Lifeboat Foundation

By Nick Lavars — Gizmag

By enabling users to communicate and control devices with their thoughts, brain-computer interfaces (BCI) hold almost a scary amount of potential. While they have achieved feats such as directing the flight of a quadcopter and helping victims of paralysis to communicate, sufferers of brainstem stroke with “locked-in” syndrome have so far been beyond reach. But now, a researcher at East Tennessee Sate University (ETSU) has demonstrated BCIs may in fact give brainstem stroke patients a voice again, with very specific brainwaves serving as a typing finger for a virtual keyboard.

“We have significant research showing that BCI is beneficial to ALS patients [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder that results in muscle wasting],” says Dr Eric Sellers, associate professor of Psychology at ETSU and leader of the study. “But until now there were no studies that looked specifically at patients with a brainstem stroke to see if it worked for them as well.”

Read more

By Kenrya Rankin Naasel — FastCompany

Anyone who has had a chronic medical issue–or a family member with one–knows how difficult it can be to understand what their doctors are talking about. Enter Emmi Solutions, a health data visualization company that uses multidisciplinary art to explain complex concepts to patients of all ages. “Health care is very personal and can be really scary. People want to be involved, supported, reassured, and guided to make the right decisions for themselves and their families. Caregivers want that for their patients too, but haven’t always had the tools or the incentives to provide that,” says Greg Blew, the company’s chief creative officer. “So we started making interactive multimedia programs that educated patients about upcoming surgical procedures and set their expectations around factors like recovery time, postoperative pain, and potential risks.”

Read more

Written By: Peniel M. Dimberu — Singularity Hub

In one of the gutsiest performances in sports history, NFL quarterback Chris Simms had to be carted off the field after taking several vicious hits from the defense during a game in 2006. Remarkably, Simms returned to the game shortly thereafter and led his team on a scoring drive before having to leave the game for good.

As it turns out, Simms had ruptured his spleen and lost nearly five pints of blood.

Continue reading “Artificial Spleen ‘Cleans’ Blood of Pathogens” »

Quoted: “Ethereum will also be a decentralised exchange system, but with one big distinction. While Bitcoin allows transactions, Ethereum aims to offer a system by which arbitrary messages can be passed to the blockchain. More to the point, these messages can contain code, written in a Turing-complete scripting language native to Ethereum. In simple terms, Ethereum claims to allow users to write entire programs and have the blockchain execute them on the creator’s behalf. Crucially, Turing-completeness means that in theory any program that could be made to run on a computer should run in Ethereum.” And, quoted: “As a more concrete use-case, Ethereum could be utilised to create smart contracts, pieces of code that once deployed become autonomous agents in their own right, executing pre-programmed instructions. An example could be escrow services, which automatically release funds to a seller once a buyer verifies that they have received the agreed products.”

Read Part One of this Series here » Ethereum — Bitcoin 2.0? And, What Is Ethereum.

Read Part Two of this Series here » Ethereum — Opportunities and Challenges.

Read Part Three of this Series here » Ethereum — A Summary.

Quoted: “The Factom team suggested that its proposal could be leveraged to execute some of the crypto 2.0 functionalities that are beginning to take shape on the market today. These include creating trustless audit chains, property title chains, record keeping for sensitive personal, medical and corporate materials, and public accountability mechanisms.

During the AMA, the Factom president was asked how the technology could be leveraged to shape the average person’s daily life.”

Kirby responded:

“Factom creates permanent records that can’t be changed later. In a Factom world, there’s no more robo-signing scandals. In a Factom world, there are no more missing voting records. In a Factom world, you know where every dollar of government money was spent. Basically, the whole world is made up of record keeping and, as a consumer, you’re at the mercy of the fragmented systems that run these records.”

Continue reading “BitCoin, Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain Technology — FACTOM” »

by Arjun Walia — Collective Evolution

The cause of autism is still unknown, but we are definitely closer to figuring it out. A new study published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, from researchers at the University of Chicago revealed that autism and intellectual disability (ID) rates are linked with exposure to harmful environmental factors during congenital development.

“Essentially what happens is during pregnancy… there are certain sensitive periods where the fetus is very vulnerable to a range of small molecules – from things like plasticisers, prescription drugs, environmental pesticides and other things. Some of these small molecules essentially alter normal development. Autism appears to be strongly correlated with rate of congenital malformations of the genitals in males across the country, this gives an indicator of environmental load and the effect is surprisingly strong. The strongest predictors for autism were associated with the environment; congenital malformations on the reproductive system in males.” (1) - Andrey Rzhetsky, professor of genetic medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago

Read more

Johns Hopskins Medicine

A modified version of the Clostridium novyi (C. novyi-NT) bacterium can produce a strong and precisely targeted anti-tumor response in rats, dogs and now humans, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers.

In its natural form, C. novyi is found in the soil and, in certain cases, can cause tissue-damaging infection in cattle, sheep and humans. The microbe thrives only in oxygen-poor environments, which makes it a targeted means of destroying oxygen-starved cells in tumors that are difficult to treat with chemotherapy and radiation. The Johns Hopkins team removed one of the bacteria’s toxin-producing genes to make it safer for therapeutic use.

Read more

MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine

By Nick Lavars — Gizmag

Even with advances in gels and dressings, burns remain a difficult injury to treat. This applies particularly to parts of the body where the skin bends around bones and joints, creating surfaces unfavorable to most types of bandaging. But researchers from Japan’s Tokai University have developed a new ultra-thin material that clings to those trickier locations, serving to ward off infectious bacteria.

The researchers liken the material as akin to cling wrap in its ability to adhere to not only flat surfaces without any adhesives, but also irregular surfaces that can be prone to dog-eared Band-Aids and curling gauze.

Read more