk and how cautious they are.”
Sep 14, 2018
FDA clears deep transcranial magnetic stimulation device to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder
Posted by Mike Ruban in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience
Promising approach to deliver personalized and non-invasive brain stimulation in clinical settings.
BrainsWay’s Brain Stimulation Device Receives FDA Approval to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (IEEE Spectrum):
In 2013, Jerusalem-based BrainsWay began marketing a new type of brain stimulation device that uses magnetic pulses to treat major depressive disorder.
Sep 14, 2018
Brain Cancer’s ‘Immortality Switch’ Turned Off with CRISPR
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience
Researchers have found a way to short-circuit the “immortality switch” that cancer cells use to divide indefinitely.
Sep 14, 2018
George Church talks about reversing human aging and claims they made mice live twice as long
Posted by Montie Adkins in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
He says this has been done successfully with mice. They have mice live twice as long. They are testing aging reversal in dogs in 2018–2019. Human treatments could be available on a general basis by 2025.
George Church is developing better and better organs using pigs. They are working to slow or reverse the aging in the organs to be used for transplant.
Sep 14, 2018
Ultrasound patch goes deep to better-monitor blood pressure
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in category: biotech/medical
Earlier this year, we heard how scientists from the University of California San Diego had developed a flexible ultrasound patch that allows users to see the inner structure of irregular-shaped objects. Well, now they’ve made one that measures a patient’s blood pressure from deep within the body.
Sep 13, 2018
Scientists design new metabolic technology to open scientific data for everyone
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in category: biotech/medical
Patients want to see their medical information. Researchers want to share their data.
Now, scientists at Scripps Research have released a new technology designed to make these measurements easier to perform and more accessible to practitioners, scientists and the general public.
“This is really about data sharing and accelerating the process of discovery,” says Gary Siuzdak, Ph.D., professor at Scripps Research and co-corresponding author of the new XCMS/METLIN open data analysis platform, published recently in Nature Methods.
Continue reading “Scientists design new metabolic technology to open scientific data for everyone” »
Sep 13, 2018
Scientists Want to Align Your Internal Clock Because Timing Is Everything
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, health
Your body’s internal clock, or the circadian rhythm, regular when you sleep and wake, when you’re hungry, and when you’re most productive. Because of its effect on so much of our lives, it also has an enormous impact on our health, so sleep experts have designed a blood test to signal when your body is out of sync.
Sep 13, 2018
Soon your doctor will be able to wirelessly track your health—even through walls
Posted by Bill Kemp in categories: biotech/medical, health, wearables
MIT professor Dina Katabi is building a gadget that can sit in one spot and track everything from breathing to walking, no wearables required.
Sep 13, 2018
Disrupting genetic processes reverses ageing in human cells
Posted by Mike Ruban in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension
Research has shed new light on genetic processes that may one day lead to the development of therapies that can slow, or even reverse, how our cells age.
A study led by the University of Exeter Medical School has found that certain genes and pathways that regulate splicing factors – a group of proteins in our body that tell our genes how to behave—play a key role in the ageing process. Significantly, the team found that disrupting these genetic processes could reverse signs of ageing in cells.
The study, published in the FASEB Journal, was conducted in human cells in laboratories. Aged, or senescent, cells are thought to represent a driver of the ageing process and other groups have shown that if such cells are removed in animal models, many features of ageing can be corrected. This new work from the Exeter team found that stopping the activity of the pathways ERK and AKT, which communicate signals from outside the cell to the genes, reduced the number of senescent cells in in cultures grown in the laboratory. Furthermore, they found the same effects from knocking out the activity of just two genes controlled by these pathways—FOX01 and ETV6.
Continue reading “Disrupting genetic processes reverses ageing in human cells” »