Nov 11 (Reuters) — Companies in North America added a record number of robots in the first nine months of this year as they rushed to speed up assembly lines and struggled to add human workers.
Factories and other industrial users ordered 29,000 robots, 37% more than during the same period last year, valued at $1.48 billion, according to data compiled by the industry group the Association for Advancing Automation. That surpassed the previous peak set in the same time period in 2017, before the global pandemic upended economies.
The rush to add robots is part of a larger upswing in investment as companies seek to keep up with strong demand, which in some cases has contributed to shortages of key goods. At the same time, many firms have struggled to lure back workers displaced by the pandemic and view robots as an alternative to adding human muscle on their assembly lines.
Forget all the nanotechnology devoted to fighting cancer, and just consider that nanoparticles have invaded makeup, anti-odor socks, sunscreen, plastic beer bottles and home pregnancy tests. Now scientists have developed a way to assess the health and environmental impact of such nanoparticles: a tiny microresonator that can detect and measure individual particles smaller than a single virus.
The microresonator is a lab-on-a-chip that harnesses the “whispering gallery” concept that’s displayed by buildings such as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The cathedral’s domed gallery can carry whispers easily across to the other side, but normal-volume voices end up garbled after bouncing around the dome multiple times.
Similarly, microresonators can bounce laser light many times around a circular “waveguide,” such as a glass ring. A laser frequency must perfectly fit the circumference of a ring to achieve this whispering-gallery mode.
Researchers in Japan say they have started a clinical trial of ovarian cancer treatment involving immune cells created from induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.
The team of researchers from the National Cancer Center Hospital East and Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application made the announcement in an online news conference on Thursday.
The iPS cells used in the treatment are capable of developing into any kind of cell. A gene that reacts strongly to a protein unique to a certain type of ovarian cancer is inserted into iPS cells to create natural killer cells. These NK cells will then be injected into the ovaries of patients with this type of ovarian cancer.
Elon Musk’s revolutionary company Neuralink plans to insert Computer Chips into peoples brains but what if there’s a safer and even more performant way of merging humans and machines in the future? Enter DARPAs plan to help the emergence of non-invasive brain computer interfaces which led to the organization Battelle to create a kind of Neural Dust to interface with our brains that might be the first step to having Nanobots inside of the human body in the future.
How will Neuralink deal with that potential rival with this cutting edge technology? Its possibilities in Fulldive Virtual Reality Games, Medical Applications, merging humans with artificial intelligence and its potential to scale all around the world are enormous.
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Innovation At The Intersection Of Cancer & Aging, Via Digital Health & Behavioral Sciences — Dr. Corinne Leach, Ph.D. American Cancer Society
Dr. Corinne Leach, PhD, MPH, MS, is a gerontologist, digital health strategist, and behavioral scientist, who serves as the Senior Principal Scientist, Behavioral Research, at the American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org/).
Dr. Leach, leads survivorship research on behalf of the Population Sciences group, serving as the Principal Investigator of the American Cancer Society (ACS) survivorship cohorts, and as the ACS-lead for the ACS-National Cancer Institute online self-management platform, Springboard Beyond Cancer, a novel eHealth tool that empowers cancer survivors to better manage their cancer-related symptoms, live healthier, and improve their communication skills about cancer (as well as other health conditions), during and after treatment.
Dr. Leach’s cancer survivorship research focuses in the areas of aging, cancer-related symptom assessment, and chronic disease self-management, and her research aims to improve the understanding of: behavioral factors that contribute to healthy aging and the best way to promote them, the unique experiences of older cancer survivors, such as physical late effects and psychosocial issues, and ways to improve survivors’ self-management of cancer-related issues.
Dr. Leach also studies accelerated aging after a cancer diagnosis, including the accumulation of multiple chronic conditions after a cancer diagnosis, and she evaluates the benefits of health behavior interventions, such as chronic disease self-management.
Dr. Leach is also a Gerontological Society of America Fellow, member of the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG), Scientific Advisory Committee member for Pack Health and Dr. Susan Love Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, Adjunct Professor at Emory, Rollins School of Public Health, Susan B Anthony Aetna Award Winner for Excellence in Research on Older Women, American Public Health Association (APHA), and has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Leach has an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a. PhD in Gerontology from University of Kentucky, and an MS in Experimental Psychology from Villanova University.
Compass Pathways, a U.K. based clinical stage company that is developing a patented form of psilocybin to be used in conjunction with therapy, reported promising results from its much-anticipated phase two b clinical trial this week. The study found that patients who took a single psychedelic dose of psilocybin, 25 milligrams, in conjunction with therapy reported almost immediate and significant reduction in depressive symptoms that lasted weeks compared with patients who were given a 1 milligram dose, which is so low it’s essentially a placebo.
Twenty-nine patients, or 36.7%, who took the 25 mg dose showed a 50% or more reduction in symptoms in three weeks after the single dose and again at three months, compared with the patients who took the placebo. Nineteen patients, or 24.1%, who took the highest dose were still in remission three months later, compared with 17.7% after three weeks and 10.1% after three months in the 1 mg group.
George Goldsmith, who cofounded Compass Pathways with his wife and medical doctor Ekaterina Malievskaia and Lars Christian Wilde, says that when they saw the positive results, they realized they were “groundbreaking.”
US scientists have developed a new form of drug that promotes the regeneration of cells and reversed paralysis in mice with spinal injuries, allowing them to walk again within four weeks of treatment.
The research was published in the journal Science on Thursday, and the team of Northwestern University scientists behind it hope to approach the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as early as next year to propose human trials.
“The aim of our research was to develop a translatable therapy that could be brought to the clinic to prevent individuals from becoming paralyzed after major trauma or disease,” Northwestern’s Samuel Stupp, who led the study, told AFP.
The degradation and regeneration of myelin sheaths characterize neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Cholesterol is an indispensable component of myelin sheaths. The cholesterol for the regenerated myelin sheaths must therefore either be recycled from damaged myelin or produced again locally.
In a recent study, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, led by Gesine Saher, found that in the case of chronic damage, unlike in acute damage, hardly any cholesterol is recycled. Instead, the new production of cholesterol determines the efficiency of the repair. Unexpectedly, not only the myelin-forming cells themselves but also nerve cells make an important contribution to regeneration.
Cholesterol synthesis in nerve cells ensures the replenishment of newly myelin-forming cells. This could impact the therapeutic success for myelin disorders such as multiple sclerosis.
