Scientists claim they can predict disease outbreaks

Ever so often viruses manage to successfully infect human beings and spread throughout the population. In the past, viral outbreaks could lead to high death tolls, the influenza outbreak of 1918 being a famous example with 500 million infections and between 50 and 100 million deaths. Nowadays, viral outbreaks are less pronounced, but we have to remain cautious, as the 'swine flu' and 'bird flu' have taught us. In order to cope with future viral outbreaks, scientists have developed a model that can predict outbreaks before they occur. The method will mainly be used for viral spread in Africa.

A virtual heart to explain cardiovascular anomalies

With the increasing power of computers, recent years have seen the rise of software models to explain biological phenomena. Computer simulations based on known behavioural patterns may help us gain more insight in how things work and make certain predictions; for example to see whether a novel drug would have a beneficial effect. At the University of Manchester, scientists developed a 3D model of the heart and by doing so discovered how certain cases of heart failure may arise.

App gives people the motivation to lose weight

Obesity and its associated health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular complications, are increasing in incidence at an alarming rate. It is typically a welfare disease, resulting from bad lifestyle choices such as unhealthy food, smoking and a lack of exercise. Lots of scientific studies are devoted to 'curing' obesity, but the best treatment is still to improve your lifestyle. It really pays off, a recent study showed: healthy living adds, on average, 14 years to your life. The problem is that people cannot find the required motivation to keep up with a healthy lifestyle, but there are ways to improve that. A recent study shows that an application for smartphones may be of benefit when trying to lose weight.

Smart pill bottle helps patients adhere to drug regime

Patient compliance to medication is an important topic, because it is known that a rather significant percentage is not very strict with the drug regime laid down by their physicians. Naturally, it is possible to forget to take your pill, especially if you take them daily, but some patients downright refuse to adhere to the medication schedule. Luckily the latter group is quite small. In order to tackle the problem of adherence, a company known as AdhereTech developed a pill bottle that automatically checks whether medication is being taken. And it even has the capability to send the data to the doctors through a cellular network.

Smartphone app helps patients sort out pills

There is an app for almost everything nowadays. Smartphones have also steadily been finding their way into the world of healthcare and medical science. A recently released app from the US National Institutes of Health helps patients identify drugs by taking pictures of pills. By comparing the images with a database, this system ought to help patients taking the right type of pill, should they be taking multiple medications.

'Noise' may boost research towards quantum computer

For most people, quantum physics is weird and hard to understand. That is not surprising, because our observations at the sub-atomic level are radically different from what we have come to expect in the 'real' world. A famous example is quantum entanglement; a weird interaction between two particles, that assume each other's opposite form regardless of how far away they are from each other. This sort of behaviour makes instant teleportation of data a possibility, as has recently been shown by transferring data over 100km without a 'physical' connection. When particles on the quantum level interact, that is not only due to entanglement, but also due to something called quantum discord. Often regarded as background noise, but scientists have now found that it may actually be even more useful than applications of entanglement.

Computer grid simulates entire living organism

Simulation of life is something that sounds like science fiction or part of the popular film trilogy The Matrix. However, computers are getting increasingly powerful and have begun to find their way into the laboratories of biologists. Computers are able to calculate a lot more than us human beings, and are therefore often used to study protein or gene interactions. Because molecules inside a cell can come into contact with billions of other molecules, it is impossible for us to turn it into something that can be calculated beforehand, but computers can do some of the job for us. Now, scientists have proven capable of simulating an entire organism by simply using enough computing power.

Fast camera used to analyse cells for cancer

Cancer is a nasty disease and sadly takes the lives of millions of people each year. Even though various forms of cancer are treatable, or even curable, its prognosis deteriorates if the disease remains unnoticed for a long time. Ideally, diagnostic tools would provide us with a level of sensitivity that allows us to detect cancer even if only a few cells have yet gone bad. This is however not a realistic scenario: most equipment will not notice a tumour unless it has attained a certain size. A new screening attempt developed by the University of California in Las Vegas has developed a system that scans cells individually and thereby greatly increased sensitivity compared to conventional scanners. Their system relies on a high-speed camera that takes pictures of cells.

Google creates computer network to simulate the brain

The engineers over at Google have been busy with another interesting project in the elusive X lab. After self-driving cars, they now managed to develop a computer system that can learn without human supervision. By connecting over 16.000 processors, they created a network powerful enough to simulate some features of the human brain. Google developers then managed to create an algorithm that turned the powerful computing grid into a 'self-learning machine'. While that may be the first step in order to develop scary machines that are set to take over the world, it actually helps us to understand our own brains better.

Project attempts to map the entire brain circuitry

Our brain is an incredibly complex computer with billions of wires and billions of 'calculating units', called neurons. Each individual brain cell, or neuron, can be connected to countless of others by special wires, creating complex patterns and communication pathways. This overwhelming circuitry is hard to grasp and understand, which is why neurologists have more or less studied it by assessing the function of whole brain areas instead of looking at it cell by cell: it is just too complex. In an attempt to learn more about the wiring of the brain, neurologists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory are trying to map the whole brain by taking highly detailed pictures of all the cells and wires. This should help us to study the brain.

Robot keeps students' attention by mind-reading

Almost everyone will agree that school is not always interesting, yet education is of the utmost importance. Teachers require their students' attention, but it is impossible to be sure whether someone is actually listening, or whether his or her thoughts are drifting on to other topics. A robot, combined with a brain scanner, might be a solution: scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a system that detects whether a student is paying attention to the lesson, which ought to aid in memorizing what is being taught in class.

Computer system detects fake smiles

Humans have a facial expression that is known as a smile. According to the definition, it is an expression denoting pleasure, joy, happiness, or amusement. However, smiles can also be faked, or they can be an expression of anxiety; a smile then turns into a grimace. It is not always easy to distinguish between the two, especially if the person smiling is trying to hide something. A computer system developed by MIT is able to detect whether a person is smiling genuinely or tries to express his or her frustration. This helps to create computers that can assess the mood of the user, and act accordingly.

Magnetic bacteria can be used to make hard drives

Our electronic devices are getting increasingly organic. Scientists have been trying to make small components out of biological material, or even from whole living organisms. Especially bacteria are helpful when it comes to creating electrical components, such as the individual pixels in a screen panel. Now, it has been shown that special bacteria can be used to create new hard drives, that are supposed to be faster and smaller.

Computer simulation reveals 115 potential cancer drugs

Organisms exist because countless different proteins and other molecules work together in endlessly complex processes that keep our cells packed together in an organized fashion. It is therefore no surprise that scientists have increased the use of computer models to analyse interactions and biological mechanisms. When the Hospital del Mar Research Institute performed a computer study to find proteins involved with cancer mechanisms, they found a library of 115 that could potentially be targeted for new therapies.

Computing grid to find cures for neurological diseases

A large network of computers is being set up in seven European countries to crunch data from patients suffering from neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. By analyzing data from around 6500 MRI scans, scientists hope to find new treatments and faster ways of diagnosis for those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. The project is funded with 2,8 million euros from the EU.

Computer chip analyses effect of food on intestines

Processing the components from our food is quite a stressful event for our intestines. Various enzymes are needed to break down whatever it is we eat, and all the useful pieces need to be absorbed in the gut and find their way into the blood to be redistributed where needed. Tissues can become strained from all the work, and then send out distress signals which enable the immune system. In turn, this causes inflammation. Because processing food is naturally stressful, a little inflammation is normal. However, when food components continuously stress the intestines, inflammation can become chronic, and that is when trouble starts. To uncover which food components are more likely to cause stress in the intestines, French scientists developed a piece of computer hardware. Their chip is supposed to mimic our gut and tell us something about what individual food components do.

Biological computer built with DNA

Making computers using biological components is getting increasingly popular. Scientists found that the structure of DNA can be used to store information, and the wide variety of DNA-modifying enzymes we possess can help us modify input and output the way we want. Now, scientists from research institutes in California and Israel managed to create a computer that can encrypt, and consequently decipher information stored in DNA. Their system may help us build a computer based on biological molecules.

One step closer to creating a mind-reading device

A device to read people's minds sounds like science fiction, but it is actually getting closer to reality. Scientists from the University of Berkely have developed a device that is able to discern words from analysing brain waves. It is the first step to getting a machine to retrieve people's thoughts. Luckily it does not work wireless, yet.

Social networking challenges traditional science

The system of scientific publications has not changed much in the last couple of hundreds years, despite the digital revolution that is pretty much affecting every discipline. Researchers still publish scientific results in established journals, which appear weekly, or monthly. Despite the overwhelming success of the internet, not many scientists have adopted all the digital tools at their disposal. Currently, it can still take months to publish an article in a scientific journal, because of the sluggish peer reviewed system. However, several scientists have taken up initiatives to change this ancient publishing system. A social network aimed at scientists ought to speed up the process, and make science more open.

Bacteria can be used as biological pixels

Pixels are required to create an image on a display, such as the one you are reading this blogpost on. This is achieved by combining thousands of individual dots. Pixels keep getting smaller to provide us with ever-increasing screen resolutions, but scientists from the University of California have taken small pixels to a whole new level. They used bacteria as a source for pixels that, when aligned, are supposed to form a digital display. According to the developers, these displays will predominantly be used as sensors.