Posts Under Tech News Category
[TECH NEWS] A gene has been linked to at least three cancers in different tissues in the body, US researchers say. Their findings, reported in the journal Science, showed a fifth of melanomas (skin cancer), Ewing’s sarcomas (bone) and glioblastomas (brain) had a defective copy of the gene STAG2. It controls the way genetic material is divided between cells. A… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by abnormal proteins that stick together in little globs, disrupting cognitive function (thinking, learning, and memory). These sticky proteins are mostly made up of beta-amyloid peptide. A better understanding of these proteins, how they form, and how they affect brain function will no doubt improve the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. To this… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] In a cancer treatment breakthrough 20 years in the making, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center and Perelman School of Medicine have shown sustained remissions of up to a year among a small group of advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. The protocol involves removing… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] In a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection. In a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless scientists and engineers. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now taken a major step toward creating artificial intelligence—not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The researchers are the first to have… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Researchers at Columbia Univ. Medical Center have discovered the biological mechanism behind age-related loss of muscle strength and identified a drug that may help reverse this process. Their findings were published in the online edition of Cell Metabolism. As we grow older, our skeletal muscles tend to wither and weaken, a phenomenon known as sarcopenia. Sarcopenia, which begins… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Yale University researchers can’t tell you where you left your car keys — but they can tell you why you can’t find them. A new study published July 27 in the journal Nature shows that the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire less robustly than in youthful ones. Intriguingly,… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] University of Manchester, UK scientists have taken a key step towards producing a high-performance computer which aims to create working models of human brain functions. Chips based on ARM processor technology will be linked together to simulate the highly-complex workings of the brain, whose functionality derives from networks of billions of interacting, highly-connected neurons. The chips upon which… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] A brain implant developed at the University of Michigan uses the body’s skin like a conductor to wirelessly transmit the brain’s neural signals to control a computer, and may eventually be used to reactivate paralyzed limbs. The implant is called the BioBolt, and unlike other neural interface technologies that establish a connection from the brain to an external… Read more »
[TECH NEWS] Imagine dropping dish soap into a sink full of greasy water. What happens? As soon as the soap hits the water, the grease recoils—and retreats to the edges of the sink. Now, what if the sink was a cancer cell, the globs of grease were cancer-promoting proteins and the dish soap was a potential drug? According to new… Read more »
