Lifeboat Foundation

Globally, antimicrobial resistance or AMR is becoming a core political, social and economic problem. The implications could never be more real than in Asia where, if no immediate action is taken, by 2050 about five million people are projected to die every year of conditions linked to bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics. This figure will be more than estimated cancer fatalities.

Katinka De Balogh says governments, individuals and health care professionals must all act to curb misuse before antibiotic-resistant bacteria creates a public health calamity.

The sense of touch is often taken for granted. For someone without a limb or hand, losing that sense of touch can be devastating. While highly sophisticated prostheses with complex moving fingers and joints are available to mimic almost every hand motion, they remain frustratingly difficult and unnatural for the user. This is largely because they lack the tactile experience that guides every movement. This void in sensation results in limited use or abandonment of these very expensive artificial devices. So why not make a prosthesis that can actually “feel” its environment?

That is exactly what an interdisciplinary team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University and the University of Utah School of Medicine aims to do. They are developing a first-of-its-kind bioengineered robotic hand that will grow and adapt to its environment. This “living” robot will have its own peripheral nervous system directly linking robotic sensors and actuators. FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science is leading the multidisciplinary team that has received a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health for a project titled “Virtual Neuroprosthesis: Restoring Autonomy to People Suffering from Neurotrauma.”

More: http://asteroid.lu/asteroidexercise via NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

L amborghini has created the world’s first self-healing sports car. The Terzo Millennio, which translates as third millennium in Italian, has the ability to detect and repair cracks in its body work.

Using sensors the car can conduct its own health check to detect any damages and self-repair itself by filling the crack with nanotubes to prevent it spreading.

The super car was created in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

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Progesterone and Oestrogen are produced by the ovaries and the amount of their production varies naturally, after the menstrual cycle. The birth-control replaces these naturally produced hormones with the synthetic versions.

Strassmann states that there is a direct connection between the contraceptive pills and the risk of breast cancer. She extracted data from 12 various studies which measure the amount of oestrogen and progesterone over the menstrual cycle in women who do not take these pills. The study is a continuation of her previous research on menstruation and reproductive biology among the Dogon people of Mali in Western Africa.

According to the Cancer research in the UK, around 1% of breast cancers in women are caused due to the oral contraceptives. Though it protects you against various other cancers such as ovarian or any health issue related to the womb, there is still a presence of increased breast cancer risk.

Continue reading “Increased Risk of Breast Cancer Due to Contraceptive Pills” »

A right for all people and a service providing the highest standard of care — can universal health care do both or will politics stand in the way? CNBC’s Tom Chitty explains.

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Manipulating mitochondrial networks inside cells may increase lifespan and promote health, according to a new study.

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ProPublica has been documenting the many ways health care dollars are being wasted. We’ve shown how hospitals throw out brand new supplies, nursing homes flush tons of unexpired medication and drug companies concoct costly combinations of cheap medication. Recently we described how arbitrary drug expiration dates cause us to toss safe and potent medicine.

Often, large swaths of the medical and pharmaceutical communities know about this waste — even about solutions to it — but do nothing. Those who end up paying the bill, in one way or another, are consumers.

Continue reading “Drug Companies Make Eyedrops Too Big — And You Pay for the Waste” »

If scientists could precisely regulate gene expression, they could turn off the genes responsible for illness and disease and turn on those that enhance health and the immune system.

“This is why controlling gene expression is so fundamental,” said Northwestern University’s Julius Lucks. “Once you get a good handle on it, you can do anything.”

For Lucks, having a “good” handle on gene expression might be an understatement. He and his team have developed a powerful and versatile tool that achieves gene activation thousands of times better than nature.