UK researchers on Wednesday announced the trial of a blood test for Alzheimer’s, which it is hoped will transform the diagnosis of the disease.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) will assess whether the test could improve the accuracy of diagnosis from 70 percent to over 90 percent.
Medics say early diagnosis is critical with Alzheimer’s, which is the most common cause of dementia, as the earlier treatment is started, the more effective it is.
King George, Albert Einstein, John Ritter, Richard Holbrooke, George C Scott, Lucille Ball, Betty Garrett, Walter Huston, Humphrey Lyttleton, Marilyn Chambers, and Michael Rennie all died from the same thing, Aortic dissection however the FDA recently approved AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis is helping change that by greatly inproving survival and recovery rates. UI Health Care is the first in Iowa to implant a patient with the recently approved AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis.
Patients who experience a specific type of aortic tear now have a new treatment option available at UI Health Care. The AMDS Hybrid Prosthesis, the world’s first aortic arch remodeling device, was recently approved for DeBakey Type 1 aortic dissection patients.
DeBakey Type 1 aortic dissection is a tear in the inner layer of the wall of the aorta—the main artery that carries oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. An aortic dissection causes blood to flow between the wall layers, which slows or stops normal blood flow and can lead to a complete rupture of the aorta. The condition is emergent, life-threatening, and requires immediate surgical repair.
The current treatment option involves removing a portion of the damaged aorta and grafting a synthetic tube in its place. These procedures are successful but often fail to treat the remainder of the diseased aorta, which can result in complications and the need for additional procedures in the future.
Tiny red objects spotted by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are offering scientists new insights into the origins of galaxies in the universe—and may represent an entirely new class of celestial object: a black hole swallowing massive amounts of matter and spitting out light.
Using the first datasets released by the telescope in 2022, an international team of scientists including Penn State researchers discovered mysterious “little red dots.” The researchers suggested the objects may be galaxies that were as mature as our current Milky Way, which is roughly 13.6 billion years old, just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang.
Informally dubbed “universe breakers” by the team, the objects were originally thought to be galaxies far older than anyone expected in the infant universe—calling into question what scientists previously understood about galaxy formation.
The concept of quantum entanglement is emblematic of the gap between classical and quantum physics. Referring to a situation in which it is impossible to describe the physics of each photon separately, this key characteristic of quantum mechanics defies the classical expectation that each particle should have a reality of its own, which gravely concerned Einstein.
Understanding the potential of this concept is essential for the realization of powerful new quantum technologies.
Developing such technologies will require the ability to freely generate a multi–photon quantum entangled state, and then to efficiently identify what kind of entangled state is present. However, when performing conventional quantum tomography, a method commonly used for state estimation, the number of measurements required grows exponentially with the number of photons, posing a significant data collection problem.
Researchers at Emory Goizueta Brain Health Institute and partner institutions have found new clues in the blood that could help explain why Alzheimer’s disease develops and how it affects memory.
The study, published in Nature Aging, examined blood samples from more than 2,100 individuals across four large research cohorts. Using advanced tools, scientists measured thousands of proteins in the blood and linked them to changes in the brain and thinking ability.
Traditionally, doctors have focused on sticky amyloid plaques in the brain as a hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
The cerebellum, a brain region located at the back of the head that has long been known to support the coordination of muscle movements, has recently also been implicated in more sophisticated mental functions. Purkinje cells are the only neurons located in the cerebellum that integrate information in the cerebellar cortex and send it to other parts of the nervous system.
Purkinje cells are large and highly branched nerve cells that can have different functions. While many past studies have explored the roles of these cells, the neural and genetic processes shaping their diversity have not yet been fully elucidated.
Researchers at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine recently carried out a study aimed at exploring the possible role of the FOXP genes, a family of genes known to contribute to switching other genes “on and off,” in shaping Purkinje cell populations and the formation of circuits in the cerebellum. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, hint at the existence of at least 11 different Purkinje cell subtypes, suggesting that the FOXP1 and FOXP2 genes contribute to their diversification.
Moiré superlattices are periodic patterns formed when two or more thin semiconducting layers are stacked with a small twist angle or lattice mismatch. When 2D materials form these patterns, their electronic, mechanical, and optical properties can change significantly.
Over the past decades, moiré superlattices have emerged as a promising platform to study unconventional and unknown physical states. They also enabled the observation of unique excitonic configurations (i.e., arrangements of bound electron-hole pairs).
In bilayer moiré systems based on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), for instance, physicists have observed interlayer dipolar excitons. These are excitons produced when an electron and a hole are bound together across different layers in a stacked 2D semiconductor.
The world of quantum physics is already mysterious, but what happens when that strange realm of subatomic particles is put under immense pressure? Observing quantum effects under pressure has proven difficult for a simple reason: Designing sensors that can withstand extreme forces is challenging.
In a significant advance, a team led by physicists at WashU has created quantum sensors in an unbreakable sheet of crystallized boron nitride. The sensors can measure stress and magnetism in materials under pressure that exceeds 30,000 times the pressure of the atmosphere.
“We’re the first ones to develop this sort of high-pressure sensor,” said Chong Zu, an assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and a member of Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for Quantum Leaps. “It could have a wide range of applications in fields ranging from quantum technology, material science, to astronomy and geology.”
Over the past few decades, electronics engineers have developed increasingly sophisticated sensors that can reliably measure a wide range of physiological signals, including heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate and oxygen saturation. These sensors were used to create both biomedical and consumer-facing wearable devices, advancing research and the real-time monitoring of health-related metrics, such as sleep quality and physiological stress.
Fatigue, a mental state marked by a decline in performance due to stress, lack of sleep, excessive activity or other factors, has proved to be more difficult to reliably quantify. Most existing methods for measuring fatigue rely on surveys that ask people to report how tired they feel, a method to record the brain’s electrical activity known as electroencephalography (EEG) or camera-based systems.
Most of these approaches are unreliable or only applicable in laboratory settings, as they rely on subjective evaluations, bulky equipment or controlled environments. These limitations prevent their large-scale deployment in everyday settings.