A strain of rice genetically engineered to protect against diarrhoeal disease could offer a cost-effective way to protect children in developing countries, according a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation yesterday (8 August).
For many of with impaired hearing, their hearing is so damaged that a standard hearing aid is no longer enough. A new device will improve patients' hearing and can be implanted during outpatient surgery.
Via NZ Herald:
The new, 1.55 millimetre-thick contact lens contains an extremely thin, reflective telescope, which is activated by winks.
Released in 2013 and fine-tuned since then, the prototype was unveiled by Eric Tremblay from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in California.
The lenses come with smart glasses that respond to the wearer's winks - but not blinks - so that the user can switch almost effortlessly from normal to magnified vision and back.
The wearer winks with the right eye to activate the telescope, and with the left eye to deactivate it.
Now one research group is reporting a major step toward a touchy-feely prosthetic. A team of researchers from the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University performed a series of experiments that showed they could send electrical signals directly to the brains of rhesus macaques and that the macaques were able to interpret the signals as touches on different parts of their hands. Another series of experiments showed rhesus macaques could interpret different direct-to-brain signals as touches of varying pressure. A third explored whether direct-to-brain signals work quickly enough to be able to accurately tell macaques when a prosthetic is touching something and when it stops the touch.
South Korean scientists say they have developed the world's first nanorobot that can selectively target and help treat cancer. The robot is guided through the body by genetically engineered bacteria to a tumor where it releases its cargo of cancer fighting drugs.
Here's another reason never to go swimming:
This rare form of parasitic meningitis—primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM)—is caused by an amoeba called Naegleria fowleri. That microscopic amoeba—part of the class of life called protozoans—is a naturally occurring organism that normally feeds on bacteria and tends to live in the sedimentary layer of warm lakes and ponds.
