❤️ Health Tech
Health Tech, or digital health, helps us understand and take control of our own health. But we also cover more traditional health news like medicines, vaccines and medical procedures.
Surgeon successfully conducts world’s first remote heart surgery
While robotics entered the world of medicine almost two decades ago, using robots to perform complicated surgical operations from a distance has been a pipe dream – that is up until now. Thanks to a new technological breakthrough, a surgeon in India has successfully performed the first remote heart surgery on
Scientists Just Found New Antibiotic Molecules—Right In the Human Microbiome
The human microbiome is the dark matter of biology: we know it’s there and critically balances health from disease. We can broadly examine microbe members with advanced DNA sequencing methods and infer their species makeup. With several doses of antibiotics, we can even observe what happens when we temporarily
Bill Gates has some optimistic predictions about the future of global health
Speaking to an audience at Cambridge University this week, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates made some optimistic predictions about the future of global health. Gates says investing in scientific innovation will allow world health organizations to significantly reduce world hunger and eliminate malaria in the next 20 years. Gates, who recently
Moore’s Law Is Dying. This Brain-Inspired Analogue Chip Is a Glimpse of What’s Next
“Dark silicon” sounds like a magical artifact out of a fantasy novel. In reality, it’s one branch of a three-headed beast that foretells the end of advances in computation. Ok—that might be too dramatic. But the looming problems in silicon-based computer chips are very real. Although computational power
A human burn has just been successfully treated using live-cell pig skin tissue
When someone has a severe burn, a protective covering needs to be temporarily grafted onto the wound site – and as soon as possible. Although that covering typically consists of skin from a human cadaver, genetically-engineered live-cell pigskin has now been used on a patient for the first time. Applied to
New Hybrid Brain Map Reveals How Neurons Connect
Projects that map the billions of connections within entire brains have always had a tinge of grandiosity. Yet to connectomists, these projects aren’t just the key to cracking the brain’s ultimate mysteries. Understanding how and why neurons form connections called synapses may be the path towards computer simulations
Cellular Computers Get a Boost With CRISPR
Cancer’s impenetrable secrets partly rely on its mysterious molecular history. As cells turn to the dark side, a whirlwind of DNA changes gradually accumulate. Like flipping multiple interlinked light switches, the cell gradually changes its internal molecular operations, until its once-beneficial nature turns malevolent. Why, when, and how this
A Brief Tour Through the Wild West of Neural Interfaces
To most of us, zapping neurons with electricity to artificially “incept” memories, sensation, and movement still sounds crazy. But in some brain labs, that technology is beginning to feel old school. As a new review [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0198-8] in Nature Biotechnology concludes: get off the throne, electrodes,
The Crucial Role of Brain Simulation in Future Neuroscience
“Do we have a chance of ever understanding brain function without brain simulations?” So asked the Human Brain Project [https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/brain-simulation/] (HBP), the brainchild of Henry Markram [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-brain-project-digital-simulation-neuron/] , in a new paper [https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(19)30290-9?