Researchers have created a beautiful visualization the electrical activity in the human brain with the Unity3D game development engine. It’s gorgeous eye candy but it’s also amazing when you find out what it is you’re looking at.
Read more
Very promising. Wonder how effective it is with Prescription Med. Addictions.
A type of brain cell known as microglia plays a key role in reducing the effects of cocaine in the brain, according to a major study by a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal.
The discovery, published in the journal Neuron, establishes for the first time that microglia can diminish the adverse changes to neural circuitry brought on by the chronic use of cocaine and has significant implications for developing an effective treatment for addiction.
Microglia may not be as well known as neurons, the brain cells that relay messages, but they have many important functions. They constantly monitor their environment, and can act to maintain normal brain functioning. When they find something amiss, they can produce molecules that instruct neurons to make adaptive changes to their connections. One such example is the inflammatory molecule known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF).
A specific type of immune cell, called microglia (green) can help contain amyloid plaques (magenta), the key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, thus limiting their damage to surrounding brain cells.
But, Dr Jaime Grutzendler, associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Yale, said that is no longer thought to be the case, and should signal a new.
He said: ‘It suggests we should be enhancing the function of these immune cells, not trying to suppress it.’
Read more
Harvard you’re wrong. Why? Harvard needs to explain to all the families with genetic mutations tied to various types of cancer, cancer survivors who carry a genetic mutation, or the workers who were exposed at work to radiation or carcinogens how their smoking caused their cancer when they never smoked in their entire life. However, how do you explain that to the countless million patients, survivors, and loved ones who lost someone to cancer that never smoked or were exposed to smoking.
As many as 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, come down to things people could easily change, researchers said Thursday.
While Americans often worry about whether chemicals, pollution or other factors out of their control cause cancer, the new analysis shows otherwise: People are firmly in charge of much of their own risk of cancer.
Read more
Q-Dots ORNL style.
VIDEO: A method to produce significant amounts of semiconducting nanoparticles for light-emitting displays, sensors, solar panels and biomedical applications has gained momentum with a demonstration by researchers at Oak Ridge National… view more
Credit: Jenny Woodbery, ORNL
Finally, some well deserved recogonition to Argonne Natl. Labs in their efforts on QC with the Univ. Of Chicago.
If biochemists had access to a quantum computer, they could perfectly simulate the properties of new molecules to develop novel drugs in ways that would take the fastest existing computers decades.
Electrons represent an ideal quantum bit, with a “spin” that when pointing up can represent a 0 and down can represent a 1. Such bits are small—even smaller than an atom—and because they do not interact strongly, they can remain quantum for long periods. However, exploiting electrons as qubits also poses a challenge because they must be trapped and manipulated. Which is exactly what David Schuster, assistant professor of physics, and his collaborators at UChicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Yale University have done.
“A key aspect of this experiment is that we have integrated trapped electrons with more well-developed superconducting quantum circuits,” said graduate student Ge Yang, lead author of the Physical Review X paper that reported the group’s findings. The team captured the electrons by coaxing them to float above the surface of liquid helium at extremely low temperatures.
Moore’s Law was already identified as a problem regardless of Quantum. And, the move to Quantum happened regardless of Moores Law and the excitment around QC was not the result of Moores Law limitations. Just like all things, we evolve to better level of maturity.
The chip industry is giving another sign that Moore’s Law is coming to an end, but IBM is offering a glimpse at what might be computing’s future.
Industry experts from around the world who have been working together for years for forecast technology advances in the tech industry are throwing in the towel.
The next version of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, which is produced jointly by the semiconductor industry associations of the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, will be the last, the New York Times reported.
Ever dream of becoming a dentist? Or, have family members needing new dentures? Or, know that one person who would look good if they only had some teeth. This 3D Printer is your answer.
An undergraduate at New Jersey Institute of Technology made his own plastic braces using a 3D printer, $60 of materials, and a healthy dose of ingenuity — and they actually worked.
Amos Dudley had braces in middle school, but he didn’t wear a retainer like he was supposed to, so his teeth slowly shifted back.
He didn’t want to shell out thousands of dollars for a whole new round of braces, so the digital-design major decided to make his own.
