Monitors

Of the 50 million people worldwide estimated to have epilepsy, almost a third do not respond to treatment. Those patients must rely on implantable anti-seizure devices that detect pre-seizure electrical activity and shoot small electrical impulses to the brain to interrupt the seizures.

The downside is that the tech, still early in development, also produces false positives, causing devices to send currents to the brain when a seizure is not actually occurring. One new approach, developed by a biomedical and electrical engineer at Johns Hopkins University, appears to reduce those false alarms.

Tested on real-time recordings of brain activity in … Read more

Routine mammography screening, widely considered crucial in early breast cancer detection, may in fact be doing its job too well.

It turns out that as many as a quarter of the early cancers detected by mammography would not progress. That suggests early detection results in a great deal of unnecessary treatment and stress, according to a Harvard School of Public Health analysis of a nationwide screening program in Norway.

"Radiologists have been trained to find even the smallest of tumors in a bid to detect as many cancers as possible to be able to cure breast cancer," lead … Read more

Smallish laptops are great for travel, but when you're sitting at your desk all day, you'll almost certainly find yourself longing for a larger screen.

Indeed, I can handle my HP dm1z's 11.6-inch display for an hour or two in a coach seat or coffee shop, but for everyday home-office duties, it's way too cramped.

That's why I keep a nice, big monitor on my desk. Sound good? Then check this out: TigerDirect has the Acer G245HQ 24-inch LCD monitor for $129.99, plus $9.87 for shipping.

As you'd expect from an … Read more

During the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, which spread across more than 200 countries and killed more than 18,000 people, it became clear that flu diagnosis was often taking too long and resulting in frequent false negatives.

Today, researchers from Boston University, Harvard, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are reporting in the journal PLoS ONE that they have built a microfluidic chip that rivals in accuracy the gold-standard diagnostic test known as RT-PCR but is faster, cheaper, and disposable.

For their four-year study, which involved 146 patients with flu-like symptoms and was funded by the National Institutes … Read more

Researchers at the University of Michigan say they have developed a simple litmus-like test for nerve gas that could clue military personnel into when they might actually need to use those heavy masks and protective gear. (Nerve gases, the most toxic of chemical warfare agents, and are colorless, odorless, and tasteless.)

"To detect these agents now, we rely on huge, expensive machines that are hard to carry and hard to operate," Jinsang Kim, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. "We wanted to develop an equipment-free, motion-free, … Read more

Acer unveiled five new monitors today aimed at those of you attracted to stylish, thin, LED-backlit displays. You know, pretty much everyone.

The announced monitors consist of the S200HL (20-inch); the S235HL, S230HL Abd, and S230HL Abii (all 23-inchers); and finally the 27-inch S271HL. Each of the larger models features resolutions of 1,920x1,080 pixels, while the S200HL has a native resolution of 1,600x900 pixels.

All models sport a 5ms response time, and while Acer doesn't explicitly say so, they all likely house twisted nematic (TN) panels, so don't expect wide viewing angles or incredibly accurate … Read more

Many of us have never been properly trained on how to do or use certain things we really should be good at. Putting on condoms and installing infant car seats are just two skills that come to mind; when we get them wrong, the health consequences can be grave.

The same can be said for improper asthma inhaler use--a serious and expensive problem considering some 5,000 people visit the emergency room due to and 11 people die from asthma every day, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Let's face it: some devices could use training wheels.

Enter the T-Haler, a digital asthma inhaler training device developed by researchers at Cambridge Consultants. Patients can use the inhaler and, via interactive software linked to the wireless device, get real-time visual feedback on the areas that need improving.… Read more

Affordable paper sensors aren't exactly new. Think home pregnancy tests. But researchers out of the University of Texas at Austin are pushing (or is it folding?) the envelope with their origami-inspired 3D paper sensor that, thanks to strategic folding, can identify more substances in more complex tests.

Able to be printed at less than a dime a sensor using an ordinary office printer and less than a minute of folding, the origami Paper Analytical Device (which they've dubbed oPAD) "is about medicine for everybody," said Richard Crooks, a chemistry professor who built the sensor with doctoral student Hong Liu, in a school news release.

Liu was first inspired to use origami when he read a paper by Harvard chemist George Whitesides, who is the first to build a 3D microfluidic paper sensor to target biological agents.… Read more

When a 32-year-old man crashed his all-terrain vehicle without wearing a helmet, he slipped into a coma for three weeks. Though his initial CT scans revealed bleeding and swelling, and an MRI scan a week into the coma revealed bruising and swelling in the same area, neurosurgeons had no way of knowing precisely how the man would be affected if he did come out of his coma.

Three weeks later, the man awoke without the ability to move his left leg, arm, or hand. Only then were doctors able to begin planning rehabilitation.

Fortunately for the patient, a novel imaging … Read more