It’s no fun recovering from a stroke and relearning to do simple things that were once totally natural. That’s being offset by new video games that refine patients motor skills by having them play games that, for once, actually look fun.
A study forthcoming in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine offers new insight on how certain behavioural patterns can be indicative of depression, with particular attention given to the ways we use the internet.
You might think of tapeworms as awful parasites that find their way into your intestine, grow 15m long and cause horrible gastrointestinal issues. But that’s only one step of a larger infectious chain the tapeworm is a part of. The alien life-form doesn’t only cause crippling stomach pain; it could also debilitate mental capacities if they find their way to the brain.
Ask a bunch of the world’s best economists — including four Nobel laureates — how to make the world a better place, and they don’t just blurt out an answer. They take their time, weigh up impact-per-dollar and make careful decisions. And this is what they came up with.
Electronic implants that restore sight to the blind aren’t anything new, but one of their major stumbling blocks has been the need for an external power source. Now, that’s about to change, because a team of researchers has built a digital implant out of infrared-slurping photovoltaic pixels — so it can power itself.
Fancy a big breakfast? Think again: Scientists have shown that the fat content will go straight to your hips in no time at all.
There’s evidence that adding more spiciness in your diet can help curb your appetite. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston are taking that idea to a whole different level — one that requires anaesthesia. They’ve found that surgically manipulating the vagus nerve by applying capsaicin, the active component inside a chilli pepper responsible for its burning sensation, can help with weight loss.