Health Tech

With lung cancer being the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., effective early screening is key to saving lives. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic say they've developed new software that can help classify lung nodules noninvasively, saving lives and health care costs.

A pilot study of the program called Computer-aided Nodule Assessment and Risk Yield, or Canary, appears in the April issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Canary leans on data from high-resolution CT images of a common type of cancerous nodule in the lung called pulmonary adenocarcinomas. It matches every pixel of the lung image to one of nine unique radiological exemplars. In the pilot study, it was able to classify the lesions as aggressive or indolent with high sensitivity, as compared to microscopic analyses of the lesions after being surgically removed and analyzed by lung pathologists.… Read more

If you're missing a hand, getting a replacement isn't exactly cheap. The BeBionic -- which is, admittedly, a higher-end model -- can cost up to $35,000. We imagine that's a little out of the price range of many amputees.

It's unsurprising, then, that some have taken it upon themselves to find a more accessible solution. Robohand, for example, has been creating 3D-printed robotic hands for children, with a free, open-source 3D-printing pattern available on Thingiverse for people who wish to make their own.

Christopher Chappell of the U.K. wants to do something similar. He'… Read more

Researchers who shined a laser light in a certain region of the brain -- stimulating the area associated with decision-making and impulse control -- were able to zap what they call "cocaine seeking" behaviors in addicts.

And while their work was on rats, their hope is that a similar technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS, currently used to improve symptoms of depression) will work on humans as well.… Read more

It's nice to think each of us is entirely unique, a one-of-a-kind aggregate of life experiences colliding with genes that set us apart from everyone else. And while this is true to an extent, it's also true that certain telltale blueprints exist for us, all the way down to the way we move our faces if we are, say, depressed.

So researchers at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies are developing a Kinect-driven avatar they call SimSensei to track and analyze in real time a person's facial movements, body posture, linguistic patterns, acoustics, and behaviors such as fidgeting which, taken together, signal psychological distress.… Read more

Touting the economic as well as scientific benefits of investing in basic research, President Obama today unveiled a new initiative to study the human brain that he called "the next great American project."

"Ideas are what power our economy," Obama said at an event in the East Room of the White House. "We've been a nation of dreamers and risk takers. We do innovation better than anybody else, and that makes our economy stronger."

In his proposed 2014 budget, Obama will call for investing $100 million to launch the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative … Read more

A video game that uses audio cues and computer-generated building layouts has proven to be better at improving a blind person's spatial awareness of that place than does actually walking them through it, according to new research out of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

The findings could have implications for how visually impaired people -- and possibly those without impairments -- best learn to navigate unknown territory.

"It is a tool to build a map of a place you have never been to before," Lotfi Merabet, the neuroscientist whose team developed the software used in the study (which appears in the Journal of Visualized Experiments), told Reuters. "The video game not only allows you to build a map in your mind, it allows you to interact with it mentally in a way that you wouldn't be able to if you were taught explicitly by walking through it."… Read more

Researchers have been exploring breath tests for all sorts of uses -- from sniffing out everything from lung cancer to heart disease to diabetes. But testing for obesity? Could that really be possible?

According to a new study in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, the bacterial overgrowth that can be caught by a standard breath test may also reveal one's body fat percentage.

Apparently when one's microbiome (the complex infrastructure of good and bad bacteria that live in and on us) gets out of balance, with the bad bacteria outperforming the good, … Read more

We're not quite sure what a next-generation condom would look like (gesture control? a tiny touch screen?), but we may find out sooner rather than later if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation succeeds in its new quest.

The foundation is seeking new ideas that improve on condom design, which it describes as having seen "very little technological improvement in the last 50 years." The winning proposal gets a cool $100,000, and could potentially earn more in additional funding.

The foundation suggests that if a redesigned condom could enhance a sexual experience and not detract from it, more men would use one, therefore reducing disease transmission, unwanted pregnancies, and so on. The request also seeks ideas "that increase ease-of-use for male and female condoms, for example better packaging or designs that are easier to properly apply. In addition, attributes that address and overcome cultural barriers are also desired." … Read more

Here's the scenario: a mom has a baby recovering from an ear infection. He's doing fine, but the doctor wants to do a follow-up visit to make sure he took the antibiotics well and is on the mend. The problem is that it's a hassle for the mother to load the baby and her toddler into the car to drive an hour each way for a quick 15-minute visit. Here's a solution: telemedicine, or a video chat on a computer or tablet with a physician from the comfort of the family's home.

Such chats are … Read more