Menu

Blog

Page 11226

Jan 27, 2016

David Sengeh: The sore problem of prosthetic limbs

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs

What drove David Sengeh to create a more comfortable prosthetic limb? He grew up in Sierra Leone, and too many of the people he loves are missing limbs after the brutal civil war there. When he noticed that people who had prosthetics weren’t actually wearing them, he set out to discover why — and to solve the problem with his team from the MIT Media Lab.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Continue reading “David Sengeh: The sore problem of prosthetic limbs” »

Jan 27, 2016

Breakthrough Diabetes Cell Therapy Could Be A Game Changer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

Research is edging us closer to a cure for type 1 diabetes, with encapsulated insulin producing cells that could last for years — ending daily injections

Over 400,000 in the UK alone live with type 1 diabetes, and daily injections are far from a ‘cure’ for the condition. Although these have saved millions worldwide, they’re inaccurate in comparison to the body’s own finely tuned insulin producing cells. This leads to progressive damage and complications.

The wonders of cell therapy

Continue reading “Breakthrough Diabetes Cell Therapy Could Be A Game Changer” »

Jan 27, 2016

These former Tesla employees defected to a new, top-secret rival

Posted by in categories: space travel, sustainability

Tesla new competitor is in town, they are paying top dollar for Tesla’s talent. Guess Musk should have backed off SpaceX, because his money making has serious competition.


Tesla has lost a lot of talent to this company.

Read more

Jan 27, 2016

Rubik’s Cube Robot

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Watch this robot solve a Rubik’s Cube in about a second…

Read more

Jan 27, 2016

A glove fitted with a gyroscope could help Parkinson’s patients stop shaking

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

No more spilled soup or coffee.

Read more

Jan 27, 2016

There will be even more ‘Star Wars’ movies after ‘Episode IX’

Posted by in category: entertainment

Disney and Lucasfilm have more films beyond the next five in the works.

Read more

Jan 26, 2016

Strange travel encounters: readers’ tips

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Dinner and a show with a Robot.


The most memorable moments in travel are often the most eccentric. From oil wrestling to staring contests, or being entertained over dinner by robots, our readers share their way-out memories.

Read more

Jan 26, 2016

Solving hard quantum problems: Everything is connected

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Researchers succeeded in calculating effects in ultra-cold atom clouds which can only be explained in terms of the quantum correlations between many atoms. Such atom clouds are known as Bose-Einstein condensates and are an active field of research.

Read more

Jan 26, 2016

Cancer riddle, solved: Researchers reveal how cancer cells form tumors

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

Cancer is a mysterious disease for many reasons. Chief among the unknowns are how and why tumors form.

Two University of Iowa studies offer key insights by recording in real time, and in 3-D, the movements of cancerous human breast tissue cells. It’s believed to be the first time cancer cells’ motion and accretion into tumors has been continuously tracked. (See accompanying videos.)

The team discovered that actively recruit healthy cells into tumors by extending a cable of sorts to grab their neighbors—both cancerous and healthy—and reel them in. Moreover, the Iowa researchers report that as little as five percent of cancerous cells are needed to form the tumors, a ratio that heretofore had been unknown.

Read more

Jan 26, 2016

New algorithm points the way towards regrowing limbs and organs

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, information science, neuroscience

An international team of researchers has developed a new algorithm that could one day help scientists reprogram cells to plug any kind of gap in the human body. The computer code model, called Mogrify, is designed to make the process of creating pluripotent stem cells much quicker and more straightforward than ever before.

A pluripotent stem cell is one that has the potential to become any type of specialised cell in the body: eye tissue, or a neural cell, or cells to build a heart. In theory, that would open up the potential for doctors to regrow limbs, make organs to order, and patch up the human body in all kinds of ways that aren’t currently possible.

It was Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka who first reprogrammed cells in this way back in 2007 — it later earned him a Nobel Prize — but Yamanaka’s work involved a lot of labourious trial and error, and the process he followed is not an easy one to reproduce. Mogrify aims to compute the required set of factors to change cells instead, and it’s passed its early tests with flying colours.

Read more