diseases – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Scientists Develop a Breathalyzer That Detects 17 Diseases With One Breath From a Patient

randomErr quotes a report from Quartz: In the last 10 years, researchers have developed specific sniff tests for diagnosing tuberculosis, hypertension, cystic fibrosis, and even certain types of cancer. A group of global researchers led by Hossam Haick at the Israel Institute of Technology have taken the idea a step further. They’ve built a device — a kind of breathalyzer — that is compact and can diagnose up to 17 diseases from a single breath of a patient. The breathalyzer has an array of specially created gold nanoparticles, which are sized at billionths of a meter, and mixed with similar-sized tubes of carbon. These together create a network that is able to interact differently with each of the nearly 100 volatile compounds that each person breaths out (apart from gases like nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide). Haick’s team collected 2, 800 breaths from more than 1, 400 patients who were each suffering from at least one of 17 diseases (in three classes: cancer, inflammation, and neurological disorders). Each sample of the disease was then passed through the special breathalyzer, which then produced a dataset of the types of chemicals it could detect and in roughly what quantities. The team then applied artificial intelligence to the dataset to search for patterns in the types of compounds detected and the concentrations they were detected at. As they report in the journal ACS Nano, the data from the breathalyzer could be used to accurately detect that a person is suffering from a unique disease nearly nine out of ten times. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Develop a Breathalyzer That Detects 17 Diseases With One Breath From a Patient

CRISPR gene-editing approved for first human trials

A federal ethics and biosafety panel has approved the first ever human trials of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania aim to modify the immune system “T cells” in patients, helping them better fight off several kinds of cancer. The work will be funded by the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, founded earlier this year by tech billionaire Sean Parker. While the federal ethics panel nod was a big hurdle, researchers still need approval from the FDA and the hospitals conducting the studies before they can start. CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing has never been tried on humans, so early studies will focus on the safety and efficacy of the tech. Scientists will remove T cells from up to 15 patients with three types of cancer: multiple melanoma, melanoma and sarcoma. The cells will be modified with CRISPR so that they can fight the malignant cells normally, then reinserted back into the patient. The trial will take place at MD Anderson Cance Center in Texas, USC San Francisco and Penn. Sean Parker with human genome pioneer Craig Venter The technology holds a vast amount of promise in medicine — if a patient lacks a gene that makes them more susceptible to cancer or other diseases, it can simply be edited back in. Scientists also believe that it could be used to permanently eliminate diseases like Down syndrome or Sickle-Cell Anemia . If embryonic cells are “repaired, ” the recipient can never pass on a genetic disease to his offspring. However, the technique is controversial, and scientists fear it could cause unintended side effects. Scientists in China used CRISPR on human embryos to repair a gene that causes a fatal blood disorder. The technique worked on half the embryos, but failed on the other half. As a result, the team called off the study, calling it “too immature.” Nevertheless, scientists on the federal panel that gave the go-ahead for the Penn State trials were enthused, calling the study “exciting.” The decision means that CRISPR-Cas9 tech will be used even earlier on humans than expected — a company called Editas Medicine said it would hold the first trials to treat blindness in 2017. Via: Techcrunch Source: Stat News

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CRISPR gene-editing approved for first human trials

New Research Suggests Zika Can Cross the Placental Barrier

Angelica Pereira feeds her baby Luiza, who was born with microcephaly in Brazil on 6-February 2016. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Researchers in Brazil have detected traces of the Zika virus in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses with microcephaly, further bolstering the connection between the two. However, questions still remain. Read more…

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New Research Suggests Zika Can Cross the Placental Barrier

Cemu, the first working Nintendo Wii U emulator, publicly released

After months of fakes, a proper Wii U emulator is finally available for download—even if it is still rather janky. According to the developer, Cemu contains “basically no optimizations whatsoever,” no proper controller support, and no audio. For the time being, it’s only for Windows x64, although other platforms might eventually be supported. Ignoring all these caveats, it’s actually quite impressive if these videos are any indication of how far it’s come already. NES Remix Gameplay Windwaker HD booting up to menu (video link) Cemu, which is currently in what has been termed as its “proof-of-concept release” stage, requires OpenGL 3.3 to operate. It has an internal resolution of 1920×1080, and can run encrypted Wii U images (WUD) and RPX/RPL files. If you want to launch a game, it will need to be in raw dump format (WUS or ISO). There are plans to release updates on a fortnightly basis, although nothing has been set in stone as of yet. Interestingly, Cemu defies current emulator trends by not being an open-source project. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Cemu, the first working Nintendo Wii U emulator, publicly released

How to make your own bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan USB install drive

Enlarge / Even in the download-only era, it’s easy to make yourself offline OS X install media. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) It was 2009 when Apple last released a new operating system on physical media . Things have proceeded remarkably smoothly since version 10.7 switched to download-only installers, but there are still good reasons to want an old, reliable USB stick. For instance, if you find yourself doing multiple installs, a USB drive may be faster than multiple downloads (especially if you use a USB 3.0 drive). Or maybe you need a recovery disk for older Macs that don’t support the Internet Recovery feature. Whatever the reason, you’re in luck, because it’s not hard to make one. As with last year , there are two ways to get it done. There’s the super easy way with the graphical user interface and the only slightly less easy way that requires some light Terminal use. Here’s what you need to get started. A Mac that you have administrator access to, duh. We’ve created El Capitan USB stick from both Yosemite and El Capitan, but your experience with other versions may vary. An 8GB or larger USB flash drive or an 8GB or larger partition on some other kind of external drive. For newer Macs, use a USB 3.0 drive—it makes things significantly faster. The OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary. If you want a GUI, you need the latest version of Diskmaker X app. As of this writing, version 5 is the one you’ll want for official El Capitan support, and it has been promised but not yet delivered. We’ll show you how to do it with version 4 and update the article when the update is released. Diskmaker X is free to download, but the creator accepts donations if you want to support his efforts. The easy way Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How to make your own bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan USB install drive

Nvidia crams desktop GTX 980 GPU into monster 17-inch laptops

MSI’s GT72 will be one of the first notebook’s to sport a GTX 980. 26 more images in gallery In what is one of the most Goldblum-like moments of the year so far, Nvidia has partnered with OEMs like Asus and MSI to cram the full desktop version of its high-end GTX 980 graphics card into laptops. Thanks to its full array of 2048 CUDA cores, up to 8GB of 7GHz GDDR5 memory, and 1126MHz core clock, Nvidia claims the new laptop GTX 980 offers around a 30 percent performance boost over its previous flagship laptop GPU, the GTX 980M. Even crazier, Nvidia has also managed to convince OEMs to let users overclock the GTX 980 too. Coupled with Intel’s upcoming unlocked K-series Skylake laptop CPUs, users will be able to eke out a significant amount of extra performance from their laptops, cooling permitting. To help things along, Nvidia’s laptop GTX 980s will differ slightly from their desktop counterparts in that they’ll be binned for improved leakage and power consumption. Nvidia says the binning process will ensure each laptop GTX 980 is guaranteed to hit the advertised 1126MHz GPU core clock and 1216MHz boost clock, as well as achieve overclocks somewhere in the region of 200MHz. That’s a modest increase over the stock clock, but given the thermal restraints of a notebook chassis it’s still rather impressive. To hit those overclocked speeds, users will be able to tweak the fan curve of the GPU (a first for laptops), as well as adjust the core clock and memory speeds. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nvidia crams desktop GTX 980 GPU into monster 17-inch laptops

Apple’s new iPad Pro is an expansive 12.9 inches, available in November

We were expecting new iPhones today, and we were even expecting Apple TV announcements, but whether Apple would update its iPad line was more difficult to say. It seems Apple is bucking its own announce-new-iPads-in-October trend, however, because the company just added a 12.9″ iPad to its lineup. The so-called iPad Pro is 6.9mm thick and weighs 1.57 lbs—slightly heavier than the 1.54 lbs first-generation iPad. According to Apple, it will have a 10-hour battery life. The new tablet will be called the iPad Pro, and the entry-level version comes with a healthy 32GB of storage, rather than the 16GB of the other iPad base models. The iPad Pro also comes in a 128GB version. Pricing on those Wi-Fi-only tiers is $799 and $949. An LTE version (which comes with a 150mbps LTW modem) will only be available in the 128GB version, and will cost $1079. Apple confirmed that the iPad Pro’s screen has a 2732×2048 resolution, as had been rumored in the weeks leading up to this event, with 5.6 million pixels.Taking the stage at Apple’s launch event in San Francisco on Wednesday, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller explained the design choice. “Let’s start with the display: Why make a bigger one?,” he said. “You can touch your documents, touch your books, interact with everything. It does things an iPhone can’t do since it doesn’t have to be pocketable, does things a notebook can’t do because it’s holdable.” Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple’s new iPad Pro is an expansive 12.9 inches, available in November

AMD’s R9 Nano crams a full Fury X into a tiny 6-inch form factor

12 more images in gallery Earlier this year, AMD unveiled three new graphics cards: the R9 Fury X, R9 Fury, and R9 Nano. While the top-of-the-line water-cooled R9 Fury X and air-cooled R9 Fury have both since been released to positive reviews, the mini-ITX sized R9 Nano has remained something of a mystery. Fortunately, the Nano appears to have been worth the wait. While the Nano costs the same as a Fury X—$649, or about £530 (UK pricing is unconfirmed)—the diminutive card also sports same full-fat Fiji chip, which is crammed into its teeny 6-inch form factor. With the R9 Nano you get a full 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 ROPs, and 4GB of 4096-bit memory high-bandwidth memory operating at 1000MHz. AMD claims performance is around 8.2 TFLOPS, which is only five percent below that of the Fury X. Even better, the Nano needs just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, with a typical power consumption of 175W, which is miles below the 275W of the Fury X. Of course, such dramatic power savings have to come from somewhere, and for the Nano that means a reduction in clock speed. The Nano’s GPU is rated for “up to 1000MHz,” with AMD saying that under typical usage in most games it runs between 850MHz and 900MHz. That’s around a 14 percent decrease over the 1050MHz of the Fury X, but it’s still impressive given the Nano’s size. AMD puts performance somewhere between the Fury and Fury X, with the full shader count helping to mitigate the drop in clock speed versus the Fury. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AMD’s R9 Nano crams a full Fury X into a tiny 6-inch form factor

VMware brings Windows 10 and graphics boost to Fusion and Workstation

VMware’s desktop virtualization software for Macs, Windows PCs, and Linux are being upgraded today to support Windows 10 and new features to boost performance. VMware Fusion for Macs is up to version 8, while Workstation for Windows and Linux is up to version 12. Both products have an improved graphics engine to support DirectX 10 and OpenGL 3.3. VMware’s release comes one week after Parallels upgraded its desktop virtualization software for Macs. Here’s what Fusion 8 looks like: Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Faster booting, smaller footprint make Windows 10 an easy upgrade for old PCs

A whole bunch of people are going to upgrade to Windows 10. Not everyone . But when you offer free Windows via a nag message delivered to over 80 percent of the user base, you’re going to attract people who wouldn’t have driven to MicroCenter to buy an upgrade DVD. Especially if you bought an eligible PC in Windows 7’s heyday, you will probably be installing the new OS on five- or six-year-old hardware that has long since been forgotten about by the company that sold it to you. Or maybe you bought something during the post-Chromebook era, where Windows PCs dipped back into netbook territory in their quest for a low price tag. We installed Windows 10 on a few of these kinds of systems to see what you can expect, at least if you’re comparing a clean install to a clean install. Current users of both Windows 7 and Windows 8 should expect to recover a few gigabytes of drive space, a few megabytes of system RAM, and a few precious seconds of boot time. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Faster booting, smaller footprint make Windows 10 an easy upgrade for old PCs