Already, it could help people express hunger or pain.
Read more
Category: biotech/medical – Page 2290
EXPLORER, the world’s first medical imaging scanner that can capture a 3D picture of the whole human body at once, has produced its first scans.
The brainchild of UC Davis scientists Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi, EXPLORER is a combined positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner that can image the entire body at the same time. Because the machine captures radiation far more efficiently than other scanners, EXPLORER can produce an image in as little as one second and, over time, produce movies that can track specially tagged drugs as they move around the entire body.
The developers expect the technology will have countless applications, from improving diagnostics to tracking disease progression to researching new drug therapies.
Read more
WASHINGTON (AP) — The next generation of biotech food is headed for the grocery aisles, and first up may be salad dressings or granola bars made with soybean oil genetically tweaked to be good for your heart.
By early next year, the first foods from plants or animals that had their DNA “edited” are expected to begin selling. It’s a different technology than today’s controversial “genetically modified” foods, more like faster breeding that promises to boost nutrition, spur crop growth, and make farm animals hardier and fruits and vegetables last longer.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has declared gene editing one of the breakthroughs needed to improve food production so the world can feed billions more people amid a changing climate. Yet governments are wrestling with how to regulate this powerful new tool. And after years of confusion and rancor, will shoppers accept gene-edited foods or view them as GMOs in disguise?
Read more
Forensic DNA Databanks
Posted in biotech/medical
Pilot Project To Reduce C-Sections Put To The Test By A Twin’s Difficult Birth : Shots — Health News A woman had twins in a hospital south of Boston last summer, right around dinner time. For doctors aiming to reduce cesareans, the second baby’s tricky arrival tested the limits of teamwork.
Read more
In a collaborative study presented by scientists primarily affiliated with Stanford and Brown Universities, participants suffering from significant paralysis were successfully able to use non-modified applications on an Android tablet using their brain waves. In previous studies, “point-and-click” computer functionality interpreted from these kinds of signals has been accomplished, but the applications available to participants was limited to software and devices that had been specialized and personalized for users’ specific needs. This study has demonstrated technology that overcomes this limitation and enables access to the full range of software available to non-disabled users. Participants enjoyed applications previously unavailable to them such as streaming music services and a piano keyboard player.
To accomplish the study’s objectives, scientists capitalized and combined existing technologies for their unique end. Brain waves from participants’ brain implants were sent to a commercially available recording system and then processed and decoded by an existing real-time interpreter software. The decoded data was then transmitted to a Bluetooth interface configured as a wireless mouse which was paired to an Android tablet. While the steps to accomplish the task at hand are many, the result somewhat resembles telepathy but largely resembles greater accessibility for the disabled.
Read more
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a technique to stop the movement of cancer cells. When cancer moves from a primary tumor to other sites in the body, it becomes far more dangerous to the patient, and that has driven scientists to work for years to learn more about how cancer cells migrate. This work, which was reported in Nature Communications, may help create therapeutics that can prevent cancer from spreading.
When tumors grow in the body, they can create interior networks that cancer cells can use like a highway, ultimately moving closer to blood vessels and other neighboring tissues. When patients have cancerous tumors with a large number of those highways, there is a lower likelihoood they will survive the cancer. One thing that has eluded researchers, however, is knowing exactly how cancer cells are able to find and move along those highways.
Read more
If you are diagnosed with cancer today there are often several treatment options, with your doctor forming a plan of attack that will feature multiple approaches. Chemotherapy is one of the most popular weapons against cancer, but new research suggests it may be possible to get chemo-like results without actually putting a patient through a chemotherapy routine.
In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists discuss the possibility of using the natural “kill code” of human cells to fight tumors. That code, which is used by our body to recycle cells and kills them off when they are old, isn’t used by cancer cells and that allows the bad cells to fester and spread.
Read more