Hasta La Gadget!

We know how tough it is to find time during our busy schedules in order to help construct the perfect body we’ve been dreaming about. Six-pack abs, toned legs and bulging biceps are some of the most sought after rewards anyone could achieve when working out, but if you’re just going to make yourself stronger, you won’t need to now that the TitanArm exoskeleton is around.

A group of students from the University of Pennsylvania designed and engineered the TitanArm prototype which was created to help its wearer lift way more than their jelly arms would be able to on their own. The TitanArm is built from an aluminum frame which is equipped with a battery-powered DC motor, a cable drive system, racket braking and a thumbstick controller for movement. The UPenn students believe their TitanArm can be used as a lifting aid, or can be used to increase a person’s mobility or physical therapy as it’s possible for medical professionals to be able to retrieve data from the TitanArm in order to monitor their patients remotely.

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Sometime earlier in the month, we talked about scientists having met with success when it came to manufacturing a kidney in the confines of a laboratory. Well, some of us are aware that when it comes to organ transplants, finding a match is hard enough, what more, getting enough donors. In fact, over 60,000 folks in the US are on the waiting list for organ transplants, and here we are with a potential solution for those who need a new kidney – growing cells in a lab which contain the characteristics of kidney cells.

In tests, these lab-grown cells were placed on an artificial renal device which sports a tubular component, collection system, and a reservoir, making it not too different from that of a bladder. Whenever the device was implanted in animals, the cells within could form kidney structures, and in the process, produce a urine-like fluid, which more or less makes it a successful mini-kidney of sorts. Following up on that success, researchers have worked on a printer which can print kidney cells into a 3D kidney prototype, now how about that? This 3D organ prototype will be printed layer by layer, and we look forward to future developments in this aspect. [Press Release]

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The condition commonly known as lazy eye has an official medical name, amblyopia. However, most people know what lazy eye is, it’s a medical condition where one eye doesn’t move in the same manner as the other, and it can lead to vision loss. Canadian doctors believe they found a new way to treat lazy eye and it involves playing the video game Tetris.

Researchers at McGill University discovered that Tetris could help train both eyes to work in unison. The researchers conducted a small study involving 18 adults who played the game instead of using traditional treatments. Traditional treatments involve covering the good eye to make the weak eye work harder.

The researchers discovered that playing Tetris was more effective than using that traditional patch treatment. The team now wants to test if playing the video game can also help treat the condition in children. The experiment the researchers used involved a special pair of video goggles making both eyes work as a team.

Nine volunteers that suffered from lazy eye wore the goggles for an hour a day over a two-week period while playing Tetris. The special goggles used allowed one eye to see blocks falling down the screen and the other can only see the blocks that accumulate on the ground. Another group of nine used for comparison in the experiment more similar goggles, but had the good eye covered with a patch and viewed the game using only the lazy eye. At the end of the two-week period, the group use both eyes had better improvement in their vision than the group that used the patch.

[via BBC]

Doctors say Tetris could fix lazy eye is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Stem cell treatment can be said to be a medical wonder worthy of the 21st century, as it does amazing stuff such as bringing sight to the blind. Well, there is a group of researchers over at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who were able to make use of human embryonic stem cells so that this will eventually repair brain damage suffered in mice. This particular study saw researchers implant human stem cells into the brains of mice. In the first place, these mice were genetically altered so that they ended up with brain damage right from the get go, in order to not reject transplant cells from other species.

When the human stem cells were in the brain, they eventually morphed into a couple of common types of neurons which will eventually bring healing to such neurological defects. Once the stem cell transplant was complete, the mice managed to score significantly better compared to cognitive and memory tests. This is definitely a step forward in stem cell therapy, but it still does not hold any key to unlock the issue of conditions like Alzheimer’s, Down syndrome and traumatic brain damage. It might still be the seed for what would eventually be effective drug therapies.

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There is an app for everything, or so they say. The thing is, have we actually run out of the number of apps for different purposes available? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but here we are with the world famous iPad strutting its stuff in a new pilot project that is being implemented by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, where this project will see the loan of more than 1,000 iPads to home-based caregivers which will assist veterans who have suffered severe injuries in the past.

This particular program works this ways – caregivers will be able to receive assistance to help improve the communication as well as health and patient reports, which are currently being performed either over the telephone, or in a manual manner whenever a patient visits a doctor’s office or VA medical center. These iPads have been specially loaded with 9 custom build applications where the caregivers will make use of in order to report and update information that have been incorporated into a larger patient profile. You will find a wealth of information there concerning pain management, prescriptions refills and other health assessments. Anything that helps make life a whole lot easier and more convenient is always a good thing in our books.

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