Health – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jan 19
2016

Tiny electronic implants monitor brain injury, then melt away

Another interesting find from KurzweilAI.

Artist’s rendering of bioresorbable implanted brain sensor (top left) connected via biodegradable wires to external wireless transmitter (ring, top right) for monitoring a rat’s brain (red) (credit: Graphic by Julie McMahon)

Researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new class of small, thin electronic sensors that can monitor temperature and pressure within the skull — crucial health parameters after a brain injury or surgery — then melt away when they are no longer needed, eliminating the need for additional surgery to remove the monitors and reducing the risk of infection and hemorrhage.

Similar sensors could be adapted for postoperative monitoring in other body systems as well, the researchers say.

Jan 18
2016

Digital Diagnosis: Intelligent Machines Do a Better Job Than Humans

I am not surprised by this finding at all. This will change Healthcare drastically.

Until now, medicine has been a prestigious and often extremely lucrative career choice. But in the near future, will we need as many doctors as we have now? Are we going to see significant medical unemployment in the coming decade?

Dr. Saxon Smith, president of the Australian Medical Association NSW branch, said in a report late last year that the most common concerns he hears from doctors-in-training and medical students are “what is the future of medicine?” and “will I have a job?”. The answers, he said, continue to elude him.

As Australian, British and American universities continue to graduate increasing numbers of medical students, the obvious question is where will these new doctors work in the future?

Jan 18
2016

The disruptive technologies that will shape business in the years ahead

Good article. I need to highlight that Quantum will most definitely take all of these technologies to a new level of performance and sophistication that we have never seen before. AI (including robotics) will be able to be the independent thinkers and humanoids that we all read about in SciFi or the AI Warning articles and blogs that we read about today. VR will be to interact and predict movements that are at least 20+ steps ahead of the average person; etc. This is why Quantum is the true game changer among all of these.

2 technologies missing that should also be included to this list is nanbots and CRISPR. Just like wearable’s and AI; CRISPR and nanobots are not new; however, they will change our healthcare industry.

It won’t happen overnight but it will happen.

Jan 18
2016

Canada Opening “International Hub For Stem Cell Therapy”

Canada’s federal government believes that ‘regenerative medicine is the future,’ and they’re ready to put money behind this statement.

Stem cells are remarkable. They have the ability to grow into a plethora of different kinds of cells. As the National Institute of Health notes, they are capable of “dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive.” And it is precisely this ability to grow and develop into different cell types that makes stem cells so useful in the fight again a host of diseases and ailments.

Now, Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has just announced that the federal government is set to put in $20 million towards the development of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. The move is set to support the establishment of a stem-cell therapy development facility in Toronto.

Jan 18
2016

Startups Draw on Microbes in the Gut for New Drugs

Making meds from the bacteria living inside your gut. Interesting concept; however, it does remind me of some of the Sigourney Weaver movies.

Relatively new discoveries about of the role of the microbiome in human health have sparked a race to develop new therapies based on microbes.

Jan 16
2016

Major Mouse Testing Project | Longevity unleashed

Modest progress at the WHO international consultation on aging.

Our parent organization the ILA has been busy and here is an article about the latest news from the World Health Organization meeting in Geneva to discuss aging research. There are some positive changes being made and well done to everyone who helped out on this project.

http://majormouse.org/?q=node/164

Jan 14
2016

The Telomerase Revolution: The Enzyme That Holds the Key to Human Aging and Will Soon Lead to Longer, Healthier Lives: Michael Fossel: 9781941631690: Amazon.com: Books

I am reading this right now. I feel like I need to go back and study it when i am finished. It is not only a basic information source but provides some nice history on the R&D of life extension. There are a number of people we can name as the big names in longer life R&D, Fossel is one of them.

The Telomerase Revolution: The Enzyme That Holds the Key to Human Aging and Will Soon Lead to Longer, Healthier Lives [Michael Fossel] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. One of Wall Street Journal’s Best Books for Science Lovers in 2015Science is on the cusp of a revolutionary breakthrough. We now understand more about aging—and how to prevent and reverse it—than ever before. In recent years.

Jan 13
2016

Half of plastic trash in oceans comes from 5 countries

If true, this might mean there’s a “low hanging fruit” solution to ocean gyre garbage — a targeted effort to improve garbage collection in a small number of cities in developing nations, might dramatically reduce it. Hint, hint, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation! Side benefit would be greatly improving the lives of people in those cities, with some obvious health benefits along the way.

Economic growth in these countries is outpacing infrastructure, and their trash is collecting in the sea.

Jan 13
2016

7 Mind-Blowing Digital Health Tools That Could Disrupt Health Care in 2016

Wow!!! Chewing gum wearable technology, Cyborg Chips, Ingestible sensors to let doctors know if you’re taking your meds, etc. 2016 is going to be interesting

The phrase “Brave New World” has become one of the most often used clichés in medical technology in recent years. Google the title of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian, and anticipatory, novel with the word medicine and 2,940,000 results appear.

But could there be better shorthand to describe some of the recent developments in medical, health and bio-tech? Consider these possibilities coming to fruition, or close to, in 2016:

1. Back from Extinction

Gene-editing startup Editas Medicine of Cambridge, Mass., filed to go public this month. The company’s founder, Harvard professor George Church, hopes to, among other things, revive the extinct woolly mammoth or create a facsimile. Investors include Google and Bill Gates.

Jan 13
2016

Scientists have started growing human fallopian tubes in the lab

Researchers in Germany have successfully grown the innermost layer of human fallopian tubes in the lab — the first step towards creating a functional model that will allow scientists to study how reproductive diseases such as cancer start, as well as provide important insight into the enigmatic organs.

The fallopian tubes play a crucial role in the female reproductive system by connecting the ovaries to the uterus, but recent research has suggested that if fallopian tube cells become infected, they can migrate, and could be a key trigger for ovarian cancer — one of the most deadly types of female reproductive cancer.

Despite the importance of these organs, we have a lot to learn about how they function, particularly on the inside — an area that (as you can imagine) is particularly challenging for scientists to study while their patients are alive.