VirtualBody

The biggest question for would-be cyborgs is: How are you going to power all those brain implants? And now it looks like some MIT engineers may have stumbled upon the answer. They have developed a fuel cell that can run on your brain's own glucose - a breakthrough that could result in powerful neural prosthetics that could restore and control a number of bodily functions.

 A new set of computer models has successfully predicted negative side effects in hundreds of current drugs, based on the similarity between their chemical structures and those molecules known to cause side effects, according to a paper appearing online this week in the journal Nature.

MRI scans from a study being presented June 10 at SLEEP 2012 in Boston reveal how sleep deprivation impairs the higher-order regions in the human brain where food choices are made, possibly helping explain the link between sleep loss and obesity that previous research has uncovered.

Habitually sleeping less than six hours a night significantly increases the risk of stroke symptoms among middle-age to older adults who are of normal weight and at low risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a study of 5,666 people followed for up to three years.

Within the walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are multipotent and are not only able to differentiate into smooth muscle cells, but also into fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that the stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries. Credit: Song Li illustration

"The cause of hypertension in insomniacs is due to the number of times the individual wakes during the night as well as their sleep latency - the length of time it takes to accomplish the transition from full wakefulness to sleep," says Christopher Drake, associate scientist at the Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders and Research Center and lead author of this study.

The sight of unhealthy food during a period of sleep restriction activated reward centers in the brain that were less active when participants had adequate sleep, according to a new study using brain scans to better understand the link between sleep restriction and obesity.

Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, both 32, were looking for a way of turning everyday objects into touchpads. They have developed a kit called MakeyMakey, that can turn fruit, animals and even humans into keyboards. Mr Rosenbaum told the BBC the idea behind the kit was to enable people to "see the world around them as a construction kit."

Our bodies need about two litres of fluids per day, not two litres of water specifically. In an Editorial in the June issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Spero Tsindos from La Trobe University, examined why we consume so much water.

London surgeons are currently trialling Kinect's motion control capabilities at St Thomas' hospital in London. The devices are being used during keyhole surgery to allow surgeons to manipulate images with voice and gestures.

The oxygen and food we consume are converted into energy by tiny organelles present in each cell, the mitochondria. These 'power plants' must be continuously supplied with fuel, to maintain all vital functions. A team led by Jean-Claude Martinou, professor at the University of Geneva, has identified this fuel's carrier, baptized Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier. The study, published online by Science, henceforth allows the researchers to investigate how the activity of the carrier is modulated.

Metabolic interactions between multiple cell types are difficult to model using existing approaches. Here we present a workflow that integrates gene expression data, proteomics data and literature-based manual curation to model human metabolism within and between different types of cells. Transport reactions are used to account for the transfer of metabolites between models of different cell types via the interstitial fluid. We apply the method to create models of brain energy metabolism that recapitulate metabolic interactions between astrocytes and various neuron types relevant to Alzheimer's disease. Analysis of the models identifies genes and pathways that may explain observed experimental phenomena, including the differential effects of the disease on cell types and regions of the brain. Constraint-based modeling can thus contribute to the study and analysis of multicellular metabolic processes in the human tissue microenvironment and provide detailed mechanistic insight into high-throughput data analysis.

"Our current study demonstrates that the timing of information coming into a memory circuit - specifically, CA1 hippocampus - is critical for optimal encoding of new information," he continues. "When similar patterns of information are separated by at least an hour - a typical classroom session - there is a dramatically enhanced encoding of this info. The key challenge to realizing this discovery was actually linking electrical properties of the circuit, which is done by physiological recordings, to physical, morphological and anatomical properties of the circuit, which is done by high-resolution imaging of synapses before and after stimulation."

Sleep, or lack of it, can determine level of cognitive performance which is linked with accidents as well as increased risk of serious health problems. Links between cell energy levels, gene transcription and sleep rhythms may uncover answers to sleep disorders and the ill-effects of sleep deprivation.

Recent work in mice suggested that the immune system is involved in removing beta-amyloid, the main Alzheimer's-causing substance in the brain. Researchers have now shown for the first time that this may apply in humans

An overgrowth of bacteria in the gut has been definitively linked to Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the results of a new Cedars-Sinai study which used cultures from the small intestine. This is the first study to use this "gold standard" method of connecting bacteria to the cause of the disease that affects an estimated 30 million people in the United States.

Body area network (BAN), wireless body area network (WBAN) or body sensor network (BSN) are terms used to describe the application of wearable computing devices

Dutch researchers recently demonstrated a new type of wireless body area network, or BAN for short. A BAN essentially gives the human body its own IP address, and the new techniques demonstrated at IMEC based in Eindhoven incorporate a dongle that plugs into the SD card slot of a cellphone, enabling the streaming of data from the sensors to the cellphone in real time.

The last time your doctor asked how much you exercise, did you tell the truth? Do you even really know the truth-not just how many visits to the gym you've made this month, but how many hours you sit or how many calories you burn in a day? What if your doctor had already received the information from a tiny device built into your cell phone, wallet, or undershirt? Sonny Vu believes a device like this could fundamentally change health care. "You can't just lie to your doctor-it's all there, recorded," he says. "You cut right to the chase rather than having to tease out all that information."

Inside the mouth of every child is a terrifying double row of teeth. Not that you'd ever know it - muscle, skin and bone prevent most of us from ever catching a glimpse of this extra dentition. Here's your chance to get a close-up look at what lies beyond the gum line.