Biosingularity

Previously, only a few genes had been associated with the formation of metastases in colorectal cancer. Now, researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Charité – University Medicine Berlin, Germany, have identified 115 genes that are disregulated both in the primary tumor and in its metastases. In the future, their findings may help identify patients with aggressive tumors at an earlier stage (Gastroenterology 2009, doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2009.03.041).*

Caption: Previously, only a few genes had been associated with the formation of metastases in colorectal cancer. Now, researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin-Buch and Charité -- University Medicine Berlin, Germany, have identified 115 genes that are disregulated both in the primary tumor and in its metastases. Of the 115 genes the researchers identified, they focused on one gene in particular: BAMBI. They discovered that this gene is more active in metastatic tumors and metastases than in non-metastatic tumors.The gene bambi changes tumor cells in such a way that single cells break off from the primary tumor and spread to other body regions to form metastases. These are changed tumor cells, that have left the primary tumor. (in red: cytoskeleton; in blue: the cell nucleus). Credit: Photo: Johannes Fritzmann/Copyright: MDC

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The salamander is a superhero of regeneration, able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord — even bits of lopped-off brain.

But it turns out that remarkable ability isn’t so mysterious after all — suggesting that researchers could learn how to replicate it in people.

Scientists had long credited the diminutive amphibious creature’s outsized capabilities to “pluripotent” cells that, like human embryonic stem cells, have the uncanny ability to morph into whatever appendage, organ or tissue happens to be needed or due for a replacement.

But in a paper set to appear Thursday in the journal Nature, a team of seven researchers, including a University of Florida zoologist, debunks that notion. Based on experiments on genetically modified axolotl salamanders, the researchers show that cells from the salamander’s different tissues retain the “memory” of those tissues when they regenerate, contributing with few exceptions only to the same type of tissue from whence they came. Read the rest of this entry »

A human growth factor that stimulates blood stem cells to proliferate in the bone marrow reverses memory impairment in mice genetically altered to develop Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at the University of South Florida and James A. Haley Hospital found. The granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (GCSF) significantly reduced levels of the brain-clogging protein beta amyloid deposited in excess in the brains of the Alzheimer’s mice, increased the production of new neurons and promoted nerve cell connections.

Caption: Microglia (in green) attack the beta amyloid (red) deposited in the brain of a GCSF-treated Alzheimer's mouse. Credit: Photo courtesy of University of South Florida

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A Kansas State University researcher is studying the potential health benefits of a specially bred purple sweet potato because its dominant purple color results in an increased amount of anti-cancer components.

K-State’s Soyoung Lim, doctoral student in human nutrition, Manhattan, is working with George Wang, associate professor of human nutrition at K-State, to understand the pigment effects of a Kansas-bred purple sweet potato on cancer prevention.

A Kansas State University researcher is studying the potential health benefits of a specially bred purple sweet potato because its dominant purple color results in an increased amount of anti-cancer components. Credit: Kansas State University media relations

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New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that aerobic activity may keep the brain young.

In the study published July 9 in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, physically active elderly people showed healthier cerebral blood vessels.
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A new computer model developed at MIT can help solve a problem that has plagued drug companies trying to develop promising new treatments made of antibodies: Such drugs have a relatively short shelf life because they tend to clump together, rendering them ineffective. Read the rest of this entry »

The more than 1.5 million Americans with systemic lupus erythematosus (or lupus) suffer from a variety of symptoms that flare and subside, often including painful or swollen joints, extreme fatigue, skin rashes, fever, and kidney problems. Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have now identified the main trigger for the development of this disease.
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Neural stem cells represent the cellular backup of our brain. These cells are capable of self-renewal to form new stem cells or differentiate into neurons, astrocytes or oligodendrocytes. Astrocytes have supportive functions in the environment of neurons, while oligodendrocytes form the myelin layer around axons in order to accelerate neuronal signal transmission.

But how does a neural stem cell „know” which way it is supposed to develop? On the molecular level receptors of the Notch family play a significant role in this process. So far, only stimulating extracellular ligands of Notch receptors had been described. Biochemists of Goethe University Medical School now describe a long time assumed but not yet identified soluble Notch inhibitor.
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Daily sex (or ejaculating daily) for seven days improves men’s sperm quality by reducing the amount of DNA damage, according to an Australian study presented today (Tuesday) to the 25th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam.
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Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history—significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice.
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In the past, even modern technologies have failed to produce high-resolution fluorescence images from this depth because of the strong scattering of light. In the Nature Photonics journal, the Munich researchers describe how they can reveal genetic expression within live fly larvae and fish by “listening to light”. In the future this technology may facilitate the examination of tumors or coronary vessels in humans.
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Physiological changes associated with the metabolic syndrome may play a role in the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, according to study results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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A protein used by doctors to indicate a patient’s risk of coronary heart disease may have drug developers barking up the wrong treatment tree, according to the authors of a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Their research suggests that C-reactive protein, an enticing target for scientists working on new treatments for coronary heart disease, may not have a role in causing the disease, even though it is a predictive marker.
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Researchers at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that a widely used anti-diabetic drug can boost the immune system and increase the potency of vaccines and cancer treatments. Their findings will be published June 3 in the journal Nature.

The scientists discovered that the widely prescribed diabetes treatment metformin increases the efficiency of the immune system’s T-cells, which in turn makes cancer and virus-fighting vaccines more effective. Read the rest of this entry »

Your immune system plays an important function in your health—it protects you against viruses, bacteria, and other toxins that can cause disease. In autoinflammatory diseases, however, the immune system goes awry, causing unprovoked and dangerous inflammation. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions have discovered a new autoinflammatory syndrome, a rare genetic condition that affects children around the time of birth. The findings appear in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

Like human infants, young apes are known to hoot and holler when you tickle them. But is it fair to say that those playful calls are really laughter? The answer to that question is yes, say researchers reporting online on June 4th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

“This study is the first phylogenetic test of the evolutionary continuity of a human emotional expression,” said Marina Davila Ross of the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. “It supports the idea that there is laughter in apes.” Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa have discovered a powerful new way to stimulate muscle regeneration, paving the way for new treatments for debilitating conditions such as muscular dystrophy. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists and engineers at UC Santa Barbara and other researchers have developed a nanoparticle that can attack plaque –– a major cause of cardiovascular disease. The new development is described in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The treatment is promising for the eventual development of therapies for cardiovascular disease, which is blamed for one third of the deaths in the United States each year. Atherosclerosis, which was the focus of this study, is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease. In atherosclerosis, plaque builds up on the walls of arteries and can cause heart attack and stroke.

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Harvard University scientists are a step closer to creating synthetic forms of life, part of a drive to design man-made organisms that may one day be used to help produce new fuels and create biotechnology drugs.

Researchers led by George Church, whose findings helped spur the U.S. human genome project in the 1980s, have copied the part of a living cell that makes proteins, the building blocks of life. The finding overcomes a major roadblock in making synthetic self-replicating organisms, Church said today in a lecture at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The technology can be used to program cells to make virtually any protein, even some that don’t exist in nature, the scientists said. That may allow production of helpful new drugs, chemicals and organisms, including living bacteria. It also opens the door to ethical concerns about creation of processes that may be uncontrollable by life’s natural defenses.

–>>>>>>> Article in Bloomberg news

The March, 2009 issue of Nutrition and Cancer published the finding of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center of an association between long term consumption of zinc supplements and a reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer in men. Read the rest of this entry »

Chronic stress takes a physical and emotional toll on our bodies and scientists are working on piecing together a medical puzzle to understand how we respond to stress at the cellular level in the brain. Being able to quickly and successfully respond to stress is essential for survival.

Using a rat model, Jaideep Bains, PhD, a University of Calgary scientist and his team of researchers at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute have discovered that neurons in the hypothalamus, the brain’s command centre for stress responses, interpret ‘off’ chemical signals as ‘on’ chemical signals when stress is perceived. “It’s as if the brakes in your car are now acting to speed up the vehicle, rather than slow it down.” says Bains. This unexpected finding is being published in the March 1st online edition of Nature Neuroscience. Read the rest of this entry »

With obesity reaching epidemic levels, researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center are studying a potentially long-term treatment that involves injecting a gene directly into one of the critical feeding and weight control centers of the brain. Read the rest of this entry »

A strange and confused chapter in the history of American medical research ended Monday morning, when President Obama signed an executive order ending a ban on federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell lines that were developed after August 9, 2001.

The ban has been roundly denounced as hypocritical and destructive, stunting advances in one of the most exciting fields of medical research. Some restrictions will still apply, and whether research will provide much-anticipated cures is an open question — but at least the question will be answered by science, with the government’s full weight behind it.

–>>>>>>>> Article in Wired

The function of a protein is determined both by its structure and by its interaction partners in the cell. Until now, proteins had to be isolated for analyzing them. An international team of researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University, Goethe University, and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) has, for the first time, determined the structure of a protein in its natural environment, the living cell. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the researchers solved the structure of a protein within the bacterium Escherichia coli. “We have reached an important goal of molecular biology”, says Prof. Peter Güntert from the Goethe University’s Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance Center. (BMRZ)

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More and more information is being gathered about how human genes influence medically relevant traits, such as the propensity to develop a certain disease. The ultimate goal is to predict whether or not a given trait will develop later in life from the genome sequence alone (i.e. from the sequence of the bases that make up the DNA strands that store genetic information in every cell of the body).

Now, writing in the journal Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, a group of researchers form the Netherlands put this goal to a test using eye colour. The group around Manfred Kayser of the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam showed that it can be predicted with an accuracy of over 90% whether a person has blue or brown eyes by analysing DNA from only 6 different positions of the genome. Read the rest of this entry »

Chemicals present in cranberries—and not the acidity of cranberry juice, as previously thought—prevent infection-causing bacteria from attaching to the cells that line the urinary tract, as documented in a report published in Journal of Medicinal Food, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Read the rest of this entry »

The theory that a higher metabolism means a shorter lifespan may have reached the end of its own life, thanks to a study published in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. The study, led by Lobke Vaanholt (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), found that mice with increased metabolism live just as long as those with slower metabolic rates. Read the rest of this entry »

An experimental procedure that dramatically strengthens stem cells’ ability to regenerate damaged tissue could offer new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases such as myopathy and muscular dystrophy, according to researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

The world-first procedure has been successfully used to regrow muscles in a mouse model, but it could be applied to all tissue-based illnesses in humans such as in the liver, pancreas or brain, the researchers say. Read the rest of this entry »

In the March, 2009 issue of Clinical Immunology, researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that sulforaphane, a compound that occurs in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, may help protect against respiratory inflammation and the diseases it causes, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and allergic rhinitis. Read the rest of this entry »

EXACT replicas of a man’s thumb bones have been made for the first time using a 3D printer. The breakthrough paves the way for surgeons to replace damaged or diseased bones with identical copies built from the patients’ own cells.

“In theory, you could do any bone,” says Christian Weinand of the Insel Hospital in Berne, Switzerland, head of the team that copied his thumb bones. “Now I can put spares in my pocket if I want,” he says.

Exact replicas of a man's thumb bones have been made for the first time using a printer that uses natural materials for ink (Image: Gustoimages / SPL)

—->>>>>>> Article in New Scientist

Researchers have found the factor that makes the difference between a stem cell in the intestine and any other cell. The discovery reported in the March 6th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, is an essential step toward understanding the biology of the stem cells, which are responsible for replenishing all other cells in the most rapidly self-renewing tissue in mammals. It may also have implications for colon cancer, according to the researchers.

The report finds evidence that a transcription factor called Achaete scute-like 2 (Ascl2) switches on the stem cell program in intestinal cells. Transcription factors are genes that control other genes. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists say they have discovered a way to stop cancer spreading to other parts of the body.

Cancer metastasis, where the cancer spreads from its original location, is known to be responsible for 90% of cancer-related deaths.

Institute of Cancer Research scientists have found that an enzyme called LOX is crucial in promoting metastasis, Cancer Cell journal reports.

Breast cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body - BBC News

—>>>>>>  Article in BBC News

Deploying a method that removes potentially cancer-causing genes, Whitehead Institute researchers have “reprogrammed” human skin cells from Parkinson’s disease patients into an embryonic-stem-cell-like state. Whitehead scientists then used these so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to create dopamine-producing neurons, the cell type that degenerates in Parkinson’s disease patients.

This marks first time researchers have generated human iPS cells, successfully removed the potentially problematic reprogramming genes, and seen the cells maintain their embryonic stem-cell-like state. Previous methods to reprogram mature cells into iPS cells inserted cancer-causing genes into the cells’ DNA. Because the current method removes the cancer-causing genes, the resulting iPS cells’ DNA is virtually identical to the DNA of the original adult cells. These iPS cells can be matured into any cell type, allowing for screens of potential drug therapies and study of patient-specific disease at the cellular level. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have used “personalized genome” sequencing on an individual with a hereditary form of pancreatic cancer to locate a mutation in a gene called PALB2 that is responsible for initiating the disease. The discovery marks their first use of a genome scanning system to uncover suspect mutations in normal inherited genes. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can now control how cells connect with one another in vitro and assemble themselves into three-dimensional, multicellular microtissues. The researchers demonstrated their method by constructing a tailor-made artificial cell-signaling system, analogous to natural cell systems that communicate via growth factors.

Caption: After cell types labeled with red and green dye markers are joined (bottom), the resulting 3-D structures are purified to eliminate unreacted cells (center). More cells can then be added to form even more complex structures (top). There is no theoretical limit to the number of different cell types that can be assembled; microtissues with three or four different kinds of cells should be feasible. Credit: Carolyn Bertozzi, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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We know that lifespan can be extended in animals by restricting calories such as sugar intake. Now, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, Université de Montréal scientists have discovered that it’s not sugar itself that is important in this process but the ability of cells to sense its presence.

Aging is a complex phenomenon and the mechanisms underlying aging are yet to be explained. What researchers do know is that there is a clear relationship between aging and calorie intake. For example, mice fed with half the calories they usually eat can live 40 percent longer. How does this work?

As part of the PLoS Genetics study, Université de Montréal Biochemistry Professor Luis Rokeach and his student Antoine Roux discovered to their surprise that if they removed the gene for a glucose sensor from yeast cells, they lived just as long as those living on a glucose-restricted diet. In short, the fate of these cells doesn’t depend on what they eat but what they think they’re eating. Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to providing a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, the most powerful anti-malaria drug in use today, synthetic biology can also help to extend the effectiveness of this drug. Fermenting artemisinin via engineered microbes, such as yeast, can be done at far lower costs than extracting the drug from Artemsisia annua, the sweet wormwood tree, making microbial-based artemisinin a much cheaper but equally effective treatment. Restricting access to this technology to responsible manufacturers who will bundle artemisinin as part of an anti-malarial drug “cocktail” rather than selling it as a monotherapy should delay or even prevent malaria parasites from developing resistance. Recently, there have been reports of malaria parasites in West Africa showing some signs of resistance to artemisinin.

Caption: As shown in this X-ray image taken at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, the malaria parasite develops inside red blood cells, where it accumulates iron. It is vulnerable to the oxygen-based free radicals released by a powerful but scarce antimalarial drug known as artemisinin. Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Pennsylvania State University have identified for the first time a specific “niche factor” in the mouse testes called colony stimulating factor 1, Csf1, that has a direct effect on sperm stem cell self-renewal. Moreover, the study shows that the origin of this growth factor is the Leydig cell — located in the testes and stimulated by the pituitary gland to supply testosterone — that secretes Csf1 and enhances self-renewal of the stem cells. Read the rest of this entry »

A team of scientists at the Scripps Research Institute has found a way to use specially programmed chemicals to elicit an immediate immune response in laboratory animals against two types of cancer. The experiments, thus far performed only in mice, appear to overcome a major drawback of vaccinations—the lag time of days, or even weeks, that it normally takes for immunity to build against a pathogen. This new method of vaccination could potentially be used to provide instantaneous protection against diseases caused by viruses and bacteria, cancers, and even virulent toxins. Read the rest of this entry »

Stem cells can thrive in segments of well-vascularized tissue temporarily removed from laboratory animals, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Once the cells have nestled into the tissue’s nooks and crannies, the so-called “bioscaffold” can then be seamlessly reconnected to the animal’s circulatory system.

The new technique neatly sidesteps a fundamental stumbling block in tissue engineering: the inability to generate solid organs from stem cells in the absence of a reliable supply of blood to the interior of the developing structure. Read the rest of this entry »

Mayo Clinic researchers found that healthy, older adults who participated in a computer-based training program to improve the speed and accuracy of brain processing showed twice the improvement in certain aspects of memory, compared to a control group. Read the rest of this entry »

In the latest clinical trial for a technique to detect pancreatic cancer, researchers found they could differentiate cells that are cancerous from those that are benign, pre-cancerous, or even early stage indicators called mucinous cystic lesions.

Pancreatic cancer, unseen at its earliest stages by any other method, can be detected by examining tissue from inside the duodenum, the uppermost section of the small intestine. The pancreatic duct communicates with the duodenum via the Ampulla of Vater. Researchers have shown that cells in a roughly 3 cm radius from this feature can show signs of the presence of cancer. Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

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The stimulus bill was conceived as a way to jumpstart the economy with ’shovel-ready’ infrastructure and construction projects. At agencies such as the NSF and the Department of Energy’s (DoE) office of science, however, much of the money will be spent on grants, and details are emerging this week of how those grants will be awarded.

>>>> Article in Nature

The February, 2009 issue of the American Association for Cancer Research journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention published the discovery of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, the University of Arizona, and other research centers of a positive effect of high carotenoid intake on recurrence-free survival in breast cancer patients. Carotenoids, such as beta-carotene, occur in most fruits and vegetables. Diets high in these plant foods have been linked with a protective effect against various cancers in a number of studies.

>>>> Article in Life Extension site

Postmenopausal women who take multivitamins appear to have the same risk of most common cancers, cardiovascular disease or dying of any cause as women who do not take multivitamin supplements, according to a report in the February 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Read the rest of this entry »

A simple, chemical materials model may lead to a better understanding of the structure and organization of the cell according to a Penn State researcher.

“Cells are interesting because they show organization even at the level of the cytoplasm, and while it is thought to be important for cell functions, it is not always clear how this organization is achieved,” said Christine Keating, associate professor of chemistry. “We are taking a materials chemistry approach in developing simple experimental models for cytoplasm organization,” she told attendees at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Caption: These are images of primitive artificial cell created with lipid membrane and two large molecules. Top images are when cells form. The bottom images are after fluid is removed via osmotic stress. The left images are by transmitted-light, Differential Interference Contrast microscopy. The images on the right are false colored fluorescent images. The scale bar is 10 micrometers. Credit: Christine Keating, Penn State

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Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of California, San Diego have developed a set of molecular tools that provide important insight into the complex genomes of multicellular organisms. The strategy promises to clarify the longstanding mystery of the role played by vast stretches of DNA sequence that do not code for the functional units—genes—that nevertheless may have a powerful regulatory influence. The research is described in the 12 February edition of the journal Nature.

Caption: Activity pattern of one of nearly 5000 potential genetic switches (enhancers) identified by Visel et al. This particular switch is located on human chromosome 5 and turns on genes in developing mammalian limbs, as shown here by reporter gene staining (dark blue) in a transgenic mouse embryo. Credit: Axel Visel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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The heart tissue is created by induced pluripotency, which genetically reprograms adult cells into a near-embryonic state, capable of becoming almost any cell type.

Video: University of Wisconsin

Researchers at Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation hospital have developed a technique that uses infrared light brain imaging to decode preference – with the goal of ultimately opening the world of choice to children who can’t speak or move.

In a study published this month in The Journal of Neural Engineering, Bloorview scientists demonstrate the ability to decode a person’s preference for one of two drinks with 80 per cent accuracy by measuring the intensity of near-infrared light absorbed in brain tissue Read the rest of this entry »