Biology and Medicine

[Demon of Undoing]

Oh my God, I so want to do voiceover for the monkeys in this clip.

That's pretty funny, btw.

[AzariLoveIran]

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Once considered beyond the reach of science, the neural mechanisms of human consciousness are now being unravelled at a startling pace by neuroscientists



this going the same way as DNA sequencing went .. in a few yrs, how brain consciousness works will be completely charted

once this accomplished

Computer brains can mimic human brain .. complete with phantasy, dream, creativity and and and

getting there


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[Enki]

Was hanging with a kid who turns down MIT and angel investors all the time for his work in Behavioral Economics.

[AzariLoveIran]

.

Was hanging with a kid who turns down MIT and angel investors all the time for his work in Behavioral Economics.

.

why ?

why he turning down people who want to finance his research/work ?

.

[Typhoon]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries.

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission.

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun.

[Parodite]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

[Demon of Undoing]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

I refuse to believe this thing can shut me up. I can babble at a professional level, virtually without interruption. All I need is a steady supply of bourbon and Coke.

I'm seeing a " John Henry vs. the Steam Drill" showdown, here.

[Simple Minded]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

The drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries.

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission.

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that does just that: it records a person's voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun.

Would not a tazer have the same desired effect? Or maybe throwing a shoe at the speaker....

[Simple Minded]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

I refuse to believe this thing can shut me up. I can babble at a professional level, virtually without interruption. All I need is a steady supply of bourbon and Coke.

I'm seeing a " John Henry vs. the Steam Drill" showdown, here.

Demon,
If you wish to claim credit for this idea, I gotta yell Bullshit!!!!

Ted Kennedy perfected this technique decades ago!

[Typhoon]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

I refuse to believe this thing can shut me up. I can babble at a professional level, virtually without interruption. All I need is a steady supply of bourbon and Coke.

I'm seeing a " John Henry vs. the Steam Drill" showdown, here.

Anecdotally, I've tried thus experiment with earphones with a time delay and a microphone. Under such a relatively controlled situation it works.

[Simple Minded]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

I refuse to believe this thing can shut me up. I can babble at a professional level, virtually without interruption. All I need is a steady supply of bourbon and Coke.

I'm seeing a " John Henry vs. the Steam Drill" showdown, here.

Anecdotally, I've tried thus experiment with earphones with a time delay and a microphone. Under such a relatively controlled situation it works.

Your annecdote is my data.....

[Demon of Undoing]

I've hadfunky cell conections that did this to me. Very disruptive, but I managed to pull it off. You have to be in love with the sound of your own voice, see. I mean, I'm no Ted Kennedy, but I do my best.

[YMix]

Psoriasis Patients Are Enriched for Genetic Variants That Protect against HIV-1 Disease

"An important paradigm in evolutionary genetics is that of a delicate balance between genetic variants that favorably boost host control of infection but which may unfavorably increase susceptibility to autoimmune disease. Here, we investigated whether patients with psoriasis, a common immune-mediated disease of the skin, are enriched for genetic variants that limit the ability of HIV-1 virus to replicate after infection. We analyzed the HLA class I and class II alleles of 1,727 Caucasian psoriasis cases and 3,581 controls and found that psoriasis patients are significantly more likely than controls to have gene variants that are protective against HIV-1 disease. This includes several HLA class I alleles associated with HIV-1 control; amino acid residues at HLA-B positions 67, 70, and 97 that mediate HIV-1 peptide binding; and the deletion polymorphism rs67384697 associated with high surface expression of HLA-C. We also found that the compound genotype KIR3DS1 plus HLA-B Bw4-80I, which respectively encode a natural killer cell activating receptor and its putative ligand, significantly increased psoriasis susceptibility. This compound genotype has also been associated with delay of progression to AIDS. Together, our results suggest that genetic variants that contribute to anti-viral immunity may predispose to the development of psoriasis."

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/inf ... en.1002514

[Simple Minded]

I've hadfunky cell conections that did this to me. Very disruptive, but I managed to pull it off. You have to be in love with the sound of your own voice, see. I mean, I'm no Ted Kennedy, but I do my best.

Neither was Dan Quayle..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-7gpgXNWYI

If you put the John Henry vs. the Steam Drill showdown on the internet, I'll buy the alcohol...... I've bought so much alcohol for Teddy over the last 40 years, it only seems fair...

[Antipatros]

Jose M. Carmena, How to Control a Prosthesis With Your Mind

New brain-machine interfaces that exploit the plasticity of the brain may allow people to control prosthetic devices in a natural way

http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bio ... our-mind/0

Imagine a piece of technology that would let you control an apparatus simply by thinking about it. Lots of people, it turns out, have dreamed of just such a system, which for decades has fired the imaginations of scientists, engineers, and science fiction authors. It’s easy to see why: By transforming thought into action, a brain-machine interface could let paralyzed people control devices like wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, or computers. Farther out in the future, in the realm of sci-fi writers, it’s possible to envision truly remarkable things, like brain implants that would allow people to augment their sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities.

That melding of mind and machine suddenly seemed a little less far-fetched in 1999, when John Chapin, Miguel Nicolelis, and their colleagues at the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, and Duke University, in Durham, N.C., reported that rats in their laboratory had controlled a simple robotic device using brain activity alone. Initially, when the animals were thirsty, they had to use their paws to press a lever, thus activating a robotic arm that brought a straw close to their mouths. But after receiving a brain implant that recorded and interpreted activity in their motor cortices, the animals could just think about pressing the lever and the robotic arm would instantly give them a sip of water.

Suddenly, a practical brain-machine interface, or BMI, seemed attainable. The implications were enormous for people who, because of paralysis caused by spinal-cord or brain damage, find it difficult or impossible to move their upper or lower limbs. In the United States alone, more than 5.5 million people suffer from such forms of paralysis, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

The Hahnemann-Duke breakthrough energized the BMI field. Starting in 2000, researchers began unveiling proof-of-concept systems that demonstrated how rats, monkeys, and humans could control computer cursors and robotic prostheses in real time using brain signals. BMI systems have also revealed new ways of studying how the brain learns and adapts, which in turn have helped improve BMI design.

But despite all the advances, we are still a long way from a really dependable, sophisticated, and long-lasting BMI that could radically improve the lives of the physically disabled, let alone one that could let you see the infrared spectrum or download Wikipedia entries directly into your cerebral cortex. Researchers all over the world are still struggling to solve the most basic and critical problems, which include keeping the implants working reliably inside the brain and making them capable of controlling complex robotic prostheses that are useful for daily activities. At the risk of losing its credibility, the field now needs to transform BMI systems from one-of-a-kind prototypes into clinically proven technology, like pacemakers and cochlear implants.

It’s time for a fresh approach to BMI design....

[Demon of Undoing]

USB stick can sequence DNA in seconds

The UK firm Oxford Nanopore built the device, called MinION, and claims it can sequence simple genomes – like those of some viruses and bacteria – in a matter of seconds. More complex genomes would take longer, but MinION could also be useful for obtaining quick results in sequencing DNA from cells in a biopsy to look for cancer, for example, or to determine the genetic identity of bone fragments at an archaeological dig.

The company demonstrated today at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference in Marco Island, Florida, that MinION has sequenced a simple virus called Phi X, which contains 5000 genetic base pairs.
Proof of principle

This is merely a proof of principle – "Phi X was the first DNA genome to be sequenced ever," says Nick Loman, a bioinformatician at the Pallen research group at the University of Birmingham, UK, and author of the blog Pathogens: Genes and Genomes. But it shows for the first time that this technology works, he says. "If you can sequence this genome you should be able to sequence larger genomes."

Oxford Nanopore is also building a larger device, GridION, for lab use. Both GridION and MinION operate using the same technology: DNA is added to a solution containing enzymes that bind to the end of each strand. When a current is applied across the solution these enzymes and DNA are drawn to hundreds of wells in a membrane at the bottom of the solution, each just 10 micrometres in diameter.

Within each well is a modified version of the protein alpha hemolysin (AHL), which has a hollow tube just 10 nanometres wide at its core. As the DNA is drawn to the pore the enzyme attaches itself to the AHL and begins to unzip the DNA, threading one strand of the double helix through the pore. The unique electrical characteristics of each base disrupt the current flowing through each pore, enough to determine which of the four bases is passing through it. Each disruption is read by the device, like a tickertape reader.
Long strands, and simple

This approach has two key advantages over other sequencing techniques: first, the DNA does not need to be amplified - a time-consuming process that replicates the DNA in a sample to make it abundant enough to make a reliable measurement.

Second, the devices can sequence DNA strands as long as 10,000 bases continuously, whereas most other techniques require the DNA to be sheared into smaller fragments of at most a few hundred bases. This means that once they have been read they have to be painstakingly reassembled by software like pieces of a jigsaw. "We just read the entire thing in one go," as with Phi X, says Clive Brown, Oxford Nanopore's chief technology officer.

But Oxford Nanopore will face stiff competition. Jonathan Rothberg, a scientist and entrepreneur who founded rival firm 454 Life Sciences, also announced at the AGBT conference that his start-up company, Ion Torrent, will be launching a desktop sequencing machine. Dubbed the Ion Proton, it identifies bases by using transistors to detect hydrogen ions as they are given off during the polymerisation of DNA.

This device will be capable of sequencing a human genome in 2 hours for around $1000, Rothberg claims. Nanopores are an "elegant" technology, he says, but Ion Torrent already has a foot in the door. "As we saw last summer with the E. coli outbreak in Germany, people are already now using it," he says.

When we get complete genetic malleability, I'm totally going to the Bahamas for six weeks to grow gills and dive the Bermuda Triangle.

[Typhoon]

Nature | Biopsy gives only a snapshot of tumour diversity

A tumour can be a hotbed of diversity, British scientists have discovered. Just as different types of tumours have distinct genetic mutations, so do separate parts of the same tumour.

Findings in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine1 help to explain why cancer is so difficult to study and treat. A clinician's conclusion about prognosis or the best course of treatment can be contradictory depending on which part of the tumour the biopsy is taken from.

“This adds another layer of complexity,” says Charles Swanton from Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, who led the study. “It makes flying to the Moon look like a walk in the park.”

[Typhoon]

Symcat | Online data driven diagnosis

[planctom]

Nature | Biopsy gives only a snapshot of tumour diversity

A tumour can be a hotbed of diversity, British scientists have discovered. Just as different types of tumours have distinct genetic mutations, so do separate parts of the same tumour.

Findings in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine1 help to explain why cancer is so difficult to study and treat. A clinician's conclusion about prognosis or the best course of treatment can be contradictory depending on which part of the tumour the biopsy is taken from.

“This adds another layer of complexity,” says Charles Swanton from Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, who led the study. “It makes flying to the Moon look like a walk in the park.”

True, not only the genetic patern is different in the primary tumor but if a patient has a relapse months or years after the first treatment and you perform a biopsy in the metastatic lesion, usually one finds a different genetic signature.
That´s why we clinicians have been asking recently for our surgeons colleagues to perform serial biopsies during the course of a patient´s treatment, it can help us to taylor the treatment for that specific patient.

[Demon of Undoing]

The future is now.

Recently we saw Pat (she has given us permission to use her name) for moderate knee osteoarthritis. The story of Pat and her friend is very interesting, so she recently wrote us a letter and I wanted to highlight it here. She met with her friend Jo last July for lunch. During that meeting, she learned that both of them had been told they needed a knee replacement. While Pat had done research on the internet and looked for alternatives to knee surgery, Jo stated that after discussing the pros and cons of both, she would stick with what she called the “old tried and true method of surgery”. So Jo went off to get a knee replacement and Pat decided to have us inject her own stem cells into the knee. Pat’s friend hasn’t had a good time of it (letter from Pat about knee replacement surgery vs stem cell injections linked here). First, during the knee replacement surgery her nerve was tragically severed. Because of the extended immobilization in the hospital bed (she couldn’t walk because her toes no longer worked), Jo then developed blood clots in her legs which traveled to her lungs (called pulmonary embolism, a common complication of knee replacement and hip replacement surgeries). One month after the knee replacement surgery, they were still trying to get the medication dosing right to dissolve Jo’s blood clots. As I’ve blogged before, in the Medicare population alone in the year 2008, 27,500 people had serious complications from knee replacement (which includes 5,000 deaths). How did Pat do with her much less invasive stem cell injection procedure? Pat walked into the clinic and was examined. Based on her MRI images, a musculoskeletal ultrasound examination, and physical exam, we planned what type of stem cells to use and where exactly they would go. The patient had a Regenexx-AD and Regenexx-SD procedure (both injections). She walked out of the clinic both times, with a brace on her leg and she was never bed ridden. Let me use her own words:

“My experience with the Centeno-Schultz Clinic has been so positive I almost feel guilty when I visit Jo. It’s embarrassing that I’m walking around her, free of pain, on a knee that’s already fixed, while she’s in a world of trouble. It’s revolutionary in my mind that my knee corrected after only two treatments. I’m so impressed that you could place my own stem cells in precisely the right place using ultra sound, and that you did it all with only minimal pain to me.”

While these two patients aren’t a representative scientific sample, we have published and continue to publish our complication rates, which are dramatically less than knee replacement surgery. What this tale of two friends does illustrate, is what we believe is a better way to approach some patients who have been told they need knee replacement surgery.

This hits home, as I have ACL issues gathering, and a perennially-over-trained friend of mine just ganked his meniscus. I'm looking to get this happening within the next ten years. My friend, well, I'm pushing for him to be the Guinea pig between us.

[Typhoon]

Likewise.

One of my knees is missing most of the ACLs.

[Typhoon]

Med Exp | Regular chocolate eaters are thinner

Katherine Hepburn famously said of her slim physique: "What you see before you is the result of a lifetime of chocolate." New evidence suggests she may have been right.

[Typhoon]

Nature | Biopsy gives only a snapshot of tumour diversity

A tumour can be a hotbed of diversity, British scientists have discovered. Just as different types of tumours have distinct genetic mutations, so do separate parts of the same tumour.

Findings in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine1 help to explain why cancer is so difficult to study and treat. A clinician's conclusion about prognosis or the best course of treatment can be contradictory depending on which part of the tumour the biopsy is taken from.

“This adds another layer of complexity,” says Charles Swanton from Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, who led the study. “It makes flying to the Moon look like a walk in the park.”

True, not only the genetic patern is different in the primary tumor but if a patient has a relapse months or years after the first treatment and you perform a biopsy in the metastatic lesion, usually one finds a different genetic signature.

That´s why we clinicians have been asking recently for our surgeons colleagues to perform serial biopsies during the course of a patient´s treatment, it can help us to taylor the treatment for that specific patient.

Interesting. Thanks for your comments.

[Typhoon]

Science | One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

A single drug can shrink or cure human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice, researchers have found. The treatment, an antibody that blocks a "do not eat" signal normally displayed on tumor cells, coaxes the immune system to destroy the cancer cells.

A decade ago, biologist Irving Weissman of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, discovered that leukemia cells produce higher levels of a protein called CD47 than do healthy cells. CD47, he and other scientists found, is also displayed on healthy blood cells; it's a marker that blocks the immune system from destroying them as they circulate. Cancers take advantage of this flag to trick the immune system into ignoring them. In the past few years, Weissman's lab showed that blocking CD47 with an antibody cured some cases of lymphomas and leukemias in mice by stimulating the immune system to recognize the cancer cells as invaders. Now, he and colleagues have shown that the CD47-blocking antibody may have a far wider impact than just blood cancers.

"What we've shown is that CD47 isn't just important on leukemias and lymphomas," says Weissman. "It's on every single human primary tumor that we tested." Moreover, Weissman's lab found that cancer cells always had higher levels of CD47 than did healthy cells. How much CD47 a tumor made could predict the survival odds of a patient.

[Azrael]

How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

Maybe stutterers can come up with techniques to resist the speech jamming gun.

Maybe if this device is used on someone enough they will develop a stuttering issue.