Video Game Improves Doctors' Recognition and Triage of Severe Trauma Patients
Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care, according to a new trial led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The results, published by The BMJ, held even though doctors assigned to the game enjoyed it less than those assigned to traditional, text-based education.
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Researchers 3-D Print Lifelike Artificial Organ Models
A team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota has 3D printed lifelike artificial organ models that mimic the exact anatomical structure, mechanical properties, and look and feel of real organs. These patient-specific organ models, which include integrated soft sensors, can be used for practice surgeries to improve surgical outcomes in thousands of patients worldwide.
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New Software can Verify Someone's Identity by their DNA in Minutes
In the science-fiction movie Gattaca, visitors only clear security if a blood test and readout of their genetic profile matches the sample on file. Now, cheap DNA sequencers and custom software could make real-time DNA-authentication a reality. Researchers at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center have developed a method to quickly and accurately identify people and cell lines from their DNA.
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Virtual Reality for Bacteria
Scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have managed to control the behavior of individual bacteria by connecting them to a computer. The interdisciplinary team including experimental biologist Remy Chait and mathematician Jakob Ruess (now at the Institut Pasteur and Inria Saclay in France) as first authors of the study, as well as Professors Calin Guet and Gasper Tkacik used the setup to build a genetic circuit that is partly living and partly digital.
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Social Mobile Gaming Boosts Rehabilitation for Physically Impaired Patients
The researchers from Imperial have designed a video game called Balloon Buddies, which is a tool that enables those recovering from conditions such as a stroke to engage and play together with healthy volunteers such as therapists and family members as a form of rehabilitation. Balloon Buddies is designed to level the playing field by allowing healthy participants to support the less abled player.
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West of Scotland Creates Regional Portal
Scottish health boards covering a population of 2.2 million people are able to share patient information now that a two-year project to create a regional portal has been completed. Five West of Scotland health boards are covered by the project to link their Orion Health portals, with NHS Dumfries and Galloway the latest to join in July. Clinicians can now click on a simple link within their own health board's portal to access the regional portal links, from where they can view test results and other information.
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Mental Health Mobile Apps Are Effective Self-Help Tools
When it comes to strengthening your mental or emotional health, would you trust an app? A trio of Brigham Young University health science researchers has published new research that says the answer is yes. The group was looking to identify what it is about health apps that influences users' behavior. Over three studies, they surveyed roughly 600 people who had used diet, physical activity or mental health apps in the past six months.
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