Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2102

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, has made a breakthrough in the field of noninvasive robotic device control. Using a noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI), researchers have developed the first-ever successful mind-controlled robotic arm exhibiting the ability to continuously track and follow a computer cursor.

Being able to noninvasively control robotic devices using only thoughts will have broad applications, in particular benefiting the lives of paralyzed patients and those with movement disorders.

BCIs have been shown to achieve good performance for controlling robotic devices using only the signals sensed from . When robotic devices can be controlled with high precision, they can be used to complete a variety of daily tasks. Until now, however, BCIs successful in controlling robotic arms have used invasive brain implants. These implants require a substantial amount of medical and surgical expertise to correctly install and operate, not to mention cost and potential risks to subjects, and as such, their use has been limited to just a few clinical cases.

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Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

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Thanks Betty Lim ❤🔘 Great stuff.

“At first it didn’t bother me — but after a while, it started taking a toll,” Bennetti told me. “I got to feel, like, a cloud — a darkness — over me. I started being depressed. I’m a very happy, outgoing person, and I was [becoming] withdrawn. My anxiety went up. It was hard to get through it every day. It started affecting my home life.”

Johnson was particularly disturbed by the site’s sole bathroom, which she regularly found in a state of disrepair. (The company says it has janitors available every shift in Tampa.) In the stalls, signs posted in response to employee misbehavior proliferated. Do not use your feet to flush the toilet. Do not flush more than five toilet seat covers at one time. Do not put any substances, natural or unnatural, on the walls.

“And obviously the signs are there for a reason, because people are doing this,” said Johnson, who worked at the site until March. “Every bit of that building was absolutely disgusting. You’d go in the bathroom and there would be period blood and poop all over the place. It smelled horrendous all the time.”

Continue reading “Three Facebook moderators break their NDAs to expose a company in crisis” | >

a woman eating a slice of pizza: A study published in the journal Nature Medicine found that eating cheese can lead to a longer lifespan. © Provided by Bauer Media Pty Ltd A study published in the journal Nature Medicine found that eating cheese can lead to a longer lifespan.

Every now and again, a study is released that makes our heart skip a beat.

Recently, research published in the journal Nature Medicine found that eating cheese can lead to a longer lifespan (and it wasn’t even satire!).

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Gunsalus agrees that the Sato case highlights some of the problems with misconduct investigations, and says that if shortcomings emerge, further reviews may be needed. She suggests institutional panels should include external members and that officials should also use a standardized checklist to strengthen their processes. “There should be some way for journals, funders, patients and others to be assured of the credibility and thoroughness of university reviews,” says Gunsalus.

Detailed analysis of misconduct investigations into huge research fraud suggests institutional probes aren’t rigorous enough.

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