221 articles from MONDAY 15.2.2021

New skin patch brings us closer to wearable, all-in-one health monitor

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft, stretchy skin patch that can be worn on the neck to continuously track blood pressure and heart rate while measuring the wearer's levels of glucose as well as lactate, alcohol or caffeine. It is the first wearable device that monitors cardiovascular signals and multiple biochemical levels in the human body at the same time.

New surgery may enable better control of prosthetic limbs

MIT researchers in collaboration with surgeons at Harvard Medical School have devised a new type of amputation surgery that can help amputees better control their residual muscles and receive sensory feedback. This restored sense of proprioception should translate to better control of prosthetic limbs, as well as reduction of limb pain, the researchers say.

New tool predicts the success of extubating patients on intensive mechanical ventilation

A mathematical model predicts the success of extubating patients on intensive mechanical ventilation. The results of the study by a research team from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona-Spain) and the Institute of Health Research Pere Virgili show a potential reduction of the current rate of reintubation from 9% to 1% by using machine learning tools. Data from a thousand intensive-care...

Peeking at the pathfinding strategies of the hippocampus in the brain

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that the research team led by Sebastien Royer uncovered that place cells in the hippocampus encode spatial information using interchangeably two distinct information processing mechanisms referred to as a rate code and a phase code, somewhat analogue to the number and spatial arrangement of bars in bar codes. In addition, the research...

Regular caffeine consumption affects brain structure

Coffee, cola or an energy drink: caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive substance. Researchers from the University of Basel have now shown in a study that regular caffeine intake can change the gray matter of the brain. However, the effect appears to be temporary.

Researchers develop algorithm to find possible misdiagnosis

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have developed an algorithm that can identify patients who may have been wrongly diagnosed. With the help of digital disease history, the algorithm is able to register disease trajectories that differ so much from normal trajectories that there may be a misdiagnosis. The algorithm has been developed on the basis of data from several hundreds of...

Scientists developed a novel method of automatic soil mapping

A team of soil scientists developed a new approach to the automatic generation and updating of soil maps. Having applied machine learning technologies to a set of rules traditionally used by experts in manual mapping, the team obtained a highly accurate model that provides easy-to-interpret results.

Strange creatures accidentally discovered beneath Antarctica's ice shelves

Prior research has suggested that the watery depths below the Antarctic ice shelves are too cold and nutrient poor to sustain much life. But a new study from British Antarctic Survey published in Frontiers in Marine Science reveals the discovery of a colony of sponges and other animals attached to a boulder on the sea floor - challenging researchers' understanding about the existence of life in...