VirtualBody

The growing acceptance of Neuro plasticity lets us see the brain as a resource we can continually develop. This talk describes a programme designed to help us address limitations of our own brain and even take our skills to exceptional levels Barbara Arrowsmith-Young tells the inspiring story of how she overcame her severe learning difficulties with specific brain exercises she developed herself. We also hear the moving accounts of two Australians who've taken a leaf out of her book.  They've found the hard work has paid off.

Crowd funding for medical research. What a great new trend.

" Researchers found that eliminating a single enzyme from mice with aggressive symptoms of Alzheimer's drastically reduced the production of a protein closely linked to the disorder's progression."

"A new 3-D view of the body's response to infection - and the ability to identify proteins involved in the response - could point to novel biomarkers and therapeutic agents for infectious diseases. "

"These findings suggest that exercise stimulates SPARC secretion from muscle tissues and that SPARC inhibits colon tumorigenesis by increasing apoptosis"

$32 million to develop a technology system designed to mimic the functions of specific organ systems representing a broad spectrum of human tissues, including the circulatory, musculoskeletal and nervous systems.""

Fascinating insight into the complexity of the gymnastic vault at the olympics

"Ongoing e-learning initiatives focusing on healthcare education" Curated by Nabil Zary

A new project has created the first complete computational model of an actual organism. And this breakthrough represents a significant step forward in the field of artificial life - and the promise of developing entirely new organisms.

The brainiest creatures share a secret - an odd kind of brain cell involved in emotions and empathy that may have accidentally made us conscious

Even more amazing example of medical advancements and the use of 3d technology to express them. 

Amazing video showing how medical technology has advanced to repair sporting injuires. Fascinating use of 3d and immersive technology to bring it to life

We now know that the oft-repeated "your brain only runs on glucose!" is wrong. I've mentioned it before, and anyone who's taken the time to get fat-adapted on a low-carb Primal eating plan intuitively knows that your brain doesn't need piles of glucose to work, because, well, they're using their brain to read this sentence

Writing in Source Code for Biology and Medicine, a trio of bioinformaticians presents a satire on working in the field that outlines how not to succeed. "By scrupulously following these guidelines one can be sure to regress at a highly satisfactory rate," the authors write. While written in sarcasm, these humorous how-tos - "make sure the output of your application is unreadable, unparseable, and does not comply to any known standards," for example - speak to the challenges of successfully navigating a career in the burgeoning field.

In an intensive, seven-month experiment during which 21 overweight men and women had their diets strictly controlled down to each last morsel, researchers showed that a traditional low-fat diet seemed to make the metabolism more sluggish than a high-protein one during the most difficult part of weight loss: keeping fat off once it's shed.

The Special Issue on Mind Uploading (Vol. 4, issue 1, June 2012) of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, just released, "constitutes a significant milestone in the history of mind uploading research: the first-ever collection of scientific and philosophical papers on the theme of mind uploading," as Ben Goertzel and Matthew Ikle' note in the Introduction to this issue.

In elite sports, being the most talented is no longer enough; top athletes also have to ensure they are the better prepared.They understand that their only sustainable advantage is to learn and improve faster than their opponents. The technology used by performance analysts allows them to measure every force, dissect every movement and time every action with absolute precision. That feedback allows athletes to find areas for improvement and aids the learning of new skills.

This is an updated version of an article that I published in 2009. Alas in the 3 years or so that have passed since I wrote it, little seems to have changed beyond the fact that the crisis in the pharmaceutical industry has deepened to the point that even the biggest companies in the sector are starting to question whether their current business model is sustainable.

Three films exploring the very thing that makes us human. Each episode features an extraordinary character who can do extraordinary things with their brain. Marc Yu is only 7 years old, but he already has a repertoire of over 15 classical piano pieces - some of them over 20 minutes long. Chess grand master Susan Polgar tells the story of how her father turned her and her sisters into chess prodigies. Autistic Savant George Widener stuns us with his superhuman calculating and memory skills. And prepare to be moved by Tommy McHugh - the Liverpool hardman who turned into an obsessive artist after surviving a stroke. We find out how they do it. Episodes included: Make Me A Genius, Accidental Genius, and Born Genius.