Biotech

When the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia, noticed that its firefighters were showing signs of heat stress even when their ear thermometer probes were reading normal temperatures, they decided it was time to find a better gauge in the hopes of preventing heat-related illnesses.

So they tested a smart pill on 50 firefighters evacuating 20 people from a burning medical center, and have already used the readings to change firefighter work patterns, including how long they're exposed to blazes, according to the Australian Associated Press.… Read more

Hospital-acquired infections have become a major killer in the United States, mainly because the drug-resistant "superbugs" that cause them have proven nearly impossible to stop.

But now IBM and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology say they have come up with what they're calling an antimicrobial hydrogel that can successfully fight the superbugs that are behind killers like MRSA.

In an announcement today, IBM Research and its partner on the project said that their antimicrobial hydrogel was designed to cut through diseased biofilms and almost instantly kill off drug-resistant bacteria. The collaborators on the project said that … Read more

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease thought to play a role in the deaths (which are sometimes suicides) of athletes, soldiers, and others who have suffered concussions and repeated hits to the head, is currently only able to be diagnosed postmortem.

"After a while it gets old and not so fulfilling to take the brain out when [an athlete] is dead," Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and director of the Brain Injury Research Institute, told CNN. "At that point there is no solution, no answer."

So a study co-authored by Bailes suggesting that PET scans … Read more

As if pulling a storyline from the movie "Jurassic Park," a Harvard University professor says it would be possible to clone the long-extinct Neanderthal. One little hitch is that he'd need a woman willing to carry the offspring.

Contrary to a flurry of headlines following his interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, however, Harvard molecular geneticist George Church is not currently taking applications from would-be surrogate moms.

"The real story here is how these stories have percolated and changed in different ways," Church, a well-respected genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, told the Boston Herald following a slew of recent impossible-to-ignore headlines such as "I can create Neanderthal baby, I just need willing woman," and, from the Daily Mail, "Wanted: 'Adventurous woman' to give birth to Neanderthal man - Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby." … Read more

Some 10 million people around the world seek treatment for head trauma every year, and traumatic brain injury (TBI) is predicted to become the world's third leading cause of death and disability by 2020.

The Infrascanner Model 2000, a portable intracranial hematoma detector, just may put a dent in the death rate if it helps to quickly spot potential brain bleeds in TBI victims.

The handheld device, recently approved for both military and civilian use by the FDA, uses near-infrared (NIR) tech on eight different points of the brain. Because there is a higher concentration of hemoglobin in a … Read more

For the past several years, IBM's research arm has been making predictions about emerging technologies that will change our lives over the next five years. Dubbed "5 in 5," the annual year-end list has already accurately predicted the rise of now-familiar cultural touchstones like Siri, as well as our reliance on smartphones for everything, and real-time speech translation.

This year, IBM has taken a more in-your-face approach to predicting the future of innovation, by specifically focusing on, well, the face and the five senses that make their home there (and yes, hands and everywhere else in the case of touch).… Read more

A Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto is using the same transfer paper currently affixing temporary tattoos to kids -- in conjunction with a common screen-printing technique -- to develop a medical sensor that keeps tabs on a person's exertion by monitoring the skin's pH levels.

Similar devices, which are called ion-selective electrodes (ISEs), are already common among athletic trainers and medical researchers to help spot fatigue, dehydration, or even metabolic diseases. But they tend to be bulky and don't stick well to sweaty skin.

The new sensor stays put and doesn't look so, … Read more

About to fly halfway around the world? You could pop some melatonin in hopes of easing your inevitable jet lag. Or you could don a pair of odd-looking goggles and pretend you're modeling the Ikea line of Geordi La Forge eyewear.

Re-Timer, a lightweight wearable device invented to reset the body's internal clock, launched last week. It emits a soft green light onto the eyes to stimulate the part of the brain responsible for regulating the body's 24-hour clock.

Light received by photoreceptors in our peepers sends a signal to our brains telling us to wake up and smell the alertness. But circumstances including jet lag, irregular work shifts, and lack of sunlight during winter months can mess with the light we need to maintain a well-timed body clock and natural energy levels.

Enter the Re-Timer, which is meant as an alternative to sleep-assisting drug therapy. … Read more

When it comes to detecting a wide range of extremely faint scents, including the primary vapor that emanates from TNT-based explosives, dogs are the gold standard. But researchers out of the University of California at Santa Barbara, report in the journal Analytical Chemistry that they just may have man's best friend beat -- in the form of a fingerprint-sized silicon microchip.

"Like a person, a dog can have a good day or a bad day, get tired or distracted," Carl Meinhart, a mechanical engineering professor who led the research, said in a school news release. "We … Read more