Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that deep brain stimulation (DBS) can greatly reduce the compulsion to use heroin in standard rat models of addiction.

Rats that were used to taking heroin, and normally would have self-administered more and more of the drug, did not escalate their intake when treated with DBS.

The treatment involves the weak electrical stimulation, via implanted electrodes, of a brain region called the subthalamic nucleus.

Continue reading “Scientists show deep brain stimulation blocks heroin relapse in rats” »

No more smartphones.

In Brief

• Researchers are finding ways for us to communicate using only our minds, going so far as to give people in separate rooms the ability to send answers to each other without speaking.
• If we can hone this technology, it could help people with paralysis or other physical disorders regain the ability to communicate or perform physical tasks.

Imagine living in a world in which verbal communication is no longer required, a society in which telepathy is the norm, where people would be able to “speak” to each other using only their thoughts.

Continue reading “Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans Could Soon Become a Reality” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eEHVS0URsWE

Great method btw.

Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the United States. Patients who have it are of all ages and it can seriously limit one’s ability to enjoy life. It’s a spectrum disorder which means the kinds of seizures people suffer and how they are managed will vary depending on the patient. Currently about 3 million people in the US are living with epilepsy and experts predict that at least 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy at some point in their lifetime. While epilepsy is most often treated with anti-seizure medication, there are some patients who have not benefitted from medication. This form of the disorder is called drug-resistant epilepsy and can be very difficult to treat.

Continue reading “Mapping the Brain Before Surgery for Epilepsy” »

Certainly explains patterns in certain families.

TUESDAY, Jan. 31, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Developing or worsening type 2 diabetes could be an early sign of pancreatic cancer, new research suggests.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly a million patients with type 2 diabetes or pancreatic cancer in Italy and Belgium. Half of all pancreatic cancer cases were diagnosed within a year of patients being diagnosed with diabetes, the findings showed.

Continue reading “Is There a Link Between Diabetes and Pancreatic Cancer?” »

The intelligence research arm is offering up cash for cutting-edge ideas on capturing complete fingerprints.

Latest on border plans.

Despite President Trump’s executive orders to extend walls along the US-Mexico border, real border security will likely take longer than he thinks.

Nice.

When you think of diamonds, rings and anniversaries generally come to mind. But one day, the first thing that will come to mind may be bone surgery. By carefully designing modified diamonds at the nano-scale level, a Missouri University of Science and Technology researcher hopes to create multifunctional diamond-based materials for applications ranging from advanced composites to drug delivery platforms and biomedical imaging agents.

Dr. Vadym Mochalin, an associate professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at Missouri S&T, is characterizing and modifying 5-nanometer nanodiamond particles produced from expired military grade explosives so that they can be developed to perform specific tasks. His current research studies their use as a filler in various types of composites.

Continue reading “Missouri S&T researcher works to develop nanodiamond materials” »

To learn more about Breakthrough Starshot, visit http://breakthroughinitiatives.org.

On the fifty-fifth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s great leap into space, April 12, 2016, Yuri Milner was joined by Stephen Hawking at New York’s One World Observatory to announce Breakthrough Starshot, which will lay the foundations for humanity’s next great leap: to the stars. It was also announced that Mark Zuckerberg joined the board of the initiative.

Continue reading “Stephen Hawking Discusses Breakthrough Starshot” »

Highly sophisticated robotics and ‘bio-printing’ are rapidly changing the face of modern surgery, significantly eliminating the risk of human error and in some cases even allowing doctors to perform procedures remotely, according to experts at Arab Health.

Dr Peter C.W. Kim, vice-president and associate surgeon-in-chief of the Joseph E. Roberts Jr. Centre for Surgical Care at Washington DC’s Children’s National — which has received millions of dollars in donations from the UAE’s government — noted that doctors will soon be able to 3D-print using bio-tissue, such as for an eardrum.

“What our engineers and researchers have done is not only design the plastic with it, but also graft cells onto it,” he said. “This is where we are going. You will (in the future) be able to have organs on the shelf. Instead of harvesting it, you can print it.”

Continue reading “Robots and bio-printing change the face of surgery in UAE” »