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Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human

February 2, 2022 by Editor Leave a Comment

By Catherine Graham, Johns Hopkins University

In four experiments on pig tissues, the robot excelled at suturing two ends of intestine – one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in abdominal surgery

A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human – a significant step toward fully automated surgery on humans.

Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, or STAR, is described today in Science Robotics.

Senior author Axel Krieger, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, says: “Our findings show that we can automate one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in surgery: the reconnection of two ends of an intestine. [Read more…] about Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human

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Filed Under: Health, News Tagged With: designed, ends, engineering, high, hopkins, human, humans, intestine, johns, kang, krieger, laparoscopic, patient, performed, precision, procedure, robot, soft, star, surgery, surgical, system, tasks, team, tissue

How the brain’s blue spot helps us focus our attention

January 9, 2022 by Editor Leave a Comment

The neurotransmitter noradrenaline regulates our brain’s sensitivity to relevant information

How can we shift from a state of inattentiveness to one of highest attention? The locus coeruleus, literally the “blue spot,” is a tiny cluster of cells at the base of the brain. As the main source of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, it helps us control our attentional focus.

Synthesizing evidence from animal and human studies, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University of Southern California have now developed a novel framework describing the way the blue spot regulates our brain’s sensitivity to relevant information in situations requiring attention.

Their findings have been published in an opinion article in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. [Read more…] about How the brain’s blue spot helps us focus our attention

Filed Under: Brain, Features Tagged With: activity, alpha, article, attention, blue, brain, coeruleus, focus, helps, human, inattentiveness, neural, neurons, neurotransmitter, noradrenaline, oscillations, planck, pupil, regulates, rhythmic, sensitivity, size, spot, thalamus

Sense of smell is our most rapid warning system

January 3, 2022 by Farhana Leave a Comment

The ability to detect and react to the smell of a potential threat is a precondition of our and other mammals’ survival. Using a novel technique, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been able to study what happens in the brain when the central nervous system judges a smell to represent danger.

The study, which is published in PNAS, indicates that negative smells associated with unpleasantness or unease are processed earlier than positive smells and trigger a physical avoidance response.

“The human avoidance response to unpleasant smells associated with danger has long been seen as a conscious cognitive process, but our study shows for the first time that it’s unconscious and extremely rapid,” says the study’s first author Behzad Iravani, researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

The olfactory organ takes up about five per cent of the human brain and enables us to distinguish between many million different smells. A large proportion of these smells are associated with a threat to our health and survival, such as that of chemicals and rotten food. Odour signals reach the brain within 100 to 150 milliseconds after being inhaled through the nose. [Read more…] about Sense of smell is our most rapid warning system

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  • What makes us human? The answer may be found in overlooked DNA
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  • Our brains perceive our environment differently when we’re lying down
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    Our brains perceive our environment differently when we’re lying downYou’re agitated by the sound of a mosquito buzzing around your head. The buzzing stops. You feel the tiny pinprick and locate the target. Whack! It’s over. It’s a simple sequence, but it demands complex processing. How did you know where the mosquito was before you could even see it?…
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  • Human molecule blocking toxic forms of Parkinson's-related protein identified
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    Human molecule blocking toxic forms of Parkinson's-related protein identifiedThe death of neurons specialised in the synthesis of dopamine, one of the brain's main neurotransmissors, deteriorates the motor and cognitive capacities of those with Parkinson's disease. The loss of these neurons is related to alpha-synuclein aggregation. Recent studies show that oligomers, the initial aggregates of this protein, are the…
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  • 'Feel good' brain messenger can be willfully controlled, new study reveals
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Filed Under: Brain, News Tagged With: avoidance, brain, bulb, human, institutet, karolinska, olfactory, sense, signals, smells

How birds, mammals and children learn sounds

September 7, 2021 by Editor

Alex the grey parrot, who famously asked “what color?” when looking in the mirror, had astonishing abilities to mimic human speech.

Interest in the ability of animals to learn sounds dates back thousands of years. Research on this ability, known as vocal learning, can shed light on the evolution of communication and human speech and language.

According to MPI’s Sonja Vernes, “comparative work investigating this trait across different types of animals is particularly important”. [Read more…] about How birds, mammals and children learn sounds

Filed Under: Nature, News Tagged With: animals, bats, birds, calls, dolphins, hear, human, humans, issue, learn, learning, sonja, sounds, special, speech, vernes, vocal

Learning from a ‘living fossil’

September 6, 2021 by Editor

As we live and breathe, ancient-looking fish known as bowfin are guarding genetic secrets that that can help unravel humanity’s evolutionary history and better understand its health.

Michigan State researchers Ingo Braasch and Andrew Thompson are now decoding some of those secrets. Leading a project that included more than two dozen researchers spanning three continents, the Spartans have assembled the most complete picture of the bowfin genome to date.

“For the first time, we have what’s called a chromosome-level genome assembly for the bowfin,” said Braasch, an assistant professor of integrative biology in the College of Natural Science. “If you think of the genome like a book, what we had in the past was like having all the pages ripped out in pieces. Now, we’ve put them back in the book.” [Read more…] about Learning from a ‘living fossil’

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Filed Under: Biology, News Tagged With: bowfin, braasch, development, fish, genetic, human, zebrafish

Like humans, apes communicate to start and end social interactions

August 13, 2021 by Editor

When we’re talking to another person, we probably wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye; that would just be impolite. Apes seem to do something similar, researchers report in a study publishing August 11 in the journal iScience, in which they documented apes purposefully using signals to start and then end interactions – a behavior not seen outside of the human species until now.

They also found that the social and power dynamics between the interacting apes affected the communication efforts used, which the researchers say mirrors patterns similar to human politeness.

“We were able to launch rockets and land on the moon because we have the ability to share our intentions, which allows us to achieve things so much bigger than a single individual can achieve alone. This ability has been suggested to be at the heart of human nature,” says Raphaela Heesen, a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University in the United Kingdom. [Read more…] about Like humans, apes communicate to start and end social interactions

Filed Under: Biology, Features Tagged With: apes, behavior, bonobos, chimpanzees, commitment, communicate, entry, exit, good, great, heesen, human, humans, interactions, joint, obligation, playing, power, previous, process, signals, social, start, team

Tick tock in the brain: Chinese scientists provide molecular insights into primate hippocampal aging

August 9, 2021 by Editor

Deep inside our brain is a region called the hippocampus. It plays a crucial role in learning and memory, and its progressive deterioration with age is functionally linked to a variety of human neurodegenerative diseases. But what drives it down the path of aging?

The hippocampus is a complex structure with a highly heterogeneous cell composition, so it is difficult to accurately reveal the molecular regulatory networks of various cell types contributing to the aging process with traditional techniques.

In addition, due to the ethical restrictions, it is difficult to obtain disease-free human brain tissues of both young and old ages. All these factors limited our understanding of the aging mechanism in the human hippocampus, let alone the development of therapeutic interventions. [Read more…] about Tick tock in the brain: Chinese scientists provide molecular insights into primate hippocampal aging

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Filed Under: Health, News Tagged With: aged, aging, brain, cell, cells, diseases, function, hippocampal, human, including, landscape, microglia, molecular, primate, therapeutic, transcriptomic, types

Novel techniques extract more accurate data from images degraded by environmental factors

August 9, 2021 by Editor

Computer vision technology is increasingly used in areas such as automatic surveillance systems, self-driving cars, facial recognition, healthcare and social distancing tools.

Users require accurate and reliable visual information to fully harness the benefits of video analytics applications but the quality of the video data is often affected by environmental factors such as rain, night-time conditions or crowds (where there are multiple images of people overlapping with each other in a scene).

Using computer vision and deep learning, a team of researchers led by Yale-NUS College Associate Professor of Science (Computer Science) Robby Tan, who is also from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Engineering, has developed novel approaches that resolve the problem of low-level vision in videos caused by rain and night-time conditions, as well as improve the accuracy of 3D human pose estimation in videos. [Read more…] about Novel techniques extract more accurate data from images degraded by environmental factors

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Filed Under: Computing Tagged With: computer, estimation, human, images, night-time, pose, rain, streaks, video, videos, vision

New algorithm flies drones faster than human racing pilots

July 29, 2021 by Editor

To be useful, drones need to be quick. Because of their limited battery life they must complete whatever task they have – searching for survivors on a disaster site, inspecting a building, delivering cargo – in the shortest possible time.

And they may have to do it by going through a series of waypoints like windows, rooms, or specific locations to inspect, adopting the best trajectory and the right acceleration or deceleration at each segment. [Read more…] about New algorithm flies drones faster than human racing pilots

Filed Under: News, Technology Tagged With: algorithm, best, cameras, circuit, drone, external, faster, human, moment, pilots, quadrotor, robotics, trajectory, waypoints

First US-based artificial heart implant for French firm

July 27, 2021 by Editor

French company Carmat has unveiled the first human artificial heart implant in the United States recently as part of a clinical study.

According to the company’s website, a complete artificial heart called Aeson is already available in Europe.

This “first US-based clinical trial will be crucial for development in the world’s largest market – medical equipment“, Stephen Pierre, director of Carmat, said in a statement. [Read more…] about First US-based artificial heart implant for French firm

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Filed Under: Health, News Tagged With: artificial, carmat, carolina, clinical, heart, human

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    Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing

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