Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Telemedicine is healthcare’s new frontier

Telemedicine is healthcare’s new frontier, a means of facilitating the distribution of human resources and professional competences. It can speed up diagnosis and therapeutic care delivery and allow peripheral and primary healthcare providers to receive continuous assistance from specialised centres.

The European Space Agency has decided to prepare the ground for a Telemedicine Programme to be presented at the next ESA Ministerial Conference. This is in response to the need to further tailor support for the development of telemedicine via satellite to comply with the key priorities of the healthcare system. The aim of this initiative is to set up a programmatic framework able to host research, development and pilot utilisation activities in the field of telemedicine via satellite. To this end, a Telemedicine Working Group has been set up, composed mainly of users (health professionals and patients’ representatives).

The results from this Working Group are outlined in the attached publication, which aims to promote the rationale of a user-driven approach in this application field of paramount importance to the well-being of mankind. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has reached a sufficient degree of maturity that it is now possible to envisage setting up a virtual hospital in a patient’s home, obtaining real-time teleconsulting and diagnosis from a remote location and transmitting clinical data and multimedia medical content from one location to a large number of geographically dispersed locations.

Pierluigi Mancini | EurekAlert!
Further information:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMENCO3E4E_index_0.html
http://www.esa.int

Im Focus: Fizzy soda water could be key to clean manufacture of flat wonder material: Graphene

Whether you call it effervescent, fizzy, or sparkling, carbonated water is making a comeback as a beverage. Aside from quenching thirst, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a new use for these "bubbly" concoctions that will have major impact on the manufacturer of the world's thinnest, flattest, and one most useful materials -- graphene.

As graphene's popularity grows as an advanced "wonder" material, the speed and quality at which it can be manufactured will be paramount. With that in mind,...

Im Focus: Exotic quantum states made from light: Physicists create optical “wells” for a super-photon

Physicists at the University of Bonn have managed to create optical hollows and more complex patterns into which the light of a Bose-Einstein condensate flows. The creation of such highly low-loss structures for light is a prerequisite for complex light circuits, such as for quantum information processing for a new generation of computers. The researchers are now presenting their results in the journal Nature Photonics.

Light particles (photons) occur as tiny, indivisible portions. Many thousands of these light portions can be merged to form a single super-photon if they are...

Im Focus: Circular RNA linked to brain function

For the first time, scientists have shown that circular RNA is linked to brain function. When a RNA molecule called Cdr1as was deleted from the genome of mice, the animals had problems filtering out unnecessary information – like patients suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders.

While hundreds of circular RNAs (circRNAs) are abundant in mammalian brains, one big question has remained unanswered: What are they actually good for? In the...

Im Focus: RAVAN CubeSat measures Earth's outgoing energy

An experimental small satellite has successfully collected and delivered data on a key measurement for predicting changes in Earth's climate.

The Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes (RAVAN) CubeSat was launched into low-Earth orbit on Nov. 11, 2016, in order to test new...

Im Focus: Scientists shine new light on the “other high temperature superconductor”

A study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg presents evidence of the coexistence of superconductivity and “charge-density-waves” in compounds of the poorly-studied family of bismuthates. This observation opens up new perspectives for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity, a topic which is at the core of condensed matter research since more than 30 years. The paper by Nicoletti et al has been published in the PNAS.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, superconductivity had been observed in some metals at temperatures only a few degrees above the absolute zero (minus...