Lifeboat Foundation

Long-term sufferers of chronic back pain experienced dramatic reductions in pain and related disability that remained at their one-year follow-up after taking part in a new treatment tested by Curtin-Macquarie-Monash University research.

Published today in the journal The Lancet, the research found large clinically significant improvements in the intensity of pain and pain-related disability among almost 500 people who had been seeking help for their pain for an average of four years before trialing the new treatment.

The treatment, which delivered a health care and work productivity saving of more than $5,000 per person, took a whole-person approach by also helping people to make lifestyle changes aimed at improving their social and emotional health.

Amidst concerns that employees could be entering sensitive information into the ChatGPT artificial intelligence model, a data privacy vendor has launched a redaction tool aimed at reducing companies’ risk from inadvertently exposing customer and employee data.

Private AI’s new PrivateGPT platform integrates with OpenAI’s high-profile chatbot, automatically redacting 50+ types of personally identifiable information (PII) in real time as users enter ChatGPT prompts.

PrivateGPT sits in the middle of the chat process, stripping out everything from health data and credit-card information to contact data, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers from user prompts, before sending them through to ChatGPT. When ChatGPT responds, PrivateGPT re-populates the PII within the answer, to make the experience more seamless for users, according to a statement this week from PrivateGPT creator Private AI.

A team of scientists at the Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Italy has created the world’s first completely edible and rechargeable battery. The innovative battery could be used to power edible electronics for health diagnostics, food quality monitoring, and edible soft robotics.

Edible Rechargeable Battery

Continue reading “Scientists Create the World’s First Edible Rechargeable Battery” »

Patients with kidney failure have a high mortality rate. There is an exponential increase in the number of patients experiencing kidney failure requiring treatment with life-saving kidney replacement therapy (KRT), including hemodialysis (HD), peritoneal dialysis (PD) or kidney transplantation.

Researchers have found inj a new study that Intradialytic exercise may improve survival rates in adult patients receiving hemodialysis.

The new study has been published in the BMC Nephrology.

Revolutionizing the process of heart monitoring, researchers have developed a wearable e-tattoo that provides continuous heart monitoring outside of a clinical setting.

A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin has created a flexible and wearable medical device that could transform the fight against heart disease. This device called an electronic tattoo or e-tattoo, can be attached to the chest to continuously monitor the heart outside of clinical settings.

The e-tattoo is wireless and mobile, as it has small active circuits and sensors linked by stretchable interconnections. The device weighs just 2.5 grams and can be worn comfortably with a medical dressing.

Continue reading “The future of heart health: Wearable e-tattoo provides comprehensive heart measurements” »

The protective effects of vaccines have particularly been highlighted during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Countries able to offer the vaccine demonstrate lowered infection rates and have kick-started the recovery of their economies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted the need to proactively develop medical countermeasures to novel pathogens, in addition to advancing supply and manufacturing capacities to meet global demands.

Investing in vaccine manufacturing has both economic and societal benefits, in addition to protecting human health and limiting infection spread.

Over the past 100 million years, mammals have adapted to nearly every environment on Earth. Scientists with the Zoonomia Project have been cataloging the diversity in mammalian genomes by comparing DNA sequences from 240 species that exist today, from the aardvark and the African savanna elephant to the yellow-spotted rock hyrax and the zebu.

This week, in several papers in a special issue of Science, the Zoonomia team has demonstrated how comparative genomics can not only shed light on how certain species achieve extraordinary feats, but also help scientists better understand the parts of our genome that are functional and how they might influence health and disease.

In the new studies, the researchers identified regions of the genomes, sometimes just single letters of DNA, that are most conserved, or unchanged, across mammalian species and millions of years of evolution—regions that are likely biologically important. They also found part of the genetic basis for uncommon mammalian traits such as the ability to hibernate or sniff out faint scents from miles away. And they pinpointed species that may be particularly susceptible to extinction, as well as genetic variants that are more likely to play causal roles in rare and common human diseases.

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has developed a new scientific tool called Polybot that combines artificial intelligence with robotics. This tool is set to revolutionize polymer electronics research by speeding up the discovery process of materials with multiple applications, from wearable biomedical devices to better batteries, according to a release.

Polymer electronics are the future of flexible electronics. They are efficient and sustainable, used to monitor health and treat certain diseases, among other things. However, the current methods used to prepare these polymers for electronics can take years of intense labor. To achieve targeted performance, there are an overwhelming number of potential tweaks, from spiking the fabrication recipe with different formulations to varying the processing conditions.

Kurzweil says NO, on AI pause non sense.

By Ray Kurzweil April 2023

Continue reading “Opinion letter from Ray Kurzweil on request for 6 month delay on large language models that go beyond GPT-4 « Kurzweil” »