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Adjustable Smart Desks join the Internet of Things (Augmenting Organics)
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Public Health researchers have already shown that stand-capable workstations—those in which the worker could raise or lower the desk to stand or sit as they wished throughout the day—boost productivity in office workers, help students’ cognitive functioning and improve kids’ BMI.
posted: 03/03/2017
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More screen time for kids isn’t all that bad (Augmenting Organics)
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Chances are that your children will turn out OK even though they spend hours playing video games or watching TV. This is according to Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University in the US, who led a study in Springer’s journal Psychiatric Quarterly which found that there is only a negligibly small association between excessive screen time and higher levels of depression and delinquency among teenagers. Ferguson therefore believes the strict attention to limited screen time by policy makers and advocacy groups is uncalled for.
posted: 08/02/2017
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Australia plans automated biometric border control (Augmenting Organics)
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The Australian government is planning to allow 90% of travellers to pass through passport control without human help by 2020. It has begun the search for technology companies that could provide biometric systems, such as facial, iris and fingerprint recognition.
posted: 24/01/2017
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Lending a hand: Student 3D prints functional, affordable prosthetic (Augmenting Organics)
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With a 3D printer and about $15, senior physics major Ryan Bouricius was able to create a functional prosthetic hand that can be used to grip, write and even catch a ball. With the assistance of a non-profit group, the hand will one day be matched to a person in need of such a prosthesis.
posted: 12/01/2017
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Tiny electronic device can monitor heart, recognize speech (Augmenting Organics)
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Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and Northwestern University have developed a tiny, soft and wearable acoustic sensor that measures vibrations in the human body, allowing them to monitor human heart health and recognize spoken words.
posted: 16/11/2016
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Researchers Build Non-Invasive Brain-Machine Interface to Control Prosthetic Hand (Augmenting Organics)
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A research team from the University of Houston has created an algorithm that allowed a man to grasp a bottle and other objects with a prosthetic hand, powered only by his brainwaves. The technique, demonstrated with a 56-year-old man whose right hand had been amputated, uses non-invasive brain monitoring, capturing brain activity to determine what parts of the brain are involved in grasping an object. With that information, researchers created a computer program, or brain-machine interface (BMI), that harnessed the subject’s intentions and allowed him to successfully grasp objects, including a water bottle and a credit card. The subject grasped the selected objects 80 percent of the time using a high-tech bionic hand fitted to the amputee’s stump. Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, a neuroscientist and engineer at UH, said the non-invasive method offers several advantages: It avoids the risks of surgically implanting electrodes by measuring brain activity via scalp electroencephalogram, or EEG. And myoelectric systems aren’t an option for all people, because they require that neural activity from muscles relevant to hand grasping remain intact. The results of the study were published March 30 in Frontiers in Neuroscience, in the Neuroprosthetics section.
posted: 02/04/2015
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Researchers at Shanghai University create tri-layered artificial blood vessels for the first time (Augmenting Organics)
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By combining micro-imprinting and electro-spinning techniques, researchers at Shanghai University’s Rapid Manufacturing Engineering Center have developed a vascular graft composed of three layers for the first time. This tri-layered composite has allowed researchers to utilize separate materials that respectively possess mechanical strength and promote new cell growth - a significant problem for existing vascular grafts that have only consisted of a single or double layer.
posted: 05/02/2015
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Researchers explore the power of mental visualization in maintaining real-life muscle (Augmenting Organics)
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Anyone who has worn a cast knows that rebuilding muscle strength once the cast is removed can be difficult. Now researchers at the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute (OMNI) at Ohio University have found that the mind is critical in maintaining muscle strength following a prolonged period of immobilization and that mental imagery may be key in reducing the associated muscle loss.
posted: 05/01/2015
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Piezoelectricity in a 2D semiconductor (Augmenting Organics)
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Berkeley Lab scientists have discovered a way to use piezoelectricity — the conversion of mechanical force to electricity and vice versa — with a single layer of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) semiconductor molecules, which could lead to nanotechnology devices, such as a scanning atomic force microscope (AFM), for extremely small force generation/sensing and other uses.
posted: 05/01/2015
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Batteryless cardiac pacemaker is based on automatic wristwatch (Augmenting Organics)
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A new batteryless cardiac pacemaker based on an automatic wristwatch and powered by heart motion was presented at ESC Congress 2014 today by Adrian Zurbuchen from Switzerland. The prototype device does not require battery replacement.
posted: 01/09/2014
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