Category: Health

New flexible, transparent, wearable biopatch, improves cellular observation, drug delivery

Tom Patriot

Purdue University researchers have developed a new flexible and translucent base for silicon nanoneedle patches to deliver exact doses of biomolecules directly into cells and expand observational opportunities. “This means that eight or nine silicon nanoneedles can be injected into a single cell without significantly damaging a cell. So we can use these nanoneedles to deliver biomolecules into cells or even tissues with minimal invasiveness,” said Chi Hwan Lee, an assistant professor in Purdue University’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and School of Mechanical Engineering. A surgeon performs surgery on…

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7 Benefits of MCT Oil

Tom Patriot

Healthy fats are all the rage, and among these, MCT oil falls in a special category. A concentration of fats found in coconut oil, it promises to deliver quick energy and a host of other benefits—from easier weight management to better memory and heart health. “MCT” is an abbreviation for the oil’s chemical structure, medium-chain triglycerides, also called medium-chain fatty acids. Fats are made of chains of molecules bound together and, depending upon the number of carbon atoms in a chain, are classified as short, medium, or long chain. MCT oils…

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Child’s elevated mental ill-health risk if mother treated for infection during pregnancy

Tom Patriot

Risks for autism and depression are higher if one’s mother was in hospital with an infection during pregnancy. This is shown by a major Swedish observational study of nearly 1.8 million children. “The results indicate that safeguarding against and preventing infection during pregnancy as far as possible by, for instance, following flu vaccination recommendations, may be called for,” says Verena Sengpiel, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and last author of the study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Maternal infection with certain infectious agents,…

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New device could help minimize scarring in cosmetic surgery

Tom Patriot

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a new device that could help minimize scarring during surgery. The device can ascertain the orientation of skin tension lines, which is important for wound-healing post-surgery. Human skin is a complex tissue that exhibits properties that arise primarily from the alignment of collagen fibers in the dermis layer of the skin, ultimately causing skin tension lines. These lines are vital for surgery, as they are used to guide incisions that produce the least conspicuous scars. While there are many…

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Genetic factors influence human brain expansion

Tom Patriot

An analysis published in JNeurosci of brain scans from more than 600 children and adolescents reveals genetically-mediated associations between the size of evolutionarily novel brain regions and intelligence test scores. Genetic influences on the brain follow the patterns of evolutionary expansion of the human brain relative to nonhuman primates. Cerebral surface area has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution. Brain regions that have undergone evolutionary expansion tend to follow a similar pattern during individual development. Despite these trends, brain structure can vary greatly between similar people. The relative contribution of…

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