heart

Be still my beating heart. Or, rather, be very, very fast, so that it can be used by science.

This is the battle cry out of the University of Toronto, where researchers are unveiling a biowire that could lead to the production of mature cardiac patches that are derived from real human cardiomyocytes (heart cells). Reporting this week in the scientific journal Nature Methods, cardiac researchers say the tech could lead to the development of mature cardiac patches in a range of sizes.

Let's back up, because when it comes to matters of the heart, things get complicated fast.… Read more

With high-quality digital cameras on every smartphone and apps that make your pictures even better, just about anyone can be an accomplished photographer. Sure, you may not be an accomplished photographer in any serious sense, but you can certainly upload your images to photo-sharing sites to get them out to the public and receive feedback to make your shots even better.

As most people know, there are a number of popular services already out there that let you take your shot, add effects and other enhancements, then upload it for all to see. But the other thing that's great … Read more

Dano's iHeart Locket takes the wearable technology trend and makes it cute. The smart necklace works with the iPad to lock down digital diary entries and keep secret crushes and innermost thoughts safe from prying eyes.

The gold heart necklace, designed with preteens and teens in mind, works with the iHeart Locket Diary App for iOS. The diary app holds text, pictures, speech-to-text audio, and written notes, making it more of a digital scrapbook than a simple journal.… Read more

Heart Booth HD - Free is an odd photo editing app that lets you edit your photos to create a shape, such as a heart, check mark, or X. Confused? Well, so were we after putting this app to the test. Vague directions and features left us scratching our heads.

Heart Booth HD - Free opens with a grid containing a heart. Buttons line the left and right sides of the screen, and a row of menu options line the bottom, as well. A banner ad sits at the top. Just looking at the buttons, we had no idea where … Read more

My boyfriend is a little different than most. His name is Taira-kun. He's big and strong, though his arms are tiny. He's actually a Tyrannosaurus rex, but I don't seem to hold that against him. I'm all caught up in Jurassic Heart, an online dating simulator that pairs you up with an extinct beast for a love interest.

The sim gives you difficult choices to make, like which hair clip to wear before meeting your big lug. Naturally, the meat-on-the-bone hair clip is the one to go with. Cute and yummy.

According to the sim, Taira and I have a lot in common. We both like meat. We both play the ukulele (at least I do in real life), though it doesn't get into the specifics of how the necktie-wearing dino manages to play the tiny instrument. The sim takes you through meeting up with your carniverous heartthrob, buying a ukulele, eating grilled chicken in the park, and taking a romantic evening walk.… Read more

If researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have their way, their new heart disease study won't suffer from a small sample size. Using online and mobile phone tools, they hope to get 1 million people from around the world to participate.

Launched this week, their Health eHeart Study (yes, very cute) enables participants to use their smartphones to frequently monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse rate, and submit the resulting data via a secure online portal. The researchers, in turn, will use fancy algorithms to crunch that massive volume of data.

The goal? To use the super sample size to better understand -- and thus predict and prevent -- heart disease.… Read more

Our body tissue, not to mention diseases, each have their own unique "fingerprint," which can in turn be examined to diagnose various health issues at very early stages.

Now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland say that after a decade of work they've developed a new MRI (magnetic resonance imagining) technique that can scan for those diseases very quickly. In just 12 seconds, for instance, it may be possible to differentiate white from gray matter in cerebrospinal fluid in the brain; in a matter of minutes, a full-body scan would provide far more data, making diagnostics considerably easier and less expensive than today's scans.… Read more

Internet radio and music services offer a lot of customization options that allow us to focus on just the music. However, if you feel a bit out of touch with what's happening in the world around you, iHeartRadio's new Add-ins might be able to help. The new Add-ins insert local news, traffic, and weather updates to your custom stations every hour.

To enable Add-ins, log in to your iHeartRadio account on the Web and go to the Add-ins section in Settings. iHeartRadio will use your current location to provide local updates, or you can manually set a location … Read more

Slacker Radio (free) This is a great option for listening to streaming radio, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you want quickly. To use Slacker you must sign up for an account or log in with your Facebook credentials.

You can search for artists using a field at the top; check out the Music Guide curated by Slacker; or search by genres, stations you've previously listened to, specialty stations, or news, talk, and sports stations. Each selection on the first screen leads to another list where you can swipe to browse selections to find … Read more