ApplySci – Deep Tech Health + Neurotech

Scientist-led conferences at Harvard, Stanford and MIT

  • “Artificial skin” senses touch, temperature, humidity

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130708124423.htm Professor Hossam Haick at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has created a flexible sensor that could be integrated into electronic skin, enabling those with prosthetic limbs to feel changes in their environments.  The Technion invention simultaneously senses touch, humidity, and temperature. According to Professor Haick, it is at least 10 times more sensitive to touch…

  • Brain Computer Interface – a timeline

    http://www.livescience.com/37944-how-the-human-computer-interface-works-infographics.html From the Babbage Analytical Engine of 1822 through thought control – a brief history of the intersection of mind and machine.

  • Avatar therapy addresses voices in schizophrenia

    http://www.uclb.com/news-and-events/news-post/avatar-therapy-helps-silence-voices-in-schizophrenia Researchers at University College London and the Wellcome Trust have developed an avatar based system to enable those suffering from schizophrenia to control the voice of hallucinations. The patient creates a computer-based avatar, choosing the face and voice of the entity they believe is talking to them. The system then synchronizes the avatar’s lips…

  • Software senses mood of smartphone users

    http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=194498 Microsoft’s MoodScope is a “sensor” that measures a smartphone user’s mental state.  It analyzes an enormous array of interactions including app usage, phone calls, emails, text messages, browsing history, and geographic location — thousands of data points each day. 32 study participants used the system for two months, and completed mood self-assessments to gauge the…

  • Sound waves detect disease related changes in red blood cell shape

    http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(13)00624-3 Ryerson University investigators used photoacoustics to create detailed images to detect changing shapes of red blood cells associated with diseases including maria, sickle cell anemia and certain types of cancer. A drop of blood is placed under a microscope that picks up sounds produced by the cells. Researchers then focus a laser beam on the samples.…

  • Algorithm determines embryo quality in IVF procedures

    http://pc2013.afeka.ac.il/files/assets/basic-html/page238.html Researchers from Tel Aviv’s Afeka College of Engineering and Sourasky Medical Center have developed software to find the best embryos for IVF procedures.  Their algorithm uses Matlab to process microscopic pictures to choose the highest quality fertilized egg. Today embryologists use a microscope to find the best embryos, which five days later are inserted…

  • LCD display, embedded in contact lenses — Google Glass functionality with out headgear?

    http://www.ugent.be/en/news/bulletin/augmented-reality-contact-lens Professor Jelle De Smet of Ghent University has developed a spherical, curved LCD display which can be embedded in contact lenses and handle projected images using wireless technology.  This is the first step towards “fully pixelated contact lens displays” with the same detail as a television screen.  The technology could lead to a superimposed image projected…

  • High resolution mapping uncovers brain circuit architecture

    http://www.salk.edu/news/pressrelease_details.php?press_id=623 Salk and Gladstone Institute scientists have found a way to untangle neural networks by enhancing a brain mapping technique that they first developed in 2007. “These initial results should be treated as a resource not only for decoding how this network guides the vast array of very distinct brain functions, but also how dysfunctions…

  • Smartphone diagnostic and cloud platform make eye care accessible

    http://eyenetra.com/netra-g.html Vinod Khosla and others have invested in MIT Media Lab’s EyeNetra, a smartphone attachment that claims to diagnose nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism.  The device is positioned as a less bulky alternative to the Shack-Hartmann Wavefront sensor.  A $2 eyepiece is clipped onto a phone.  The user then clicks to align the displayed patterns.  The number of…

  • Eye tracking data helps diagnose autism, ADHD, Parkinson’s

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eye-tracking-software-may-reveal-autism-and-other-brain-disorders USC’s Laurent Itti and researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario have created a data heavy, low cost method of identifying brain disorders through eye tracking.  Subjects watch a video for 15 minutes while their eye movements are recorded. An enormous amount of data is generated as the average person makes three to five saccadic…

  • Non-invasive nanotube device detects disease with one drop of blood

    http://www.njit.edu/news/2013/2013-218.php Professors Reginald Farrow and Alokik Kanwal of the New Jersey Institute of Technology have created a carbon nanotube-based device to non-invasively and quickly detect mobile single cells with the potential to maintain a high degree of spatial resolution.  They are now overseeing the manufacture of a prototype lab-on-a-chip that would enable a physician to detect…

  • Algorithm analyzes head movements to measure heart rate

    http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/seeing-the-human-pulse-0620.html MIT researchers have developed an algorithm that gauges heart rate by measuring tiny head movements in video data.  A subject’s heart rate was consistently measured within a few beats per minute when compared to results from electrocardiograms. The algorithm was also able to provide estimates of time intervals between beats, which can be used to identify…

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