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In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, bioelectronic medicine researchers, engineers and surgeons at Northwell Health’s The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have successfully implanted microchips into the brain of a man living with paralysis, and have developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord.

This double neural bypass forms an electronic bridge that allows information to flow once again between the man’s paralyzed body and to restore movement and sensations in his hand with lasting gains in his arm and wrist outside of the laboratory. The research team unveiled the trial participant’s groundbreaking progress four months after a 15-hour open-brain surgery that took place on March 9 at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH).

“This is the first time the brain, body and have been linked together electronically in a paralyzed human to restore lasting movement and sensation,” said Chad Bouton, professor in the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes, vice president of advanced engineering at Northwell Health, developer of the technology and principal investigator of the clinical trial.

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McKinsey and Company is no stranger to generative artificial intelligence (gen AI): around half of the global consulting giant’s employees were said to be using the technology as of earlier this summer.

But it’s not the only org to see a rapid uptake of gen AI. Indeed, a new annual report by McKinsey’s AI arm QuantumBlack finds that “use of gen AI is already widespread.”

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Scientists have constructed a comprehensive set of functional maps of infant brain networks, providing unprecedented details on brain development from birth to two years old.

The infant brain cortex parcellation maps, published today in eLife, have already provided novel insights into when different brain functions develop during infancy and provide valuable, publicly available references for early brain developmental studies.

Cortical parcellation is a means of studying brain function by dividing up cortical gray matter in different locations into “parcels.” Scans from imaging (fMRI) are taken when the brain is in an inactive “resting” state, alongside measurements of brain connectivity, to study brain function within each parcel.

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What specific changes can we expect in the exterior and interior of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Juniper? When exactly will the Model Y refresh be released? Will there be any improvements in the battery and technology of the Model Y?

As the electric vehicle market continues to thrive, Tesla remains at the top of the EV ladder with its models staying in the top selling charts. Among its impressive lineup, the Model Y stands out as a tough rival shaping the whole EV market in its favor.

With the upcoming release of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Project Juniper and Model 3 Project Highland, as we discussed in our recent posts, Tesla is aiming to redefine the electric SUV segment even further. This highly anticipated refresh promises exciting changes to both the interior and exterior of the popular Model Y.

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A paper published today in Nature Metabolism has described a method of genetically engineering cells to respond to electrical stimuli, allowing for on-demand gene expression.

Despite its futuristic outlook, this line of research is built upon previous work. The idea of an implantable gene switch to command cells in order to deliver valuable compounds into the human body is not new. The authors of this paper cite longstanding work showing that gene switches can be developed to respond to antibiotics [1] or other drugs, and the antibiotic doxycycline is used regularly for this purpose in mouse models. More recently, researchers have worked on cells that control their output based on green light [2], radio waves [3], or heat [4].

However, these mechanisms have their problems. A gene trigger that operates in response to a chemical compound requires that compound to have stable, controllable biological availability [5]. If it relies on any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, that process may be triggered by mistake or require intense energy to function [3].

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Neurons produce rhythmic patterns of electrical activity in the brain. One of the unsettled questions in the field of neuroscience is what primarily drives these rhythmic signals, called oscillations. University of Arizona researchers have found that simply remembering events can trigger them, even more so than when people are experiencing the actual event.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the journal Neuron, specifically focused on what are known as , which emerge in the ’s hippocampus region during activities like exploration, navigation and sleep. The hippocampus plays a crucial role in the brain’s ability to remember the past.

Prior to this study, it was believed that the played a more important role in driving theta oscillations, said Arne Ekstrom, professor of cognition and in the UArizona Department of Psychology and senior author of the study. But Ekstrom and his collaborators found that generated in the brain is the main driver of theta activity.

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“They come off as real amateurs,” Michael Norman, a theorist at Argonne National Laboratory told Science. “They don’t know much about superconductivity and the way they’ve presented some of the data is fishy.”

Nadya Mason, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said “the data seems a bit sloppy.”

The topic has kept Science Twitter tittering for days, with many researchers—and wannabe researchers— sharing their hot takes.

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An Original Research entitled “CT Differences of Pulmonary Tuberculosis According to Presence of Pleural Effusion” by Dr Jung et al. and colleagues mentioned that tuberculous (TB) involvement of the lymphatics in the peripheral interstitium may have an association with pleural effusion development.

They explained that common CT (computed tomography) findings in TB pleural effusion are Subpleural micronodules and interlobular septal thickening. These features detected in computed tomography could aid in the differentiation between TB pleural effusion and non-tuberculous empyema.

The main question here is whether subpleural micronodules and interlobular septal thickening frequency correlate with the pleural effusion presence in pulmonary TB patients.

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