A next step for smart watches and fitness trackers? Wearable gadgets gave a Stanford University professor an early warning that he was getting sick before he ever felt any symptoms of Lyme disease. Geneticist Michael Snyder never had Lyme’s characteristic bulls-eye rash. But a smart watch and other sensors charted changes in Snyder’s heart rate […]
Paralyzed Man Feels Touch Through Mind-Controlled Robot Hand
A paralyzed man is regaining a sense of touch while using a mind-controlled robotic hand, feeling subtle pressure in his own fingers when the artificial ones are touched. The experiment reported Thursday is an early step in the quest to create prosthetics that can feel. How it works: Tiny chips implanted in Nathan Copeland’s brain […]
New Kidneys 40 Years Apart Show Transplant Progress, Hurdles
Brenda Hudson recalls weeks spent in a glass-enclosed isolation room after her first kidney transplant, her family allowed to visit only when suited up against germs. That transplant lasted a remarkable four decades — and now Hudson’s recovery from a second one, this time faster and surrounded by germy visitors, showcases how far organ transplants […]
Organ Transplants Have Come a Long Way but Hurdles Remain
Brenda Hudson recalls weeks spent in a glass-enclosed isolation room after her first kidney transplant, her family allowed to visit only when suited up against germs. That transplant lasted a remarkable four decades — and now Hudson’s recovery from a second one, this time faster and surrounded by germy visitors, showcases how far organ transplants […]
National Project to Harness Microbes for Health, Environment
We share our bodies and our surroundings with teeming communities of microbes that are crucial to the health of people and the planet, and now the Obama administration is beginning a major project to better understand those invisible ecosystems — even control them. The National Microbiome Initiative being announced by White House science officials Friday […]
Robot Stitches Tissue By itself, A Step to More Automated OR
Getting stitched up by Dr. Robot may one day be reality: Scientists have created a robotic system that did just that in living animals without a real doctor pulling the strings. Much like engineers are designing self-driving cars, Wednesday’s research is part of a move toward autonomous surgical robots, removing the surgeon’s hands from certain […]