Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have developed tiny elastic robots that can change shape depending on their surroundings and can swim through fluids, an advance which may help deliver drugs to diseased tissue one day.

The smart, biocompatible microrobots that are highly flexible are made of hydrogel nanocomposites that contain magnetic nanoparticles allowing them to be controlled via an electromagnetic field.

As a result, these devices are able to swim through fluids and modify their shape when needed. They can also pass through narrow blood vessels and intricate systems without compromising on speed or manoeuvrability, said the group of scientists led by Selman Sakar at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich.

Continue reading “These tiny swimming robots may deliver drugs in blood vessels” »

A young mother from Anchorage, Alaska, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) more than 10 years ago says an experimental stem-cell treatment has left her “practically symptom-free.”

Amanda Loy was 27 years old when she was first diagnosed with the disease, which typically affects the brain and spinal cord, also known as the central nervous system. MS can be debilitating and there is currently no cure, according to the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation.

ACTRESS SELMA BLAIR, 46, REVEALS MS DIAGNOSIS: ‘I AM DISABLED’

Continue reading “Alaska woman with MS says stem-cell treatment has left her ‘practically symptom-free’” »

Neuroscientists have for the first time discovered differences between the ‘software’ of humans and monkey brains, using a technique that tracks single neurons.

They found that human brains trade off ‘robustness’ — a measure of how synchronized neuron signals are — for greater efficiency in information processing. The researchers hypothesize that the results might help to explain humans’ unique intelligence, as well as their susceptibility to psychiatric disorders. The findings were published in Cell on 17 January.

Scientists say that this type of unusual study could help them to better translate research in animal models of psychiatric diseases into the clinic.

Now researchers at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea have made a nanomembrane out of silver nanowires to serve as flexible loudspeakers or microphones. The researchers even went so far as to demonstrate their nanomembrane by making it into a loudspeaker that could be attached to skin and used it to play the final movement of a violin concerto—namely, La Campanella by Niccolo Paganini.

Researchers in South Korea made a tiny loudspeaker, and then used it to play a violin concerto.

Continue reading “Flexible Loudspeaker Made of Nanowires Will Stick to Your Skin and Play Music” »

As Beijing’s pilot reform spreads nationwide to cut prices of drugs and improve their efficacy and safety, companies are under mounting pressure to invest in innovative drugs development and reduce reliance on low profit products that are the same copies of original drugs.

New policy environment demanding cheaper drugs adds pressure to innovate.

Billionaire Masayoshi Son–not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg–has the most audacious vision for an AI-powered utopia where machines control how we live. And he’s spending hundreds of billions of dollars to realize it. Are you ready to live in Masa World?

[Illustration: Señor Salme]

| Local | http://idahostatejournal.com/ Cutting calories (dieting) and increasing caloric expenditure (exercise) cause your brain to activate neurons that will not allow you to utilize fat or lose weight.

Recently, and at a most appropriate time, another study published in the journal eLife has given explanation as to why your current New Year’s Resolution diet will not work.

Cutting calories (dieting) and increasing caloric expenditure (exercise) cause your brain to activate neurons that will not allow you to utilize fat or lose weight.

Continue reading “Evolution calls on us to lose weight slowly over time” »

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Biofeedback will also be able to help with problems that feel intractable, by conditioning students to make time to think outside the box. Studies show the best way is to deal with a seemingly intractable problem is to consider it intensely for a period of time and then to relax to an almost meditative state to foster the brain’s creative side.

We have trialled technology that can help users manage this approach in Finland, using an app called Study Train that has been designed by Finnish education experts. The app combines the Pomodoro time-management technique with customised learning rhythms based on an individual’s brain waves, telling students to focus when learning efficiency is high and to rest meditatively to promote lateral thinking and creativity when efficiency is low. It is now being used by students in China, Malaysia and Taiwan as well as in Finland and next year will be rolled out further.

We have long known that the brain has good and bad times for retaining information and solving problems. By combining EEG data and machine learning we can now we confident when those different states occur and use that information to improve students’ learning. 2019 will be the year when study becomes turbocharged.