Health/Food Posts Tagged as 'Discovery'
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Identity
Much of the research examining identity has focused on traits or dynamics that are considered universal for all human beings (e.g., self-esteem, introversion-extraversion, and levels of anxiety) regardless of race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, or class. At this level, researchers and clinicians treat human experiences as being similar, for example, the experiences of aging, coping with life stress, and interpersonal relationships. However, the extent to which any one of these traits and dynamics may be high or low, prominent, amplified, or muted differs as a result of sociodemographic categories such as culture, class, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Psychology
Identity, Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion
This spray-on nanofiber ‘skin’ may revolutionize burn and wound care
Imagine if bandaging looked a little more like, well, a water gun?
Israeli startup Nanomedic Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary of medical device company Nicast, has invented a new mechanical contraption to treat burns, wounds, and surgical injuries by mimicking human tissue. Shaped like a children’s toy, the lightweight SpinCare emits a proprietary nanofiber “second skin” that completely covers the area that needs to heal.
All one needs to do is aim, squeeze the two triggers, and fire off an electrospun polymer material that attaches to the skin.
The Nanomedic spray method avoids any need to come into direct contact with the wound. In that sense, it completely sidesteps painful routine bandage dressings. The transient skin then fully develops into a secure physical barrier with tough adherence. Once new skin is regenerated, usually between two to three weeks (depending on the individual’s heal time), the layer naturally peels off.
Fast Company
PROFESSOR: “MAGIC MUSHROOMS” COULD REPLACE ANTIDEPRESSANTS
Interest in the potential medical uses for psychedelics, such as “magic mushrooms” and LSD, has rapidly increased in recent years, leading to the opening of the world’s first formal center for psychedelics research in April — and the center’s leader is already prepared to make a bold prediction about the future of psychedelics in medicine.
“I would imagine if you had some bookmakers doing the odds, there would be strong odds on that [psychedelic therapy] will be licensed sometime in the next five to 10 years – maybe sooner,” Robin Carhart-Harris told The Independent.
Futurism
Restaurant Temporarily Closed After Decomposing Body Leaked Through Its Ceiling
In late May, Officer Ryan Wilder was called to an apartment in Windsor, Connecticut, after a woman reported that she hadn’t seen or heard from her neighbor in a few days. On his way into the building, a worker from Siam Corner Thai Kitchen stopped him, and asked if he could check out the restaurant, too: there was a strong smell in the kitchen and a strange liquid was leaking through the ceiling.
If you know where this is going, then congratulations on finishing all 14 seasons of Criminal Minds. “I went into the restaurant and discovered a reddish brown substance dripping from the ceiling located behind the front counter of the restaurant,” Officer Wilder wrote in his incident report. “It appeared that the dripping substance was possibly blood.”
Vice
Going mobile could get more Americans to vote
Mobile voting, the mission of a Boston-based startup called Voatz, could be the answer to a problem in U.S. politics: Many Americans don't vote.
Driving the news: Even in the hotly-contested 2016 presidential race, only 58% of eligible voters showed up. Some of that may be apathy, but some is certainly the inconvenience of asking working adults to visit polling places on weekdays; particularly when some urban locations have lines that would make Walt Disney blush.
Where it stands: On Thursday, Voatz raised $7 million in Series A funding co-led by Medici Ventures and Techstars. It ran pilot tests last year in West Virginia, whereby overseas military could vote in real elections via smartphone rather than via paper mail. It also just completed a pilot in Denver's municipal elections, including both the regular election and a run-off.
Axios
ASTOUNDING AI GUESSES WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE BASED ON YOUR VOICE
A new artificial intelligence created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University pulls off a staggering feat: by analyzing only a short audio clip of a person’s voice, it reconstructs what they might look like in real life.
The AI’s results aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty good — a remarkable and somewhat terrifying example of how a sophisticated AI can make incredible inferences from tiny snippets of data.
Futurism
DARPA: This Smart Contact Lens Could Give Soldiers Superpowers
French engineering school IMT Atlantique revealed what it calls “the first stand-alone contact lens with a flexible micro battery” earlier this month.
And, notably, it caught the attention of the U.S. military’s attention: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is reportedly interested in the contact lens to augment troops’ visual capabilities in the field, according to Task and Purpose — meaning the gadget could represent the augmented contact lens that DARPA has spent a decade searching for.
The biggest challenge that IMT Atlantique engineers encountered was to scale down the battery. But thanks to a newly developed flexible micro battery, they found a way to continuously light an LED light source for “several hours,” according to a press release.
Futurism
OUR REALITY COULD BE A “HOLOGRAM” CREATED BY QUANTUM PHYSICS
Ever since Einstein posited that space and time were inextricably linked, scientists have wondered where the cosmic web called spacetime comes from.
Now, ongoing research in quantum physics may finally arrive at an explanation: A bizarre phenomenon called quantum entanglement could be the underlying basis for the four dimensions of space and time in which we all live, according to a deep dive by Knowable Magazine. In fact, in a mind-boggling twist, our reality could be a “hologram” of this quantum state.
Futurism
A LAB GREW A “MINI BRAIN” FROM THIS GUY’S CELLS. THEN THINGS GOT WEIRD.
When science writer Philip Ball donated some flesh from his arm to a neuroscience lab growing “mini brains,” he originally intended to contribute to research into the biological mechanisms of dementia.
Instead, he ended up with a simplified genetic replica of his own brain growing in a petri dish — and found himself questioning what makes us human, according to a new review of Ball’s upcoming book published in Nature.
Futurism
WHAT IF AIR CONDITIONERS COULD HELP SAVE THE PLANET INSTEAD OF DESTROYING IT?
EARTH’S CLIMATE IS full of terrifying feedback loops: Decreased rainfall raises the risk of wildfires, which release yet more carbon dioxide. A warming Arctic could trigger the release of long-frozen methane, which would heat the planet even faster than carbon. A lesser-known climate feedback loop, though, is likely mere feet from where you’re sitting: the air conditioner. Use of the energy-intensive appliance causes emissions that contribute to higher global temperatures, which means we’re all using AC more, producing more emissions and more warming.
But what if we could weaponize air conditioning units to help pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere instead? According to a new paper in Nature, it’s feasible. Using technology currently in development, AC units in skyscrapers and even your home could get turned into machines that not only capture CO2, but transform the stuff into a fuel for powering vehicles that are difficult to electrify, like cargo ships. The concept, called crowd oil, is still theoretical and faces many challenges. But in these desperate times, crowd oil might have a place in the fight to curb climate change.
Wired
SCIENTISTS SAY THEY CAN MAKE LIGHT TRAVEL 30X FASTER THAN NORMAL
Scientists at the University of Central Florida say they’ve figured out how to make pulses of light travel 30 times as fast as usual — or even backward.
“We’re able to control the speed of the pulse by going into the pulse itself and reorganizing its energy such that its space and time degrees of freedom are mixed in with each other,” researcher Ayman Abouraddy said in a statement. “We’re very happy with these results, and we’re very hopeful it’s just the starting point of future research.”
Futurism