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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2654

Aug 12, 2015

Overcoming Scarring: Cell Signalling Pathway Could Promote Regeneration

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Research on a cell signalling pathway common to mammals has now uncovered a signalling pathway and specific protein, which might act as a regulator in regeneration.

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Aug 11, 2015

Controlling inflammation to reduce chronic disease risk

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Two-hit model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (credit: ILSI Europe)

In an open-access paper in the British Journal of Nutrition, a coalition of 17 experts explain how elevated unresolved chronic inflammation is involved a range of chronic diseases, and how nutrition influences inflammatory processes and helps reduce chronic risk of diseases.

According to the authors, “the nutrition status of the individual with for example a deficiency or excess of certain micronutrients (e.g. folate, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, vitamin 1, vitamin E, zinc) may lead to an ineffective or excessive inflammatory response.

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Aug 11, 2015

3-D Printing: Could Downloadable Medicine Be The Future?

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical

As 3-D printing gains steam and moves beyond plastics, it could be applied to many other industries, revolutionising medicine on the way.

An Ohio based pharmaceutical company Aprecia has now developed a 3-D printing technology which creates a more porous pill structure — allowing higher dose pills to dissolve quicker and making them easier to swallow for some patients. The same technology also allows precise doses to be layered in the same structure. A UCL team have also developed a technique for printing different shapes, which affects drug release.

“For the last 50 years, we have manufactured tablets in factories and shipped them to hospitals, for the first time, this process means we can produce tablets much closer to the patient.”

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Aug 11, 2015

The Future of Medicine has Arrived: Baidu Unveils Their Mobile AI Doctor

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Baidu’s AskADoctor initiative is an ambitious project that recently emerged from Baidu’s deep learning division. We’ve gotta say, initial impressions seem very promising.

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Aug 10, 2015

How Does Chronic Inflammation Lead To Cancer?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Although inflammation has rather a bad reputation, it is a vital process which allows us to effectively fight off infection. Like many things however, there appears to be a balancing act, and when inflammation becomes maladaptive and persistent — it does more harm than good.


It seems that in the process of destroying adversaries, immune responses can create collateral damage which can set the stage for later cancerous developments.

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Aug 10, 2015

Meet the designer behind these incredibly lifelike prosthetics

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs

“The undisputed queen of personalized prosthetics.”

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Aug 10, 2015

Low Inflammation and Telomere Maintenance Predict Healthy Longevity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension

While exploring which biological processes might predict successful in centenarians, a team from Newcastle and Tokyo have identified two prominent factors that facilitate health longevity — low level inflammation and telomere length.

“Centenarians and supercentenarians are different — put simply, they age slower. They can ward off diseases for much longer than the general population.”

After measuring a number of health markers in 1,554 people including: those over 105, between 100 and 105 and a group near their 100th birthday along with their offspring, these two elements emerged as consistent longevity predictors.

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Aug 10, 2015

I Millennials camperanno cent’anni o anche più. Ma se lo potranno permettere?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, geopolitics, life extension, robotics/AI, transhumanism

This is an interesting story in one of Italy’s top 3 papers/sites about life extension science and millennials living beyond 100 years of age. It also features transhumanism: http://numerus.corriere.it/2015/08/06/i-millennials-camperan…ermettere/ and the English: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://…rev=search


Le tendenze della statistica ci dicono che chi oggi ha vent’anni ha ottime probabilità di arrivare ai cento in buona salute. Forse anche molto di più, se avranno successo le battaglie del Partito Transumanista che si presenta alle elezioni americane del 2016 con l’obiettivo di puntare più risorse sulla lotta all’invecchiamento. Ma come si configura un mondo di persone tanto longeve? L’allungamento della vita potrà beneficiare tutte le popolazioni o soltanto una fascia di privilegiati? Già oggi la speranza di vita nei Paesi più poveri è mediamente inferiore di 18 anni rispetto ai Paesi più ricchi e anche in Italia ci sono tre anni di differenza tra Milano e Napoli. E come si ridisegna un sistema sociale nel quale le persone vivranno venti o trent’anni più di oggi?

Un autobus rosso a forma di bara, con tanto di fiori finti sul tetto, percorre le strade degli Stati Uniti. Lo ha voluto il leader del Partito transumanista Zoltan Istvan, candidato alle elezioni presidenziali del 2016. Istvan non diventerà presidente, ma il suo messaggio non è banale: con il suo tour elettorale, vuole attirare l’attenzione sulla battaglia contro l’invecchiamento. Chiede più fondi per la ricerca e per le cure sanitarie, più carriere nelle attività tecnologiche, nell’intelligenza artificiale e nella medicina.

Continue reading “I Millennials camperanno cent’anni o anche più. Ma se lo potranno permettere?” »

Aug 9, 2015

WATCH: The dawn of the bionic man

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI, transhumanism

Hugh Herr is building the next generation of bionic limbs, robotic prosthetics inspired by nature’s own designs. Herr lost both legs in a climbing accident 30 years ago; now, as the head of the MIT Media Lab’s Biomechatronics group, he shows his incredible technology in a talk that’s both technical and deeply personal — with the help of ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her left leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and performs again for the first time on the TED stage.

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Aug 8, 2015

Move over, autonomous AI weapons, there’s a new risk in town: ‘gene drives’

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, robotics/AI

Wyss Institute scientists believe that synthetic gene drives, if researched responsibly, might be used in the future to render mosquito populations unable to transmit malaria (credit: CDC)

An international group of 26 experts, including prominent genetic engineers and fruit fly geneticists, has unanimously recommended a series of preemptive measures to safeguard gene drive research from accidental (or intentional) release from laboratories.

RNA-guided gene drives are genetic elements — found naturally in the genomes of most of the world’s organisms — that increase the chance of the gene they carry being passed on to all offspring. So they can quickly spread through populations if not controlled.

Continue reading “Move over, autonomous AI weapons, there’s a new risk in town: ‘gene drives’” »