Lifeboat Foundation

A first-of-its-kind flexible sensor turns a pair of earbuds into a device capable of recording brain activity and analyzing sweat, making them useful for diagnosing diseases and health monitoring.

The background: Health monitoring wearables can measure our blood pressure, track our heart rates, and even detect infections before we start to feel sick, helping us take better care of ourselves and potentially even giving us a way to prevent the spread of diseases.

The devices are useless if no one wants to wear them, though, so finding designs that are comfortable and easy to integrate into daily life is key. Because earbuds are already popular, researchers have used them as the basis for health monitoring devices that record brain activity to predict strokes, epileptic seizures, or Parkinson’s disease.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that causes people to have recurring seizures. Epileptic seizures may be mild and barely noticeable or stronger ones, causing severe muscle spasms or loss of consciousness. These may last a few seconds or several minutes. Anyone can develop epilepsy at any point in their life.

Chptr, an app for sharing and holding onto memories of lost loved ones, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The app is designed to give people a way to encapsulate the life of their loved ones by inviting others to share and store stories, images, audio messages, videos and more all in one place.

The startup was founded in 2020 by Rehan Choudhry, who came up with the idea for the app when he was helping his wife, a news anchor at CBS New York, put together video tributes for the first victims of COVID-19 in New York City. Choudhry told TechCrunch in an interview that the pair was reaching out to the families, friends, neighbors and colleagues of the victims to paint a picture of what their life was like.

“The thing I realized after talking to a lot of families was that these videos served as almost a reunion point for people that they will continue to grieve around,” Choudhry said. “We noticed that the grieving process that would normally take 90 days was extended to months because they had something to rally around. So then the question for me was why doesn’t everyone on the planet have access to this because we all have smartphones and social media. So I went down the rabbit hole of discovery and it brought me to Chptr.”

Blocking how cancer cells acquire and use energy, or their metabolism, as a treatment has been challenging, Dr. Lyssiotis explained. But a better understanding of how cancer cells adapt their metabolism in the often oxygen-and nutrient-deprived environments in which they exist, he said, may open other avenues for attacking them.

Identifying alternative sources of energy for cancer cells

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of death from cancer. Not only does its stark microenvironment thwart the entry of drugs designed to kill tumors, but numerous studies have shown that other residents in and around the tumors create an ecosystem that help the tumors thrive.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is looking for a volunteer for its first clinical trial of a brain implant chip. The trial, which begins next year, has attracted thousands of prospective patients. The ideal candidate must be an adult under 40 with all four limbs paralyzed. The procedure involves inserting electrodes and wires into the brain, with a small computer replacing part of the skull. The computer will collect and analyze brain activity, sending the data wirelessly to a nearby device. Neuralink aims to translate thoughts into computer commands. However, the company has faced criticism for animal testing practices.

The system shows potential for drug development in delicate environments such as coral reefs.

ACS

To better comprehend this, researchers have presented a proof-of-concept device that “sniffs” seawater, capturing dissolved chemicals for analysis. The underwater device “catches and concentrates dissolved substances generated by sponges or other marine animals while causing no damage to the source or the environment,” said a statement.

Continue reading “Deep-sea sniffer dog? Scientists develop device to detect new molecules” »

The hope is that people who are unable to speak because of neurological conditions may one day be able to communicate again thanks to this modern technology.

Helping people with motor disorders

“There are many patients who suffer from debilitating motor disorders, like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or locked-in syndrome, that can impair their ability to speak,” said Gregory Cogan, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at Duke University’s School of Medicine and one of the lead researchers involved in the project.

Continue reading “Brain implant turns thoughts into speech with up to 84% accuracy” »

The first rub-on gene therapy shows how biotech companies are getting creative with how they deliver DNA fixes.

Designer chromosomes enable new studies of genome organization and evolution.