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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2773

You may not realise it when your alarm clock forces you into a bleary-eyed stupor first thing in the morning, but there’s actually a complex chemical process going on inside your brain as you wake up. And scientists now think they’ve identified the part of the brain that ends periods of light sleep and brings us into a state of wakefulness.

Researchers from Switzerland focussed their attention on a specific neural circuit located between the brain’s hypothalamus and thalamus. By stimulating this circuit with pulses of light in a group of mice, the academics could prompt rapid awakenings from sleep and then cause prolonged wakefulness.

Why should we be excited about knowing more about how we get yanked out of our regular sleep patterns? The researchers say it could ultimately help those who are trapped in a long-term coma or vegetative state, and on the flip side, could also help those with sleep disorders, or at least give doctors a better idea of why they aren’t sleeping correctly.

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As much as some people fear getting dental fillings or root canals, what many of them are really afraid of is the needle that delivers the anesthetic into the mouth tissue. Even though the skin in the “jabbing area” is usually pretreated with a topical anesthetic, it can still hurt. Before long, however, a shot of electricity could make that topical treatment deep-acting enough that the needle isn’t even needed.

In a recent study, scientists from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil combined two commonly-used anesthetic drugs – prilocaine hydrochloride and lidocaine hydrochloride – with a polymer to form a hydrogel. The polymer was included to make it sticky, so that it could be applied to the lining of a pig’s mouth.

Using a process known as iontophoresis, a mild and painless electrical current was then passed through the hydrogel. As a result, there was a 12-fold increase in how well the prilocaine hydrochloride permeated through the tissue. The anesthetic effect was claimed to be not only fast-acting, but also long-lasting.

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I am not surprised by this finding at all. This will change Healthcare drastically.

Until now, medicine has been a prestigious and often extremely lucrative career choice. But in the near future, will we need as many doctors as we have now? Are we going to see significant medical unemployment in the coming decade?

Dr. Saxon Smith, president of the Australian Medical Association NSW branch, said in a report late last year that the most common concerns he hears from doctors-in-training and medical students are “what is the future of medicine?” and “will I have a job?”. The answers, he said, continue to elude him.

As Australian, British and American universities continue to graduate increasing numbers of medical students, the obvious question is where will these new doctors work in the future?

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In less than 4 yrs. 5 million jobs will be lost is the prediction.

A new report predicts a loss of 5 million jobs in the next five years because of technological advances, but don’t blame it all on the robots.

The other culprits: artificial intelligence, 3-D printers and advances in genetics, biotech and more.

The World Economic Forum, which is holding its annual meeting in Davos this week, in its report details the effects of modern technology on the labor market, for better or for worse. It says “the fourth industrial revolution” will be “more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen.”

Continue reading “Report from Davos: 5 million jobs to be lost by 2020 because of tech advances” | >

Interesting; your own Digital DNA.

Neura, an Israeli Internet of Things startup that pulls together data from users’ connected devices, has raised $11 million to expand its “business reach and make the service ubiquitous.” The Series A round was led by AXA Strategic Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from Liberty Israel Venture Fund and Lenovo Group.

Founded in 2013, Neura launched in the U.S. out of UpWest Labs, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator specifically for Israeli startups. The following year, Neura announced a $2 million funding round.

Neura’s core raison d’être is to serve up back-end analysis to the Internet of Things industry, and its technology can gather data on individuals from a range of connected devices, including phones, tablets, apps, and more. Neura’s artificial intelligence recognizes and analyzes human behavior and develops what it calls a “digital identity” for each person, insight that can be used to personalize applications, services, and devices.

Continue reading “Neura raises million to create digital identities from consumers’ connected lives” | >

Canada’s federal government believes that ‘regenerative medicine is the future,’ and they’re ready to put money behind this statement.

Stem cells are remarkable. They have the ability to grow into a plethora of different kinds of cells. As the National Institute of Health notes, they are capable of “dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive.” And it is precisely this ability to grow and develop into different cell types that makes stem cells so useful in the fight again a host of diseases and ailments.

Now, Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has just announced that the federal government is set to put in $20 million towards the development of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. The move is set to support the establishment of a stem-cell therapy development facility in Toronto.

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