Self-Driving Cars Will Make Bike Rider Safer

Self driving technology promises to pretty much transform the auto industry as we know it. It may also change the business of selling motorcycles – but in a very different way. When robots are at the wheel, far fewer bikers will die on the road, which won’t be lost on all those people who pine for a motorcycle but have always been too scared to buy one. It would mean a dramatic enhancement in safety for the motorbike. And it would guarantee a wider user group. The math is as straight forward as it is compelling. Consider a left turn on an American road: A vehicle turning across a lane of opposing traffic has little to do with the bike rider, but is one of the most dangerous things in motorcycling. When motorcyclists die on the road, this is how it happens one out of five times, according to crash statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This year, about 1,000 riders in the US will lose their lives to the left turns of others. Cars travelling in the same direction as the motorcycle often don’t notice the bike overtaking on the left. Cars making a turn while coming from the opposite direction either fails to see the oncoming bike, or misjudge its speed. Robot cars, in theory, won’t make either of these mistakes. At first, they will be able to “see” the motorcycle with sensors or radar and either alert the driver or actively prevent the vehicle from cutting off the bike. But that’s just the beginning. Eventually, motorcycles will “talk” to all of the other vehicles on the road, constantly reminding them where they are, where they are heading, and at what speed. Once every aspiring biker realizes that the driver next to him isn’t an existential threat, sales will climb in some places.

Gene Therapy May Treat Alzheimer's

Injecting a specific gene directly into the brain may offer a potential new therapy for halting the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, especially when treated at an early stage, a new study has claimed. Scientists from Imperial College London in the UK used a type of modified virus to deliver a gene to brain cells in mice. Previous studies by the same team suggest this gene, called PGCI – alpha, may prevent the formation of a protein called amyloid beta peptide in cells in the lab. Amyloid beta peptide is the main component of amyloid plaques, the sticky clumps of protein found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. These plaques are thought to trigger the death of brain cells. Worldwide 47.5 million people are affected by dementia – of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form, researchers said. There is no cure, although current drugs can help treat the symptoms of the disease. Other researchers said this new findings may one day provide a method of preventing the disease, or halting it in the early stages. Although these findings are very early they suggest this gene therapy may have potential therapeutic use for patients.

After 2 Millennia, 3D Tech Brings Ancient House To Life

Researchers have used 3D technology to reconstruct a house in Pompeii, the ancient town city wiped out by the eruption of a volcano two millennia ago, to show what life may have been like for its people. By combining traditional archaeology with 3D technology, researchers at Lund University is Sweden have managed to complete the detailed reconstruction of a wealthy man’s bungalow. In 1980, the Pompeii city curator invited the international research community to help document the ruins before they suffered further damage. Thus began the Swedish Pompeii Project at the Swedish Institute in Rome in 2000. The town-city, destroyed in AD 79, was scanned during field work in 2011-2012. Among other things, the researchers have uncovered floor surfaces from AD 79, performed detailed studies of the building development through history, cleaned and documented three large wealthy estates, a tavern, a laundry, and several gardens. In one garden, they discovered that some of the taps of a fountain were on at the time of the eruption. In a shop, they found three intact windows (made of translucent crystalline gypsum) from ancient Rome.

A Patch To Help You Stay Safe In Sun

A high tech UV sensitive patch that changes color when it is time to reapply sunscreen may help protect people from sunburn and the risk of skin cancer. Currently, people usually rely on the two hour reapply recommendation to determine how long they can safely stay in the sun after sunscreen application. The researchers are looking at the usability of a newly developed wearable UV indicator that takes away the guesswork on when to reapply by changing color to warn wearers their sunscreen is no longer effective. As part this study researchers are looking for volunteers to test a patch before a larger trial to determine if it can reduce the incidence of sunburn. Participants will be asked to test the patch for 7 days and attend two focus group sessions at the start and end of the study.

Stem Cells Help Repair Cartilage

Scientists have identified stem cells in jaw bone that can make new cartilage and repair damaged joints. The cells reside within the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), which articulates the jaw bone to the skull. When the stem cells were manipulated in animals with TMJ degeneration, the cells repaired cartilage in the joint, according to the researchers. A single cell transplanted in a mouse spontaneously generated cartilage and bone and even began to form a bone marrow niche. This is very exciting for the field because patients who have problems with their jaws and TMJs are very limited in terms of clinical treatments available. Options for treatment currently include either surgery or palliative care, which addresses symptoms but cannot regenerate the damaged tissue. Researchers finding suggest that stem cells already present in the joint could be manipulated to repair it. Cartilage helps to cushion the joints and allows them to move smoothly.

'Game Changer' Drug Boosts Survival Rate For Relapsed Cancer

An immunotherapy drug has been hailed as a potential game changer after scientists found that it could greatly improve survival for patients with relapsed head and neck cancer, which is difficult to treat. III clinical trial for patients I whom chemotherapy had failed – and it did so with fewer side-effects than existing options. At least twice as many patients taking nivolumab were alive after one year as compared to those treated with chemotherapy. There are currently no other treatment options that improve the survival of patients with cisplatin resistant relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer. This group of patients is expected to live less than six months. Nivolumab could be a real game changer for patients with advanced head and neck cancer. This trial found that it can greatly extend life among a group of patients who have no existing treatment options, without worsening the quality of life. Of the 361 patients in the trial, 240 with relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer were allocated to receive nivolumab and 121 one of three different chemotherapies. After one year of the study, 36% of patients treated with nivolumab were still alive compared with 17% for the comparator arm. The median survival for patients on nivolumab was 7.5 months, compared with 5.1 months for chemotherapy. The survival benefit was more pronounced in patients whose tumours had tested positive for human papillomavirus (HPV). Importantly, fewer patients experienced serious side effects from taking nivolumab than with conventional treatment – only 13% compared with 35% of those who received chemotherapy.

Nivolumab became the first treatment to extend survival in a phase

Mars Trip Can Damage Astronauts' Brain

Mars bound astronauts could develop dementia and an uncontrollable sense of dread – dubbed “space brain” – during the journey, scientists have warned. Researchers studied the effects of cosmic rays that would bombard astronauts, and their results pose a significant problem for those wishing to establish a colony on the distant planet. Nasa is actively studying how to send humans to Mars, which is nearly 34 million miles away, and the Netherlands based Mars One group plans to send people there by 2027. Us entrepreneur Elon Musk has also talked about sending people to the planet by 2022. However, an expert in radiation oncology has found that highly charged particles in cosmic rays caused significant long-term brain damage in test rodents, resulting in cognitive impairments and dementia. And the radiation also interfered with the “fear extinction” process, which helps people get over scary or stressful incidents so they can, for example, go swimming again after nearly drowning.

This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two to three year round trip to Mars. The space environment poses unique hazards to astronauts. Exposure to these particles can lead to a range of potential central nervous system complications that can occur during, and persist long after, actual space travel – such as various performance decrements, memory deficits, anxiety, depression and impaired decision making. Many of these adverse consequences to cognition may continue and progress throughout life. Alarmingly, the first Martian explorers could also become paranoid during the flight. Deficits in fear extinction could make your prone to anxiety, which could become problematic over the course of a three year trip to and from Mars. While astronauts have lived on the International Space Station for over a year, they have not faced the same level of cosmic rays because it orbits the Earth inside its protective magnetosphere. For mars, areas of the spacecraft could be fitted with extra shielding but it is currently not possible to fully protect the astronauts in this way.