Tiny selenium particles could have a therapeutic effect on ischemic brain strokes by promoting the recovery of brain damage. Pharmacologists, including Alireza Mashaghi from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research discovered that selenium nanoparticles inhibit molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the loss of brain cells after a stroke. The results were published in Nature Scientific Reports in April.
Nanoparticles against strokes
An ischemic stroke happens when a supplying blood vessel to the brain is narrowed or obstructed. As a result, the brain gets too little blood. “This lack of blood can lead to brain tissue damage due to cellular toxicity, inflammation and cell death,” Mashaghi explains. “This will, in turn, lead to brain dysfunction and neurological complaints such as numbness, vision problems, dizziness and severed headache.” Ischemic stroke accounts for 87% of all strokes and is a significant cause of death. “So far, no neuroprotective agents have been shown to produce any measurable improvement in health in cerebral stroke cases. Our results now demonstrated that selenium nanoparticles inhibit molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the loss of brain cells after a stroke.”
An artificial intelligence firm says its heads-up display for astronauts could help them better manage complex space missions.
Hypergiant Industries built an “Iron Man”-inspired space helmet called HyperVSR, which can display details like an astronaut’s vital signs or other information about a mission. CEO Ben Lamm told Futurism that it may improve astronaut safety by putting more information at crew members’ fingertips and cutting down on how much they have to maneuver in a spacesuit.
“Space is an unpredictable environment, where challenges can change dramatically over the course of just a few minutes,” Lamm said. “During these situations, it’s paramount that astronaut safety is never in question. We’ve designed our helmet to enable astronauts to quickly gather information about a situation, as well as assess their own health, for enhanced decision-making even during emergencies.”
Finding the time to exercise when you’ve got heaps of housework – and laundry – piling up can be difficult, but this piece of gym kit means you’ve got no excuse!
The Bike Washing Machine is a human-powered washing machine that encourages you to multitask and conserve water while boosting your fitness in a fun, efficient way.
A generator inside the bike also creates electricity which can be stored for future use.
A growing body of research suggests that exposure to air pollution in the earliest stages of life is associated with negative effects on cognitive abilities. A new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by “la Caixa”, has provided new data: exposure to particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) during pregnancy and the first years of life is associated with a reduction in fundamental cognitive abilities, such as working memory and executive attention.
The study, carried out as part of the BREATHE project, has been published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The objective was to build on the knowledge generated by earlier studies carried out by the same team, which found lower levels of cognitive development in children attending schools with higher levels of traffic-related air pollution.
The study included 2,221 children between 7 and 10 years of age attending schools in the city of Barcelona. The children’s cognitive abilities were assessed using various computerized tests. Exposure to air pollution at home during pregnancy and throughout childhood was estimated with a mathematical model using real measurements.
The US government quietly resumed funding experiments on the deadly H5N1 avian flu — research that makes the virus more easily transmissible to mammals.
The researchers say making new strains of the H5N1 flu virus in a secure lab can help them see what might happen naturally in the real world. Sounds logical, but many scientists oppose it because the facts show most biosafety labs aren’t really secure at all, and experts say the risks of a mutated virus escaping outweigh whatever public health benefit comes from creating them.
But now the US government is funding these same labs again to artificially enhance potentially pandemic pathogens.
Amazon is reportedly developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions.
If successful, the health product could help the company improve its targeted advertisements and make better product recommendations, reports Bloomberg. The unnamed device could also advise humans on how to better interact with others.
A source showed Bloomberg internal Amazon documents that revealed a few details about the futuristic health and wellness product.
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Korea and Australia have found a possible link between the gut microbiome in infants and development of allergies. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their study of a certain antibody response in young mice and what they found.
Food allergies have been widely reported in the past few years, particularly in children. Scientists have been taking a closer look at the causes of the seemingly sudden rise in the number of people who are allergic to certain foods. In this new effort, the researchers looked into the possibility of a connection between food allergies and the gut biome.
The research started after some team members noticed that lab mice raised in a sterile environment (who also had no gut microbiome) expressed higher levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE) when they matured enough to start eating solid food. Prior research has shown that IgE is a mediator that plays a role during an allergic response—when allergens are detected, IgEs send out signals alerting other parts of the immune system, which in turn release chemicals that result in inflammation, a major allergy symptom.
