Health Archives - TekDefender

The link between weed and schizophrenia is way more complicated than we thought

By admin | June 25, 2014 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Arielle Duhaime-Ross Study finds genetic overlap between cannabis use and schizophrenia The association between marijuana and schizophrenia is historically fraught. In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists thought that smoking weed could trigger psychosis in just about anyone. Today, these findings are more nuanced, but researchers still think that cannabis can trigger schizophrenia in people who are predisposed to the disease — meaning those with family histories of the disorder. Yet, in the last decade,…

Life-saving vest shocks wearers’ hearts to keep them alive

By admin | June 4, 2014 by admin

As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON Apparently, 20 percent of patients who need to wear defibrillators don’t actually keep them on at all times — even if they mean the difference between life and death. So, a group of biomedical engineering students from the John Hopkins University designed a new type of wearable defibrillator, which is unobtrusive and comfortable unlike traditional harness designs. The undergrads’ version takes on the form of a stretchable, waterproof vest fitted with sensors. Also, instead…

Health HealthCare

This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood

By admin | February 26, 2014 by admin

As reported on Wired. BY CAITLIN ROPER Mathew Scott; Hair and makeup by Raina Antle Phlebotomy. Even the word sounds archaic—and that’s nothing compared to the slow, expensive, and inefficient reality of drawing blood and having it tested. As a college sophomore, Elizabeth Holmes envisioned a way to reinvent old-fashioned phlebotomy and, in the process, usher in an era of comprehensive superfast diagnosis and preventive medicine. That was a decade ago. Holmes, now 30, dropped out of…

Hardware Dev Health Security

The i’m Tracer bracelet means never having to ask ‘where’s the kid?’

By admin | February 25, 2014 by admin

As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO The kooky folks behind the (frankly awful) i’m Watch are a mainstay at Mobile World Congress. This year they’ve got something a little more useful to show off: it’s called the i’m Tracer, and it’s the evolution of another GPS tracker the company has highlighted before. The Tracer is a wearable mashup of a GPS module and a GSM radio the Italian company hopes will help you keep tabs on your kids when it…

Business Culture Health HealthCare

FDA approves swallowable ‘PillCam’ after almost a decade (video)

By admin | February 5, 2014 by admin

As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA It’s been about nine years since we last heard from from Given Imaging, but the FDA has finally granted a version of the firm’s minuscule snapshooter its blessing. Not everyone has an easy time undergoing traditional colonoscopy procedures (due to drug allergies, for example), which is where the outfit’s PillCam Colon comes in. The camera takes a series of high-speed photos along its eight-hour tour through your digestive system, and transmits the snapshots to a device you mount…

Health

The bitter truth about making a natural sugar substitute

By admin | January 2, 2014 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Adi Robertson Sugar in soft drinks and other processed foods may be bad for us, but cheating our taste buds has proved difficult — and the substitutes we do have (like the coal derivative found in Sweet’n Low) can sound even worse. A more “natural” solution is sweetener derived from plants like stevia, which has made its way into the recently launched Coca-Cola Life and other beverages. But as Daniel…

Health

Madagascar battles the Black Death

By admin | December 20, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Amar Toor Plague leaves dozens dead after one of the worst outbreaks in years The village of Mandritsara, where 20 people recently died from bubonic plague. (Flickr / Peter Stephens) To most, the plague is a thing of the past — a relic from the Middle Ages, when the disease known as the Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population. Yet despite being wiped out across much of the…

Health HealthCare

Med students develop knife that can detect cancerous tissues within seconds

By admin | July 18, 2013 by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Mariella Moon Here’s one for the medical journals: researchers at London’s Imperial College have created a high-tech scalpel that can differentiate between cancerous and non-cancerous tissue as it cuts. The team calls it the iKnife (intelligent knife), and by analyzing vapors created during electrosurgical dissection in real time, it takes only seconds to distinguish healthy flesh from affected tissue. The device’s inventor, Zoltan Takats, says it has the potential to speed up cancer surgery…

Culture Health

I think, therefore I heal: the weird science of neurofeedback

By admin | April 19, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Katie Drummond It’s been dismissed as bunk science for decades. But does neurofeedback deserve a second look? Imagine if treating a mental illness was as simple as playing a video game — except your mind is the controller. That idea isn’t only real, it’s a therapy gaining traction in the medical community and among patients, who swear by its healing effects. Called neurofeedback, the procedure purports to treat a variety…

Culture Health History Imagery

‘Could you poison your child?’: images from a century of medical propaganda

By admin | April 15, 2013April 15, 2013 by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Amar Toor Health, history, and design collide at the National Library of Medicine The US National Library of Medicine is much more than a library about medicine. Founded in 1836, the Maryland-based NLM is home to the world’s largest collection of biomedical resources, including old books, videos, and scientific studies. It also houses a fascinating online collection of public service announcements and health-related propaganda — a century-spanning trove of posters, advertisements, and pamphlets from…

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