Laughter Sets Off Waves Akin to Meditation: The Brain’s Workout

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a very well known saying and is now scientifically proven by researchers. According to a study, researchers have found that laughter in humans can set off brain waves, which are very similar to those related to meditation. The study also reveals that other kinds of incitement can generate various diverse types of brain waves. 

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Heatmaps Reveal Correlation Between Emotions and Body Sensations

Science has proven times and times again that emotions cannot be separated from our physical well-being. Various emotional conditions play an important role in our biology. Brain activity and hormones and examples of things that are affected by one’s various emotional states. A recent study demonstrated that different emotions are judged to correlate with different body parts. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, was conducted by a team of bio-medical engineers, with 700 participants from three countries, those being Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The…

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Selfies Linked to Mental Disorders

We all have this annoying high school facebook friend who posts selfies more regularly than we tend to check our facebook accounts. Well, this old friend is no longer labeled as just annoying, as scientists are exploring tagging this behavior as a mental disorder. Scientists interested in this subject are describing this common obsession with selfies as a compulsive behavior that could be linked to narcissism, addiction and mental illness.Narcissists chase satisfaction from vanity, or others’ recognition of their looks or mental characteristics (Wikipedia)- this definition seems to somewhat fit…

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Genes Responsible for High Tolerance for Pain: Ache’s Genetic Basis

Every person is unique and is different from others. Even identical twins have different taste and behave differently. Likewise, every person has a different threshold level of bearing pain. Researchers working on the topic have found four important genes that determine the pain tolerance threshold in an individual. And therefore, it varies from person to person depending upon the key gene expression. 

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X-Ray Triggered Nanoparticle Photosensitizer: Photodynamic Therapy

While working upon new security-related radiation detection, researchers at the University of Texas, Arlington discovered an advance in photodynamic cancer therapy. Wei Chen, professor of physics at the UT Arlington, noticed an odd luminescence emitted by copper-cysteamine (Cu-Cy) nanoparticles when while working on an experiment where he was exposing the nanoparticles to X-rays. Upon further investigation, he found out that the luminescence was the byproduct of lost energy that the particles were diffusing. The same byproduct is also utilized in photodynamic cancer therapy to destroy cancer cells.

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Production of Blood Now on an Industrial Level: Artificial Blood from Stem Cells

The advancement in science and technology have made possible for humans to tackle life-threatening diseases to highly intricate surgeries. Medical science has reached a mark where it has potential to create artificial organs for transplant, saving millions of lives. And now researchers have discovered a way to create human blood, using stem cells.

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Avoid Hunger to Maintain Dynamics of a Relationship: Starvation causes Marital Squabble

We have heard that an empty mind is a devil’s home, but have you ever heard that empty stomach can even turn you into a devil? “Hangry” is the word that describes the situation even better, which is being hungry to an extend that it makes one angry. A new study conducted on married couples suggests that hunger makes couples aggressive and angry. 

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Human Heart with 3-D Printer: A Blend of Natural and Artificial

In recent years, 3D bio printing technology is being widely used by biotechnology firms and academia in tissue engineering applications with the help of inkjet techniques to create organs and other body parts. Using the innovative 3D bio printing technology, researchers have already created functional splints, valves and a human ear and are now trying to create a functional human heart for transplant, employing the patient’s cells. However, it would take years before one of these 3D printed hearts can be actually implanted in the human body. 

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The ‘Second Coming’ of a Living Organ: Harnessing Body’s Repair Mechanisms

Today, many patients worldwide are waiting for organ transplant, but there is acute shortage of organ available for the transplantation. There are complications related to closely match the group of donor and the patients and even if matched there are still chances that the immune system of the patient’s may reject the transplant. Therefore, researchers are studying to regenerate organ for patients on a worldwide scale. Although the process of growing bio-artificial organ is very complicated, the long medical research has finally reached a point where it has now become…

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Living Computers inside Alive Cockroaches to Deliver Drugs: DNA Installed Nano-Robots

In an attempt to study complex programs and to identify and cure certain diseases, researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Bar Ilan University in Israel, have come out with a breakthrough that involves DNA-based nanobots. Researchers were able to embed these nanobots into a living cockroach. These origami robots bear fluorescent markers that allow the scientists to predict about their location within the insect. By interacting with each other, these nanobots were seen performing simple logical operations as well claimed the researchers.

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Spare your Health: Sleep Tight

The Hiffington post has recently gathered evidence from a growing body of literature which offers insight into what happens to one’s body when missing out on the usually recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Frightening results have been published in the Huffington’s piece indicating that sleep is not just good for your beauty. Although the term “beauty sleep” is proven correct scientifically, it is merely one of the various result (and possibly one of the least significant) in comparison to everything else one can develop due to…

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Reinforcing Positive Thinking Can Morph a Pessimist to an Optimist: Behavior Analysis

Brain determines whether an individual is an optimist or pessimist by nature. It’s been quite some time experts were working on defining a set approach that establishes a person’s attitude towards life and lately Jason Moser from Michigan State University has been able to derive a ‘brain marker’ which is responsible for differentiating between positive minded people from negative minded individuals. 

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Everyday Health Monitoring Gets Easy with Stick on Electronic Patches

After biomedical engineers from South Korea, who designed a dermal patch that monitor patient’s health and release drug under the skin, scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have come up with another revolutionary dermal, electronic patch that looks like a tattoo. 

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Antibacterial Soaps Proves Ineffective at Homes but not at Hospitals

Every other soap or hand wash available in the market, targets the consumers by emphasizing on its anti bacterial quality. Bacteria are the culprits that cause several diseases and infection. Sadly, these microscopic bacteria are present all around us. The easiest way to get rid of these bacteria is to maintain hygiene and so far, it was believed that antibacterial soap and hand wash effectively shield us against these bacteria. 

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Plaster to Release Medicine Below the Skin

A team of medical engineers from South Korean have developed a plaster which, when applied to the patient’s skin similar to regular band aids, discharge medicine below the skin. But unlike the normal band aid used for minor cuts and bruises, the plaster engages more complex and advanced technology, which enables it to monitor the activities of the muscle and accordingly discharges the required quantity of medicine and even decide when it is needed to stop. 

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