Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting that a new robot, designed to help people lose the pounds, will soon be available on the U.S. market.
The Autom from Intuitive Automata was designed to act like a personal coach, talking you through a personalized diet and helping you to stick with it. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Professor Mark Kendall of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and his team have been investigating a novel way to deliver vaccines.
Their method makes use of nanopatches, which are fingernail-sized dermal patches with microscopic projections on their surface that hand vaccine off directly to the antigen-presenting cells just below the surface of the skin.
The scientists’ recent work in mice has shown that an immune response equivalent to that achievable by needle and syringe can be reached using 100 times less vaccine. Not only does the nanopatch appear to be a more effective delivery method, it’s also cheaper to produce and doesn’t require refrigeration, adjuvants or multiple doses. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University have reported that an “artificial pancreas” has worked in 11 patients enrolled in a study sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). The device consists of insulin pumps, glucose sensors, and a laptop with regulatory software. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
FineThanx is a new automated phone system that automatically calls your sick or elderly family members at home to check on how they’re doing.
The system can check in with loved ones once or twice a day, and if no one answers or the person is unwell, the system calls a member of his or her “care circle.”
If everything is fine, the FineThanx system will send you a report by email, so you can continue working or finish those 18 holes of golf, then check in for reassurance on your iPhone or personal computer afterwards.
Listen to a sample call here.
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Shafiq ur Réhman, a doctoral student at Umeå University in Sweden has unveiled his thesis project — a technology that converts facial emotions into special tactile sensations for the visually impaired.
The system uses a webcam to capture faces, and then subsequently converts the captured emotion into a series of vibrations that correspond with the expressed emotion.
The users are expected to train themselves by making their own faces into the webcam and getting a feel for how the vibrations change with the faces they’re making. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
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