Scientists have made the first recordings of the human brain’s awareness of its own body, using the illusion of a strategically-placed rubber hand to trick the brain. Their findings shed light on disorders of self-perception such as schizophrenia, stroke and phantom limb syndrome, where sufferers may no longer recognize their own limbs or may experience pain from missing ones.
In the study published today in Science Express online, University College London’s (UCL) Dr Henrik Ehrsson, workin
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) will today publish interim findings relating to how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is being implemented in four African countries. The Fund was established in 2002 as a mechanism to get additional resources to affected countries to control these devastating diseases.
The findings, which appear in the Lancet, are based on interviews with 137 national level respondents. They reveal that the conditions set by the
Spiraling glass fibers provide new way to control behavior of light By twisting fiber optic strands into helical shapes, researchers have created unique structures that can precisely filter, polarize or scatter light. Compatible with standard fiber optic lines, these hair-like structures may replace bulky components in sensors, gyroscopes and other devices. While researchers are still probing the unusual properties of the new fibers, tests show the strands impart a chiral, or
The medicine cabinet may seem like a strange place to look for a way to get high. But a growing number of teenagers are doing just that, raiding their parents’ pill bottles or buying prescription drugs illegally through Internet pharmacies and dealers.
From potent painkillers to humble cough syrups, the same medicines that can help patients can also be misused to produce a high feeling. And they can hurt teens or hook them into addiction just as easily as other illicit drugs.
Pare
University of Idaho’s Richard Wells and his microelectronics research team are helping usher in the age of real electronic brains.
UI researchers envision computers one day built from artificial neurons bundled together into networks that can perform tasks onerous to humans, such as dangerous military tactics, automated traffic and emergency dispatching, smart cars that drive themselves and eventually bio-medical applications and prosthetics.
“Our fundamental research on artifici
Studies of postmortem brains of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) showed a 31 percent greater than average number of nerve cells in the portion of the thalamus involved with emotional regulation. Researchers also discovered that this portion of the thalamus is physically larger than normal in people with MDD. Located in the center of the brain, the thalamus is involved with many different brain functions, including relaying information from other parts of the brain to the cereb
Medical drug falsification mainly concerns those which are in high demand, such as antimalarials in African regions where malaria is endemic. IRD researchers (1) have examined the quality of antimalarial medicines available from informal distribution networks in Cameroon. They also assessed the impact of malaria patients’ taking these medicines, obtained on the illicit market, on their health. Self-medication is common but when it relies on supplies of poor-quality drugs it is ineffectual for contro
High-temperature lab-on-a-chip can get hotter than surface of Venus Engineers have created a miniature hotplate that can reach temperatures above 1100°C (2012°F), self-contained within a “laboratory” no bigger than a child’s shoe. The micro-hotplates are only a few dozen microns across (roughly the width of a human hair), yet are capable of serving as substrates, heaters and conductors for thin-film experiments ranging from material analyses to the development of advance
Discovery overturns 20 years of previous research
Canada’s first space telescope, celebrates its first birthday today, but its latest surprising results could spoil the party for other astronomers whose earlier results are now being questioned.
The MOST team used their tiny but powerful satellite as a stellar stethoscope to take the pulse of one of the best-known stars in the Galaxy, called Procyon (PRO-see-yon), and were shocked to discover their cosmic patient is a “fl
Imagine that by altering the function of a single gene, you could live longer, be thinner and have lower cholesterol and fat levels in your blood.
Medical College of Georgia researchers are using a tiny worm called C. elegans to transform that vision into reality. Researchers You-Jun Fei and Vadivel Ganapathy have found the Indy gene is critical in providing cells with energy, producing a transporter that helps deliver key ingredients of the fuel that drives cells. Indy delivers m
Protein changes shape to let salts and other solutes in and out of the cell through a process called ’gating’ in order to keep tension on the membrane steady
New findings about a protein that keeps cells alive by opening and closing pores within a cell’s membrane may open the door to the development of new antibiotics. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas are studying a protein, called MscL, found in the membrane of the single-cell bacterium Escherichia coli. The
The surprising finding that people with cystic fibrosis (CF) produce too little airway mucus – rather than too much, as it commonly believed – could lead to more effective treatments for the genetic disorder, say researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “It has always been thought, but never proven, that CF causes the body to produce too much abnormally thick mucus that accumulates in the lungs and intestines,” said Bruce Rubin, M.D., professor of pediatrics. “However, we have now shown th
Children who undergo chemotherapy and survive acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) endure a 200-fold increase in the frequency of somatic mutations in their DNA, researchers from the University of Vermont Medical School reported in the July 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research. The alterations in the children’s gene sequence remain embedded within their chromosomes and may pose elevated risk for development of second malignancies and other diseases later in life, cautioned Barry A. Finette, M.D., Ph.D
Fetal MRI allows more detailed and conclusive prenatal evaluation of the upper lip than sonography alone, allowing for better diagnosis of cleft lip and palate in fetuses, according to researchers from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA.
According to the article, cleft lip and palate is the most common facial malformation in newborns, affecting about 1 in 700 births worldwide, and there are a number of benefits to the
16-MDCT is showing promise in detecting coronary artery atherosclerosis and could, in the near future, serve as an alternative to electron beam CT, a technique that is effective but not widely available, a new study shows.
The study of 100 patients at Hiroshima University in Japan found that 16-MDCT and electron beam CT were almost equivalent in detecting coronary artery calcifications and coronary artery calcium scoring. Calcium scoring is the “quantification of total calcium burden in th
Three-dimensional MDCT angiography can be used in place of conventional angiography to image the extremities in nearly any case where conventional angiography is indicated, a new study suggests.
The study included 40 patients who underwent extremity MDCT angiography for a wide range of diseases, including traumatic injuries, musculoskeletal masses, and atherosclerotic disease, said lead author Dr. Musturay Karcaaltincaba of Hacettepe University School of Medicine in Ankara, Turkey. Diagnost
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