- Trio win Nobel physics prize for tiny light pulses that give snapshot of atoms Reuters
- Nobel in medicine goes to 2 Penn scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines 6abc Philadelphia
- Scientists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman win Nobel for mRNA vaccine: How their cutting edge technology helped us tame COVID-19 The Indian Express
- With Nobel Prize in medicine, a new laurel for ‘eds and meds’ in Philadelphia | Editorial The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Karikó and Weissman’s Nobel for mRNA Shows Power of Perseverance Bloomberg
Tag Archives: pulses
An unusual object has been releasing pulses of radio waves in space for decades. Astronomers just discovered it – CNN
- An unusual object has been releasing pulses of radio waves in space for decades. Astronomers just discovered it CNN
- Astronomers find new type of stellar object that challenges understanding of neutron star physics Phys.org
- NRL’s VLITE confirmed magnetar GPM J1839–10 has been pulsing regularly every 22 minutes Interesting Engineering
- Are aliens trying to contact Earth? Scientists discover a mysterious stellar object that emits a five-minute p Daily Mail
- Scientists spot cosmic object that lights up every 20 minutes Metro.co.uk
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Genshin Impact version 3.2 update ‘Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises’ launches November 2
The version 3.2 update for Genshin Impact [91 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/games/genshin-impact”>Genshin Impact, dubbed “ Aka [1 article]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/games/aka”>Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises,” will launch on November 2, developer miHoYo [109 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/companies/mihoyo”>miHoYo announced.
Here is an overview of the update, via miHoYo:
With the latest update, Sumeru’s main storyline will culminate in a climax before coming to a grand finale, and more local allies, including Nahida and Layla, will be ready to join as playable characters. Meanwhile, more formidable opponents and fun events, including one to catch and train Fungi, will further enrich players’ adventures in the fantasy world of Teyvat.
With the latest update, Sumeru’s main storyline will culminate in a climax before coming to a grand finale, and more local allies, including Nahida and Layla, will be ready to join as playable characters. Meanwhile, more formidable opponents and fun events, including one to catch and train Fungi, will further enrich players’ adventures in the fantasy world of Teyvat.
Meanwhile, Nahida, also known as the current Dendro Archon, has been the Traveler’s reliable ally throughout the main storyline, and she will become one of the playable characters soon with another Sumeru character Layla. Nahida will join the cast as a five-star Dendro catalyst, and she can cast a unique viewfinder-ish skill by holding her Elemental Skill to mark, link, and deal additional Dendro damage to opponents. Her power can be further enhanced if she teams up with Pyro, Electro, or Hydro characters. Layla is an Akademiya student in Astrology who can sleepwalk to reveal her true power. In combat, she wields a sword and the power of Cryo, and she can provide both shielding and Cryo damage for the team. Nahida and Yoimiya’s rerun will be featured in the early part of Version 3.2’s Event Wishes, and we will see Layla’s debut in both Yae Miko and Tartaglia’s reruns in the latter half.
New events and gameplay also await, including “Fabulous Fungus Frenzy,” a fungus competition in which participants can catch and train Fungi to battle in different challenges. Another event, “Adventurer’s Trials,” has prepared some tricky trials that can be completed with our trial characters, such as knocking Slimes into the Vine Goal by triggering an Overloaded reaction with Yanfei’s and Klee’s attacks. In addition, the new Dendro Hypostasis will complete the puzzle of the Hypostasis family, serving as a new open-world boss and a part of the challenge “Hypostatic Symphony.”
More improvements will be implemented to improve the current gaming experience. The long-awaited “Replication System” will be introduced to the Serenitea Pot system so players can share their realm designs or implement others’ in their Teapot. Furthermore, Italian and Turkish languages will be available in the Game Language settings starting from Version 3.3.
Genshin Impact is available now for PS5 [3,497 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/playstation/ps5″>PlayStation 5, PS4 [23,977 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/playstation/ps4″>PlayStation 4, PC [16,040 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/pc”>PC via client and Epic Games Store, iOS via the App Store, and Android via Google Play. A Switch version is also planned.
Watch a new trailer below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.
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Implant may reduce OCD symptoms with electrical pulses
“Deep brain stimulation,” or DBS, can offer significant relief to as many as two-thirds of patients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, a new study found. Photo by Raman Oza/Pixabay
When traditional treatments fail to help patients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an implant that zaps the brain with electrical pulses just might, a new research review shows.
It found that the remedy — known as “deep brain stimulation,” or DBS — can offer significant relief to as many as two-thirds of such patients. On average, it can reduce OCD-triggered symptoms by nearly half, the review found.
“[OCD involves] intrusive and bothersome thoughts that the individual cannot silence, and compulsions that are repetitive, ritualistic behaviors performed to reduce the anxiety produced by the compulsions,” said study author Dr. Sameer Sheth. He is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
An estimated 3% of the global population is thought to be affected. For those with severe OCD that is uncontrolled, the symptoms can be “all-consuming,” Sheth said. Examples of OCD include repeated handwashing, ordering and arranging, repeating words in one’s head, and checking and double-checking.
“They can prevent the person from being able to perform other necessary activities of life, and therefore be extremely disabling,” Sheth said. “Some people cannot leave their room or home because of the cleaning rituals that would be necessary to re-enter, or cannot interact with others because of incessant taboo thoughts.”
The good news is that a combination of behavioral therapy and standard antidepressants — such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) — help many individuals.
The bad news: “About 10% to 20% do not respond” to those treatments, Sheth said.
Enter DBS, a pacemaker-like system, for the brain.
“Like a pacemaker, it consists of a stimulator typically implanted under the skin in the upper chest, and connected to a wire (electrode),” he said. “The electrode is implanted in specific regions in the brain,” including those involved in decision making and balancing emotions.
The aim is that by restoring activity in these areas to a more balanced state, DBS settles the symptoms of OCD.
But does it work?
To find out, Sheth’s team reviewed the findings of 31 studies conducted between 2005 and 2021.
Collectively, the studies included 345 adult OCD patients, at an average age of 40. All had struggled with a severe-to-extreme form of OCD that had not responded to standard treatments.
On average, participants had spent nearly 25 years battling crippling OCD symptoms. Many also suffered from depression, anxiety and/or personality disorders.
The review showed that after an average treatment period of about two years, DBS had yielded notable symptom improvements in two-thirds of the patients. On average, symptoms eased 47%, the researchers reported.
Significant depression relief was also attributed to DBS treatment. The studies found it eliminated the issue in half of patients for whom it had been a concern.
The studies found downsides to DBS therapy, as well.
About one in five patients experienced at least one serious side effect of DBS, the review found. These can include an increased risk for seizures, suicide attempts, stroke, and new OCD symptoms linked to DBS itself.
Still, Sheth stressed that the upside is hard to ignore, noting that the level of symptom relief linked to DBS “usually allows people to function again,” at school, at work and in relationships.
“Patients almost never get worse,” he added, “so there is actually little risk of DBS for appropriately selected patients.”
Sheth’s takeaway: “DBS for OCD is an effective and safe treatment, as we have now shown with rigorous analysis of hundreds of patients across several countries.” With time, DBS is likely to become even more effective, as “consistency in improvement will increase,” he added.
Two experts who were not involved with the study largely agree.
“Since the [DBS] electrodes are implanted in the brain regions contributing to OCD, it is not a surprise that it works,” said Dr. Gopalkumar Rakesh, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, in Lexington.
What’s needed now, Rakesh said, is the adoption of a “precision-medicine approach” to DBS use, so that doctors and scientists are better at predicting what makes a person with OCD respond well to it.
Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, president and CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in New York City, echoed that thought.
“Even though it’s not a brand-new therapy, DBS really is in the more-research-needed stage of development,” Borenstein said. “So I would say that the results of this study point to the need for even more research, in order to determine which patients would be more likely to benefit, and to really fine-tune that treatment so as to have the greatest benefit.”
The research review was published online Tuesday in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
More information
There’s more about deep brain stimulation for OCD at Mount Sinai.
Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Powerful Radio Pulses Originating Deep in the Cosmos Probe Hidden Matter Around Galaxies
This artist’s concept shows distant fast radio bursts piercing the gaseous halos around galaxies in the local universe. The radio bursts are depicted traveling from the distant cosmos, through the galactic halos, and finally reaching telescopes on Earth. The bumps seen in two of the lines represent the radio burst themselves as they travel toward Earth. Credit: Courtesy of Charles Carter
Powerful cosmic radio pulses originating deep in the universe can be used to study hidden pools of gas cocooning nearby galaxies, according to a new study that was published last month in the journal Nature Astronomy.
So-called fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are pulses of radio waves that typically originate millions to billions of light-years away. (Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation like the light we see with our eyes but have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies). The first FRB was discovered in 2007, and since then, hundreds more have been detected. In 2020, Caltech’s STARE2 instrument (Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2) and Canada’s CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) detected a massive FRB that went off in our own Milky Way galaxy. Those earlier findings helped confirm the theory that the energetic events most likely originate from dead, magnetized stars called magnetars.
As more and more FRBs roll in, scientists are now investigating how they can be used to study the gas that lies between us and the bursts. Specifically, they would like to use the FRBs to probe halos of diffuse gas that surround galaxies. As the radio pulses travel toward Earth, the gas enveloping the galaxies is expected to slow the waves down and disperse the radio frequencies. In the new study, the research team looked at a sample of 474 distant FRBs detected by CHIME, which has discovered the most FRBs to date. They showed that the subset of two dozen FRBs that passed through galactic halos were indeed slowed down more than non-intersecting FRBs.
“Our study shows that FRBs can act as skewers of all the matter between our radio telescopes and the source of the radio waves,” says lead author Liam Connor, the Tolman Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Astronomy, who works with assistant professor of astronomy and study co-author, Vikram Ravi.
“We have used fast radio bursts to shine a light through the halos of galaxies near the
The study also reports finding more matter around the galaxies than expected. Specifically, about twice as much gas was found as theoretical models predicted.
All galaxies are surrounded and fed by massive pools of gas out of which they were born. However, the gas is very thin and hard to detect. “These gaseous reservoirs are enormous. If the human eye could see the spherical halo that surrounds the nearby Andromeda galaxy, the halo would appear one thousand times larger than the moon in area,” Connor says.
Researchers have developed different techniques to study these hidden halos. For example, Caltech professor of physics Christopher Martin and his team developed an instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory called the Keck Cosmic Webb Imager (KCWI) that can probe the filaments of gas that stream into galaxies from the halos.
This new FRB method allows astronomers to measure the total amount of material in the halos. This can be used to help piece together a picture of how galaxies grow and evolve over cosmic time.
“This is just the start,” says Ravi. “As we discover more FRBs, our techniques can be applied to study individual halos of different sizes and in different environments, addressing the unsolved problem of how matter is distributed in the universe.”
In the future, the FRB discoveries are expected to continue streaming in. Caltech’s 110-dish Deep Synoptic Array, or DSA-110, has already detected several FRBs and identified their host galaxies. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), this project is located at Caltech’s Owen Valley Radio Observatory near Bishop, California. In the coming years, Caltech researchers have plans to build an even bigger array, the DSA-2000, which will include 2,000 dishes and be the most powerful radio observatory ever built. The DSA-2000, currently being designed with funding from Schmidt Futures and the NSF, will detect and identify the source of thousands of FRBs per year.
Reference: “The observed impact of galaxy halo gas on fast radio bursts” by Liam Connor and Vikram Ravi, 4 July 2022, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01719-7
Spinal Implant Enables Paralyzed Man With Severed Spine to Walk Again
In 2017, Michel Roccati was in a motorbike accident that left his lower body completely paralyzed. In 2020, he walked again, thanks to a breakthrough new spinal cord implant.
The implant sends electrical pulses to his muscles, mimicking the action of the brain, and could one day help people with severe spinal injuries stand, walk, and exercise.
It builds on long-running research into using electrical pulses to improve quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries, including a 2018 study by the same team that helped people with partial lower-body paralysis walk again.
“It was a very emotional experience,” Roccati told journalists of the first time the electrical pulses were activated and he took a step.
He was one of three patients involved in the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, all of them unable to move their lower bodies after accidents.
But the three were able to take steps shortly after the six-centimeter implant was inserted and its pulses were fine-tuned.
“These electrodes were longer and larger than the ones we had previously implanted, and we could access more muscles thanks to this new technology,” said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at the Lausanne University Hospital who helped lead the trial.
Those initial steps, while breathtaking for the researchers and their patients, were difficult and required support bars and significant upper body strength.
But the patients could start rehabilitation immediately, and within four months Roccati could walk with only a frame for balance.
“It’s not that it’s a miracle right away, not by far,” cautioned Gregoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who led the research with Bloch.
Roccati is now “able to stand for two hours – he walks almost one kilometer without stopping”.
The Italian described being able to look clients in the eye, have a drink at a standing table and take a shower standing up thanks to the implant.
He and others in the trial were also able to climb stairs, swim, and canoe.
‘Bright future’
The improvements depend on the electrical stimulation, which is triggered via a computer carried by the patient that activates a pattern of pulses.
Two of the patients can now activate their muscles slightly without electrical pulses, but only minimally.
The three men had all been injured at least a year before the study and Bloch said the team hopes to trial the technology with people sooner after an accident.
“What we all think is that if you try earlier it will have more effect,” she said.
There are challenges: In early recovery a patient’s capacity is still in flux, making it hard to set a baseline from which to measure progress, and ongoing medical treatment and pain could hamper rehabilitation.
So far, the implants are also only suitable for those with an injury above the lower thoracic spinal cord, the section running from the base of the neck to the abdomen, because six centimeters of healthy spinal cord is needed.
The idea of using electrical pulses to address paralysis stemmed from technology used to regulate pain, and the researchers said they see scope for further applications.
They have also shown it can regulate low blood pressure in spinal cord injury patients and plan to soon release a study on its use for severe Parkinson’s disease.
The team cautioned that significant work remains before the implant is available for treatment outside clinical studies, with Bloch saying she and Courtine receive around five messages a day from would-be patients seeking help.
They next plan to miniaturize the computer that activates the pulses so it too can be implanted in patients and controlled with a smartphone.
They expect this to be possible this year, and have plans for large-scale trials involving 50-100 patients in the United States and then Europe.
“We believe there is a bright future for neurological stimulation technology,” said Courtine.
“We’ll do (it) as fast as we can.”
© Agence France-Presse