antdude writes “A British Medical Journal (BMJ) research report says that ‘Surgeries on Friday Are More Frequently Fatal … compared to those who opt for really bad Mondays, Britons who have a planned surgery on a Friday are 44 percent more likely to die. And the few patients who had a leisurely weekend surgery saw that number jump to 82 percent. The skeleton staff working on weekends might be to blame.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How modeling HIV on an atomic level could lead to a cure Part of what makes the HIV virus so difficult to kill — aside from being thousands of times smaller than an average human cell — is that it’s covered in several layers of protective proteins. Techniques are already being developed to attack the virus when it’s at its weakest and most vulnerable. But new models — developed by scientists using the University of Illinois’ “Blue Waters” supercomputer — are finally giving researchers an atomic-level look at the formidable barrier mechanism enclosing the heart of the virus.
There are so many products on the market these days that are supposed to be good for us — much of it based on zero evidence. Here are 11 commonly touted “health foods” that are actually quite harmful. Read more…
For the first time ever, a whole lab-grown kidney has been successfully transplanted into a rat , where it allowed the creature to process urine like a really kidney would—and it could someday save your life. More »
The increasingly ambiguous divide between man and machine just got blurred that much more with Stanford’s recent announcement : scientists have successfully created the first truly biological transistor made entirely out of genetic material. More »
iOS ( Jailbroken ): It doesn’t take all that many taps to go in and update your apps on your iPhone or iPad, but if you’d prefer it just happened automatically in the background, Auto App Updater is a jailbreak app that does just that. More »
Yes, Google Reader is going away , and yes, there are great alternatives . However, if you’re tired of web services shutting down on you , why not take matters into your own hands? Tiny Tiny RSS is a free, open-source syncing RSS platform with more features than Google Reader ever had, and it can’t get shut down. Here’s how to install it and set it up. More »
A new blood-testing subdermal sensor has been developed by a team of scientists in Switzerland. While that may not sound particularly notable, this half-inch prototype can instantly beam several health metrics to smart devices over Bluetooth , monitoring cholesterol, blood sugar levels as well as the impact of medical treatments like chemotherapy using five built-in sensors. The device has already been tested on animals and while the researchers hope to begin testing soon on patients that would typically require a lot of blood tests and monitoring, the module is still several years from a commercial release. According to the EPFL ‘s video, the sensor can even predict heart attacks several hours before they occur, sensing minute changes in the bloodstream ahead of time. We’ve ‘implanted’ the explanation after the break, but if you’re looking for some more medical-minded specifics, head to the source. Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Via: BBC Source: EPFL
Your chances of being split open sternum to sphincter for a medical procedure are quickly declining (whew) thanks to the advent of endoscopic surgery and robotic surgical platforms like the DaVinci , though even these revolutionary procedures have their limitations. But thanks to a team of Stanford researchers, size is no longer one of them. More »
For those of us who spend the best part of our day hunched over a keyboard starting at a computer screen, any physical exertion—however small—has to go some way towards constituting exercise. So how many calories does a mouse click burn? More »
