Health and Wellbeing
UCL scientist develops a measure of distraction
May 31, 2007 A scientific indicator of how easily distracted you are has been designed by a UCL (University College London) psychologist. It could be used as another assessment tool during the recruitment process and would have particular benefits in fields where employee distraction could lead to fatal errors. Some jobs, such as bus driver or pilot, put the employee in situations where the potential for distraction is very high and yet focused attention is crucial. This computer-based test, which measures subjects’ accuracy and reaction times when they are exposed to distractions, would effectively filter out any candidates who were easily distracted. Read More
World Population Becomes More Urban Than Rural
May 29, 2007 A major milestone occurred last week, when the earth’s population became more urban than rural – though only a symbolic date calculated from an estimation, Wednesday, May 23, 2007, represents a major demographic milestone and is sometimes referred to as the “Urban Millennium.” The last century has seen the rapid urbanization of the world’s population", as the global proportion of urban population rose from 13% (220 million) in 1900, to 29% (732 million) in 1950, to 49% (3.2 billion) in 2005. By 2050 over 6 billion people, two thirds of humanity, will be living in towns and cities. Read More
Smart clothing that takes biochemical medical observations through the day
May 28, 2007 We've been speaking recently with a couple of innovative companies who are taking different angles on how wearable medical observation apparatus can be used in sport and medicine. Now, an EU-funded project is setting out to take the next step - creating comfortable clothing with the built-in ability to measure a range of physiological data using intelligent textiles instead of bulky apparatus. Comfortable and unobtrusive biochemical measurement equipment could play a significant role in preventative and recovery medicine, among other areas. Read More
Genome sequence of the world's most lethal toxin
May 28, 2007 Botulism toxin is the deadliest poison on the planet. 2kg of it is enough to kill every person on the planet - although this doesn't stop the rich and tasteless from injecting it into their faces as Botox, where it stops nerves from working and has a slight smoothing effect on wrinkles. The toxin is produced by the Clostridium Botulinum bacteria - and scientists at the UK's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have just completed some fascinating genome research on the development of this incredibly effective killer and its survival mechanisms. Where some bacteria use complex and even elegant methods to dance around our immune systems, C. Botulinum goes for the direct hit with a "microbial sledgehammer." More please, just around the jawline. Read More
Vaccine hope for malaria
May 25, 2007 Malaria is a public health problem in more than 90 countries and it is by far the world's most important tropical parasitic disease. It kills more people than HIV or any other communicable disease except tuberculosis. It infects 400 million people every year and kills one person every 30 seconds, with the vast majority under five years old. Now, just over 100 years since Britain's Sir Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for finally proving that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, researchers at the University of Nottingham believe they have made a significant breakthrough in the search for an effective vaccine. Read More
Swedish researchers develop digital color x-rays
May 23, 2007 The advantages of color x-rays may not be immediately obvious but the developments in this field led by researchers at Mid Sweden University promise some exciting new possibilities for medical diagnoses much smaller x-rays doses for patients, much higher resolution and the ability to detect tumors at a much earlier stage. Digital color x-rays are based on the same advanced technology that is used when nuclear physicists look for new elementary particles. The greatest scientific challenge in constructing a color x-ray camera is to be able to shrink the large-scale detection equipment used by nuclear physicists to the microscopic format. The readout electronics for each pixel in the camera’s picture sensor must be squeezed into an area of 55 x 55 µm, and what’s more be x-ray safe. Read More
Developing a viable cure for office worker obesity
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May 22, 2007 Sitting still at a desk all day - like you're probably doing right now - is making the average office worker fatter and less healthy than we've ever been before. Gym workouts and regular exercise are not the key to breaking out of this cycle - a new study suggests that it's the sitting down that's killing us, and that a simple change to spending 2-3 hours a day gently walking at around 1mph while we work could help obese office workers lose up to 30kg a year. Dr. James Levine devised the walk-at-work treadmill to test the effectiveness of getting office workers off their butts - with fantastic results. Read More
Electronic glove ensures CPR is being done correctly
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May 21, 2007 Only 6 months after learning life-saving CPR techniques, around 60 percent of first aiders - including doctors and nurses - forget how to do it correctly. As a result, survival rates from cardiac arrests remain low. The Canadian CPR Glove acts as a quick on-the-job refresher course, making sure the first aider administers the correct frequency and depth of chest compression. It's a simple and cheap device that has real potential to save lives if included in a first aid kit. Read More
Tiny, portable biosensor to be a big gun in the fight against food contamination
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May 18, 2007 As more and more chemical assistance becomes available to farmers, it becomes more and more important to be able to accurately measure if these chemicals make it through into our food and drink. And while pesticides and herbicides can have an immediate or accumulative harmful effect on our bodies, the accidental ingestion of small amounts of antibiotics through animal meat can contribute to the strengthening of bacterial resistance to antibiotics - a potentially more serious side-effect. Testing for contaminants has typically been slow, expensive and limited by laboratory location - but this tiny, portable and cheap biosensor developed in Spain makes it much quicker and easier to test a range of agricultural products on the spot. Read More
Remote-control bladder switch a relief for the incontinent
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May 17, 2007 Urinary incontinence affects over 200 milion people worldwide, to varying degrees between "occasional accident" and "complete lack of control." The AssureFlow concept device acts as a manually switchable on-off tap for the bladder, providing dignity and control to incontinence sufferers in an ingenious way. Read More
The "night owl" gene
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May 9, 2007 In a paper just published in “Science magazine” scientists report a genetic mutation, appropriately called "after-hours" (Afh), which affects our internal body clock and might help explain why some of us are “evening people”, only falling asleep in the early hours of the morning. The research has important implications for human health in an increasingly 24/7 culture, where shift work and continental travel (and the associated jet lag problems) are already linked to several diseases. It can also be important for the many brain disorders, such as dementia, bipolar disease and mental retardation, which are associated to disruptions in the sleep/awake cycle. Read More
micro-MIM - micro metal powder injection molding
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May 9, 2007 Modern advanced production techniques are fast moving into the realms of the fantastic. We've regularly marveled at some of the modern advanced production techniques such a 3D printing and now there's a new one - micro metal powder injection molding (micro-MIM). Until now, the production of tiny metal parts using techniques such as etching or milling has been a very complex and time-consuming process, and not suitable for many types of metal. It has been possible for a long time to produce very small parts from stainless steel, but with micro-MIM, it is now possible to combine and shape different types of material such as this (pictured) biocompatible titanium stirrup, a replacement for the small bone in the human ear. Read More
Bluetooth health monitoring lets you upload your vital stats to your doctor from home
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May 9, 2007 Turning the health-care model upside down, a small Australian company is working on bluetooth technology that logs and transmits medical observation data to a central network through a mobile phone - so your doctor can call YOU when a problem is developing. Alive's bluetooth technology is already proving useful in the recovery of cardiac outpatients and the diagnosis of sleep apnea - and a range of products in development aim to make advancements in health monitoring for diabetics, mountaineers and athletes in training. Read More
Cooling glove invigorates overheated athletes - and also delivers training performance gains
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May 9, 2007 While traditional body cooling systems such as ice vests, wet towels and misting fans may feel like they're working to the benefit of the user, they're actually quite ineffective at reducing the body's core temperature, as they work against the body's natural insulation and heat retention systems. Through extensive research into mammalian heat regulation systems, AVAcore has developed a simple, portable device that effects heat exchange to the body core extremely quickly. You don't necessarily feel cooler, you just feel completely refreshed and less fatigued - and the system is producing some remarkable and unexpected results for athletes. Read More
New table saw can tell the difference between wood and hands
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May 7, 2007 Table saws are involved in more than 60,000 accidents every year in the United States alone - an accident every nine minutes, costing US$2 billion before you consider the pain and disruption. Now a small Oregon company is changing woodworking professionals’ jobs with a table saw that only cuts wood – not fingers. The company has invented a table saw that immediately retracts the blade when it touches a finger, making woodworking safer and eliminating painful and very costly medical procedures. When the blade touches a finger (or something else that conducts electrical current), the current drops and engages a brake. As the blade’s teeth sink into the brake, the momentum forces the blade to drop below the table. The entire process takes only three milliseconds, which is a fraction of the time it takes to blink your eye. Read More
3-D ultrasound from 2-D scanners for less than US$1000
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May 7, 2007 Almost every doctor’s surgery in a developed country has a 2-D ultrasound scanner and for most parents it’s the first time they see their child-to-be. Apart from enabling us to see an unborn child in its mother’s womb, medical ultrasonography helps to detect gall stones, identify tumor-like lumps and it plays a particularly important role in the early detection of breast cancer. Three-dimensional sonography can provide especially informative
images, for instance allowing the structure of tumors, their growth pattern and their blood supply to be clearly distinguished from healthy tissue. Although 3-D technology has been available since the 1990s, it remains prohibitively expensive. Physicians and clinics wishing to upgrade from 2-D to 3-D technology usually have to invest more than US$100,000 in new equipment. Now researchers have produced a system that enables conventional 2-D ultrasound scanners to be upgraded to provide 3-D images for less than US$1000. Read More
Disaster response unit delivers power, water and communications to stricken and remote areas
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April 30, 2007 In response to the dismal Hurricane Katrina response, Ecosphere Technologies has produced a portable solar- and wind-powered disaster response unit to provide clean water, electricity and comunications services in stricken areas where key utilities are cut off. Read More
The Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor
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April 16, 2007 Taking one’s blood pressure can clearly tell you a lot about your health, but not nearly as much as SunTech Medical’s Oscar 2 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor (ABP) monitor. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring provides a comprehensive assessment of a patient’s blood pressure profile with BP variability, overnight dipping and morning surge that in-clinic and home BP monitoring cannot provide.
Precise and low-cost submicron fabrication technique for manufacturing human spare parts
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April 12, 2007 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tampere University of Technology and Nanofoot Finland Oy have developed a direct-write three-dimensional forming method of biomaterials. The methodology enables fabrication of nano and micrometer scale structures that can be used as parts of tissue engineering scaffolds. The project is funded by the BioneXt Tampere Research Programme. Read More
Behaviour scientists shake Darwin’s foundation - chickens inherited parents' stress symptoms
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April 12, 2007 Evolutionary theory ever since Darwin is based on the assumption that acquired traits, such as learnt modifications of behaviour, cannot be inherited by the offspring. Now, a Swedish-Norwegian research group, led by professor Per Jensen at Linköping university in Sweden, shows that chickens can actually inherit behavioural modifications induced by stress in their parents. Read More
Sportkat’s Korebalance balances mind and body
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April 12, 2007 Korebalance, the latest exercise machine fromSportkat, is different from other fitness equipment – it exercises the brain as well as the body. Korebalance includes a 17 inch touch screen monitor, supported by the Linux operating system, that runs 3D software games as you exercise. Lee Samango, Chief Executive Officer of Sportkat, says “This product forces users to employ their vision, the body and brain. Your brain acts like the rest of your muscles—it can get stronger, make new ways (or find different ways) of doing the same task...Korebalance radically improves muscle and mental agility to increase athletic performance.” Read More
The emergence of the Convenient Care Clinic
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April 4, 2007 An interesting development in the health system in the U.S. of recent times has been a new type of health facility that is beginning to pop-up at local drug stores, discount stores and various supermarkets. In the store's local pharmacy, many establishments have set up mini-clinics. Operating specifically in high-traffic retail outlets with accessible pharmacy services, these clinics provide routine, non-emergency services to walk-in patients at affordable prices seven days a week. These mini-clinics cost half of what patients typically pay for a regular doctor's visit and are roughly one-sixth the cost of an emergency room visit. Patients who visit these mini-clinics are treated by a family nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant – both of whom can write prescriptions and perform a full exam. Although mini-clinics do not handle chronic illnesses, they are ideal for ailments like strep throat, sinus infections or common colds and with no appointment necessary, extended hours, and seven days a week, the approach is more in keeping with modern business practices than the unyielding, inefficient and expensive traditional health system. As Charles Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Read More
The Wilderness Medicine Book
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March 24, 2007 This is one of those books that will come in handy, even if you never use it. If that sounds silly, you’ve never been 50 miles from the nearest road with a man down and no telecommunications or medical knowledge. Each year, more and more people venture outdoors, including wilderness and rugged environments, and many suffer from injuries or illnesses while in the mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, or oceans. The 5th edition of Wilderness Medicine, is the definitive clinical reference on its unique subject and explains how to manage everything from frostbite to infection by marine microbes and situations stemming from natural disasters to diverse everyday injuries, such as bites, stings, poisonous plant exposures and animal attacks. Read More
Recreational Drugs and their level of harm
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March 24, 2007 Just how dangerous are recreational drugs and what’s the most effective way to classify drugs as the basis for law enforcement? With the technologies for creating new substances now well ahead of the law’s ability to even recognise them, it’s clearly time for a new way of doing things. Last year, the UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee tabled a report entitled Drug classification: making a hash of it? which concluded that the current UK classification of drugs into A, B and C classes should be replaced with a new system more closely reflecting the harm they cause. One of the most striking findings of the report was that based on the committee’s assessment of harm, tobacco and alcohol (in red on the chart) would be ranked as more harmful than cannabis, LSD and ecstasy. The report also stated that, on the basis of harm, "alcohol would be classed as B bordering on A, while cigarettes would probably be in the borderline between B and C". Now a leading researcher on substance misuse has expressed concern that the proposed classification regime is too limited in its approach to serve as a basis for changes in the law. Read More
The first Conception Kit for at-home use
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March 23, 2007 Millions of people the world over struggle with fertility issues each yea and until recently have had few options beyond expensive drugs or very expensive, invasive medical procedures. The Conceivex Conception Kit is the first comprehensive reproductive healthcare system designed for couples and was this week granted 510K clearance by the U.S. FDA. The Conception Kit contains fertility prediction tools, semen collectors and the only FDA-cleared home-use cervical cap for conception, which are designed to be used together for up to three months in order to enhance the couple’s chance of becoming pregnant. The cornerstone of the US$300 kit is the Conception Cap, which brings the semen in direct contact with the cervix for four to six hours, increasing the opportunity for sperm to move into the uterine cavity and fertilize an egg at the most opportune time. Read More
Bodywall finding application in all sports
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March 21, 2007 The Bodywall is designed to assist athletes to stretch effectively, with its combination of high-adhesion gloves and shoes and high-tech wall surface offering spiderman-like capabilities. It is so effective at stretching the muscles an athlete uses in any particular sport that when we first wrote it up last September, we forecast it would become part of the training regime of all athletes. The reason it is applicable to all sports, and hence a generic sporting product is that it achieves its goals using the wall, gravity and the human body - the only common element in every sport. As the worldwide interest in the product has blossomed since our article, thye man who conceived Bodywall, Chris Toal, has seen it used in a fascinating variety of ways to achieve stretching and exercise in different sports. The company is now developing aids so that the Bodywall can be used even more specifically - see the images here and here and here.
Thermal vest keeps troops cool in the heat of battle
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March 19, 2007 Scientists at the University of Portsmouth are testing new high-tech thermal vests to be used by soldiers in Iraq to help them cope with the heat of battle. The vests use a combination of air, liquid and new applications of old technologies such as converting paraffin wax into liquid in chambers within the vests to absorb heat from the body. Read More
First Global Tsunami Alarm System
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March 17, 2007 Holidaying on the water just hasn’t been the same since the Boxing Day Tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004. Tsunamis are not new – they have been occurring regularly since time began. The probability of a tsunami is greatest in areas where the earth’s tectonic plates meet. Most fear created by the dreaded tidal wave however comes from the unknown – Tsunamis can travel at speeds up to 1000 km/h so if the early warning signs are missed, by the time you can see it, it’s too late. Now a new tsunami warning system brings hope that holidaymakers can relax on their beach holidays and residents of coastal areas need no longer live fearfully. You must be connected to a GSM mobile phone network, and signing up is as simple as entering your phone number on a web site, immediately enabling the alarm system on your phone. Nothing has to be installed or downloaded - a one-year subscription costs only EUR 30 and there is also a monthly subscription for holidaymakers at EUR 10. The system uses “Flash SMS” messaging which “pushes” the message onto the front screen of the phone even if it is being used. Read More
New 3D Imaging technology promises early detection of Alzheimer’s and Dementia
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March 15, 2007 The older people become, the greater risk they have of sharing the tragic fate of those who remain alive yet are increasingly unaware of the world around them. In industrialised countries, one to six percent of the population over the age of 65 and an even more alarming ten to twenty percent over the age of 80 suffer a progressive loss of their cognitive abilities. Alzheimers disease is the most common cause, affecting 50 to 60 percent of all cases, followed by circulatory disorders in small blood vessels, capillaries and venules (calcifications), which make up about 20 percent. These disorders cause ever larger parts of the brain to become necrotic due to an insufficient supply of blood. Read More
BioLED Lab on a Chip
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March 13, 2007 Acrongenomics and Molecular Vision have developed an extremely promising technology that will enable disposable, Point Of Care diagnostics for a large range of biomarkers. BioLED Lab on a Chip technology uses Molecular Vision’s patented, organic semiconductor technology in a high sensitivity, small size, medical diagnostic device. The device has been demonstrated to measure biomarkers with high sensitivity and at low cost, and the companies forsee such BioLED technology applications being used at home, in doctor’s offices and hospitals. Read More
Bilingual learning benefits second and third generation children
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March 13, 2007 Bilingual learning can provide substantial benefits for second and third generation children whose families speak a language other than English, according to ESRC-funded research by Goldsmiths, University of London. Even when children have grown up with English as their stronger language, using both languages aids cognitive development and strengthens their identities as learners.
Hospital Equipment Unaffected By Cell Phone Use, Study Finds
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March 12, 2007 Although cellular telephone use has been prohibited in hospitals because of concerns of interference with medical devices, a new study by Mayo Clinic researchers shows that calls made on cellular phones have no negative impact on hospital medical devices, dispelling the long-held notion that they are unsafe to use in health care facilities. Three hundred tests were performed over a five-month period in 2006 using two cellular phones, which used different technologies from different carriers and 192 medical devices. Not a single problem was found. The study's authors say the findings should prompt hospitals to alter or abandon their bans on cell phone use. Read More
New security alert tracking system monitors the vital signs of all employees and reports wirelessly
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March 9, 2007 A new and unique employee security and safety tracking system will be shown for the first time at the ISC West EXPO, in Las Vegas, March 28-30, 2007. The system revolves around a bio-sensor chip with proprietary algorithms that collects information from the reflectance of light on the human body, in a non-invasive manner, to monitor key vital signs, including heart rate and oxygen saturation levels. The Third Eye SATS unit is a wrist-mounted device for employees, which collects and sends information wirelessly to the employer’s central monitoring system. If the heart rate exhibits unnatural fluctuations, the information is captured on the wrist unit and transmitted to the central monitoring system. The receiving system can be configured with a video surveillance system to trigger cameras to zoom in on the employee.
Andara OFS Therapy for Acute Spinal Cord Injury repair
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March 9, 2007 We’ve written before about Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems’ BrainGate, a brain-implant device designed to control a computer, assistive devices and eventually, limb movement. The company’s focus is neural stimulation, sensing and processing technology to improve the lives of those with severe paralysis resulting from spinal cord injuries, neurological disorders and other conditions of the nervous system. Cyberkinetics' product development pipeline includes: Andara OFS (Oscillating Field Stimulator) Therapy for acute spinal cord injury, an investigative device designed to stimulate nerve repair and restore sensation and motor function; the; and a pilot program in the detection and prediction of seizures due to Epilepsy. Cyberkinetics has now filed to market its Andara OFS Therapy for Acute Spinal Cord Injury under Humanitarian Device Exemption. Cyberkinetics recently submitted a Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to obtain market clearance for the implantable Andara OFS System, a nerve growth stimulator. If approved, Andara would be the first commercially available neurotechnology device designed to partially restore sensation and motor function in acute spinal cord injuries by stimulating nerve repair. The company sees it as its first step toward building a Nerve Repair Franchise. Read More
Evidence based happiness advice: a special issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies
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March 6, 2007 For most of modern civilization, efforts to understand the human psyche have concentrated on understanding the downsides of anger, depression, anxiety and mental illness. In more recent times, there has been a great deal of scientific exploration of what makes people happy. In our increasingly complex society, happiness is not the simple product of favourable circumstance. Well-being is dependent on making the right individual choices. Handling freedom is not always easy and that has created a demand for happiness advice. Philosophers, psychologists and spiritual thinkers offer happiness counsel, but their widely differing views have never been empirically scrutinized. A special issue on Happiness Advice of the Journal of Happiness Studies published online this week, fills this gap, by comparing the advice given with what is known about the conditions of happiness observed in empirical research. Read More
