Month: August 2013
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Design for Microenterprise Helps Target Emerging Markets
Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge recommend designing products for small entrepreneurial businesses as a strategy for success in large emerging markets, such as India and China. Graduate student Jesse Austin-Breneman and engineering professor Maria Yang describe their findings in a paper delivered last week at the International Design Engineering Technical Conference of…
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Challenge Seeks Technique to Estimate Age from DNA Samples
A new challenge on InnoCentive asks for a crowd-sourced solution for determining an individual’s age from a small sample of that person’s DNA. The competition has a a prize purse of $25,000 and a deadline of 7 October 2013 for submissions (free registration required). InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate and…
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Telemedicine Found to Improve Rural Pediatric Emergency Care
A study of rural emergency room cases in northern California shows physician consultations with teleconferencing result in higher quality of care for seriously ill and injured children. The findings of pediatrician James Marcin and colleagues at University of California in Davis were published yesterday online in the journal Critical Care Medicine (paid subscription required). Telemedicine…
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Prototype Robotic Brain Blood-Clot Surgery Device Developed
Engineers and surgeons at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee built a prototype of a surgical device to safely remove blood clots from the brain, a risky and difficult procedure. A team led by Vanderbilt neurosurgery professor Kyle Weaver and mechanical engineering professor Robert Webster describe the system in an upcoming issue of the journal IEEE…
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GSK Starts Venture Fund for Nerve-Signal Devices, Medicines
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is starting a venture capital fund to invest in companies making therapeutic devices and medications harnessing the body’s electrical signaling system. The fund, called Action Potential Venture Capital (APVC) Ltd. will have $50 million, with its first investment in a California company developing a device to regulate nerve signals for treating…
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Trial Testing External Power Connections for Heart Pumps
A clinical trial testing alternative connections for external powering of implanted heart pumps is enrolling patients at University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, one site of the study. Bartley Griffith, a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery is leading the research for the university, which is funded by Jarvik Heart Inc., maker of one…
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Community Pharmacies Found Helpful in Encouraging HIV Tests
Medical researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York found local pharmacies can serve as venues to offer rapid HIV screening and get medical care for those who test positive. The team from Einstein College and its affiliated Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx published its findings in this month’s…
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Inexpensive Robotic Power Line Inspection Device Developed
An engineer at University of California in San Diego created a prototype device that propels itself along utility lines and can locate problems that need repair. The device, called SkySweeper and built by graduate student Nick Morozovsky, will be presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 3 to 8 November, in Tokyo.…
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Radiation Sensors Launched in Open-Source Satellites
Radiation sensors made by Libelium, a developer of wireless sensor hardware in Zaragoza, Spain are part of the payload contained in CubeSat satellites launched this past weekend on a cargo mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The sensors are part of the first two ArduSat satellites made by open-platform satellite maker NanoSatisfi in San…
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FDA Approves Shipping of GSK Four-Strain Flu Vaccine
The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval to ship the company’s vaccine covering four potential virus strains for the 2013-2014 influenza season. GSK says this year will be the first that vaccines will be available to protect against more than three strains of flu. FDA approved GlaxoSmithKline’s Fluarix…
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