Category Health/Medical

Pocket-sized Retina Camera, no Dilating Required

It’s the part of the eye exam everyone hates: the pupil-dilating eye drops. The drops work by opening the pupil and preventing the iris from constricting in response to light and are often used for routine examination and photography of the back of the eye. The drops sting, can take up to 30 minutes to work, and cause blurry vision for several hours afterwards. Now, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School researchers have developed a cheap, portable camera that can photograph the retina without the need for pupil-dilating eye drops. Made out of simple parts mostly available online, the camera’s total cost is about $185.

“As residents seeing patients in the hospital, there are...

Deep brain stimulation to the medial forebrain bundle for depression- long-term outcomes and a novel data analysis strategy. Brain Stimulation, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.brs.2017.01.581

Treatment with deep brain stimulation can provide lasting relief to patients suffering from previously non-treatable, severe forms of depression several years into the therapy or even eliminate symptoms entirely. This is the finding of the first long-term study on this form of therapy, conducted by scientists at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg. 7 of 8 patients receiving continuous stimulation in the study showed lasting improvements in their symptoms up to the last observation point 4 years into treatment. The therapy remained equally effective over the entire period...

This tiny US flag — just a few nanometers wide and invisible to the naked eye — is arguably the world’s smallest image of Old Glory, according to its creators at the University of Texas at Dallas. In an experiment, the nanoflag pattern emerged unexpectedly as sheets of the “stripe” material — molybdenum ditelluride — were heated to about 450 degrees Celsius, at which point its atoms began to rearrange and form new structures — the ‘stars’ in this false-color image. Each star consists of six central atoms of molybdenum surrounded by six atoms of tellurium. Stacked on top of one another, the stars form nanowires that might power advanced electronics. The transformation from stripes to stars is reported in the journal Advanced Materials. Credit: University of Texas at Dalla

For several years,...

Assistant Professor Tan Swee Ching (left), Mr Sai Kishore Ravi (right) and their team from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Engineering has developed a novel nanofibre solution that creates thin, see-through air filters (held by Mr Sai) that can remove up to 90 per cent of PM2.5 particles and achieve 2.5 times better air flow than conventional air filters. Credit: Image courtesy of National University of Singapore

A team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has successfully concocted a novel nanofibre solution that creates thin, see-through air filters that can remove up to 90% of PM2.5 particles and achieve high air flow of 2.5 times better than conventional air filters...