Antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria has been a well-known threat for some time, and the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have kept a focus on it through the years (among other things…*cough*..Ebola). But now, Andreas Essig and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in […]
The news this week that the same nerve cells that control our ability to smell can apparently be used to help paralyzed people walk is thrilling stuff. The process that led up to the surgery was years in the making. Here’s an overview. Doctors zeroed in on olfactory nerve cells in the first place because […]
Hear executives from Quantum Health, Surescripts, EY, Clinical Architecture and Personify Health share their views on digital transformation in healthcare.
Human anatomy class is a right of passage for medical school students, but the bodies they dissect tend to be an afterthought. Who can know the story behind this person on the lab table before them and the choices that ultimately brought them there? The opportunity to go to med school tuition free? A strong […]
If the FDA lifted its ban on gay men donating blood, hundreds of thousands of pints would be available every year for patients in need of transfusions, which in turn could save 1.8 million lives per year, according to a new study. The FDA enacted the ban back in 1983, after discovering HIV was being […]
Trying to shake that nasty smoking habit? Don’t trip. Or, maybe you should trip. Literally. But only under scientific supervision. Psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic in so-called magic mushrooms, could possibly help longtime smokers shake the habit, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins, although it’s not yet clear why or how. Participants in the […]
Tick tock, tick tock! Your-ovaries-are-shriveling-up, goes the clock! The sound of a ticking clock can speed up a lady’s urge to conceive before her childbearing years are over, a team of (sadistic?) Florida State University researchers have found. Two experiments were published recently in the journal Human Nature; the paper’s called “The Clock is Ticking: The Sound […]
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
Move over, guinea pigs… There’s a menagerie of fauna that has helped researchers gain some novel insight into treating human disease. Here are just a few of these amazing animals: Jellyfish The glow of these brainless beauties has been found to help with tumor imaging – the bioluminescence of jellyfish tentacles has inspired technology that can detect cancer, […]
A futurist report on public health I wrote about last week had a lot of references to the likely impact of climate change, particularly hurricanes and droughts. But a new study suggests another reason why climate change, particularly global warming, should be a public health concern: kidney stones. Higher temps increase dehydration and that concentrates […]
You know how annoying it is in winter when gloves make it hard to use your iPhone? Imagine what it’s like for people with prosthetic hands. Taking off a glove doesn’t solve the problem. Touch Bionics’ iLimb technology is working to solve this small problem as well as larger ones for people with upper limb amputations. Leimkuehler’s […]
When you think wheelchair, the image of a tank probably doesn’t pop into your mind. Most people think wheelchairs are designed for flat, basic environments. The Tankchair, however, has disrupted this traditional image. After his wife Liz was paralyzed in an auto accident and couldn’t go camping in a traditional wheelchair, Brad Soden created the […]
The progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping patient care, across various dimensions, from facilitating faster discharge to curating treatment plans and suggesting lifestyle changes.
A team of doctors pressed for time used DNA testing to diagnose a rare bacterial infection in a 14-year-old boy with encephalitis. The case, written up in the New England Journal of Medicine and widely covered in media reports this week, represents what could one day become commonplace as medical innovations make it easier to […]
In medicine, the microbiome is most often associated with the gut. But there are millions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live on our skin and in our glands, too, and scientists suspect that learning more about them could lead to better diagnosis and treatment of skin conditions. A Cambridge biotech startup called AOBiome is […]
Here’s your weird science fact of the day: The surface area of the average adult human’s GI tract is around 100 to 130 square feet, according to scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. That might seem like a lot, but the numbers actually suggest that previous estimates of more than 800 square feet […]
Safeguard, Procter & Gamble’s largest global personal care brand, has created a seriously loud handwashing reminder in a bid to keep people using public bathrooms from spreading so many germs. It’s a soap dispenser rigged with an alarm. Pressure sensors placed on doors connect back to the dispenser/alarm, and when someone tries to open the […]
The suffering stomach bugs cause is bad enough, but what’s worse is how a certain amoeba create food poisoning that can last months. NPR reported on a new discovery: The single-cell animal bites off tiny chunks of intestine, chews on them for a while and then spits them out, microbiologists said last week in the […]