Here is another advanced prosthetic device that can make life easier for amputees. BrainRobotics’ EMG Prosthetic Hand features a modular mechanical design. It comes with 8 signal detection channels for precise EMG readings. An advanced machine learning algorithm is used to allow users to intuitively control this robotic prosthesis.
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The adorable and enigmatic axolotl is capable of regenerating many different body parts, including limbs, organs, and even portions of its brain. Scientists hope that a deeper understanding of these extraordinary abilities could help make this kind of tissue regeneration possible for humans. With news today of the first complete axolotl genome, researchers can now finally get down to the business of unraveling these mysteries.
Axolotls are tiny aquatic salamanders whose only native habitat is a lake near Mexico City. Many animals, such as frogs, sea stars, and flatworms, are capable of tissue regeneration, but the axolotl is unique in that it can regenerate many different body parts over the course of its entire life cycle, including limbs, tail, heart, lungs, eyes, spinal cord, and up to half of its brain.
Monash researchers have unlocked a key process in all human cells that contributes to diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative diseases as well as ageing. The discovery reveals how cells efficiently get rid of cellular junk, which when it accumulates, can trigger death and the health problems associated with getting older.
Autophagy is the ‘clean-up crew’ of the cell—used by cells to break-down debris like broken proteins, bits of cell membrane, viruses or bacteria. To capture this trash, cells use specialised membranes to trap the cargo for recycling into new parts and energy. Without efficient autophagy cells become choked by their own damaged components, which can contribute to the development of a range of diseases, including diabetes, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Michael Lazarou’s laboratory from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute have today published data in Nature Communications that debunks previously held beliefs about how cells target their trash. Cells target different types of cargo by using ‘autophagy receptors’, which can bind the cargo as well as the ensnaring membranes. Until recently these autophagy receptors were thought to recruit the membranes to the cargo, but research led by Dr. Benjamin Padman from the Lazarou lab now shows that this is not the case.
Three men with severe spinal cord injuries have walked for the first time in years after receiving targeted electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.
Breakthrough: Spinal cord injuries can severely reduce a person’s range of motion or lead to complete leg paralysis. In two new papers published in Nature and Nature Neuroscience, researchers describe implanting electrical stimulators into the damaged spinal cords of three men who all had partial or complete lower-leg paralysis. The stimulators then delivered targeted electric pulses in time with the patients’ walking gait.
The patients wore a series of sensors on their legs and feet that wirelessly communicated to the stimulators as they began to walk. Within a week, the men were able to leave the treadmill and walk on the ground with continued electrical stimulation. After a few months, they regained the ability to walk without any electrical stimulation at all.
GDF11 is an endogenous (meaning it’s natural, and you have it in you) signaling molecule whose primary mechanism of action is stem cell DNA repair. Most of the aging is likely caused by the atrophy of your stem cell populations due to declining GDF11 levels, and many believe this is natural selection’s way of programming lifespan. Fortunately, adding exogenous GDF11 can generally repair enough of senescent stem cells to reverse your age 5 to 10 years.
Steve will take some time providing information on the topic and answering questions.
“I’ve always been interested in stopping the aging process, and as a lifelong software guy, coupled with plenty of evidence from parabiosis experiments, I believe lifespan is programmed by natural selection, specifically group selection.
The primary mechanism for determining lifespan is a naturally occurring, blood born peptide called GDF11. Interestingly enough, the molecular structure of GDF11 is maintained across all vertebrate species. You have GDF in you right now, but unless you are 18, you don’t have enough of it.
“Human players must explicitly manage an ‘economy of attention’ to decide where to focus the camera,” said the DeepMind team. “However, analysis of AlphaStar’s games suggests that it manages an implicit focus of attention. On average, agents ‘switched context’ about 30 times per minute,” the team wrote, which was similar to Komincz’s and Wünsch’s behaviors.
Ultimately, the DeepMind team concluded that AlphaStar won against both pros because of “superior macro and micro-strategic decision-making, rather than superior click-rate, faster reaction times, or the raw interface.”
