MasHD Blog

If you took your history classes well , the Term "Black Death" is nothing new to you , the plague , which was responsible for killing off 75-200 million people in the 14th century .The infection, also known as the "Bubonic plague" can be attributed to poor hygiene and storage conditions which allow pests such as rodents , and other wild animals to deliver fleas carrying the harmful pathogen Y. Pestis , if the host is bitten by a infected flea , symptoms occur usually in about 2 days and death will occur if the person doesn't receive medical treatment in 24 hours , due to the advances of modern medicine , the threat from a global pandemic is a bit far off , but sadly that medication came too late for a Chinese villager from the town Yumen in Northwest China , the town is now under lockdown and after 151 people were put in quarantine after contacting the said person. The 38 year old Villager contracted the pathogen Y. Pestis after he came into contact with a Mamot...

Methanosarcina are ocean living microbes , although they are part of the global ecosystem , scientists at MIT have directly blamed these small creatures for wiping out around 90% of Earth's former inhabitants some 252 million years ago . The sea living microbes survive on organic carbon and nickel pumped by volcanic eruptions , and in return they release methane giving rise to a highly acidic ocean and a poisonous atmosphere. Due to the apocalyptic event caused by a large meteor strike and uncontrollable volcanic eruptions ,the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the ocean increased rapidly , however the volcanic eruptions , according to the new findings , was just one of the contributors for the downfall of Earths former biosphere. The MIT Team found signs of high carbon containing gasses in previous rock sediment research projects caused by the said Eruptions,however as the volcanoes die down , the level of Carbon gases should gradually decrease as well , but acco...

What if you could dress a wound the way you fix a tire? That's the idea behind Xstat Dressing, an in-development technology that would allow medics to easily dress gunshots or other deep wounds on the battlefield — and it was inspired by the foam used to fix flat tires. "That's what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops," former medic and RevMedx co-founder John Steinbaugh told Popular Science. "But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out." So instead of foam, Xstat uses small, expandable sponges. The sponges — which are standard medical sponges that have been compressed and coated with a hemostatic agent called chitosan — take just 15 seconds to expand once they're in the wound. They help with clotting and slowing blood flow, while providing enough pressure that no manual pressure is needed. Each sponge is also marked so that it can be seen by an X-ra...

There's no doubt that Google is becoming a full-fledged hardware company, but the latest Google X project is a lot different that tablets and smartphones — the company just announced that it's building a "smart contact lens." However, it's not meant to be a miniaturized version of Glass — it's meant to help diabetes patients keep track of their glucose levels. Inside the lens is a miniaturized wireless chip and glucose monitor that will measure the glucose levels of the wearer's tears. Google's hoping that it'll be a less painful and invasive way to monitor glucose levels than the typical method of pricking a finger and testing blood droplets multiple times a day. Ideally, the sensor would be able to generate a reading once per second, and Google wants it to act as an early warning device for when glucose levels start dropping — the company imagines putting a minuscule LED light in the lens that could indicate levels dropping above or below a s...

Scientists have been studying the human brain for decades in an attempt to understand how the brain can do what it does. Scientists have made a very interesting discovery suggesting that the human brain may be significantly more powerful than previously believed. The image you see below may look like Christmas decorations, but it’s a computer simulated image of pyramidal neurons in the cerebral cortex. These microscopic branches of brain cells were thought to act as wiring of the brain. However, researchers now believe that these branches may actually behave as mini computers. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons with approximately 1 quadrillion connections known as synapses connecting those neurons together. The anatomy of the brain includes many short branches called dendrites that project from one end of the heart of a neuron called the soma. The opposite end of the soma has a single thin fiber known as the axon sticking out. Scientists now believe that these dendrite...

Over the last few years there have been quite a few products come to market that boast the ability to be controlled using your thoughts. Most of these items have been thought-controlled toys, but we have seen systems that promise to allow you to control your music using your thoughts. Electronics giant Samsung is working with researchers at the University of Texas on a project that has to do with providing control of a tablet using brain waves. This could be very significant, particularly for users that have limited mobility due to disease or paralysis caused from an accident. The project Samsung and the researchers are working on uses EEG caps to give users control over tablets and smartphones. Samsung is reportedly wanting to take this technology mainstream. For now, the technology is limited to use with those that have disabilities. The system has participants wear EEG caps that are able to measure the electrical activity along the scalp. The participants in the program are a...

Back in 2008, Jason Koger had the misfortune of running over a downed power line on his four-wheeler, being shocked with 7,200 volts of electricity, and ultimately having both his hands amputated. Now, he's had the good luck to get a pair of new ones that can be controlled by an iPhone app. The i-Limb (*groan*) Ultra Revolution was developed by UK-based prosthetic developers Touch Bionics and offers five independently powered fingers including a fully rotatable thumb. It's smart enough to auto-grasp objects like cups or utensils, but through the use of the associated app, Koger also has access to a library of 24 other grip patterns for more complex activities. The I-Limb doesn't look like it's quite as natural as the real-life Terminator limb, but Koger is duel-wielding, so he gets extra points for that. And both are still a far cry from real, brain-controlled prosthetics, but they're also much, much better than any inert lump of plastic. Koger just better make...

MC10 might be best known for its wearable electronics aimed at athletes, but the company also makes a medical diagnostic sticker called a biostamp. Its creator (and MC10 co-founder), John Rogers has refined that design so that it's no longer an elastomer sticker -- now he can apply the biostamp's thin, stretchy electronics directly on human skin, and bond it with commercially available spray-on bandage material. By losing the elastomer backing of the original biostamp and applying the circuits directly to the skin, Rogers and his team at the University of Illinois were able to shave the device's thickness to 1/30th of the (already quite thin) biostamp. That super thin profile means it conforms even better to the contours of human hide and makes it shower- and swim-proof during the two weeks it lasts before being naturally exfoliated with your skin. For those unfamiliar with what the biostamp does, it's a mesh of circuits and sensors that can record electrophysiolog...

For those whose work has them chained to a desk, concerns about whether or not they are getting enough exercise often creep into their minds. In Japan, it is estimated that an average adult male should burn about 2,000 calories a day while an adult female should use around 1,700 (numbers vary according to age and build). Even armed with that knowledge, many people still consume more calories than they burn by indulging in snacks between meals and eating excessively late into the night. A lot of desk jockeys are probably wondering what they should do to better their situation. Well, there might be some good news. The number of calories burnt at the click of a mouse has recently been calculated. In addition to providing calorie counts for food, recently published Convert Anything to Calories (PHP Science World) also calculates the number of calories burned through various human activities and events, and is where we can find a scientific assessment for the number of calories use...

Earlier this week, a surgical procedure saw the first-ever patient to receive a partial skull transplant using 3D-printed materials. A whopping 75% of the man’s skill was replaced with the polyetherketoneketone material. However, it’s not said what part of the skull was replaced, nor if the 75% accounts for just the top of head. The photo above is a good representation of what the 3D-printed material looks like and how it fits on the skull. The material has specially-designed textures and holes in it to encourage the growth of cells and bone, and not result as a hindrance to the body, but rather become part of the skull just like ordinary bone. In other words, it’s more than just a simple piece of hard plastic. Oxford Performance Materials is the company behind these 3D-printed implants, and they’re predicting that this practice will take off shortly, and it could open the door for around 500 patients per month who need bone transplants. The US Food and Drug Administration grante...