Playing games in virtual reality (VR) could be a key tool in treating people with neurological disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. The technology, according to a recent study from the University of Waterloo, could help individuals with these neurological conditions shift their perceptions of time, which their conditions lead them to perceive differently.
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BridgIT, a New Tool for Orphan and Novel Enzyme Reactions
Effective protein engineering can give us control over the generated products inside a cell. However, for many of the biochemical reactions responsible for these products, we don't we don't know the specific protein- or enzyme-producing gene responsible. These reactions are called "orphan" and have become a big problem for protein engineers.
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Google Research Shows How AI can Make Ophthalmologists More Effective
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, diagnosing disease faster and potentially with greater accuracy than physicians, some have suggested that technology may soon replace tasks that physicians currently perform. But a new study from the Google AI research group shows that physicians and algorithms working together are more effective than either alone.
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New Antibiotics Are Desperately Needed: Machine Learning could Help
As the threat of antibiotic resistance looms, microbiologists aren’t the only ones thinking up new solutions. James Zou, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical data science at Stanford, has applied machine learning to create an algorithm that generates thousands of entirely new virtual DNA sequences with the intent of one day creating antimicrobial proteins.
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Apple Heart Study Demonstrates Ability of Wearable Technology to Detect Atrial Fibrillation
Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine presented preliminary results of the Apple Heart Study, an unprecedented virtual study with over 400,000 enrolled participants. The researchers reported that wearable technology can safely identify heart rate irregularities that subsequent testing confirmed to be atrial fibrillation, a leading cause of stroke and hospitalization in the United States.
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A first-of-its-kind nanoparticle vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has been designed in an international research effort. RSV is second only to malaria as a cause of infant mortality worldwide. The new vaccine elicits potent neutralizing antibodies against RSV in both mice and monkeys. The animal research findings, reported March 7 in the journal Cell, pave the way for human clinical trials.
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Study Finds Robots can Detect Breast Cancer as well as Radiologists
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and despite important improvements in therapy, it is still a major cause for cancer-related mortality, accounting for approximately 500,000 annual deaths worldwide. Breast cancer screening programs using mammography are effective in reducing breast cancer-related mortality.
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