MedWorm.com provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest items from the 'Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology' source. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:51:28 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5668854&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8e888600720fada0dc0978f1b884f3a4 Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have-- chemotherapy , radiation--are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients' bodies. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5668854 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:30:00 +0100 5668854 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5668855&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dac4c3bf589710ea4a41c46842e771d81 Last fall the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force dropped a bombshell, arguing that healthy men should stop undergoing a routine blood test as a screen for prostate cancer. An analysis of the best available evidence, it argued, had shown little or no long-term benefit from the measure--called the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test--for most men with no symptoms of the disease. Use of the screening was not saving lives. In fact, it was needlessly exposing hundreds of thousands of men who were tested and found to have prostate cancer to such common complications as impotence and urinary incontinence (from surgical removal of the prostate) and rectal bleeding (from radiation treatment). Indeed, the task force estimated that more than one million men have been treated because of PSA testing ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5668855 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5668855 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5668856&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dca6fe113e6f94b7885d613293bbd05d3 This has been a big week in Alzheimer's news as scientists put together a clearer picture than ever before of how the disease affects the brain. Three recently published studies have detected the disease with new technologies, hinted at its prevalence, and described at last how it makes its lethal progress through the brain. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5668856 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:30:00 +0100 5668856 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5668857&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dafc95fcc772a8fb142b0c00703d7926f Name : Todd Callaway [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5668857 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5668857 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5660944&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dafc95fcc772a8fb142b0c00703d7926f Name : Todd Callaway [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5660944 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5660944 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5650286&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dcd6694c1c162ec7dae8c16c48f16cb13 The aging Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island--soon to be the site of Cornell University's new NYC Tech Campus --holds a significant place in 20th-century medicine. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5650286 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5650286 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5650287&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D036b46772a634c24b65c2a2cf337bec9 For years New York City–based universities have been opening satellite campuses worldwide, whether it is New York University's sites in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv or Columbia University's Global Centers in Beijing and Nairobi. Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa is returning the favor in a big way, partnering with Ithaca, N.Y.–based Cornell University to build a campus on New York City's Roosevelt Island . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5650287 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0100 5650287 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5639572&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9ce06428b8b23d839fc7cd6decae2d2a Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care (Basic Books, 2012), by Eric Topol, a professor of innovative medicine and the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5639572 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0100 5639572 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5639573&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dcdf1713b076d74a7d4182e3896d3ce0e A fighter pilot heads back to base after a long mission, feeling spent. A warning light flashes on the control panel. Has she noticed? If so, is she focused enough to fix the problem? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5639573 Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0100 5639573 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5630668&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfa2edd03c0033901d2acec3666d26b46 When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5630668 Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5630668 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5621349&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Db4f5c94bac43a8577a67180af0851b73 February 1962 [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5621349 Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:59:00 +0100 5621349 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5611301&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D766289c6593ec414cea206f4615958c8 For years, do-it-yourself health care meant looking up your symptoms on WebMD. But smart phones are extending our control, with apps that let people plan and track workouts, monitor important health indicators, and even locate nearby clinical trials. Apple's App Store alone offers thousands of mobile health apps. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5611301 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:08 +0100 5611301 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5599577&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da12dc4a4a74a2540b372f970479fc6af Losing weight is not always about anticipating swimsuit season or squeezing into skinny jeans--for the  obese, losing weight is about fighting serious illness and reclaiming health. Yet the primal part of the brain that regulates appetite will not place a moratorium on hunger just because someone has acknowledged the need to lose weight. Researchers at Syracuse University are working toward a unique solution: chewing gum that suppresses appetite. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5599577 Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5599577 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5599576&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dbeee4758fb8d8e640ea6dd4630a07294 Personal oral hygiene notwithstanding, your mouth is teeming with hundreds of species of microorganisms. Until now, researchers have had a tough time sorting out all these small species--and how they interact. A new multicolor fluorescent-labeling technology is allowing microbiologists to peer into the human mouth’s microscopic jungle and discover new dynamics among several key groups. The findings were presented last December at the American Society for Cell Biology’s annual meeting in Denver. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5599576 Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0100 5599576 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5584857&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dc33d0bbc97dd5ae2185d6317471a7f24 Genetically engineered mosquitoes developed by British biotech firm Oxitec as an approach to controlling dengue fever have been caught up in controversy since 6,000 of them were deliberately released to an uninhabited forest in Malaysia in a trial in December 2010. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5584857 Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:00:00 +0100 5584857 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5584858&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dd5ddef6a9a36321cfdb7a5ba4beab568 The race to the $1,000 genome heated up today as Life Technologies, based in Carlsbad, Calif., announced that it will debut a new sequencing machine this year that will eventually be capable of decoding entire human genomes in a day for less than $1,000. The machine, called the  Ion Proton,  will be the successor to the Personal Genome Machine made by the company Ion Torrent, a subsidiary of Life Technologies. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5584858 Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:45:00 +0100 5584858 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5584859&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D1e546b0ee69feb3a03f12151e3fae060 After Haiti’s earthquake two years ago, cholera swept the country. And within a month, the same strain had spread to the Dominican Republic and the U.S., and then to Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, and Canada. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5584859 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:28:08 +0100 5584859 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5584860&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5966e329da8740dd9d7c69229e9cb37e In the mid-2000s, when scientists questioned whether the campaign to rid the world of polio could succeed, skeptics pointed to a problem that some called PAIN . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5584860 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0100 5584860 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5562152&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D37513201733285ccb4da558704a95bda This past June renowned clinical psychologist Marsha M. Linehan of the University of Washington made a striking admission. Known for her pioneering work on borderline personality disorder (BPD), a severe and intractable psychiatric condition, 68-year-old Linehan announced that as an adolescent, she had been hospitalized for BPD. Suicidal and self-destructive, the teenage Linehan had slashed her limbs repeatedly with knives and other sharp objects and banged her head violently against the hospital walls. The hospital’s discharge summary in 1963 described her as “one of the most disturbed patients in the hospital.” Yet despite a second hospitalization, Linehan eventually improved and earned a Ph.D. from Chicago’s Loyola University in 1971. [More] (Source: Scientific A... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5562152 Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:30:00 +0100 5562152 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5562153&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D805418285a35647dba28305399c1b4e5 It seems like every few months a new study points out the inefficacy of yet another wide-scale cancer screening. In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force sug­gested that many women undergo mam­mograms later and less frequently than had been recommended before because there seems to be little, if any, extra benefit from annual tests. This same group recently issued an even more pointed statement about the prostate-specific antigen test for prostate cancer: it blights many lives but overall doesn’t save them. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5562153 Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0100 5562153 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5553395&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D805418285a35647dba28305399c1b4e5 It seems like every few months a new study points out the inefficacy of yet another wide-scale cancer screening. In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force sug­gested that many women undergo mam­mograms later and less frequently than had been recommended before because there seems to be little, if any, extra benefit from annual tests. This same group recently issued an even more pointed statement about the prostate-specific antigen test for prostate cancer: it blights many lives but overall doesn’t save them. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5553395 Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0100 5553395 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5553396&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6f5cc3ee914770557e9f6dc4a54e1393 Nobody likes getting shots. But what if you could make the needles so tiny that they broke the skin painlessly? Engineers from Tufts University have created such micro-needles--made from the major protein in silk, fibroin. The work is in the journal Advanced Functional Materials .[Konstantinos Tsioris et al., " Fabrication of Silk Micro-Needles for Controlled-Release Drug Delivery "] [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5553396 Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:33:08 +0100 5553396 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5539418&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Db828fd2658278426bf6523f5498ca4cf Hopes for new drugs that would slow or stop the inexorable decline of Alzheimer’s patients have repeatedly found­ered in recent years. In one example, Eli Lilly had to halt the trial of a drug designed to prevent the production of toxic proteins in the brain because patients’ cognition actually worsened while they were taking it. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5539418 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0100 5539418 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5527182&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3a02ae5c0282f8fd1076f90f7bc8bc5f Material scientists admire spider silk for being lightweight and strong. Now another arthropod product is getting into the act--insect cuticle, the tough, flexible material in the insect exoskeleton. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5527182 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:02:08 +0100 5527182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5527183&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D26ab422b7918c75784b24b7047b5d129 On a clear November morning in 1964 the Royal Canadian Navy’s Cape Scott embarked from Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a four-month expedition. Led by the late Stanley Skoryna, an enterprising McGill University professor, a team of 38 scientists onboard headed for Easter Island, a volcanic speck that juts out from the Pacific 2,200 miles west of Chile. Plans were afoot to build an airport on the remote island, famous for its mysterious sculptures of enormous heads, and the group wanted to study the people, flora and fauna while they remained largely untouched by modernity. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5527183 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:15:00 +0100 5527183 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5527184&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dddad92713251f58600cd2e27ba9a5a4a Peering through a microscope at a plate of cells one day, Ralph M. Steinman spied something no one had ever seen before. It was the early 1970s, and he was a researcher at the Rockefeller University on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. At the time, scientists were still piecing together the basic building blocks of the immune system. They had figured out that there are B cells, white blood cells that help to identify foreign invaders, and T cells, another type of white blood cell that attacks those invaders. What puzzled them, however, was what triggered those T cells and B cells to go to work in the first place. Steinman glimpsed what he thought might be the missing piece: strange, spindly-armed cells unlike any he had ever noticed. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Tec... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5527184 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:04:00 +0100 5527184 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5527185&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D134966ef13da3d2688628ce79b63d58f “And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years,” as the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln goes. Although we humans have never been satisfied with the biblical allotment of threescore and ten, neither do we want to extend our life span only to pass the time in a decrepit state. No, we want a longer health span. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5527185 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:10:00 +0100 5527185 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5506907&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D40226b622c96537ae70e7ab0add0c3fe Infant mortality has continued to drop in the U.S. during the past several decades. But stillbirths--when a fetus dies after 20 or more weeks of gestation--have remained relatively steady--and account for almost as many deaths as those of babies who die before their first birthday . About one in every 160 pregnancies in the U.S. ends in a stillbirth, which adds up to about 26,000 each year nationwide. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5506907 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:45:00 +0100 5506907 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5496082&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2d798c093b4e8776d65a391816e687b9 Promising treatments for those blinded by an often-hereditary, retina-damaging disease are expanding throughout Europe and making their way across the pond, offering a ray of hope for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. left in the dark by retinitis pigmentosa . The disease--which affects about one in 4,000 people in the U.S. and about 1.5 million people worldwide --kills the retina's photoreceptors, the rod and cone cells that convert light into electrical signals, which are transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain's visual cortex for processing. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5496082 Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5496082 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5488638&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D4ad09985b8de9556ed0eb2b0810430d9 PHILADELPHIA--When you have bedbugs ( Cimex lectularius ), less interesting is the question of how they got there than the conundrum of how best to get them out. Ridding homes and businesses of these pests has become a multimillion dollar industry in many cities in the U.S. and throughout the world. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5488638 Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:20:00 +0100 5488638 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5488639&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8edfb44272d5e3ca87222b98c00b55b2 In a year that saw a few highly proclaimed gadget introductions (the Amazon Kindle Fire , in particular) and some updates to high-profile staples such as Apple's iPhone and iPad , Scientific American takes a look at 10 gizmos that, if they did not land on your radar screen in 2011, deserve a look in the coming year. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5488639 Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5488639 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5478126&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8edfb44272d5e3ca87222b98c00b55b2 In a year that saw a few highly proclaimed gadget introductions (the Amazon Kindle Fire , in particular) and some updates to high-profile staples such as Apple's iPhone and iPad , Scientific American takes a look at 10 gizmos that, if they did not land on your radar screen in 2011, deserve a look in the coming year. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5478126 Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5478126 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5478127&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5f4c3d46aa4356ed5b997c2f0e170b14 Marion Browning of North Providence, R.I., was at her wit’s end. The 79-year-old retired nurse had suffered from chronic diarrhea for almost a year. It began after doctors prescribed antibiotics to treat her diverticulitis, a painful infection of small pouches in the wall of the colon. The regimen also killed friendly bacteria that lived in Browning’s intestines, allowing a toxin-producing organism known as Clostridium difficile to take over and begin eating away at the entire lining of her gut. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5478127 Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5478127 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5478128&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D7072e52a134a28c6a98b609ae2288dca On April 27, 1817, Jane Austen sat down and wrote her will, leaving almost all of her assets--valued at less than 800 pounds sterling--to her sister Cassandra. In May, the sisters moved to Winchester, England, so the bedridden Jane would be near her doctor. On July 18, only a few days after dictating 24 lines of comic verse to Cassandra, Jane died. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5478128 Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5478128 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5470343&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D71046010d5de692375ef308e58517b1c Erez Lieberman Aiden was an undergraduate at Princeton University in 2000 when scientists announced with great fanfare that they had sequenced the first human genome , yielding a trove of information about what happens inside every human cell. But Aiden wondered what it would be like to see what was happening inside a human cell. How does this gigantic genome--which would stretch 2 meters if you unwound it from its 5-micron-wide coil in the nucleus--actually go about its work? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5470343 Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:05:00 +0100 5470343 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5459725&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5d13ba35c496d20fa06b620c56126401 Losing weight is not always about anticipating swimsuit season or squeezing into skinny jeans--for the clinically obese , losing weight is about fighting serious illness and reclaiming health. But the primal part of the brain that regulates appetite will not place a moratorium on hunger just because someone and their doctor acknowledge the need to lose weight. Researchers at Syracuse University are working toward a unique solution: a stick of chewing gum that suppresses appetite. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5459725 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5459725 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5459726&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8fc5bae65ca91306e40b36bf5c7ebea2 For the Xhosa in South Africa, a boy's coming of age is often marked by an elaborate and lengthy set of rituals. One of the ordeals is circumcision , which is traditionally performed by a healer and occasionally leads to an ineffective cut, infection or even death. The young men who emerge from the ceremony healthy, however, achieve not only new social status but are also much less likely to become infected with HIV . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5459726 Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:05:00 +0100 5459726 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5459727&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D57493beabce8a5e6e0b3f122b797e02a American football and international hockey have gotten hammered for their brutal hits, which can lead to serious brain injury. But soccer players are also getting their heads examined. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5459727 Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:00:08 +0100 5459727 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5443131&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dc9cbe02f1f1f873be29c8095cb310e8f With 100 billion neurons and trillions of synapses, your brain spins neural webs of staggering complexity. It propels you to breathe, twitch, and butter toast, and yet we remain largely ignorant of how the brain does even these simple tasks--let alone how it stirs up consciousness. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5443131 Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5443131 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5432934&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df5930b19eb242fd24bed62ca17024fc2 Millions of pacemakers have been successfully implanted in the past half century to regulate erratic heartbeats , but the electrical leads, which connect the device to the heart, complicate the surgery and increase infection risks. The heart's continuous and vigorous beating also creates strain on the leads and can damage them over time. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5432934 Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5432934 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5432935&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D523e9e1a5d2a90d1943256c6412eb8a0 People with diabetes may have to endure multiple, painful finger sticks every day to get blood samples for testing. But a new glucose test may do away with the pain even as it brings on the tears. Because the test uses tears instead of blood to measure glucose levels. The report is in the journal Analytical Chemistry . [Qinyi Yan et al., " Measurement of Tear Glucose Levels with Amperometric Glucose Biosensor/Capillary Tube Configuration "] [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5432935 Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:05:08 +0100 5432935 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5423838&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2081a268c53eb60128e64fa3a42414d4 The superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ) has provoked fear in doctors and patients alike because it is endowed with genetic characteristics that make it impervious to many antibiotics, and it can be deadly to boot. Less well known, however, is another class of bacteria that also resist antibiotics, but for reasons that have puzzled scientists. These bugs cause stubborn infections in ears and urinary tracts and post-surgical wounds, even though, from their genetic profiles, they should be perfectly good targets for antibiotics. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5423838 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5423838 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5423839&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Db856fe2fd7603f197177a30f2f7ee77b For years cars have had warning systems to let drivers know when they're about to back into something. What if a similar type of obstacle avoidance technology could be used to help the visually impaired? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5423839 Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:53:08 +0100 5423839 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5410686&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Ddeb2f97e76c950accc85b27d5562b5a1 The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5410686 Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:20:00 +0100 5410686 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5410687&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8f4893973225fb79c60ffd173f7a6db0 The patient had endured 20 years of pain: her calves had turned into two bricks,  and she now had trouble walking. A slew of doctors had failed to treat, let alone diagnose, her unusual condition. So when her x-rays finally landed on William A. Gahl’s desk at the National Institutes of Health, he knew immediately that he had to take her case.Gahl is the scientist and physician who leads the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, which tries to unravel the underlying causes of, and find therapies for, mysterious maladies and known but rare conditions. Louise Benge’s x-rays had revealed that blood vessels in her legs and feet bore a thick coat of calcium that restricted blood flow. Benge’s sister, Paula Allen, along with several other members of the family, also shared the diso... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5410687 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0100 5410687 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5410688&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3f78e128c3e787226e87af60f35d037c One physician after another had failed to diagnose what was wrong with Louise Benge. She had suffered for years from pain and hardening of tissue in her calves that made walking painful. William A. Gahl, head of the National Institute of Health's Undiagnosed Diseases Program, eventually ended up with Benge as a patient, along with her sister, Paula Allen, who also suffers from the condition. Gahl went on to discover a novel genetic cause and a possible treatment. (Read more about Gahl's work in a Q&A " The Medical Sleuth " in November 2011's Scientific American .)In the following video clips, both Benge (in red) and Allen (in blue) recount the personal saga of coping with a mystery disease.] [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5410688 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5410688 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5390133&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da5e288e69e18119c4690294de87ddc55 Artificial muscles already help human eyes blink , robotic fish swim and mechanical arms in space replace solar panels. Now a new, potentially wearable type of artificial muscle is expected to do all of those things while being lighter, smaller, softer and cheaper. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5390133 Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0100 5390133 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5390134&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dec49a29bf4b1b8490afefcf7e600a422 Despite medical advances, the treatment of many chronic diseases remains haphazard and inconsistent. Teenagers with Crohn’s disease, a painful digestive disorder often diagnosed in adolescence, for example, sometimes get conflicting information regarding medications, diet modifications and alternative therapies. To help improve the care these patients receive, a team of pediatricians and computer scientists is developing a new type of social network that turns doctors and patients into research collaborators.Here is how it works: With each therapy or treatment modification, doctor and patient participate in a mini clinical trial. The patient records symptoms through daily reports, filed via text message or the Internet. The doctor uses that information to make immediate decisions. Sh... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5390134 Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5390134 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5390135&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3De7f16ebad84d1ef826687fb4800753cb U.S. stem cell scientists breathed a sigh of relief this July when a federal judge upheld the Obama administration’s expansion of stem cell research. He ruled that work on existing embryonic stem cell lines derived outside federally funded labs did not violate a ban on the destruction of embryos. Despite the legal victory, however, many investigators remain frustrated that a newer method for creating stem cells remains off-limits for funding.Human embryonic stem cells typically come from fertilized eggs. In 2007, however, scientists at International Stem Cell, a California-based biotech firm, reported the first successful creation of human stem cell lines from unfertilized eggs. They used a process called parthenogenesis, in which researchers use chemicals to induce the egg to begin ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5390135 Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5390135 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5365733&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9b6f672c4f511e71fbfe6ca2a71ab02f Thousands of health and medical apps can be had for a minute or less of download time, and sometimes a dollar or two. Because choosing among mobile applications can be an overwhelming experience, Scientific American has put together a list--based on functionality, content and customer reviews--of ones you may find useful. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5365733 Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:30:00 +0100 5365733 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5365734&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dd458f2b4e08081176edc026503e33dcf Look for a PBS NewsHour story on X-ray body scanners, reported in conjunction with ProPublica, to air later this month. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5365734 Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:05:00 +0100 5365734 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5365735&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da5d9259aa021c3507b252249e8f21332 From Scientific American , November 25, 1911, Volume 105FEMINISM very nearly won a great victory in the French Academy of Sciences on January 23rd, 1911, when, in the election of a successor to the deceased academician Gernez, Marie Sklodowska Curie was defeated by two votes. At a joint meeting of the five academies which compose the Institut de France, a majority had opposed the admission of women, as contrary to tradition, but each academy was left to decide the question for itself. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5365735 Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:59:00 +0100 5365735 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5349842&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfe0eee46f48776de5039380b6d13d8f7 "Today we are learning the language with which God created life." President Bill Clinton made this remark on the White House lawn on June 2000 to recognize the decoding of the first human genome . As much as anything else, rapid DNA sequencing technology created in large part by geneticist Craig Venter and his colleagues galvanized the research community into finishing the project faster than originally expected. More than 11 years later, however, gene sequencing technology has failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionize preventative medicine, and Venter is not happy about it.The idea was that gene sequencing would become so cheap--on the order of $1,000--that ordinary people could afford to have their individual genomes sequenced, which their family doctors would use to di... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5349842 Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5349842 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5349843&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5cad8eab5e1e5b6402b08a340bbd3f70 Most people who are even a little bit concerned about their cholesterol know that there is a “good” kind--known as HDL--and a “bad” kind--known as LDL. Research has shown that the higher the amount of HDL and the lower the amount of LDL in the blood, the less likely a person is to suffer a heart attack or stroke. As for the one in six Americans with unhealthy cholesterol levels, well, they can always hope to change their luck with a cholesterol-changing medication or two. Or can they?Two major clinical trials in the past three years have greatly complicated the picture for these and perhaps other folks. The first study, from 2008, shows that lowering LDL levels does not always decrease the risk of having a heart attack. Similarly, results from the second study, rele... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5349843 Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5349843 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5338342&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfc19f5c4ca12566f1b87a66d8eb6b9e4 “The human genome was sequenced, and in the process of moving that forward the technology that was developed was incredible. And because of their efforts in the human genome, that technology is available to folks like us.”Northern Arizona University’s Paul Keim at the ScienceWriters2011 conference. The ability to compare genomes is a powerful tool for identifying the origins of a natural disease outbreak or bioterrorism. Keim’s team examined the anthrax mailed to victims in the 2001 attacks and determined that it did not come from Iraq. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5338342 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 02:24:08 +0100 5338342 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5338343&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D246082c6678cc532838508595d5889f1 A pioneering research institute that introduced the computer world to the mouse , hypertext and networks is now setting its sights a bit lower. A team of engineers at SRI International , a nonprofit contract research and development lab in Menlo Park, Calif., has harnessed simple, magnetically levitated microbots to build structures and perform other sophisticated tasks at small size scales. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5338343 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:40:00 +0100 5338343 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5338344&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfea88771599aeb188711d02102d0e36a TRIAGING TREATMENTS The problems with the U.S. health care system described by Sharon Begley in “ The Best Medicine ” are accurate. It is gratifying that the National Institutes of Health is finally willing to fund real comparative effectiveness research. But the NIH, under pressure from Congress, has been reluctant to fund studies directly comparing the costs of competing treatments. I retired from the medical research field in part because of this refusal to look for the most effective and least costly answers and to support research on how to reduce unnecessary care. [More] Presented By: Grainger has power transmission covered.   Whether you?re making a drive conversion or replacing components like belts and bearings, power transmission product choi... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5338344 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5338344 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5325490&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9842cd9e3c82e0f19e9ea598a899cb3a The little tips of chromosomes get shorter every time a cell divides, and this shortening is a mark of cellular aging. If they get short enough, the cell dies or stops dividing. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her studies on telomeres with colleagues Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, has spent the better part of her career trying to figure out why. In recent years, Blackburn has expanded on that initial work to show that these gauges of cellular health serve as barometers of environmental and emotional stress and predictors of various diseases. In this expansion of an interview in the October issue of Scientific American , Blackburn talks about additional ways that this research has started to branch out. Most of your studies look at telomere l... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5325490 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5325490 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5317070&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3De3f1e82a8f9386cc66c2b089b2c18390 Name : Brent Stockwell Title : Associate professor, Columbia University [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5317070 Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5317070 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5317071&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2235ce27de4686a27f7814aff874b2ae Mike (not his real name) had always been an unusual child. Even as a toddler, he had ­difficulties relating to others and making friends, and he seemed strikingly ­suspicious of other people. After he entered high school, Mike became increasingly angry, paranoid and detached. He worried that people were searching his room and his locker when he was not around. His grades plum­meted as he turned ­inward during class, sketch­ing outlandish scenes in his note­books and muttering to himself rather than listening to the instructor.Paranoia and difficulties connecting with others are signs of psychosis, a mental illness in which people lose touch with reality. Psychotic individuals usually have problems forming rational, coherent thoughts. They also may hear voices or hal... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5317071 Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5317071 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5306117&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8e3131387e1eaae6e623268a4d6bd8bb For decades cancer specialists have offered ­patients three main therapies: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. (Some cancer survivors pointedly refer to this harsh trinity as “slash, poison and burn.”) Over the years continual refinements in these admittedly blunt instruments have made the more severe side effects increasingly manageable. At the same time, effectiveness has improved markedly. And new, very targeted drugs (Herceptin and Gleevec) have become available for a few specific cancers. All told, the average five-year survival rate for invasive cancers as a group has risen from 50 percent to 66 percent in the past 30-plus years. In spite of these gains, many cancer survivors will not have a normal life span.Researchers have long suspected that they could add a weap... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5306117 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5306117 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5306118&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dea6c7497d667b0f31d463561df8e26be 1 How Did Life Begin? The moment when the first living beings arose from inanimate matter almost four billion years ago is still shrouded in mystery. How did relatively simple molecules in the primordial broth give rise to more and more complex compounds? And how did some of those compounds begin to process energy and replicate (two of the defining characteristics of life)? At the molecular level, all of those steps are, of course, chemical reactions, which makes the question of how life began one of chemistry. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5306118 Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:05:00 +0100 5306118 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5298311&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3De031c7b66e4728901e49fbb7868e7703 PCR--the polymerase chain reaction--is a crucial tool. The DNA amplification technique is used in genome sequencing, forensics and the diagnosis of various diseases.To give researchers more genetic material to work with, a PCR instrument repeatedly heats and cools an original biological sample. Which gives enzymes a chance to replicate the DNA millions of times so it can be more easily analyzed. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5298311 Sat, 08 Oct 2011 02:51:08 +0100 5298311 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5298312&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D78961bf5d98bd317a7cfeabf788993ff For millions of diabetes sufferers, life is a constant battle to keep their blood sugar balanced, which typically means they have to test their glucose levels and take insulin throughout the day. A new generation of “artificial pancreas” devices may make tedious diabetes micromanagement obsolete. In healthy people, the pancreas naturally produces insulin, which converts sugars and starches into energy. People with type 1 diabetes, however, do not produce any insulin of their own, and those with type 2 produce too little. All type 1 and many type 2 diabetics have to dose themselves with insulin to keep their bodies fueled--and doing so properly requires constant monitoring of blood sugar because appropriate dosages depend on factors such as how much patients eat or exercise. Stu... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5298312 Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5298312 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5298313&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D11b34376e27fc0eba4fd38e117a53b4f Steve Jobs was a rare case, right down to his death. Announced Wednesday, Jobs's death from "complications of pancreatic cancer" only hints at the vast complexity of the disease to which he succumbed at the age of 56. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5298313 Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5298313 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5287614&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da8931f55a25bebdfbd4a8c71b2cf9d9c Evidence is mounting that repeated concussions can do long-term harm to the brain. Athletes who play contact sports are particularly at risk. But a concussion can be difficult to diagnose, and many sports teams, especially those at the youth level, lack medical personnel. Neurology researchers at the University of Pennsylvania think they may have found a solution--an easy-to-use two-minute reading test that can assess the likelihood that a concussion has occurred.The test was originally designed to evaluate reading skills in children, but it also catches problems with vision and eye movements, which makes it useful for studying concussions. The test consists of a series of numbers arranged in zig­zagging patterns on cards, which subjects read from left to right as quickly as possible. ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5287614 Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5287614 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5287615&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D61d6b34fb7f2bfbc17113169b0f31015 People with depression encounter a lot of pharmaceutical frustration. For largely unknown reasons, roughly one in three patients receive no benefit from any antidepressant. A recent study, however, suggests that something as simple as over-the-counter painkillers could play a role. Ibuprofen, aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs may disrupt the action of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly prescribed type of antidepressant.Antidepressants alter brain chemistry. SSRIs increase the amount of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the space between brain cells. Neuroscientist Jennifer L. Warner-Schmidt of the Rockefeller University and her colleagues noticed that certain proteins in the brain that interact with SSRIs had the potential to be influenced by anti-in... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5287615 Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5287615 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5275721&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Ddeb5b498ef2c60be65180cf8d017915a Big Picture : Blackburn has extended her Nobel Prize–winning work on telomeres to develop measures that aim to assess overall risks for heart disease, cancer and other chronic illnesses.A molecular timepiece that resides inside each cell still makes headlines, decades after Elizabeth H. Blackburn conducted pioneering studies into how it works. The most recent experiments by Blackburn and other researchers have demonstrated that these cellular clocks, known as telomeres, may act as barometers of whether a person will remain healthy or not. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5275721 Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:02:00 +0100 5275721 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5275722&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Ddab89306999d5939f9a440508d464a6c In the first week of the trial of Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson 's physician, Los Angeles jurors heard audio recordings of the late pop star's slurred speech, in addition to the litany of prescription drugs he had taken in the hours and weeks prior to his June 25, 2009, death. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5275722 Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0100 5275722 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5275723&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfbf559da2832bef8552a04a16d8d981d Controlled heat transfer with mammalian bodies : In the 1990s Stanford University biologists Dennis Grahn and H. Craig Heller discovered a novel way of treating patients with a condition known as postanesthetic hypothermia, in which patients emerging from anesthesia are so cold that they shiver for up to an hour. The condition develops in part because anesthesia reduces the body’s ability to control its own temperature. Applying heat alone does not always help, so Grahn and Heller tried another approach: they increased the volume of blood flowing to the skin of patients’ hands and then applied heat to the same area. “These people were fine within 10 minutes,” Grahn says. “Then the question was, ‘What the heck is going on here?’”They had stumb... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5275723 Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5275723 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5262759&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Def13ce30b58545b2cf3c77de4496a627 On the surface, Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) seem to have little in common. Tourette’s is characterized by repetitive involuntary facial or vocal tics, whereas OCD sufferers have all-consuming thoughts and overwhelming urges to perform certain actions. But 50 to 70 percent of people with Tourette’s also have OCD, and recent studies suggest that the same genetic roots may underlie both conditions [see “ Obsessions Revisited ,” by Melinda Wenner Moyer; Scientific American Mind , May/June 2011]. Now a new study published in Neurology may help scientists further understand how the disorders overlap and differ by revealing several key differences in the brain activity of Tourette’s patients with and without OCD.Andrew Feigin and... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5262759 Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:00:00 +0100 5262759 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5252173&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df603bb39505a27b3020de0a695d4ed3f [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5252173 Sat, 24 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5252173 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5240124&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8bbc32747234dd2d5e6a9b6d1fd80ea6 Pity our neighbors to the north. A change in the U.S. flu shot policy for preschoolers has led to a 34 percent decline in flu cases for children ages 2 to 4 compared with their Canadian counterparts, according to researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and McGill University in Montreal.The flu rates in the two countries had mirrored each other for years, the researchers found, but rates improved dramatically in the United States starting in 2006, the year that the U.S.-based Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended flu shots for tots . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5240124 Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:01:00 +0100 5240124 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5240125&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D706485001e6632c7c9a7f0ab6262dbb8 When it came to surviving freezing weather, mammoths relied on more than their woolly coats: even their blood was specially adapted to let them thrive in chilly climes. Their hemoglobin functioned well over a larger range of temperatures than does the hemoglobin found in modern elephants--and in humans. That finding is in the journal Biochemistry . [Yue Yuan et al., " A Biochemical–Biophysical Study of Hemoglobins from Woolly Mammoth, Asian Elephant, and Humans "] [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5240125 Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:10:08 +0100 5240125 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5240126&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df648338593c5495eaa21f08807285072 MALTA-- Contagion , a film released earlier this month, depicts a gruesome outbreak of an exotic and deadly new virus. In the real world, a not-so foreign infection is circulating among animals every day of every year. If it picks up just a handful of certain mutations, it could start spreading among people, with a mortality rate as high as 60 percent. What is this potent virus? The flu. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5240126 Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:30:00 +0100 5240126 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5228268&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dcf0f37e6200b5e9365a5684a23311796 The Art of Medicine: Over 2,000 Years of Images and Imagination by Julie Anderson, Emm Barnes and Emma Shackleton. University of Chicago Press, 2011 [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5228268 Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5228268 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5228269&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D90acecc8481b6e3f605b457b266f6368 After Roger Ebert lost the ability to speak in 2006 due to a post-cancer surgery tracheostomy, the film critic has communicated via Post-It notes, an eloquent and hilarious array of hand gestures, and his Mac laptop synthesizer. The version that read out pre-typed introductions at his annual film festival in 2009 had an upper-class English accent the British might call "emollient." Ebert and his wife Chaz called it "Sir Laurence" and shortly thereafter replaced it with a more accessible American–accented voice called "Alex." By next year, Ebert may sound even more like himself, courtesy of personalized voice work being carried out by the Edinburgh-based company CereProc (short for cerebral processing and pronounced "serra-prock").Ebert's extens... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5228269 Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0100 5228269 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5211875&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df180fa61ddfffe05e8f76efe567cb40a The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted vast changes in air travel protocols and in national security in general . But significant incidents in prior decades had spurred authorities to take other precautions, some incremental and some dramatic, intended to stave off specific kinds of threats. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5211875 Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:00:00 +0100 5211875 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5211876&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D11a8b77ac061f95aab1fa38d9821a5ed CAUGHT TOO EARLY In discussing the search for better detection of breast cancer in “ Beyond Mammograms ,” Nancy Shute misses one key problem: when tests become too “perfect.” As we have learned from our experience in detecting prostate cancer by testing for high levels of the prostate-specific antigen protein, finding cancers at extraordinarily early stages raises new issues. Are we now left to treat cancers that have no clinical relevance? We already often diagnose breast cancers at one to three millimeters in size. Do women with such cancers need radiation and hormone therapy for five years after a lumpectomy? Is performing a mastectomy too radical in such cases? I believe the future of cancer therapy is getting a much better grasp of the malignant potential of th... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5211876 Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5211876 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5211877&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6fd3ebb64b8aca3d08638897305a13ad The protein encoded by the tumour-suppressor gene BRCA1 may keep breast and ovarian cancer in check by preventing transcription of repetitive DNA sequences, says a study published today in Nature . This explanation brings together many disparate theories about how the gene functions and could also shed light on how other tumour suppressors work.Since the discovery in the mid-1990s that defects in BRCA1 strongly predispose women to breast and ovarian cancer, researchers have suggested numerous ways in which the protein might stop cells from becoming cancerous. Some have focused on its ability to repair DNA damage, whereas others have studied how it regulates cell-cycle checkpoints, transcription or cell proliferation. But until now, no unifying theory of how these different functions mi... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5211877 Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:30:00 +0100 5211877 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5197837&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9367e2e371f1022697a730421229d6a5 As any smoker can tell you, quitting is relatively easy. The hard part is avoiding relapse--the urge to light up weeks or even months after you have supposedly kicked the habit. The patch, the gum and all the other tricks smokers use to get through the first few months are often powerless against those later urges.That is one reason why an antinicotine vaccine now wending its way through clinical trials has public health officials so excited. Like all vaccines, NicVAX, made by NABI Biopharmaceuticals, works by stimulating the body’s immune system to produce antibodies against a certain target--in this case, nicotine. Because immune responses are generally lifelong, the vaccine makers say it could serve as a long-term antismoking aid. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medica... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5197837 Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5197837 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5185742&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D99ac803de29705e2534646954b5b9195 James Locke, a flight surgeon at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, has made dozens of people sick in the name of science. When he puts subjects in a spinning chair designed to induce motion sickness, roughly 70 percent of them succumb--and at nearly the exact same point on each ride. Locke has used this research and his work with shuttle astronauts to determine which medications and doses best prevent the nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5185742 Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:00:00 +0100 5185742 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5185743&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5ade971463cbcb87db8ab40262994df4 CREATIVE ECCENTRICS Thank you for the excellent article “ The Unleashed Mind ,” by Shelley Carson. It’s very refreshing to read that people with eccentric, novel and even schizophrenic ways of thinking are often very high functioning, talented, intelligent individuals who can use their strange perceptual experiences to access beauty, originality and creativity. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5185743 Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5185743 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5185745&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5c2233108c0d19d82928e72b8f524008 SEPTEMBER 7–10 Neuroimaging techniques have revolutionized our understanding of how the brain works. A recent study, for instance, used functional MRI to show that physical and emotional pain, such as feelings of rejection after a breakup, activate the same pathways in the brain. At the four-day International Society for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry conference, researchers will focus on how to use imaging techniques to visualize both normal changes that occur during a person’s life and the effect of age-related diseases, such as schizophrenia or dementia, on brains over time. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5185745 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:00:00 +0100 5185745 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5185744&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D27e250e31379168cd810379e8458ff30 Drugs useful in the long-term management of cardiac arrhythmia, which occurs when electrical impulses in the heart become irregular and put patients at risk of sudden death, have eluded researchers for decades. Despite best efforts, most of the medications developed to calm abnormally fast heartbeats, a type of arrhythmia known as tachyarrhythmia , have faltered. Several clinical trials, including the seminal 1986 Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) , even showed that the use of certain drugs designed to correct tachyarrhythmia--encainide and flecainide , in particular--actually increased the risk of death . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5185744 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:00:00 +0100 5185744 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5185746&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6bcebb65b91032987b72ea95ea5bfca9 It sounds like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe tale of horror . A man becomes agitated by strange sounds only to find that they are emanating from inside his own body--his heart, his pulse, the very movement of his eyes in their sockets. Yet superior canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS) is a very real affliction caused by a small hole in the bone covering part of the inner ear . Such a breach results in distortion of hearing and, often, impaired balance. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5185746 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5185746 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5164522&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D5040238269050e21d861ca463468eb00 Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the introduction of the new book Ordinary Geniuses: Max Delbrück, George Gamow and the Origins of Genomics and Big Bang Cosmology by Gino Segrè. Copyright (c) 2011 by Gino Segrè. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5164522 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:00:00 +0100 5164522 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5164523&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D1eca4596cf596c927df07adf8d562751 X-rays can help reveal anything from bombs hidden in luggage to tumors in breasts, but some potentially vital clues might be too faint to capture with conventional methods. Now a new x-ray technique adapted from atom smashers could resolve more key details.Conventional x-ray imaging works much like traditional photography, relying on the light--in this case, x-rays--that a target absorbs, transmits and scatters. To make out fine details, one typically needs a lot of x-rays, either over time, which can expose targets to damaging levels of radiation, or all at once from powerful sources such as circular particle accelerators, or synchrotrons, which are expensive. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5164523 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5164523 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5164524&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D568353ff6fa9e06eca3994c9668042f1 NAME: Shree Bose AGE: 17 [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5164524 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5164524 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5147982&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Db0b7a0ad34c1ecf083ec85cafc009531 Last year 10 children died in California in the worst whooping cough outbreak to sweep the state since 1947. In the first six months of 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 10 measles outbreaks--the largest of which (21 cases) occurred in a Minnesota county, where many children were unvaccinated because of parental concerns about the safety of the standard MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella. At least seven infants in the county who were too young to receive the MMR vaccine were infected.These troubling statistics show that the failure to vaccinate children endangers both the health of children themselves as well as others who would not be exposed to preventable illness if the community as a whole were better protected. Equally troubling, the number of d... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5147982 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5147982 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5127015&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dcbebc708aa666e8b2e5bb3fd77903f44 Cloud-borne bacteria may be to blame for rain, snow and hail because they affect the way water molecules bind. Does that mean snowballs are germ warfare? Trials of two different drugs show promise in treating advanced melanoma, which is usually fatal. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5127015 Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5127015 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5121240&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D7b1e091ef378479a6401c9c8e73d4920 If you want to convince the world that a fish can sense your emotions, only one statistical measure will suffice: the p -value.The p -value is an all-purpose measure that scientists often use to determine whether or not an experimental result is “statistically significant.” Unfortunately, sometimes the test does not work as advertised, and researchers imbue an observation with great significance when in fact it might be a worthless fluke. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5121240 Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5121240 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5121241&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da2e5ec52cfb4060ea45e88995853b08a You might think that temporary tattoos look cool, but what if they could also collect and transmit information about your heart rate , temperature, muscle contractions or brain waves? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5121241 Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:00:00 +0100 5121241 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5111643&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D1333dbab21f060bd464e0653be8a66bb Sugary soda and other sweet treats are likely not the only foods to blame for the surge in diabetes across the U.S. New research out of Harvard supports the theory that regular red meat consumption increases the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5111643 Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:36:01 +0100 5111643 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5111644&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D1f9419f4fd8ee885b7dd3bbe94121cc8 Schizophrenia, depression, addiction and other mental disorders cause suffering and cost billions of dollars every year in lost productivity. Neurological and psychiatric conditions account for 13 percent of the global burden of disease, a measure of years of life lost because of premature mortality and living in a state of less than full health, according to the World Health Organization.Despite the critical need for newer and better medications to treat a range of psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, drugs to treat these diseases are just too complex and costly for big pharmaceutical companies to develop. The risk of spending millions on new drugs only to have them fail in the pipeline is too great. That’s why many big drug ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5111644 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5111644 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5099197&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D19e3c2188ae104de82e502a7a8d40f42 The treatment of hepatitis C virus infections has taken a major step forward with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of two new drugs, telaprevir and boceprevir, for managing the disease. Blocking the same viral protein as the first ­anti-HIV drugs, they are also the latest chapter in an ongoing story of medical success.Telaprevir and boceprevir are protease inhibitors, thwarting the activity of key viral enzymes. The first in this class of drugs was saquinavir, available since 1995 for the treatment of HIV. Several protease inhibitors have subsequently been developed for HIV, but the new hepatitis C drugs are the first to tackle other viruses. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5099197 Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5099197 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5099198&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3787277546410d9bd161911e7c76737e On a sweltering August evening in 2009 Pat Elliott noticed that her feet seemed swollen. Because she had been standing for hours while teaching a workshop in Phoenix, she was not surprised. “I thought it was the heat,” she says. But her feet hurt, too, so Elliott decided to play it safe and called her doctor, who suggested she come in for some tests. Days later the marketing professional learned that she had developed an uncommon form of blood cancer called chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).Elliott’s cancer is the result of a genetic change that arose in one or more stem cells in her bone marrow. (Normally these stem cells give rise to various blood cells in the body.) The defect caused the stem cells and their progeny to produce an abnormal enzyme known as Bcr-Abl. This... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5099198 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5099198 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5089818&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D7886dfbefe0ddc3ac1cd422cbe1b1bd4 The skinned knee is a hallmark of childhood summers. After the tears are kissed away, a time-honored ritual follows: a few squirts of a pain killing spray, a good slather of antibiotic ointment, an adhesive bandage, and then back to the neighborhood for more rites of passage.The venerable tools of this healing ceremony may take the form of commercial consumer products but they are rooted deeply in the chemistry and pharmacy of nature. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5089818 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:30:00 +0100 5089818 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5081524&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfe8b99c68d7f9c952f3ef5e6d4cf4952 An upbeat attitude can do more than put a spring in your step; it can also improve medical outcomes. Although the power of positive thinking is clear, little is known about how negative mind-sets affect the success of therapies.Now cognitive neuroscientist Irene Tracey of the Uni­versity of Oxford and her collaborators have found that both sunny and cynical beliefs determine how well drugs work. The team published its findings February 16 in Science Translational Medicine. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5081524 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5081524 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5081525&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df54bf56ea0a27c3421446a360f0d3857 OBSERVATIONS BLOGS: [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5081525 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5081525 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5072068&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Df48c5992e9a6703386b8b7f0c79db449 The "disease of kings" has now reached the masses. In the past half century the prevalence of gout in the general U.S. population has more than doubled. Once thought of only for the privileged few who had the means to overindulge in food and drink, gout now afflicts more than eight million American adults. And research suggests that the rates of this form of localized arthritis are still on the rise. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5072068 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:45:00 +0100 5072068 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5072069&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6c705bc06f380378e3ce2dfcf1a358e1 To find abnormal tissue in mammograms, radiologists have increasingly relied on computers to spot the potential tumors. In fact, three out of four screening mammograms include computer-assisted detection (CAD) in the U.S., and Medicare pays for the procedure to the tune of $30 million annually. A group of researchers reports, however, that the technology doesn't improve a doctor's chance of detecting cancer. Nor did CAD significantly decrease false positives (when an initial exam erroneously suggested a tumor was present), which lead to more screenings and biopsies. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5072069 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:14:00 +0100 5072069 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5072070&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D400620e1b32ac3c32248f76c69cc8e9a Antibiotics don’t work against viruses. But doctors sometimes give antibiotics to patients who have what turns out to be a viral infection. Which adds to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. Tests to tell a bacterial infection from a viral one take one to two days and don’t always return a clear prognosis. So researchers in Israel have developed a rapid test – using a CSI tool.The chemical Luminol is used at crime scenes because it fluoresces in the presence of blood. When we get an infection, white blood cells called phagocytes leap into action. In the process, they consume oxygen and produce what are called Reactive Oxygen Species, or ROS. Luminol makes the ROS glow. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5072070 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:14:08 +0100 5072070 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5065004&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da165586d15a981e92aec591b78e6122f Singer Amy Winehouse's fame and infamy have now been forever linked to one word: rehab. She is only one of many recent high-profile cases in which attempts at rehabilitation from substance abuse failed. Amidst strange public outbursts earlier this year, actor Charlie Sheen asserted that it was not rehab, but rather he, himself, that had been his secret weapon against abusing cocaine and booze. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5065004 Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:15:00 +0100 5065004 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5065005&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D27217255ca45ea0798f61a85ca10490b In 1989 when scientists discovered the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a serious hereditary disorder that primarily strikes children of European descent, it seemed as though a long-hoped-for cure might soon follow. After all, tests in many laboratories showed that providing normal copies of the gene should enable patients to make healthy copies of the protein specified by the gene. If successful, that feat would go a long way toward restoring health in the tens of thousands of people around the world who suffered from cystic fibrosis and typically died in their late 20s. (Half of all patients now live to their late 30s or beyond.) The question was whether researchers would be able to reliably insert the correct gene into the proper tissues in patients’ bodies to rid them ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5065005 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0100 5065005 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5065006&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D4c4e00d1438cae7ef12342a0d7407d3c Two decades ago individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) had an average life expectancy of less than 30 years. A serious hereditary disorder that makes breathing and digestion difficult, cystic fibrosis still cannot be cured, but several drugs and supportive health regimens have helped extend the life span of many people to 40 years or more. New drugs that, for the first time, address the underlying biological cause of cystic fibrosis are the subjects of " A Breath of Fresh Air ," a feature article by Steven M. Rowe, J. P. Clancy and Eric J. Sorscher in the August 2011 issue of Scientific American .Watch the videos below to get a sense of CF patients' daily challenges--and bravery. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5065006 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:58:00 +0100 5065006 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5054251&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Db20442c90ace3d1a4ef1e7d5aafcf807 On-the-go doctors can already see your latest MRI or CT scan via a smart phone or tablet. But would you want them to be able to download an app that essentially turns an iPad into an EKG to determine if you are having a heart attack? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5054251 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:30:00 +0100 5054251 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5054252&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8de7ea7b26a5fbf3670a82835db1b5a5 Sperm face steep odds when set free to fertilize an egg. A slightly faulty tail, a miscalibrated electrical charge on their cell membrane or some other subtle defect can keep these genetic couriers from becoming the lucky, lone swimmer that sires offspring. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5054252 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:15:00 +0100 5054252 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5041953&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3f07889a6f6ae48dd169065b2e556790 Time for Society to Say Enough is Enough.          The science community laments that people deny the evidence science produces. Usually this complaint is merely de scriptive, intellectual frustration sometimes tinged with arrogance. Sometimes the criticism of denialism also offers solutions, which usually include education and communication to make the deniers stop denying, to make them see things the rational way the science community thinks everyone can, and should. Rarely does the conversation get to the uncomfortable final pre scriptive answer of what we should do when the intrinsic nature of risk perception causes people to steadfastly deny the evidence, no matter how well-informed and educated they may be, and their behavior puts other people at ri... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5041953 Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:50:00 +0100 5041953 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5032029&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Ded99cec2df92736e800050c68ebb789e JULY 1961 Forecasting Revolution [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5032029 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5032029 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5022744&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da28f9082e8995c9fe678ab1bd20acae4 It's not unusual to fumble when trying to recall one's family medical history --especially in the absence of integrated electronic health records (EHRs). But those cumbersome forms and recitations help doctors to predict patients' risks for disease later in life, especially for partially heritable afflictions, such as breast or colorectal cancers. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5022744 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:30:00 +0100 5022744 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5022745&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D7bf27fe98e66668668866687b3dac388 Would you buy a product that promised that 60 percent of the time it works every time? Maybe for caricature news anchors like Ron Burgundy , there is no question that a method (exotic cologne) with this type of track record (for attracting women) would be a good investment. But what if that rate was found to be true for a surgery that cost tens of thousands of dollars and might save your life--with a small risk of serious complications? Or a relatively cheap allergy medication that was prone to causing headaches? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5022745 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:00:00 +0100 5022745 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5022746&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D232d6cd8d536a14b1b060d9db2b6fe45 Medea, the sensual and ravishing sorceress of Greek mythology, enters the royal chambers. Knife in hand, she commands the servants to bring her an old sheep. Plunging her knife into the animal, she bleeds it nearly dry and then casts the limp sheep into a bubbling cauldron.  Its feeble bleating is soon replaced by the frolicking leaps of a young lamb. In this marvelous spectacle, Medea has demonstrated her ability to transfuse life to the dead and dying. Her husband’s enemy, the elderly and bedridden King Pelias, is next.  [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5022746 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5022746 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5022747&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9ab0b16b482cc92e937fb71cb6bf38c1 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The finalists are here, the exhibits are on display and now it is up to the judges to pick a winner. Given the quality and breadth of the 15 finalist projects in the inaugural Google Science Fair , choosing the top entrant is an unenviable task. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5022747 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:30:00 +0100 5022747 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5022748&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D69a2af27687f527751fa09cd002e079f It was the largest and most important investigation of treatments for high blood pressure ever conducted, with a monumental price tag to match. U.S. doctors enrolled 42,418 patients from 623 offices and clinics, treated participants with one of four commonly prescribed drugs, and followed them for at least five years to see how well the medications controlled their blood pressure and reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems. It met the highest standards of medical research: neither physicians nor their patients knew who was placed in which treatment group, and patients had an equal chance of being assigned to any of the groups. Such randomized controlled trials have long been unmatched as a way to determine the safety and efficacy of drugs and other treatm... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5022748 Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5022748 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5011180&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2752cd10a0d9cb32da94d99dc0aceec1 It's often said that these are exciting times to be a computational biologist, and indeed they are. But beyond the flashy, gee-whiz aspects of computational biology, I find myself excited for another reason: the tools of in silico biology offer us views of biological systems that we wouldn’t otherwise have. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5011180 Sat, 09 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5011180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5011181&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2abf7b111b6f8c96269d4611ae73c4bc Cameras were once big and bulky. Today, really good cameras fit in your pocket. And now, researchers at Cornell have developed a camera that’s just a half-millimeter on each side and a hundredth of a millimeter thick.The lens-less device is called a Planar Fourier Capture Array. It’s a flat piece of doped silicon. Each of its pixels is sensitive to specific incident angles and supplies a component of the mathematical operation called the Fourier Transform to produce an image about 20 pixels across. The details of the new camera are outlined in the journal Optics Letters . [Patrick Gill et al., " A Micro-Scale Camera Using Direct Fourier-Domain Scene Capture "] [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5011181 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:49:08 +0100 5011181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5011182&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2131de464e94c4659227cb0c87bdab6e Research published in Nature Materials this month takes lessons from cooperation in nature, including that observed in insect swarms, to create better targeting methods for cancer therapeutics [1]. "Smart" anticancer drug systems can use mechanisms similar to swarm intelligence to locate sites of disease in the human body. Swarm intelligence arises when swarm behavior, for example bees flying and working together to locate sources of food, is used by the group "to solve a problem collectively, in a way that the individuals cannot" [2].Insect swarms indeed often come up with solutions to a common task or problem that are "better than those produced through the most advanced mathematics" [2]. When researchers like Geoffrey von Maltzahn at MIT take lessons from s... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5011182 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5011182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5001411&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6ca6fc6a2cdc695a1a1922d6b49d9b61 Depression and chronic stress can be serious strains on heart health . But can positive emotional states do more for the heart than keep people at an average risk for signs of coronary heart disease? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5001411 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5001411 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5001412&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D4ae434050debee9d012e2b5ad5f3e9e4 A few weeks ago as I was walking out of a Harris Teeter grocery store in Raleigh, North Carolina, I saw a man face a moment of crisis. You could see it in the acrobatic contortions of his face. He had pulled a cart out of the area where carts congregate, only to find that its handle was sticky with an unidentifiable substance. He paused and looked at the handle, as if to imagine the nature of the offense. Gum? Meat juice? Chewed marshmallows? So many vulgar possibilities. Forlorn, he reached for an antibiotic wipe conveniently placed by the door. He scrubbed his hands VERY diligently and then pushed the cart back for someone else to rediscover [1]. Scenarios like this one are playing out all over America. There is an epidemic of sticky, dirty and otherwise gross handles on shopping carts. ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5001412 Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:59:00 +0100 5001412 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5001413&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3De6377cf95aec0c98a8970041aa32b2d9 Scientists may still be debating the role of viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome, but blood banks aren’t taking any chances. Last summer the AABB, a nonprofit that represents blood-collecting organizations, advised people with the disorder, marked by severe fatigue and aches lasting six months or more, to self-defer from blood donation. Last December the American Red Cross went further, banning people who revealed during a predonation interview that they had the syndrome from ever giving blood at its centers.The cause for this abundance of caution is XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus), a retro­virus that has been associated with chronic fatigue syndrome. In a highly publicized 2009 study published in Science , XMRV was found in 67 percent of patients and ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5001413 Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 5001413 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4994627&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3De6377cf95aec0c98a8970041aa32b2d9 Scientists may still be debating the role of viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome, but blood banks aren’t taking any chances. Last summer the AABB, a nonprofit that represents blood-collecting organizations, advised people with the disorder, marked by severe fatigue and aches lasting six months or more, to self-defer from blood donation. Last December the American Red Cross went further, banning people who revealed during a predonation interview that they had the syndrome from ever giving blood at its centers.The cause for this abundance of caution is XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus), a retro­virus that has been associated with chronic fatigue syndrome. In a highly publicized 2009 study published in Science , XMRV was found in 67 percent of patients and ... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4994627 Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:00:00 +0100 4994627 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4994628&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D4c8cd75b68da5fb5c73c699df916ee02 Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from a chapter in the book Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good by David Linden. Copyright (c) 2001 by David Linden. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4994628 Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0100 4994628 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4994629&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3b8b7f9861c1cdb50978fbea817e07cd Chronic pain affects at least one in three adults in the U.S., which is more than the sum total of those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. For many of these 116 million Americans, their pain is severe and eludes available treatments. In addition to the human suffering, the monetary cost of medical treatment and lost productivity has reached $635 billion a year. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4994629 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 22:30:00 +0100 4994629 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4994630&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Da6ad8e8a2c125651fb7f326c668214fa The tableau is common enough these days: after a miscalculated meal, snack or sip, a parent rummages frantically for an EpiPen or antihistamine as a swollen-mouthed child sits, frightened, possibly gasping for breath. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4994630 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0100 4994630 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4994631&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D509af57e1bf30e1b4c0db8a0c3cc947a My frail, 92-year-old mother was prescribed 80 mgs of the cholesterol-lowering drug, or statin, simvastatin for years. She fell four times in the last four years of her life: the last fall was the least forgiving. Doctors diagnosed her with rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition, and acute kidney failure; she was dead within 8 weeks. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4994631 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:05:00 +0100 4994631 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4978783&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D1e04b80d37c7e63f7a53c9139a81c731 It's no secret that health care in the U.S. is not as good as that in many other developed countries . And a new report finds that hospitals in U.S. territories--including Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands--are even further behind. "Virtually all of the territorial hospitals performed below the U.S. national averages," noted the authors of the study. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4978783 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:10:00 +0100 4978783 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4978784&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D055309fb769476a669d5e6395f48e917 A few weeks ago, I was graced with an honorary doctorate in social media from Social Media University, Global . My dissertation has been wonderfully received; I have been given high accolades and several once closed opportunities have opened. I have been humbled by the response and am sincerely grateful that people have been touched by my journey.And yet, there’s more to the whole story. While Social Media has given me the PhD behind my name, I would never have attained this level of success without the one subject that has played a major role in my life for the last 40 years: science. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4978784 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:38:00 +0100 4978784 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4971692&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dc6d12a9914c328ec6e587aca088a0f18 It was an accidental mutation of the Tetrahymena thermophila (left), a pond organism, during a lab experiment that revealed that the enzyme telomerase keeps the protective caps on the end of chromosomes long. Speaking at the 61st Meeting of Nobel Laureates at Lindau, Elisabeth Blackburn compared the caps, called telomeres , to the tips on the end of a shoelace that prevent it from fraying. Telomeres protect DNA during cell division.Most Tetrahymena are immortal, Blackburn explained, and they have lots of telemorase, but the mutant had shorter and shorter telomeres over time, so its cells started to die. It was found that the mutant had no telemorase in its cells. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4971692 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:00:00 +0100 4971692 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4971693&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D2832eb8856e7536aa5f9aeefc620c671 The panel on global health at the opening ceremony of the 61st Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau well and truly laid the gauntlet down to young researchers from around the world. On the panel was: Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Ada Yonath, Noble Laureate in Chemistry 2009 for her groundbreaking crystallography work revealing the structure and function of the ribosome; Sandra Chishimba , a malaria researcher from Zambia; and Jonathan Carlson, a researcher into HIV/AIDS at Microsoft Research.Bill Gates said that we must pay more attention to the 'silent voices' in poor countries, who don't have their medical needs met by funding from their governments or companies. It sounds unbelievable, but he told us that 10 times more researc... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4971693 Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4971693 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4971694&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3d951fc459811c69ac42e4decb4b1c9d Plutonium has a half-life of about 24,000 years. And scientists have known for decades that even in small doses, it is highly toxic , leading to radiation illness, cancer and often to death. After the March nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, people the world over worried that plutonium poisoning might affect those near the compromised plant--and beyond . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4971694 Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:00:00 +0100 4971694 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4962645&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D05d43c5cbbb7ce9c1bacd0e94d1bea04 From medicine to science When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I got very sick. I stayed in bed for many weeks and every day a nurse would come to give me a penicillin shot. The pain from shots turned into fear, in time fear turned into a plan for revenge. When I got better I demanded to have my own syringe and cruelly treated all teddy bears and dolls. If they didn’t look sick I made them sick, just to perform surgeries, sew wounds and give shots. I even offered my service to family members; unfortunately, they stubbornly kept on being healthy. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4962645 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:50:00 +0100 4962645 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4955957&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D98df6ef762add1d099fa95ad40ae871a NORMAN, Okla.--Snakes have been around for some 150 million years, but their ancient physiology might hold some important clues to developing new drugs. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4955957 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:10:00 +0100 4955957 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4940015&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D9ff76acbd4d738a6624e434a114df641 Magician David Copperfield waved his hand over the envelope, which popped open. He wiggled his fingers, and the card slid upward. A moment later we heard the winner’s name: “ Scientific American .” The guests at our tables roared with approval.A group of Scientific American colleagues were at the 2011 National Magazine Awards, the Oscars of publishing. The magazine won for General Excellence in the category of “Finance, Technology and Lifestyle Magazines.” The award, bestowed by the American Society of Magazine Editors, was for the September, November and December 2010 issues. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4940015 Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0100 4940015 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4924733&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D7e50f709e3bf1173de2f0f4cdaf90d99 Electricity controls much of the human body: consider the electrical firing of neurons and the current transmitted by the heart. Yet historically the electrodes that have been used in medicine to monitor and regulate essential activity have been biologically incompatible because they are stiff, big and water-sensitive.Now scientists are setting new standards with their designs for flexible, stretchable and waterproof circuits and electrodes that mimic the properties of human tissues. These new methods can also monitor and control biological electrical activity more naturally and easily. John A. Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has developed a technique that thinly slices silicon wafers or LEDs with a chemical etcher. Then, to make them stretc... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4924733 Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0100 4924733 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4924734&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dd55039dad6a09c10b11e118b6cbdb119 Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Mara Hvistendahl's book , Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.The technology that ultimately became the dominant method of sex selection around the world began as a tool for navigation. The story of ultrasound dates to 1794, when an Italian biologist curious about how bats find their way in the dark discovered sonar, or the fact that distance can be determined by bouncing sound waves off a faraway object and measuring how long it takes for the waves to ricochet back. Centuries later, when the growing prowess of German submarines during World War I convinced the Allies that to win the war they needed a way to navigate underwater, scientists put sonar to use. The American, British, and Frenc... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4924734 Sat, 11 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0100 4924734 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4915673&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D125c7d496b2c5f90bf5c2cc8659a794b Ever since IBM supercomputer Watson beat Jeopardy! champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, there’s been a lot of talk about putting the computer’s question-and-answer capabilities to real applications.In addition to consuming massive amounts of information, the supercomputer has been trained to understand literary references, interpret linguistic nuance, generate hypotheses, perform analysis, and score its own answers for likelihood of accuracy. All of these abilities enable Watson to make reasoned judgments, a skill hitherto attributed exclusively to human beings. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4915673 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:27:00 +0100 4915673 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4915674&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D77dbb7cd303adeadebbd1b9f4d586dae One day 12-year-old Elizabeth McIngvale became obsessed with the number 42, which happened to be her mother’s age at the time, 11 years ago. When she washed her hands, she had to turn the sink on and off 42 times, get 42 pumps of soap and rinse her hands 42 times. Sometimes she decided that she actually needed to do 42 sets of 42. When she dressed, she put her right leg in and out of her pant leg 42 times, then the left. Even getting up from a chair took 42 attempts. She was afraid that if she did not follow her self-prescribed ritual, something terrible would happen to her family--they might die in a car accident, for instance. “Everything I did was completely exhausting and grueling,” she recalls. “I was probably doing 12 to 13 hours a day of rituals.”McIngv... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4915674 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0100 4915674 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4915675&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dfd76dc1f35bfdc202f0bbf3e156427dc While you’re humming along to the Talking Heads, I’d like to consider another group who can listen to the Talking Heads without really hearing them. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4915675 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:30:00 +0100 4915675 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4915676&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D512a8975cb50a392e171072714e4fbc1 The underpinnings of autism are turning out to be even more varied than the disease's diverse manifestations. In four new studies and an analysis published June 8 researchers have added some major landmarks in the complex landscape of the disease, uncovering clues as to why the disease is so much more prevalent in male children and how such varied genetic mutations can lead to similar symptoms. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4915676 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4915676 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4906046&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D39d4839655df5c4549d484aa21ef7885 Sitting in a darkened lab at the National Institutes of Health in 1999, my ­colleague Beth Stevens and I prepared to send a mild electric current through fetal mouse neurons in a cell culture. We were using a new microscope technique that would let us see ­electrical activity as a bright fluorescence emitted from a dye we had added to the culture, and we were hoping to find out if another kind of cell common in the nervous system would react in some way--Schwann cells, odd-looking cells that fabricate insulation around neurons. We didn’t really expect them to; Schwann cells cannot communicate ­electrically. I flipped the switch. The neurons immediately glowed. But then the Schwann cells began to glow as well. It was as if they were talking back.The most mysterious substan... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4906046 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:30:00 +0100 4906046 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4906048&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D42fed1190a6e20614212c701674c7b3b The 61st Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, is taking place from June 26 to July 1. At the event, about 20 past laureates in physiology or medicine will mingle with more than 550 young scientists. In honor of the meeting Scientific American has collected articles that Nobel Prize winners have published in the magazine recently as well as more than 60 years ago. You can find a number of excerpts from those articles in the June issue and enjoy others here. For ease of reading, we have not indicated deletions within these excerpts, some of which have been condensed considerably.Compiled by Ferris Jabr [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4906048 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0100 4906048 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4906047&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Dc198b6afefd4acc16e4c0f49c5fa13c7 Every year in Lindau, Germany, winners of Nobel Prizes join young researchers for panel discussions, presentations and informal conversation. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4906047 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0100 4906047 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4906049&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D74340ce6b787af1f1869742e9bbf571d When Omega Eggs (eggs containing Omega fatty acids) first appeared on the mass market in the early 2000s I had this bizarre image in my head of a semi-crazed scientist extracting the yolk with a giant syringe, swirling it about in a beaker with a neon blue solution to extract the bad fat, injecting it with Omega fatty acids and then placing it carefully back inside the eggshell. Of course my next thought was that would be a completely absurd and impossible way to go about making healthier eggs and labelled the image as a flight of fancy. I dismissed the question of how Omega Eggs are produced as interesting but not a priority and went about my life. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4906049 Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:18:00 +0100 4906049 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4887094&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3Ddb5e9db841820ebf3cd0952256ee34e2 Tourette’s syndrome is most pronounced in children. The physical and vocal tics, which can alienate kids from peers, are difficult to treat. First-line drugs are limited in their efficacy, whereas more effective antipsychotics have many potential long-term side effects, including weight gain and movement disorders. Investigators may be moving closer to a new treatment option involving drugs that already exist.Last year researchers identified a new gene mutation associated with the disorder. Known mutations have only explained a small number of Tourette’s cases, so the investigators, led by Matthew State, co-director of the Yale Neurogenetics Program, studied a rare family in which the father and his eight children all had Tourette’s. In these family members, the gene invo... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4887094 Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:00:00 +0100 4887094 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4887095&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8f91c6667b5ab9e6552a6059489021a9 May 31, 2011, was a bad day for a society already wary of all sorts of risks from modern technology, a day of celebration for those who champion more concern about those risks, and a day that teaches important lessons about the messy subjective guesswork that goes into trying to make intelligent choices about risk in the first place, for policy makers or for you and me. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says radiation from cell phones might cause cancer. OMG!!! Your phone is ringing! Now what? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4887095 Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:00:00 +0100 4887095 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4887096&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D8425c14b6474277287ce504b08392ee7 The radiation emitted by mobile phones has been classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" by a World Health Organization (WHO) scientific working group. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4887096 Tue, 31 May 2011 21:35:00 +0100 4887096 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4874256&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D109560b22b912b234b51478dee4e6d58 In 1915, it was imperative for France to keep its soldiers in good physical condition. The French War Ministry’s physical education school in Joinville looked for ways to improve soldiers’ performances and spot any problems with their health before they were sent to the Front. According to the cover story from the May 8, 1915 Scientific American Supplement, the school studied respiration, circulation, and muscular contraction with the aid of novel scientific research tools in their physiology lab. Professor G. Demeny invented several devices that helped determine the form and dimensions of the body while in motion and at rest. One of his most important contributions was an instrument called the “double universal conformator.” [More] (Source: Scientific American Topi... Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4874256 Fri, 27 May 2011 21:00:00 +0100 4874256 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4866555&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D6bffde1372e9313fbb7e5439629dc672 The search for ways to prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease has been stymied in part by difficulties in reliably delivering therapeutics into the brain to prevent proteins there from depositing fibrous plaques that damage synapses and ultimately wreck one's cognitive abilities. Researchers have experimented with antibodies, peptides and even nanoparticles to find some way of effectively preventing plaque formation but these efforts have yet to yield an anti-Alzheimer's drug. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4866555 Wed, 25 May 2011 19:00:00 +0100 4866555 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4856443&cid=s_37980_26_f&fid=37980&url=http%3A%2F%2Frss.sciam.com%2Fclick.phdo%3Fi%3D3c2f3084f3365a7290f01d59325a5231 We take it for granted that our hair dryers won't send us to the emergency room and our toothbrushes won't make us go numb. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about sex toys.It's entirely possible that someone's favorite cyclotron vibrator can shell-shock nerves, penis rings might lead to a grievous case of penile gangrene or those little vibrating beads could slip upstream and become tragicomically lost in bodily cavities while still in the "on" position. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology) Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4856443 Tue, 24 May 2011 11:00:00 +0100 4856443