Resilient Ambassadors of Change

Stem cells and DNA - things that make me go hmmmm...

I was busy working at my computer last night when twice I turned to catch something on the news. 

The first was a story about a windpipe from a cadaver and stem cells from a woman's bone marrow and a transplant that did not require immune suppressant drugs.  Cartilage and tissue cells were grown from her own bone marrow stem cells, so that rejection was not an issue.  This one made me go hmmm... in a good way.

I also wanted to experiment with embedding a video from YouTube...hope it works!

The second story had a Jurrasic Park theme, and I thought I heard someone say that scientists may be planning to mix the woolly mammoth DNA with the genome of a modern day elephant and "ressurect the species."  Didn't they learn anything from that movie!?!  Read about it here.

Solar-powered ECG may run aground

Today I read an article in Science Daily about an electrotechnology student, Felix Adamczyk, who developed a solar-powered ECG machine.  During an internship in Tanzania, he experienced first hand the technology situation in a developing country.  Upon his return to Europe, he set to work on his ECG unit, Kidiri (which is Kiswahili for "make it possible"). Felix adapted technology to the local conditions, using solar power to address issues of access to electricity, less expensive and longer lasting parts because of the unavailability of replacement parts for medical devices.  His invention came in fifth in this year's German Youth Competition in Research. The unfortunate part of this story is that there are no plans to bring this device to market.  It is understandable that a technology student is not prepared to take on launching a business at this time, and according to the article, it would be too risky for investors.  Where's the glamor in developing a very basic medical device?  Where's the profit in providing a solution that serves the poorest patients?  Still, it was a good idea.

What the nose knows

Some research being done at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine highlights the role of olfaction in memory-making; apparently, our noses quickly learn and remember smells that we associate with traumatic situations.  The study at Northwestern involved grassy smells and electric shock.  (Note: I would not want to be on that ethics review board.)

In any event, it makes me wonder how a person's sense of smell might affect them in other situations, like in an Emergency Room or during a particularly difficult and important standardized test.  Maybe this sense, which I would argue is often taken for granted, is more linked to intuition than many people think.

Remote microscopy to be tested in Kampala

One of Berci's recent posts led me to this Technology Review article which highlights an invention that combines a cell phone with a high-resolution microscope to capture and transmit pictures of blood cells. This device should faclitate better diagnosis and treatment for patients who live in remote or rural areas.  According to the article, the challenge for the researchers at Berkeley was "to make a low-cost, durable device, with a long battery life." The initial prototype was developed for about $75.

There are plans to test the device in Kampala by training local personnel to take pictures of patients' blood and transmit the images to specialists to identify and count malaria parasites.  Plans are also underway to collaborate with a telemedicine program to allow leukemia patients to transmit images for white blood cell counts.

Photo by: David Breslauer

If current trends are any indication of the future

...then patients will have information on their doctors and hospitals, and it may be as easy to access as a search engine. Robots will be delivering drugs in hospitals and a doctor will just have to talk to her/his patient to have data added to an electronic medical record using voice-recognition software. The problem of how to use a computer to process unstructured data may still plague mankind, but the burden may be lessened as the user population adapts to the interfaces, thereby creating a lesser amount of unstructured data. And we may know more about why we should trust our gut in some situations.

I'm not counting on that last one, though.

Logos Can Make You Think Differently

Professors from Duke and Waterloo were able to find evidence that subliminal messages in branding logos are real. Logos were flashed in front of subjects very quickly so that they did not notice, and then they were subjected to a creativity test. The article reports that the results were significantly different dependent on whether the subject subconsciously witnessed an Apple or IBM logo.

http://www.physorg.com/news125073871.html

The Science Of Sleep

This article is about the science of sleeping. It is a long read but what happens when we are sleeping and the growing studies behind dreams interests me a lot. If we can learn more about how dreams work, maybe we can apply "The Science of Sleep" to truly suspending disbelief in simulation environments.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/14/60minutes/main3939721.shtml

Self-aware robots turn mirror on humankind

Nico gazes into the mirror in front of him. Looking back is his reflected self, wearing a grey Yale University sweatshirt and a baseball cap cocked at a jaunty angle. When Nico raises an arm, he recognises the arm moving in the mirror as his own.

It may not sound like much of a feat, but Nico is a humanoid robot. He has just become the first of his kind to recognise his own reflection in a mirror.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19426046.300-selfaware-robot-turns-mirror-on-humankind.html

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