The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man’s appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man’s brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated. Scientists are now applying the technique in the first trial of the treatment in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. If successful, it could offer hope to sufferers from the degenerative condition, which affects 450,000 people in Britain alone, by providing a ‘pacemaker’ for the brain. Three patients have been treated and initial results are promising, according to Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, who is leading the research. Professor Lozano said: ‘This is the first time that anyone has had electrodes implanted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory. We are driving the activity of the brain by increasing its sensitivity – turning up the volume of the […]
The number of older Americans diagnosed with diabetes grew by nearly a quarter in the last decade, a rate that experts say threatens not only the health of the elderly but the viability of the nation’s health care system. A new study shows the number of new diabetes cases diagnosed among Americans over 65 increased by 23% from 1994-1995 to 2003-2004, and the prevalence of the disease overall grew by 62% among the elderly during the same time period. Researchers say that if those trends continue, the burden of financing and providing medical care for elderly people with diabetes may prove too much for the health care system. In an editorial that accompanies the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Frank Vinicor, MD, MPH of the CDC writes, ‘Taken to the extreme, there will soon be too many patients with diabetes to be individually treated and not enough money to pay for it all! ‘Given these possibilities, primary prevention programs must be put in place before the diabetes of advancing age becomes a reality.’ Diabetes Surges Among Elderly In the study, Frank A. Sloan, PhD, and colleagues at Duke University Medical Center analyzed Medicare […]
It was hailed as the template for all future reactors – but then they tried to build it. Yet many people have increasingly been paying close attention to this remote corner of Northern Europe – and not because of the scenery. At the end of this winding road, masked by such dense forest, is a building project that first became a national saga, and now has international resonance. For the island is home to the problem-plagued construction of Olkiluoto 3, the first nuclear reactor built in Western Europe for more than a decade. Olkiluoto 3 was meant to be the power plant for the 21st century, a show home for the nuclear industry. A new type of reactor, it would banish the ghost of Chernobyl, remain safe even in the case of a core meltdown, and its steel shell would withstand an aeroplane crashing straight into it. Above all, it would produce a huge amount of cheap and clean energy to help Finland meet its Kyoto greenhouse gas targets. Since construction began in 2005, the same design – the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) – has been selected for a new plant in Flamanville, France. It is not […]
Providing fresh evidence that solar thermal is one of the hottest segments in green tech, Solel said on Monday that Ecofin is investing $105 million into the company. Solel makes equipment for solar thermal power plants, facilities that use the sun’s heat to create steam and turn an electricity generator. Its specialty is parabolic troughs. Thousands of troughs reflect sunlight to heat a liquid that makes steam. The company’s equipment has been in use in the Mojave Desert since 1985. Solar thermal is one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable power and is best suited for desert areas, such as the southwestern United States and parts of Spain. People in the industry say that a race is on to build out these solar power plants over the coming years to meet utilities’ demand for renewable sources of electricity. Solel, which is based in Israel, has already signed a power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric to supply a 553 megawatt plant in California, and it is in discussions with others. It is also constructing 150 megawatts of plants in Spain. In a release, it said that technology improvements have increased the efficiency […]
By tweaking our DNA, we could soon survive for hundreds of years – if we want to. Steve Connor reports on a breakthrough that has the science world divided If this work could ever be translated into humans, it would mean that we might one day see people living for 800 years. But is this ever going to be a realistic possibility? Valter Longo is one of the small but influential group of specialists in this area who believes that an 800-year life isn’t just possible, it is inevitable. It was his work at the University of Southern California that led to the creation of a strain of yeast fungus that can live for 10 weeks or more, instead of dying at its usual maximum age of just one week. By deleting two genes within the yeast’s genome and putting it on a calorie-restricted diet, Longo was able to extend tenfold the lifespan of the same common yeast cells used by bakers and brewers. The study is published later this week in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics. There is, of course, a huge difference between yeast cells and people, but that hasn’t stopped Longo […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
