Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 519

Apr 19, 2023

Billionaire Li Ka-Shing Backs Biocomputing Startup That Takes On AI With Lab-Grown Brain Cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, finance, robotics/AI

Cortical Labs, an Australian startup developing a new type of artificial intelligence that combines lab-grown human brain cells with computer chips, has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Hong Kong’s richest person, Li Ka-shing.

Blackbird Ventures, Australia’s leading venture capital fund, has also taken part in the financing round, Cortical Labs said in a statement on Wednesday. Other investors include In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as U.S.-based LifeX Ventures and Australia-headquartered Radar Ventures, among others.

Cortical Labs said it will use the capital to commercialize its biological computer chips—human brain cells derived from stem cells that are grown on top of microelectrode arrays. Cortical Labs refers to their system as DishBrain, and says it’s capable of performing goal-directed tasks.

Apr 19, 2023

Cardiovascular disease: People who’ve had cancer may have higher risk

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers say previous cases of cancer, in particular blood and breast cancer, can increase a person’s risk of developing heart disease. There are lifestyle changes that can lower that risk.

Apr 19, 2023

Inspired by the sea and the sky, a biologist invents a new kind of microscope

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Enter Fabian Voigt, a molecular biologist at Harvard University and inventor of the new design. He was reading a book about animal vision when he encountered the odd case of scallops’ eyes. Unlike most animals, whose eyes feature retinas that send images to the brain, scallops have mantles covered with hundreds of tiny blue dots, each of which contains a curved mirror at its back. As light passes through each eye’s lens, its inner mirror reflects the light back onto the creature’s photoreceptors to create an image that then allows the scallop to respond to its environment.

An amateur astronomer since he was a teenager, Voigt realized the scallop’s eye design resembled a kind of telescope invented nearly 100 years ago called the Schmidt telescope. The Kepler Space Telescope, which orbits Earth, uses a similar curved mirror design to magnify far-away light from exoplanets. Voigt realized that by shrinking the mirror, using lasers for light, and filling the space between the mirror and the detector with liquid to minimize light scattering, the design could be adapted to fit inside a microscope.

So, Voigt and colleagues built a prototype based on those specs. Light enters from the top, passes through a curved plate that corrects for the mirror’s curvature, then bounces off a mirror to hit a sample and magnify it. The curved mirror can magnify the image much like a lens, Voigt says. It allows researchers to look at samples suspended in any kind of liquid, simplifying the process. Voigt says the design could be particularly useful for researchers who study organs or even entire organisms, such as mice or embryos, that have been made completely transparent by artificially removing their pigment.

Apr 19, 2023

Dr. Matthew MacDougall: Neuralink & Technologies to Enhance Human Brains | Huberman Lab Podcast

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, health, neuroscience, robotics/AI

In this episode, my guest is Matthew MacDougall, MD, the head neurosurgeon at Neuralink. Dr. MacDougall trained at the University of California, San Diego and Stanford University School of Medicine and is a world expert in brain stimulation, repair and augmentation. He explains Neuralink’s mission and projects to develop and use neural implant technologies and robotics to 1) restore normal movement to paralyzed patients and those with neurodegeneration-based movement disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s, Huntington’s Disease) and to repair malfunctions of deep brain circuitry (e.g., those involved in addiction). He also discusses Neuralink’s efforts to create novel brain-machine interfaces (BMI) that enhance human learning, cognition and communication as a means to accelerate human progress. Dr. MacDougall also explains other uses of bio-integrated machines in daily life; for instance, he implanted himself with a radio chip into his hand that allows him to open specific doors, collect and store data and communicate with machines and other objects in unique ways. Listeners will learn about brain health and function through the lens of neurosurgery, neurotechnology, clinical medicine and Neuralink’s bold and unique mission. Anyone interested in how the brain works and can be made to work better ought to derive value from this discussion.

#HubermanLab #Neuroscience.

Continue reading “Dr. Matthew MacDougall: Neuralink & Technologies to Enhance Human Brains | Huberman Lab Podcast” »

Apr 19, 2023

Forty years in the making: Advanced MRI scan reveals brain images 64 million times sharper

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

After four long decades of persistence, scientists have improved the resolution of the humble magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.

Using the advanced MRI version, they created the most detailed image of a mouse brain, revealing microscopic details of the biological structure.

Apr 18, 2023

New voice cloning AI lets “you” speak multiple languages

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here.

In January, Microsoft unveiled an AI that can clone a speaker’s voice after hearing them talk for just three seconds. While this system, VALL-E, was far from the first voice cloning AI, its accuracy and need for such a small audio sample set a new bar for the tech.

Continue reading “New voice cloning AI lets ‘you’ speak multiple languages” »

Apr 18, 2023

Every base everywhere all at once: pangenomics comes of age

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Multi-genome assemblies called pangenomes can capture genetic diversity in a species, but researchers are still working out how best to build and explore them.

Apr 18, 2023

Electricity can heal even the worst kind of wounds three times faster, new study finds

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists used an old theory to develop a new technique that involves exposing skin cells to an electric field to make the wounds on the skin heal faster.

Researchers from Chalmers Insitute of Technology (CTH) and the University of Freiburg have proposed an interesting technique that enables chronic wounds to heal faster than ever.

Continue reading “Electricity can heal even the worst kind of wounds three times faster, new study finds” »

Apr 18, 2023

Brain images just got 64 million times sharper

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is how we visualize soft, watery tissue that is hard to image with X-rays. But while an MRI provides good enough resolution to spot a brain tumor, it needs to be a lot sharper to visualize microscopic details within the brain that reveal its organization.

In a decades-long technical tour de force led by Duke’s Center for In Vivo Microscopy with colleagues at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University, researchers took up the gauntlet and improved the resolution of MRI leading to the sharpest images ever captured of a mouse .

Continue reading “Brain images just got 64 million times sharper” »

Apr 18, 2023

THE CHALLENGE First trailer EN

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, space

THE CHALLENGE, FIRST FEATURE FILM SHOT IN SPACE: Thoracic surgeon Evgenia Belyaeva has one month to prepare for a flight to the International Space Station, where she must operate on a crew member. Will she be up for the challenge? Can she overcome her fears and insecurities? Will she be able to perform the complicated surgery in zero gravity, and give the cosmonaut a chance to return to Earth alive?

The Russians have long been at the forefront of scientific and technological innovation. With the historic launch of Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, they made history by becoming the first country to send a human being into orbit. Decades later, they have once again made headlines by being the first in the world to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, a remarkable achievement in the face of a global pandemic. And now, they have again beaten everyone else by shooting the first-ever movie in space.

Continue reading “THE CHALLENGE First trailer EN” »

Page 519 of 2,606First516517518519520521522523Last