The Discovery and Potential of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) by Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita Levi-Montalcini was working with chick embryos in 1938, investigating how neurons find their way to the limbs they are to innervate, when she was barred from the University of Turin, a Jew in Mussolini’s Italy. She continued work in a laboratory she set up in her bedroom in Turin, then in the countryside.

“At the end of this difficult period, there was a seed for what has been one of most fantastic developments in one field of neuroscience”—the identification of nerve growth factor (NGF), said Piergiorgio Strata, president of Italy’s National Institute of Neuroscience, and a member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB).

The occasion was a memorial symposium for Levi-Montalcini, a founding member of EDAB who died in 2012 at the age of 103. Neuroscientists who knew, worked or studied with Levi-Montalcini honored her life by elaborating her legacy—a morning's tour through research that followed the groundbreaking discoveries for which she received The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986.

Working at Washington University in St. Louis after the war, she and Stanley Cohen (with whom she shared the Nobel) identified a compound, expressed by peripheral cells, that attracted spinal neurons and induced neurite formation, then isolated this substance—NGF—from tumors, snake venom, and mouse salivary glands—all in the face of relentless skepticism from the scientific community.

Speakers at the symposium, presented by the Italian Cultural Institute and Centro Primo Levi in NYC, stressed the characteristics that enabled her to flourish intellectually and prevail in adversity: 

• a powerful, charismatic personality, 
• enormous drive and passion for her work, and 
• an approach that combined intuition with analysis. 

"She often noted that she viewed herself as an artist more than a scientist," said a Neuron obituary.

The importance of this work, speakers said, could hardly be overestimated. "If we look at the history of 20th century neuroscience, Rita ranks with the giants... she was the first major molecular neurobiologist," wrote fellow Nobelist (and member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives) Eric Kandel, in a tribute read at the meeting. "Her extraordinary discovery of NGF affected all aspects of our field."

As the first identified growth factor, NGF introduced a radically new concept, said Lloyd Greene of Columbia University. "We knew from insulin that organs could communicate via substances that went into the bloodstream. A major implication of Rita's findings was that there was another means of communication between cells, at short range.” Her inquiry into embryonic development illuminated key processes in mature neurons—survival, plasticity, neuroprotection—and beyond, “an explosion of findings within and outside the nervous system."

Ralph Bradshaw of University of California, San Francisco, called NGF a "Rosetta Stone" that helped decode key aspects of nervous system function, proteins, receptors, and cancer biology.

He reviewed some of his involvement in elaborations of the NGF discovery—beginning with the sequencing, in collaboration with Ruth Angeletti (who had been Levi-Montalcini's only PhD student, now at Albert Einstein College of Medicine), of the NGF molecule. The structure, he said, suggested a compound that acted like insulin on target cells. "It turned out we were right, but not for all the right reasons."
“The idea that NGF was an endocrine-like substance led to pursuit of the receptor,” Bradshaw said, summarizing research that eventually characterized not one but two receptors (a fact that “befuddled the field for 15-20 years”) and then to elucidation of the molecular signaling pathways by which NGF and related compounds modulate cellular function.

“The picture started to evolve that these factors were not only involved in growth and development, but also as regulators in growth disorders, namely cancer… that these were very important discoveries,” Bradshaw said.

Greene’s research exemplified this importance. "In science, you start working on one thing and end up with something far different," he said. “NGF led us, in ways we never would have anticipated, to a potential treatment for brain tumors.”

It began with studies in the 1990s to explore how NGF regulates genes. Using serial analysis of gene expression, Greene’s research team identified hundreds of genes that became more or less active after exposure to the compound. The researchers then focused on transcription factors—proteins that determine whether genes are turned on or off. They found that one of these compounds, ATF5, was particularly abundant in neural progenitor cells, but not in mature neurons or astrocytes, and that NGF shut down production of ATF5.

“This led us to the idea that ATF5 is important for proliferation of [stem] cells that eventually give rise to the brain. When they encounter growth factor, they turn into differentiated cells and stop proliferating,” Greene said. Neural progenitor cells that were experimentally deprived of ATF5 differentiated prematurely and failed to migrate. Cells infected with a retrovirus to keep on producing the transcription factor never differentiated and continued to divide—much like a tumor.

“We wondered: is ATF5 present in glioblastomas?” he said.

It was; cells from 29 of these highly virulent, virtually incurable tumors all expressed the transcription factor. When the researchers silenced ATF5 in cultured glioblastoma cells, the cells died.

In subsequent in vivo studies, the researchers gave mice with experimentally induced glioblastomas subcutaneous injections of a molecule that hybridized dominant-negative ATF5 protein, which neutralizes ATF5, with penetratin, a peptide that crosses the blood-brain barrier.

Within days of treatment, tumor cells began to die; 19 days and 6 months later, the tumors had disappeared on MRI. Treated animals all survived for 6 months, while 60% of the others died. There was no apparent kidney, brain, liver, or blood toxicity.

As work proceeds with other animals, “we’re collecting data to go to the FDA for possible clinical trials,” Greene said. The approach “could work for other tumors as well.”

Antonio Cattaneo of the European Brain Research Institute in Rome (which Levi-Montalcini helped establish in 2002), described research linking the NGF system to Alzheimer’s disease pathology, and suggesting a novel treatment strategy.

Using antibodies that target NGF, he showed that neutralizing the growth factor in the brains of adult mice initiated a process of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. While the effect on cholinergic neurons—a key population in Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—was first implicated, it became clear that astrocytes and glia were compromised as well.

Further studies characterized this neurodegeneration process as an imbalance between NGF and a precursor protein, proNGF, and showed that the same result could be achieved by modifying mouse brain cells to overexpress proNGF.

Cattaneo has been exploring ways to “strengthen the balance by increasing NGF.” When mice, genetically modified to express AD-like pathology, were given a modified form of NGF intranasally, amyloid plaques regressed, and learning and memory deficits improved.

“This may be a viable candidate for a non-invasive therapeutic approach to AD,” he said. “We’re collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry to get clinical trials.”

Looking toward the future of NGF-related research, Cattaneo cited an "agenda" that Levi-Montalcini proposed in 2009, at the age of 100. In addition to work (like the studies described above) aiming to develop its therapeutic potential, she urged investigations of the NGF system’s role earlier in embryonic development than the nervous system, and in more primitive species.

Her agenda called for studies of NGF in other tissues, particularly the reproductive system. “Rita predicted it would be found to participate in processes like activation of sperm or implantation of ova,” Cattaneo said.

Her scientific intuitions were still reliable, he said. In a paper published three years later, researchers described their work identifying a substance in the semen of diverse mammals that induces ovulation. It was NGF. 

ORIGINAL: DANA Foundation

by Carl Sherman

February 20, 2014

Homo-Empathicus: How We Belong to Each Other. ~ Kathryn Ashworth {video}

This video is evidence that the most civilized thing a person can do is be empathetic, and that current forms of technology are serving to bridge our natural inclination to connect across culture. It may change the way you see social networking platforms, your iPhone, etc.. It may even change the way you see yourself:

“We are actually soft-wired for sociability, affection, companionship, and the first drive is to…belong.”

“Empathy is the opposite of Utopia. There is no empathy in heaven, I can tell you before you get there. There isn’t any empathy in heaven because there’s no mortality. There’s no empathy in utopia because there’s no suffering. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. It’s based on our frailty and imperfections. So when we are talking about building an empathetic civilization we are not talking about utopia, we are talking about the ability of humanity to show solidarity not only with each other but with our fellow creatures who have a one and only life on this planet. We are homo-empathicus.”

No matter the heights of the individual and the empire we desire to construct out of ourselves alone, the inner drive to connect, beyond walls of separation, will always overcome.

It’s the basic mechanics and biology of humanity.

ORIGINAL: Elephant Journal

Via Kathryn Ashworth

Dec 17, 2013

The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars

Image credit: Thinkstock

The Oxford comma, so-called because the Oxford University Press style guidelines require it, is the comma before the conjunction at the end of a list. If your preferred style is to omit the second comma in "red, white, and blue," you are aligned with the anti-Oxford comma faction. The pro-Oxford comma faction is more vocal and numerous in the US, while in the UK, anti-Oxford comma reigns. (Oxford University is an outsider, style-wise, in its own land.) In the US, book and magazine publishers are generally pro, while newspapers are anti, but both styles can be found in both media.

The two main rationales for choosing one style over the other are clarity and economy. Each side has invoked both rationales in its favor. Here are some quotes that have served as shots exchanged in the Oxford comma wars.

Pro: "She took a photograph of her parents, the president, and the vice president."

This example from the Chicago Manual of Style shows how the comma is necessary for clarity. Without it, she is taking a picture of two people, her mother and father, who are the president and vice president. With it, she is taking a picture of four people.

Con: "Those at the ceremony were the commodore, the fleet captain, the donor of the cup, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Jones."

This example from the 1934 style book of the New York Herald Tribune shows how a comma before "and" can result in a lack of clarity. With the comma, it reads as if Mr. Smith was the donor of the cup, which he was not.

Pro: "Zinovieff shot over five hundred of the bourgeoisie at a stroke—nobles, professors, officers, journalists, men and women."

George Ives, the author of a 1921 guide to the usage style of the Atlantic Monthly Press, gives this example to show how making the comma before "and" standard practice is more economical. This way, the reader will know for sure that if it's missing, there's a good reason. Here the reading is that there were both men and women among the nobles, professors, officers, and journalists. Without the expectation of the Oxford comma, the reader has to work harder to figure out that men and women aren't two additional groups on the list.

Con: "There are certain places where for the sake of clarity and good form the presence of a comma is obligatory, but on the other hand a too liberal use of this form of punctuation tends to slow up the pace of the reading matter and to create confusion and hesitancy in the mind of the reader."

The 1937 New York Times style guide put economy on the side of the no comma rule. Use when necessary—otherwise, it's just clutter to slow you down. 

Pro: "...use the comma between all members of a series, including the last two, on the commonsense ground that to do so will preclude ambiguities and annoyances at negligible cost."

Wilson Follett, in his 1966 Modern American Usage, advocates for the comma on the grounds that it can't really hurt.

Con: "All those commas make the flag seem rained on. They give it a furled look. Leave them out, and Old Glory is flung to the breeze, as it should be."

This complaint was addressed to Harold Ross, the founding editor of the New Yorker, by James Thurber, who preferred "the red white and blue" to "the red, white, and blue." Ross, a notorious defender of the serial comma, was impressed by Thurber's argument and responded, "write a piece about it, and I'll punctuate the flag any way you want it—in that one piece."

Pro: "This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God"

A probably apocryphal book dedication, this example has been a favorite of pro-Oxford comma language blogs for a while. Without the comma before "and," you get a rather intriguing set of parents.

Con: "The English are rather more careful than we are, and commonly put a comma after the next-to-last member of a series, but otherwise are not too precise to offend a red-blooded American."

H.L. Mencken, who did not use the serial comma himself, implies, in this quote tucked into a supplement to The American Language, that there is something prissy, pedantic, and altogether un-American about the extra comma.

?: "By train, plane and sedan chair, Peter Ustinov retraces a journey made by Mark Twain a century ago. The highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector."

Languagehat dug this gem out of a comment thread on the serial comma. It's from a TV listing in The Times. It supports the use of the Oxford comma, but only because it keeps Mandela from being a dildo collector. However, even the Oxford comma can't keep him from being an 800-year-old demigod. There's only so much a comma can do.

ORIGINAL: Mental Floss
Arika Okrent

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Quantum Entanglement

Could quantum entanglement be used for faster-than-light communication across vast distances? Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson explain to Eugene Mirman the problems trying to bridge the gap between the way matter behaves in quantum physics and in the macroscopic world. If you love StarTalk Radio, don't miss out on any StarTalk news.

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ORIGINAL: StarTalk Radio

Science is Awesome - Aug 30

ORIGINAL: IFLS - Elise Andrew
Aug 30, 201

This week on IFLS, the first ever recorded incident of a Boa Constrictor Devouring Monkey, a new element is discovered, a walking shark, brain to brain interface AND Neil Armstrong Passes Away... Again.

More About This Week's Stories:

Walking shark. There's a video of this here:
http://vimeo.com/72995710
Paper: http://www.aqua-aquapress.com/index.p...

New element:
http://prl.aps.org/accepted/2207dY2bS...

Boa constrictor taking down a monkey:
http://www.livescience.com/39172-boa-...

Gene therapy heart cells: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/...

Brain interface:
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/0...

Neil Armstrong dies again:
http://www.inquisitr.com/923440/why-r...

==================
Join Elise each week to see the all the latest and greatest stories from the lighter side of science, including popular science, space, biology, nature, and more. Subscribe now!

http://facebook.com/ifeakinglovescience
https://twitter.com/iflscience
http://twitter.com/elise_andrew

Your Company Is Only as Good as Your Writing

ORIGINAL: HBR
by Kyle Wiens

July 30, 2013

Good writing: Businesses claim to practice it, support it, and value it. But more often than not, their money isn't where their mouth is. Poor grammar and jargon-riddled writing are rampant. We're great at inventing terms — the instruction manual for my toaster refers to the lever that pops up the toast as the 'Extra-Lift Carriage Control Lever' — but poor at communicating what we actually mean.

We could learn a thing or two about communication from our forefathers. One of the most effective speeches of all time, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, was only 701 words. Of those, 505 were words of one syllable and 122 had two syllables.

Great leaders consider communication a core competence, so why don't more businesses? Manufacturers spend millions on safety training to get people to wear hard hats, but spend very little to make sure their safety critical work instructions are written clearly.

That's not good enough. Effective writing must be a company-wide endeavor.

If my marketer misses a typo while writing about a product, I want my packaging staff to catch it before the design gets sent to print. If my technicians don't capitalize a tool's name consistently, I'd hope my videographer notices the error when he glances at the report on their desks. When I'm writing an essay, I always ask my software engineers for constructive feedback. (I'm not too proud to admit that many of them are better writers than I.)

Over the years, I've worked hard to foster an atmosphere where everyone has the right to critique, question, and suggest. Just because most team members don't have "professional writer" in their job descriptions doesn't mean writing is off limits to them. Everyone here is a writer.

In my experience, the practice of good, collaborative writing makes the difference between great business and bad business — a sale or no sale.

Last year, I kicked up a bit of a stir 'round these parts when I wrote "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why." I confidently declared myself a "grammar stickler," unwilling to hire qualified applicants if they couldn't pass a basic grammar test.

After the article was published, I heard back from a lot of different people. Some disagreed. One participant in a New York Times debate exclaimed that my "requirements that viable candidates write with Strunk and White on their minds are highly questionable." Others wholeheartedly shared my convictions. The range of feedback is to be expected. After all, the grammar debate tends to be divisive.

The feedback did prove one thing: It's not easy to talk about writing. Certainly not in business. Writing, even writing in public arenas, is always personal. It exposes the writer's ideas and ability (or inability) to navigate language. Writing is vulnerability.

Plus — and this is the frustrating part — there is no right way to write. Even the most basic rules are fuzzy. Prepositions aren't something you should end a sentence with. You should never start a sentence with "because." Why not? Because. Sentence fragments are unforgivable. Unless they're not.

We like to think that we learned everything there is to know about grammar in our 10th grade English classes, but the conventions are constantly changing. The standards shift. That makes writing hard — and difficult to talk about.

Writing is a tricky balancing act, juggling dozens of nebulous constraints. Writers have to think about audience, and about style, and about tone — factors that are hard to anchor down. In business, writing is inextricably tied to company identity: writers have to think about what a company stands for, where it's going, and how that company should be presented to the public. Difficult considerations.

I've found that topics that are the most uncomfortable are usually the ones that need the most discussion. Writing is one of them. It's a conversation that is crucial to have — with everyone.

For the last 10 years, iFixit has been writing and hosting free, open source repair manuals for every thing. We weren't always as good at it as we are now. Like many publishers, we didn't have an open dialogue about what we'd written — not within the company and not with the public. And, in our early years, our writing suffered for it. In fact, some of our initial instructions led users astray — resulting in broken computers and cameras and cell phones. That was our fault, and we knew it.

But we kept writing. And we rewrote. And we talked about writing with everyone.

We started collecting tips:  

• Keep sentences short. 
• Don't verb nouns. 
• Using 'you' makes you seem friendlier. 

Our list grew fast. Together, we worked to nail down just how iFixit sounds. Writing — and talking about writing — with each other gave us a cohesive voice.

Soon, we realized we'd written a book. And we realized that it would be an incredible shame to keep it to ourselves. Today, since so many HBR readers wrote to us asking about iFixit's writing process, I have that handbook to share with you.

Our free Tech Writing Handbook is the culmination of years of practice, of continually sharing our opinions and perspectives. We found out that writing has unintentional consequences: it's revelatory. The more you write, the more you learn about yourself. Writing about our company, about our mission, and about our users helped us understand them better. It helped us understand our vision.

If good writing is important to you and your company (as it should be), feel free to share our book with your writers (which should be each and every member of your company). Crib from it, revise it, repurpose it. Or better yet, write your own — because you can't all be on the same page if it's a blank page.


More blog posts by Kyle Wiens
More on: Communication, Organizational culture


Kyle Wiens

Kyle Wiens is CEO of iFixit, the largest online repair community, as well as founder of Dozuki, a software company dedicated to helping manufacturers publish amazing documentation.

Secret DARPA Mind Control Project Revealed: Leaked Document

ORIGINAL: Activist Post

Activist Post

July 29, 2013

From MASHABLE. Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, ktsimage ?

Whistleblower Reveals Military Mind Control Project At Major University

What if the government could change people's moral beliefs or stop political dissent through remote control of people's brains?

Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, a leaked document reveals that the US government, through DARPA research, is very close to accomplishing this.

Activist Post was recently contacted by an anonymous whistleblower who worked on a secret ongoing mind-control project for DARPA. The aim of the program is to remotely disrupt political dissent and extremism by employing "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation" (TMS) in tandem with sophisticated propaganda based on this technology. TMS stimulates the temporal lobe of the brain with electromagnetic fields.

The program, conducted by The Center for Strategic Communication, is based at Arizona State University. The DARPA funding for this project can be confirmed on the ASU website here. The head of the project, Steve Corman, has worked extensively in the area of strategic communication as it applies to terrorism and "extremism" - or what could be called "the war of ideas."

Corman's latest project Narrating The Exit From Afghanistan and his many presentations make it quite obvious that the mission is to shape the narrative and literally change people's minds. Lest one believe it will be contained to overseas extremists, we should keep in mind that the word extremist is increasingly used domestically. The dissenters of yesterday could easily become the terrorist sympathizers and supporters of political violence tomorrow.

This DARPA research brings about many ethical questions and dilemmas. Mainly, this research aims to literally induce or disrupt the operation of narratives within the brain. In other words, this research aims to stop individuals from thinking certain thoughts and make others believe things they normally would not believe. This research has tremendous interrogation possibilities and could potentially be used to more successfully spread propaganda or stop political upheaval to an unsuspecting public.

This research is being conducted by The Center for Strategic Communication at ASU and is entitled “Toward Narrative Disruptors and Inductors: Mapping the Narrative Comprehension Network and its Persuasive Effects” A detailed overview of the project can be found in the document below. Highlights include:

In phase 3 of the research, the research group will “selectively alter aspects of narrative structure and brain functions via Transcranial Magnetic Simulation (TMS) to induce or disrupt selected features of narrative processing.” (Page 16, emphasis added)

TMS is a very powerful tool used to impair the brain functioning of individuals. See the videos below for a brief demonstration of the effects of TMS.

Once the research group determines which parts of the brain are associated with cognitive reasoning and narrative comprehension, they will be attempt to impair those sections in order to “create a fundamental basis for understanding how to disrupt or enhance aspects of narrative structure and/or brain functioning to minimize or maximize persuasive effects on subject proclivity to engage in political violence.” (Page 23)

Once it is determined that disruption of certain portions of the brain can enhance persuasive messaging, individuals can be persuaded to do things they normally would not do and believe things they normally would not believe. This could include something as simple as telling a closely guarded secret, to believing in government propaganda, or even committing a violent act. The group writes on page 26, “once we have produced a narrative comprehension model [i.e., how individuals comprehend stories and persuasive messages], end users [aka the government] will understand how to activate known neural networks (e.g., working memory or attention) and positive behavioral outcome (e.g., nonviolent actions) nodes with strategic communication messages as a means to reduce incidences of political violence in contested populations.” The group will investigate “possibilities for literally disrupting the activity of the NCN [narrative comprehension network] through Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.” (page 30) [text added]

The group is so confident that they will be able to induce or disrupt the operations of narratives in the brain, that they say on page 26 that the research “offers the capability to induce or disrupt the operation of narratives in the brain, and develops the capability to induce narrative validity [i.e., the believability of a particular narrative/message], transportation [i.e., the ability to be engaged by a narrative], and integration [i.e., associating a particular narrative with a larger, more culturally specific narrative] with certainty.” [text added]

The group gives the following example of this projects usefulness: “If it is the case that activation in one particular neural network enables people to connect personal narrative to master narratives [i.e., cultural narratives], by disrupting activity in that brain area, we should be able to selectively impair that specific aspect of narrative processing while holding other meaning making processes constant, effectively creating a ‘narrative disruptor.’ Not only would this be an important finding in the science of neural networks and narrative persuasion, but would also have considerably practical and strategic importance.” (page 40) [text added]

Essentially, the research aims to literally disrupt how people think and comprehend ideas and messages.

Further, and perhaps even more terrifying, on page 40, the group writes, “Mechanical disruptions of narrative processing may be, ultimately, replicated in through targeted strategic communication campaigns that approximate the narrative disruptions induced via magnetic stimulation.” So, after figuring out which parts of the brain are activated by particular persuasive messages and propaganda, the government can test out messages that only activate particular portions of the brain and not others, in order to persuade individuals to believe or not believe something. Essentially, they are attempting to modify brain functioning without TMS, and only words. One can only imagine the strategies the government could use with this technology. They could make the public believe almost anything that suits their needs. It could literally lead to mass brainwashing. But what does this mean, practically? It means that if this research succeeds, the government will be able to modify how one personally thinks. They could strap you in a chair, put a machine to your head, turn off parts of your brain, introduce a persuasive message, and make you believe it.

Further, through extensive research, they may be able to replicate the machine’s brain disrupting functioning simply through carefully crafted and researched persuasive messages and propaganda. They can use brain imaging to determine which portions of the brain are activated when a particular message is presented to an individual, and if the “right” portions are activated, they know the message will circumvent one’s mental reasoning and lead to almost automatic acceptance. With enough data, the government could spread propaganda through the media that people will almost automatically believe, whether it is true or not.

In terms of interrogation possibilities, Transcranical Magnetic Stimulation can be forced upon individuals to 

• make them believe certain things, 
• say certain things, and 
• perhaps admit to acts they did not actually commit (as the TMS can induce narrative validity), or commit acts they normally would not commit.

The government is literally trying to brainwash the public. This is not science fiction. Technology has made it possible to induce and disrupt cognitive functioning in individuals. In the future, your thoughts may not be your own, but ones that have been implanted into your brain through exceedingly successful and validated propaganda.

Meeting notes indicate concern about how the project will be perceived, particularly the focus on the Christian/Muslim element.

We encourage you to embed these documents on your own website or blog and share them with everyone you know. Page numbers listed above are based on Scribd conversion below; enter the page number you wish to view in the Scribd search box.

Toward Narrative Disruptors and Inductors: Mapping the Narrative Comprehension Network and its Persuasive Effects

Why Does EV-Phobia Plague Most British Drivers?

ORIGINAL: Electronic Design

by Paul Whytock in London Calling
Jul. 17, 2013

A majority of British drivers feel that there is insufficient infrastructure when it comes to re-charging electric vehicles

The immediate answer to that question could be they are just plain crazy and simply have no regard for the ecological advantages afforded by electric vehicles (EVs). But that’s not it. The reality is that 62% of Britain's drivers believe national infrastructure falls short in supporting EVs. The sense is that recharging, particularly on long journeys, could be haphazard. In fact, over 70% of drivers surveyed said they had never seen a public EV charger.
Well, they’re right. Let's face it, why would you buy a car that’s much more expensive than a petrol/diesel equivalent, yet becomes an inconvenience when it came to finding vacant charging points?

These reactions came from a survey conducted by Censuswide and Rexel, a distributor of electrical products and services for energy applications. Vehicle range anxiety was a common response throughout in the survey. In some regard, this reflects back to concerns about inadequate numbers of recharging facilities.

But what about the environmental issue? If the UK is to meet its agreed-upon carbon reduction target of at least 80% by 2050, the Government wants 1.7 million EVs to be operating on Britain’s roads by 2020 and 6.3 million by 2030.

However, the apparently EV-phobic attitude of drivers isn’t entirely their fault. The UK Government must shoulder some responsibility for not adequately publicizing certain facts about EV ownership.

For instance, the purchase-cost reluctance highlights a lack of awareness of the incentives available from the Government to encourage EV adoption, such as the plug-in car grant. The grant offers UK-based consumers and businesses 25% off the cost of a qualifying ultra-low emission car, up to a maximum of £5,000.

This is, of course, a positive move. Still, driver doubts remain when it comes to a national recharging infrastructure. There may be 3000 public charging points in the UK, but that’s nowhere near enough to meet demand, especially if the Government plans to reach its target of 1.7 million EV owners by 2020. That works out to one charging point for every 567 EVs…not a viable panacea when it comes to curing EV-phobia.

Rats Communicate Mind-to-Mind With Aid of Brain Implant

ORIGINAL: Health Line
by Rachel Barclay

July 12, 2013

A new brain-to-brain interface allows rats to directly share information and collaborate when making decisions, even from thousands of miles away.

In a groundbreaking study published earlier this year in Scientific Reports, a team of scientists has demonstrated that it's possible for a rat to transmit information directly into the brain of another rat.

In the past decade, increasingly sophisticated brain-machine interfaces have been developed to allow test animals—and more recently, human patients—to mentally control a robotic limb or move a cursor on a screen. The team, led by neurobiologist Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at the Duke University Medical Center, decided to take brain-machine interfaces to the next level.

"Our previous studies with brain-machine interfaces had convinced us that the brain was much more plastic than we had thought," Nicolelis said in a press release. "In those experiments, the brain was able to adapt easily to accept input from devices outside the body and even learn how to process invisible infrared light generated by an artificial sensor. So, the question we asked was, if the brain could assimilate signals from artificial sensors, could it also assimilate information input from sensors from a different body."

Two Bodies, One Mind

The researchers implanted pairs of rats with arrays of microelectrodes, devices a fraction of the width of a human hair, that lie directly on the surface of the brain. For each pair, one rat was dubbed the encoder; the other, the decoder. In a series of trials, the encoder rat was trained to perform a task in exchange for a sip of water, and the electrode array recorded its brain activity. Then that recorded activity was transmitted to the decoder rat’s brain, stimulating the electrodes in its brain in precisely the same pattern. By using its partner’s pattern, the decoder rat was able to make better decisions than it could on its own.

And learning went in both directions. The scientists designed the experiment so that when the decoder rat successfully performed its task, the encoder rat would receive an additional reward. Very quickly, the encoder rat learned to modify its brain activity, creating a smoother, stronger signal for its partner to read. The longer the two rats worked together, the more they altered their behavior to form a working team.

In one trial, the encoder rat was taught to pull a lever on the right or left of its cage when a light appeared over the lever, with about 95 percent accuracy. In the cage next to it, its partner, the decoder rat, was trained to pull the right or left lever, depending on a signal the scientists transmitted into its brain, with about 78 percent accuracy. Then, to test whether the encoder rat could teach the decoder rat which lever to pull, the scientists transmitted the encoder rat’s brainwaves to the decoder rat in real time.

Using the information received from the encoder rat, the decoder rat was able to pull the correct lever 70 percent of the time, far more accurately than chance would allow. When the decoder rat made a mistake, the encoder rat focused more and improved the quality of the signal it was sending to its friend. When the scientists switched the interface machine off, the decoder rat’s performance dropped back to no better than random chance.

To investigate the extent to which the two rats could align their senses, the team looked closely at the group of brain cells that processed information from the rats' whiskers. As in humans, the cells formed a “map” of the sensory input they were receiving. They found that after a period of transmitting the brain activity from the encoder rat into the decoder rat, the decoder rat's brain began to map out the encoder rat’s whiskers alongside its own.

This last finding is very promising for the advancement of prosthetics for people who have been paralyzed or suffered other nerve damage. It suggests that humans might able to not only learn to control a robotic limb, but also remap their brains to receive sensory information from the limb itself.

In the ultimate test of their technology, Nicolelis’s team decided to link together two rats in different countries. They partnered a rat in their lab in Durham, North Carolina, with a rat in a lab in Natal, Brazil. Despite thousands of miles over which the signal could degrade, the two rats were able to work together and cooperate in real time.

"So even though the animals were on different continents, with the resulting noisy transmission and signal delays, they could still communicate," said Miguel Pais-Vieira, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study, in a press release. "This tells us that we could create a workable network of animal brains distributed in many different locations."

Dawn of the Cyborg?

Right now, they’ve only linked two rats, but the researchers are working on building connections between groups of rats to see if they can collaborate on more complex tasks.

"We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net,” Nicolelis said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves."

Nicolelis’s discovery is on the vanguard of the expanding field of cybernetics. Crude structures like limbs aren’t the only robotic prostheses in development. A bionic eye was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Modern prosthetics even extend to the brain itself—a recent invention by Dr. Theodore Berger could allow one brain region to be replaced by a computer chip. In his study, Berger removed the hippocampus from rats, the brain region that allows all mammals to form new memories. Without a hippocampus, a rat cannot learn to run a maze.

In its place, he installed a chip that modeled the behavior of the hippocampus. Using the chip, the rat was able to learn to run the maze just fine; remove the chip, and the learning is gone. Whether another rat could then run the maze using the same chip remains untested, but Nicolelis’s research suggests it might be possible.

Computer-augmented and interconnectedminds have long had their place in science fiction and popular culture, but these discoveries might one day make the singularity a reality.

Communicating the Profession of Uncertainty

ORIGINAL: OxBridgeBiotech

by: Sheida Rabipour
Wednesday, 3rd July 2013

The work of scientists must ultimately cater to the masses

A major issue facing scientists today? Communicating their hard work and innovations to the rest of us.

Around the time Columbus set sail on his famous journey, most people “knew” that the sun was orbiting Earth, fevers were a sign of punishment by evil spirits, and living to 30 years of age marked a full life. Fast forward a few hundred years and such notions are laughable.

Scientific research has pushed the realm of possibility beyond limits once imagined. We have constructed gravity-defying machines, ventured outside our planet, and created the possibility to gaze inside the building blocks of life. We have created the means for astronauts such as Chris Hadfield, hanging in the vacuum of space, to connect with millions of people around the world in real-time. And the ability to reconstruct our body parts, even remove vital organs, such as the heart, in favour of man-made replacements. Talk about the sci-fi conceptions in Back to the Future! The creative vision and dedicated passion of scientists has transformed society, and continues to improve our standards of living every day. But how accessible is this knowledge to the general public?

Currently, perceptions of scientific studies are heavily polarized: from politicians at the ranks of Sarah Palin underestimating the value of “fruit fly” research, to the egregious inflations of commercialized therapies, shrugged off as “neuro-bunk” by brain scientists. Not surprisingly, the scale usually tips towards the latter with regards to appealing to the masses. In her recent TED talk, neuroscientist Molly Crockett of Cambridge University implores us to be wary of those who claim to read minds through brain scans or cure everything from Alzheimer’s to marital discord using neuroimaging techniques. Catchy for the public, perhaps, but such misrepresentations of science can devastate the desperate and, at the very least, waste the resources of the hopeful. Without making scientific reports accessible to the lay reader, groundbreaking advancements remain trapped within the academic bubble – sometimes even beyond the grasp of scientists in other disciplines.

The work of scientists must ultimately cater to the masses. If a finding gains popularity among the erudite but remains unheard by everyone outside a specific field, does it still make a sound? Scientists need to do a better job at convincing people that science matters. Real science, not the overstated patter sometimes sold by reporters and commercial entities. The public should appreciate why it’s important and exciting to map the genomes of plants, insects, and animals; this information has enabled us to discover more about our own genetic code, compare or manipulate genetic sequences to understand the basis of diseases such as Huntington’s, and screen ourselves for risk of developing certain types of cancer. How many among us truly understand the wonder of DNA methylation, which can alter the expression of our proteins based on environmental cues and change the way we think, behave, handle stressors and develop illnesses, including genetic disorders such as Prader-Willi Syndrome or Angelman Syndrome – both of which arise from alterations in the same segment of a single chromosome? Few non-experts would excitedly grab the latest report on DISC1 signalling pathways but many would be interested to know about the protein’s role in generating new brain cells and promoting neural development, as well as its influence on disorders such as Schizophrenia.

As Melissa Marshall of Penn State University articulated, scientists should translate their technical terms into simpler language while expressing their passion for the topic and its societal relevance. What more effective way to captivate funding institutions or policy-makers about potentially paradigm-shifting research and help them understand why such efforts are worth the investment? With proper communication, scientists can show the world why their work is worth pursuing and ignite that same passion in future generations of young researchers and academics.

At the same time, overstating research findings would do no favour to anyone. In today’s busy world the layperson rarely has the time or the energy to comprehend the argot of scientific journals. Scientific papers stem from the perseverance of experienced scholars who have undergone a gruelling academic cycle to make sense of abstruse data and contextualize their results over decades – sometimes centuries – of work. Instead, those interested rely on popular science journals and reports. The most outrageous headlines and daring conclusions captivate the masses; the public is less interested in the carefully phrased account of the cognisant scientist. The problem with such reports lies in the unintentional misrepresentation that sometimes befalls the ambitious writer or, perhaps more commonly, the zealous reader. Exaggerating the conclusions of one study, for example, has led popular science programs such as the BBC’s “Bang Goes the Theory” to dismiss the promising field of brain training as ineffective. On the other hand, slapping on scientific jargon has trapped many an unsuspecting consumer in a web of invalidated, sometimes downright fraudulent, remedies or products. Such miscommunications in science can lead promising domains to lose their credibility. If this continues, future generations may grow up to the fabled “scientist who cried cure.”

The public must be guided into understanding that the carefully crafted moderation with which scientists often speak and write is because, in most cases, the implications are not yet certain. We can hope that a nano-bug programmed to identify cancerous cells will succeed at eradicating tumours. Or that curing one case of HIV will lead to a global cure or vaccine. We can wish for the eventual ability to identify “brain foods” that make us smarter or fight the signs of aging. And we have certainly come a long way from where we were 100, or even just 20 years ago. But the fact is, scientists conduct research to clarify ambiguity and comprehend mystery. In essence, scientists are employed to validate educated guesses. Professionals of uncertainty, they tackle the unknown to make it known; they render what was previously inconceivable a societal standard. Their task is highly specialized, but requires accurate and widespread communication to the rest of the world in the hope of accelerating the pace of progress. That is the beauty and the curse of science. And that is one of the greatest issues facing scientists today.

The Importance of Communication; Making Science Accessible

ORIGINAL: Oxbridge Biotech

By Sarah Smith View author bio 

Monday, 29th April 2013

Sarah Smith

We are living in a time of exciting discoveries, huge technological advancement, and great scientific innovation, but only now is the scientific community finally realising that communication is the key to managing change in public opinion and understanding of research. In the past, these advances have sparked some scary news stories when scientists have had little input in writing about their research. The classic mistakes come from misinterpreting statistics – here is an example Ben Goldacre uses in his book Bad Science (2008)(1):

“Let’s say the risk of having a heart attack in your 50s is 50 % higher if you have high cholesterol: that sounds pretty bad. Let’s say the extra risk of having a heart attack if you have high cholesterol is only 2 %. That sounds OK to me. But they’re both talking about the same (hypothetical) figures. Out of a hundred men in their 50s with normal cholesterol, four will be expected to have a heart attack; whereas out of 100 men with high cholesterol, six will be expected to have a heart attack. That’s two extra heart attacks. Those are natural frequencies. Easy.”

We, as scientists, complain when journalists ‘get it wrong’ but often hesitate to talk to the press or write our own blogs. However times are changing; communicating scientific research is not the sole responsibility of celebrities like David Attenborough or Brian Cox, but is also the duty of those closely involved in primary research. The Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS) based at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, is the epitome of this new scientific culture.

In February 2013 I spoke with Dr Will Grant, lecturer and researcher at CPAS, about the courses that they run and how he felt about this new era of engaging the public and policy-makers about science.

The focus of CPAS is communication, rather than the philosophy of science, which includes understanding the obstacles preventing the uptake of science by the general public. One of the biggest barriers in communicating science is language – a recent study conducted by Michigan State University, and presented at the  annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)meeting, suggests that just 28 per cent of Americans are science literate – this figure is lower in most of Europe. As scientists we have a whole arsenal of words with which to describe the precise mechanism we are interested in. For example, it is easy to forget that when we ‘transform’ bacteria with plasmid DNA we are describing a specific technique of heat-shocking the bacteria to increase the permeability of their membranes, thus facilitating the uptake of DNA. Whereas a lay audience may have no inkling for what the magical ‘transformation’ might be. As a PhD student, I’ve been told I should always have handy my ‘3 minute elevator pitch’ for when someone asks me what my research is about. It’s easy to fall into the trap of using subject-specific jargon and losing your questioner’s interest within the first minute. One way to practice this is to attempt the up-goer five challenge – try to explain your research using only the 1000 most common words, which is harder than it sounds…

Dr Grant explains that there is one key difference between a basic science PhD thesis and one written at CPAS; the student must include a conclusions section that suggests ways to implement changes flagged up by their results, and what recommendations the findings led the student to make. One example he cites is of a current student, originally from Bangladesh, who is carrying out research into rice farming in his home country. The study uses typical social-science methods including questionnaires and interviews of over 400 farmers. From this he found that a particular species of rice gave the best yields, but that most farmers were not utilising it. Once the student has written up his thesis the information will be fed back to the Bangladeshi government and he will help advise them on how to educate the farmers about different rice breeds in the future. This, however, is just one example of a CPAS-style thesis and postgraduates at the institute bring a diverse range of interests with them. Previous theses include studying the effect of scientific terms on marketing anti-wrinkle creams, lay understandings of mental illness, and the potential of computer games for science education.

Figure 1: Exponential increase in the number of DNA base pairs (bp) that can be read during one run on a sequencing machine. Data from this paper(2), credit to Simon J Watson for graphic.

Dr Grant and I also discussed how the speed of technology development could hinder our explanation of science to the public. A prime example of a fast-moving technology is whole genome sequencing. It took over ten years to completely sequence the first human genome, and this was a mammoth effort by over 20 institutions across the globe. Another ten years on and a whole human genome can be sequenced in 24 hours (Figure 1). Fast developments in the field of genetics has fuelled plans to sequence the genomes of 100,000 NHS patients suffering from cancer and rare diseases, over the next 3-5 years. This proposal has taken genome sequencing from lab-bench jargon into colloquial language – ‘to sequence’ has already become a verb! The popularisation of scientific language is a positive step, but with this familiarity some people assume they understand the whole package. However, dogmatic terms like ‘junk DNA’ are being overturned every day and it’s difficult for the public to keep up. Genetic testing often results in the assignment of a ‘risk factor’ – you have a gene that increases your risk of heart disease by X. This means that science communicators will be essential in ensuring that the public understand not only what DNA sequencing is but what information it can and cannot tell them about their current or future health.

As well as undergraduate courses and full PhD programs, CPAS also runs a 1 year Masters Outreach course in collaboration with Questacon – an interactive science museum in Canberra founded by Professor Mike Gore, originally a physics teacher at ANU. The aim of the Masters program is to give students hands-on experience in designing interactive activities to enthuse the public about scientific issues, to develop their public speaking skills, and to grow their confidence as the ‘Science Circus’ tours around Australia for up to 3 months. However, if emigrating to Australia is a bit much for you, these types of courses are beginning to appear in other places including King’s College, London, where a BSc in Science Engagement & Communication is offered.

Although science is hurtling forward at an unstoppable pace, only now are scientists realising that the way we talk about our work and findings needs to keep up. Sadly, not every science major at ANU has to take lectures in science communications, but there are electives that they can choose to take. Dr Grant thinks this could be pushed for if more funding were available. Perhaps we need to think of these skills as being as important as teaching the ethics of scientific research – fundamental! Hopefully in the future a module in science communication will be a prerequisite for any science undergraduate, to ensure that we can help the public and policy-makers to keep up with our ever-changing understanding of the world.

References

1. Goldacre, B. 2008. Bad Science. HarperCollins, London. ISBN – 978-0-00-728487-0

2. Batley, J., and D. Edwards. 2009. Genome sequence data: management, storage, and visualization. Biotechniques 46:333-4.

Brain-to-brain interfaces have arrived, and they are absolutely mindblowing

ORIGINAL: io9

Robert T. Gonzalez

FEB 28, 2013

In a stunning first for neuroscience, researchers have created an electronic link between the brains of two rats, and demonstrated that signals from the mind of one can help the second solve basic puzzles in real time — even when those animals are separated by thousands of miles.

Here's how it works. An "encoder" rat in Natal, Brazil, trained in a specific behavioral task, presses a lever in its cage it knows will earn it a reward. A brain implant records activity from the rat's motor cortex and converts it into an electrical signal that is delivered via neural link to the brain implant of a second "decoder" rat.

Still with us? Here's where things get interesting. Rat number two is in an entirely different cage. In fact, it's in North Carolina. The second rat's motor cortex processes the signal from rat number one and — despite being unfamiliar with the behavioral task the first rat has been conditioned to perform — uses that information to press the same lever.

The experiment, the results of which are published free of charge in today's issue of Scientific Reports, was led by Duke neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer in the field of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). Back in 2011, Nicolelis and his colleagues unveiled the first such interface capable of a bi-directional link between a brain and a virtual body, allowing a monkey to not only mentally control a simulated arm, but receive and process sensory feedback about tactile properties like texture. Earlier this month, his team unveiled a BMI that enables rats to detect normally invisible infrared light via their sense of touch.

But an intercontinental mind-meld represents something new: a brain-to-brain interface between two live rats — one that enables realtime sharing of sensorimotor information. It's a scientific first, and while it's not telepathy, per se, it's certainly something close. Neither rat was necessarily aware of the other's existence, for example, but it's clear that their minds were, in fact, communicating. "It's not the Borg," Nicolelis tells Nature's Ed Yong. What he has created, he says, is "a new central nervous system made of two brains."

Said nervous system is far from perfect. Untrained decoder rats receiving input from a trained partner only chose the correct lever around two-thirds of the time. That's definitely better than random odds, but still a far cry from the 95% accuracy of the encoder rats.

What this two-brain system does do, Nicolelis argues, is enable the rats to work with one another in unprecedented ways. And while neural communication between two animals on entirely separate continents is certainly impressive in its own right, Nicolelis says the most groundbreaking application of this technology — a 3-, 4-, or n-mind "brain net" — are still to come.

"These experiments demonstrated the ability to establish a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between rat brains," he said in a statement, "so basically, we are creating an organic computer that solves a puzzle."

"We cannot predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net," he continues. "In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves."

The study is published in the latest issue of Scientific Reports. (No subscription required!) For more details on the study, including feedback from underwhelmed neuroscientists (seriously), check out this great overview over at Nature.

Images and video via Nicolelis lab

MIT Builds An Open-Source Platform For Your Body

ORIGINAL: FastCo

BY LINDA TISCHLER | 

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

About This Series

Meet the people and discover the personalities driving the world's most radical, disruptive, and creative companies.READ MORE

MIT Media Lab's 11-day health care hackathon pulled students and big companies together with a common goal: Healing a broken industry.

Hack Thyself. The goal of the annual MIT Health and Wellness Hackathon is to jump-start an open source platform where apps that track all different aspects of your bodily health can exchange information. Here are this year's projects from the MIT Media Lab's 11-day event.

Siberian temperatures. Eleven grueling days, navigating rough terrain. Six teams, matched for talent, competing for glory at the end. The Iditarod? Nah, just the annual MIT Health and Wellness Hackathon.

This isn’t your average social app-fest. The goal is to jump-start an open source platform where apps that track all different aspects of your bodily health can exchange information. It’s a Sisyphean task, since most digital health solutions today are trapped in silos, but the organizers believe they can change that by enfranchising big companies instead of trying to disrupt them.

Healing The Health Industry

“The tradition in health care technology is, ‘This is our device, we make our own software,’” says Dr. John Moore, who organized the hackathon. “The goal is to connect that bit of knowledge to the rest of your health experience. Just keeping track of your step count, for example, won’t let you change the rest of your life.”"JUST KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR STEP COUNT, FOR EXAMPLE, WON’T LET YOU CHANGE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.”

To unify the segmented market for health technology takes heavy lifting on the engineering side, since much of the progress made by private companies hasn’t been shared back to the community. Here, each team is required to use open source and open standard tools so that things work together seamlessly: specifically, the Lab's patient-centered CollaboRhythm platform and the Indivo X system for personalized health records.

“Working from a common platform takes an extra effort to build,” Moore says, “but it ensures that the prototype will be something that has legs.” With Boomers aging and a lack of innovation coming from industry, the upside for these projects could be huge--but undertaking them is intimidating. “We thought we’d have to reject people,” says Moore, “but instead we just scared them off.”

Hacking Together Industry Partnerships

The teams encamped on the Media Lab’s sixth floor, overlooking a Charles River initially frozen so solid you could stroll over to the Back Bay for pizza. This is the fourth such hackathon sponsored by the Lab’s New Media Medicine research group; when it started, the competition was 20 mostly MIT students who spent their winter break experimenting with open source innovation platforms for health care. Now the group includes an international assembly of professors, doctors, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as engineers from MIT sponsor companies like MIT sponsor companies like ViiV, Humana, Motorola and Fleury. Still, it’s only a start.

“The hackathon itself is not enough to produce change, but it's an opportunity to expose important players in the ecosystem--pharma, insurers, medical diagnostics companies, startup entrepreneurs, consumer electronics companies--to the value of using and contributing to these platforms,” says Moore. “It’s rare to get these players to converge, but these 80 people are influencers, and now they know each other so they can collaborate. Big innovations will come when they all see how they can benefit each other.”

Matched into six project teams before arriving in Cambridge, the groups come at problems from different interests and areas of expertise, then work to create solutions that are more than just one-off apps or devices.

“It would take years for all of these sectors to realize the potential that they have seen unfolding in the two weeks of this event,” says Moore. “It is this seed that may lead them to build their products differently and encourage that to collaborate with partners from other sectors using the same tools.”

How Do You Incentivize Product-Ready Hacks?

The focus here is on producing commercially viable products. “Suddenly, you [can] have a really well-rounded tool that can be at the level of sophistication where you can get funding for a startup or a research grant,” says Moore. "We make sure the business people are supportive, and not just looking at today's business models.... We squash negativity. That's a big problem in the health space, where innovative ideas are often killed with comments like, 'Nah, nobody will ever get paid for that.' I act as the benevolent dictator to enforce that.""WE SQUASH NEGATIVITY. THAT'S A BIG PROBLEM IN THE HEALTH SPACE."

At the Health and Wellness hackathon, the winners aren't rewarded with cash since winning is only the beginning. Kaiser Permanente donated $15,000 to support the teams during development, instead of forcing them to go out-of-pocket to build their hacks. Awarding money to participants helps unshackle some of the crazier ideas; because current medical systems are plagued with legacy software, Moore wants participants to think blue-sky without being too constrained by cost. “We’re looking for optimal solutions,” Moore says, “more 'greenfield' kind of ideas." (Read on for examples from this year's projects.)

The Lab also provides on-site mentors in the form of software developers, professional UI designers, and video teams to bring projects to fruition. A team member with business experience is attached to each group, but is forbidden from dismissing good ideas that may be promising, but don't have a traditional revenue stream.

By the end of the marathon event, the Charles had thawed, and signs of encouragement were everywhere inside as well, says Frank Moss, a health care entrepreneur and former MIT Media Lab director. Driven by demands from patients and clinicians, he says everyone from the White House to the business community is “saying things we were saying four years ago,” around the time of the inaugural Health and Wellness hackathon. Here’s wishing the industry a speedy recovery.

The Projects

Last year’s Health and Wellness Hackathon winners, dubbed the Chameleon team, went on to launch a company called GeckoCap which produces a device for tracking asthma inhaler usage. The company, which was named “One of the Best Gadgets of CES 2013,” is currently raising funds on Indiegogo. 

Here are some of this year’s entrants.

hiVIVA

Adherence to medications is the key to keeping HIV/AIDS patients healthy, but compliance can be a problem. This app uses gaming to encourage users to take their pills. Users begin by uploading a photo they love to the home screen on their cellphone. Each morning, that image starts out fuzzy; the goal of the game is to sharpen it over the course of the day, based on adherence to the patient’s medication schedule. The system also gives patients a “virtual pill box” containing images of the actual pills in their regimen, to avoid confusion. Data is simultaneously sent to the patient’s physician via Bluetooth, and an accompanying device will eventually allow a patient to easily test his own blood. A prototype is currently being tested in Bangladesh.

Beacon

The Congestive Heart Failure team built a monitoring device called Beacon that would allow elderly patients with chronic conditions to stay in their homes longer. The device sits in a bedroom and is linked wirelessly to sensors throughout the house. If the sensor determines that the patient is moving less than normal, a light on the top of the main unit will turn yellow--alerting the patient to take her blood pressure, or step on a scale. Sudden weight gain, for example, is a sign that the patient’s condition is worsening. Data will be transmitted to the patient’s doctor, who can then communicate with the patient to see if a change in medications is called for, or if more serious intervention is required.

My Op

This app is designed to help patients who are about to undergo surgery for endometriosis learn about what to expect beforehand without scaring themselves by searching Google for information. Post-operatively, the app helps doctors assess how their recovery is going. The biggest problem, developers say, is that patients with this condition are so accustomed to being in pain that they often don’t recognize the severity of their symptoms after surgery, and thus fail to report them to their physicians until they’ve become acute. The My Op app allows doctors to monitor self-reported symptoms, and either text or have a video chat with patients if symptoms are concerning before they worsen.

The Brady Glove (left), The Tremo Cup (right)

AEON Health’s Parkinson’s disease devices

This group built a web-based platform to assess and manage Parkinson’s symptoms at home, allowing a patient to better control his own condition.

The Tremo Cup, which the patient uses to take medications several times a day, detects tremors, which correlate to how well a medication is controlling symptoms. By monitoring data, doctors can assess how long a medication is working, and if the timing or dose needs to be adjusted. It also allows a patient to see if he can influence the efficacy of the medication by adjusting exercise, food, or sleep.

The Brady Glove has sensors in each finger that allow a doctor to detect Bradykinesia–-the slowness of movement that is a prime indicator of Parkinson’s disease. Neurologists can assess the severity of a patient’s symptoms by asking him to tap his fingers, open and close his fist, and alter the position of his palm--the classic tests for Parkinson’s--then adjust his meds to help control symptoms.

Pressure Free

This team’s goal was to find a way for a patient to track and lower her blood pressure with minimal involvement by a physician. The solution was an app with three integrated devices: 

• a blood pressure cuff that sends data to a dashboard; 
• a Fitbit to measure how much the patient moves; and 
• a container that monitors how many pills are still in the bottle. 

Forget to take your meds, and the 3-G powered pill bottle will send you a text message reminder without having to sync your device. In addition, the app will allow patients to invite friends to act as motivators, sending messages and videos to encourage compliance. The pill bottle, designed by a company called Adhere Tech, is already in development. 

Epicenter

The Epicenter team tackled the problem of controlling epileptic seizures through diet and biofeedback. The Ketogenic Diet app allows patients to track what they eat, measure the ketones they produce, and report side effects to doctors. A Ketogenic diet--high in fat and proteins, low in carbs--has been shown to be effective in controlling seizures, but is tough to follow. This app builds in recipes and meal suggestions, and encourages compliance by giving the patient a visual record of her progress.

Epilepsy app (left), epilepsy cap and wrist senor (right)

Epicenter also created a seizure tracking tool, where the patient can record seizure triggers, log how long the seizure lasted, and document feelings afterward. The patient’s doctor can analyze the data and intervene where necessary, and a gaming device using a neurofeedback cap that measures brain currents and a wrist sensor that measures galvanic skin response allows patients to influence their condition via biofeedback.