Health

Artificial injectable bone that flows like toothpaste, and hardens in the body, has been invented by British scientists. This new regenerative medicine technology provides a scaffold for the formation of blood vessels and bone tissue, and can also deliver stem cells directly to the site of bone repair

Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic

MIT today announced that a group of scientists has developed nanotechnology that can be placed inside living cells to determine whether chemotherapy drugs are reaching their targets or attacking healthy cells. The sensors, which can detect chemotherapy drugs as well as toxins and free radicals, are carbon nanotubes that scientists have wrapped in DNA so they can be safely injected into living tissue, according to a release from the university

A material that can be squirted into broken bones, where it hardens within minutes, has been developed by UK scientists. The toothpaste-like substance forms a biodegradeable scaffold over which the body’s own bone grows

An implant which works by firing infrared light into the inner ear is being investigated by US researchers

The promise of medical lasers goes beyond clean incisions and eye surgery: Many believe that lasers should be used not just to create wounds but to mend them too. Abraham Katzir, a physicist at Tel Aviv University, has a system that may just do the trick and is proving successful in its first human trials

Internal bleeding can cause irreversible haemorrhagic shock within 30 seconds or progressive shock within eight hours, either way, it’s not good and the military wants a portable, noninvasive way to detect and stop it right on the battlefield. To that end, the Defence Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has contracted with Siemens Healthcare, the University of Washington’s Centre for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound and Texas A&M to develop something called the Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation cuff. The cuff is a semi-automated, ultrasound device designed to cut blood loss and shock resulting from combat limb injuries, one that can be operated by any GI with minimal training

Research chemists at Johns Hopkins University have developed a water-soluble, organic, self-assembling electronic wire suitable for use inside the human body. Derived from carbon materials, the lightweight, flexible wires can power pacemakers, reconnect damaged nerve tissues, while also interacting with real electronic device that could augment or stimulate organic function. But do not worry, for this is only step one of the long process of turning us all into Borg-like drones

The Bernard O’Brien Institute announced a significant advance in tissue engineering when it revealed how scientists had created living heart muscle cells from human fat

A pair of paralysed monkeys regained the ability to move their arms after researchers wired individual neurons to the monkeys’ arm muscles. A team of researchers at the University of Washington temporarily paralysed each monkey’s arm, then rerouted brain signals from a single neuron in the motor cortex around the blocked nerve pathway via a computer. When the neuron fired above a certain rate, the computer translated the signal into a jolt of electricity to the arm muscle, causing it to contract. The monkeys practiced moving their arms by playing a video game — via Slashdot

For many blind or partially sighted people, implants that stimulate healthy nerve cells connected to their retinas could help restore some normal vision. Researchers have been working on such implants since the 1980s but with only limited success. A major hurdle is making an implant that can stay in the eye for years without declining in performance or causing inflammation. Now researchers with the Boston Retinal Implant Project, which was spun out of MIT, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1988, have developed hardware they say overcomes such issues. The implants have been tested in animals, and the group plans to start human trials by 2010

Oregon Health & Science University scientists have successfully produced functional auditory hair cells in the cochlea of the mouse inner ear. The breakthrough suggests that a new therapy may be developed in the future to successfully treat hearing loss

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have recently designed a contact lens prototype with a built-in pressure sensor using a novel process that etches tiny electrical circuits within a soft polymer material. The new development could help glaucoma patients to measure their current risk factor, thus replacing the current methods which require the constant visit of a clinician

Tingrui Pan and Hailin Cong, researchers at UC Davis, have designed a contact lens that keeps tabs on glaucoma all by itself. And they’re working up to one that dispenses medication automatically, too. Their smart lenses are fitted with an organic polymer called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is commonly used in biological applications. Since glaucoma develops as a result of raised pressure inside the eye, the goal of the lenses is to detect that intraocular pressure and mark warning signs

Researchers say they have grown in mice the kind of functioning heart blood vessels that cardiac surgeons create with bypass operations. One ultimate goal is to replace some heart surgery with injections of laboratory-grown cells that would establish themselves in the body, providing a system of blood vessels for damaged hearts that need more oxygen

Scientists claim they have cured advanced skin cancer for the first time using the patient’s own cells cloned outside the body. The 52-year-old man involved was free of melanoma two years after treatment

The key to coaxing cells to regenerate might be to make things a little rough for them. Thomas Webster, a bioengineer at Brown University, has been developing implantable materials with nanoscale textures to mimic the roughness of living tissues. Now, his team has found that cartilage cells can adhere to and grow more densely on a surface covered with carbon nanotubes, particularly when they are also exposed to electrical stimulation. Webster believes that surfaces incorporating carbon nanotubes, which are not only textured but are also electrically conductive, could be a promising strategy for designing cartilage implants