Culture

Soft and flexible materials can be used to ultrasonically charge bioelectronic implants, which could help to reduce the need for surgical treatment.

Electronic devices are increasingly used to remedy serious and long-term health problems, such as pacemakers to regulate heartbeat, electronic pumps that release insulin, and implantable hearing aids. Key design considerations for these components aim to minimize size and weight for patient comfort, and they ensure that the device is not toxic to the body.

Indigenous historian and York University professor Jesse Thistle and Dr. Janet Smylie, a Métis family physician and research chair at Unity Health Toronto and the University of Toronto, who are leading the development of a separate guideline specifically to address Indigenous homelessness, co-authored a related commentary in CMAJ.

Utah residents who have difficulty keeping their families fed could be missing a key ingredient: information. A University of Utah Health study finds that poor communications in at least 22 Utah communities could be hampering efforts to connect those in need with food stamps, food banks, soup kitchens, and other food resources. Researchers say the finding could help refine future community food distribution efforts.

Osaka, Japan - Scientists at Osaka University built a new computing device from field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that can be customized by the user for maximum efficiency in artificial intelligence applications. Compared with currently used rewireable hardware, the system increases circuit density by a factor of 12. Also, it is expected to reduce energy usage by 80%. This advance may lead to flexible artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that provide enhanced performance while consuming much less electricity.

The human liver carries out a wealth of vital functions through highly coordinated processes involving multiple cell types. However, when the liver is damaged by pharmaceuticals, cholestasis or chronic fat accumulation caused by alcohol or metabolic dysfunction, the various cell types undergo pathological changes and liver function deteriorates. Extensive inflammation severely affects most cellular processes and scar tissue (liver fibrosis) gradually replaces normal liver tissue.

A new NASA/university study of carbon dioxide emissions for 20 major cities around the world provides the first direct, satellite-based evidence that as a city's population density increases, the carbon dioxide it emits per person declines, with some notable exceptions. The study also demonstrates how satellite measurements of this powerful greenhouse gas can give fast-growing cities new tools to track carbon dioxide emissions and assess the impact of policy changes and infrastructure improvements on their energy efficiency.

Two factors that control the expression of a key gene required by luminescent bacteria to kill competing bacterial cells have been identified. The finding, by researchers at Penn State, sheds light on the molecular mechanisms that enable different strains of bacteria to compete and establish symbiosis in the Hawaiian bobtail squid. Consequently, the study, which appears online in the Journal of Bacteriology, adds to our understanding of how the make-up of a host's microbiome is determined, and may be applicable to more complex microbiomes in humans.