Pulses News and Research

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Innovative optical system to study the complex mechanisms that lead to sudden cardiac arrest developed

A research team at Vanderbilt University has developed an innovative optical system to simultaneously image electrical activity and metabolic properties in the same region of a heart, to study the complex mechanisms that lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

31 Oct 2009

Iowa State acquires new state-of-the-art "T-ray" tool

A new, $500,000 instrument recently went about its work emitting and reading high-speed pulses of silent and invisible terahertz rays.

27 Oct 2009

Researchers succeed in engineering human tissue patches from stem cells

University of Washington (UW) researchers have succeeded in engineering human tissue patches free of some problems that have stymied stem-cell repair for damaged hearts.

8 Oct 2009

Latest optical and laser technology in medicine displayed at FiO meeting

From scopes that help premature babies breathe to techniques for imaging live neurons and beating hearts as they develop, the latest optical and laser technology being deployed in medicine and the biosciences will be on display at the Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO), which takes place Oct. 11-15 at the Fairmont San Jose Hotel and the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose, Calif.

1 Oct 2009

Golden nanotubes detect tumor cells, map sentinel lymph nodes

Biomedical researchers at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock have developed a special contrast-imaging agent made of gold-coated carbon nanotubes that is capable of molecular mapping of lymphatic endothelial cells and detecting cancer metastasis in sentinel lymph nodes.

23 Sep 2009

Laser technology lowers manufacturing cost of artificial joints and arterial stents

Researchers are developing technologies that use lasers to create arterial stents and longer-lasting medical implants that could be manufactured 10 times faster and also less expensively than is now possible.

16 Sep 2009

St. Jude Medical's Brio neurostimulator receives CE Mark approval

St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ) today announced CE (Conformité Européenne) Mark approval of the Brio™ neurostimulator, the world’s smallest, longest-lasting rechargeable deep brain stimulation (DBS) device for treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. A 67-year-old man who has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for more than 26 years became the first person to be implanted with the Brio neurostimulator.

9 Sep 2009

Light can be manipulated for creative and lucrative ends

The speed of light, 300 million metres per second, was long thought an immutable constant and has defined our understanding of matter and energy but recent research in the area of optics and photonics is proving that we can manipulate light to some ingenious and hugely lucrative ends.

9 Sep 2009

Steroid hormones found to affect gene activity

Intermittent signaling by steroid hormones can affect the way genes are expressed in rodents, according to research by scientists at the University of Bristol and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA. This work has major implications for understanding how steroids work and opens novel avenues for new therapies.

19 Aug 2009

Acute stress improves working memory

Day after day of chronic stress will wear a person down physically and mentally. But new research suggests that the acute stress produced by a brief run-in with a stressful scenario acts on a key brain region controlling emotion and cognition, temporarily improving learning and memory.

28 Jul 2009

Scientists combine two nanoparticles into one tiny package

Nanoparticles are being developed to perform a wide range of medical uses - imaging tumors, carrying drugs, delivering pulses of heat. Rather than settling for just one of these, researchers at the University of Washington have combined two nanoparticles in one tiny package.

28 Jul 2009

Discovery of new mechanism controlling neuronal migration

The molecular machinery that helps brain cells migrate to their correct place in the developing brain has been identified by scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

15 Jul 2009

Magnetic brain stimulation improves skill learning

The use of magnetic pulses to stimulate the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) region of the brain results in an improved ability to learn a skilled motor task. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience show that skilled movements can be stored as memories in the PMd and that magnetic stimulation of this area can facilitate this learning process.

6 Jul 2009

Vibrator use during sex is common, linked to sexual health

Two Indiana University studies conducted among nationally representative samples of adult American men and women show that vibrator use during sexual interactions is common, with use being reported by approximately 53 percent of women and 45 percent of men ages 18 to 60. Not only is vibrator use common, but the two studies also show that vibrator use is associated with more positive sexual function and being more proactive in caring for one's sexual health.

30 Jun 2009

Longer life linked to specific foods in Mediterranean diet

Some food groups in the Mediterranean diet are more important than others in promoting health and longer life according to new research published on bmj.com.

24 Jun 2009

New treatments for infertility could be in the pipeline

Scientists at the University of Otago have found in their research into the brain circuits which control human fertility, that instead of the usual synapses, fertility is controlled by a thousand or so special neurons, which are linked by long, branch-like dendrites and they believe their discovery could lead to the development of new treatments for infertility.

23 Jun 2009