When a group of researchers in the Undiagnosed Disease Network at Baylor College of Medicine realized they were spending days combing through databases searching for information regarding gene variants, they decided to do something about it. By creating MARRVEL (Model organism Aggregated Resources for Rare Variant ExpLoration) they are now able to help not only their own lab but also researchers everywhere search databases all at once and in a matter of minutes.
Read more ...
Using a Smartphone to Screen for Male Infertility
More than 45 million couples worldwide grapple with infertility, but current standard methods for diagnosing male infertility can be expensive, labor-intensive and require testing in a clinical setting. Cultural and social stigma, and lack of access in resource-limited countries, may prevent men from seeking an evaluation. Investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) set out to develop a home-based diagnostic test that could be used to measure semen quality using a smartphone-based device.
Read more ...
Virtual Support Groups Help Grieving Spouses with Depression
As the U.S. population ages, it's estimated that half of women older than 65 are widows, while one-sixth of men of the same age have lost their spouses. Support groups have proved to be a helpful resource for those dealing with grief, but for older individuals, obstacles such as geographic location and physical immobility can sometimes make it difficult to attend support groups in person.
Read more ...
'Smart Contact Lens Sensor' for Diabetic and Glaucoma Diagnosis
A recent study, affiliated with Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea, has proposed the possibility of in situ human health monitoring simply by wearing a contact lens with built-in wireless smart sensors. This study has been jointly conducted by Professor Jang-Ung Park of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Chang Young Lee of Life Science, and Professor Franklin Bien of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UNIST in collaboration with
Read more ...
Virtual Humans Help Aspiring Doctors Learn Empathy
For medical student Katie Goldrath, the first time delivering difficult health news came when she had to tell a young woman named Robin and her mom, Delmy, that Robin had leukemia. As she broke the news, Goldrath was conscious of not only her words but also her body language: Was she leaning in, looking the patient in the eye and expressing empathy?
Read more ...
Can Virtual Reality Help Us Prevent Falls in the Elderly and Others?
Every year, falls lead to hospitalization or death for hundreds of thousands of elderly Americans. Standard clinical techniques generally cannot diagnose balance impairments before they lead to falls. But researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have found evidence that virtual reality (VR) could be a big help - not only for detecting balance impairments early,
Read more ...
Biased Bots: Human Prejudices Sneak into Artificial Intelligence Systems
In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. Common machine learning programs, when trained with ordinary human language available online, can acquire cultural biases embedded in the patterns of wording, the researchers found.
Read more ...