Source: medscape .com

A phase 3 trial of a new drug called tasimelteon (Vanda Pharmaceuticals) improves the symptoms of a debilitating circadian-rhythm sleep disorder that frequently affects the blind.

http://bit.ly/140QVHd

Source: medscape .com

A large French retrospective analysis provides good news for caffeine lovers: investigators showed that drinking tea or coffee was associated with a small but statistically significant reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure. In addition, drinking tea and coffee was also associated with a significant reduction in pulse pressure and heart rate, although the heart-rate reductions were greater with tea.

http://bit.ly/1arFiyn

Source: gigaom .com

The evils of the internet are seeping into the increasingly connected world of health care. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration called on medical device manufacturers to double down on security, referencing an increase in cyberattacks against medical devices and hospital network operations.

http://bit.ly/177PTzA

Source: gizmodo .com

Doctors have made leaps and bounds with curing patients of HIV, but today, an equally-groundbreaking study has proven that emerging preventative treatments are even more effective than previously thought.

http://bit.ly/13G3IAj

Source: gizmodo .com

Most of us have our blood pressure checked whenever we visit the doctor for a physical, but high blood pressure—aka hypertension—can lead to serious medical conditions like a stroke or a heart attacks if left for too long. So a company called STBL Medical Research AG is adapting a pressure-sensitive fiber into a continuous blood pressure monitoring watch that will replace the cumbersome inflatable cuffs typically used by doctors.

http://bit.ly/1624RSW

Source: gizmodo .com

In January, Dubai photog Gerald Donovan showed us what the earth looks like from the pinnacle of the world’s tallest building, thanks to a 360 degree panorama that was ‘shopped to remove the Burj Khalifa itself. But today, Donovan released the original, undoctored image—and it’s even better than the edited version.

http://bit.ly/11ZVwqg

Source: the-gadgeteer .com

There are various attachments for the back of tablets designed to give you a better grip on those slippery little suckers. They may work fine in most situations, but they aren’t always easily cleaned. When you’re a doctor using a tablet for data records, viewing X-rays, and sharing information with patients, you need to have a firm grip on the tablet. Most importantly, you need to be able to clean that grip so that germs don’t get passed from patient to patient.

http://bit.ly/1bynfUP

Source: the-digital-reader .com

A little over a month ago Barnes & Noble quietly removed any mention of their Nook for PC and Nook for Mac apps, and today they confirmed to me that the apps are no longer being supported.

http://bit.ly/11ya9lH

Source: medicinenet .com

A new brain imaging study appears to rule out one potential cause of dyslexia, finding that vision problems don't lead to the common reading disorder.

http://bit.ly/16RJng4

Source: medgadget .com

Odin Mobile may appear (no pun intended) to be just another cellular provider when it launches next month, but it will be the first and only network specially tailored toward the visually impaired.

http://bit.ly/15JymZJ

Source: medicalnewstoday .com

The width of blood vessels in the retina, located at the back of the eye, may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia and other deficits, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

http://bit.ly/13N4WbW

Source: vanderbilt .edu

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are “markedly better” at perceiving the motion of certain objects than are typically developing children their age, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Rochester.

http://bit.ly/15WeFP6

Source: medicalnewstoday .com

The drug aflibercept (trade name: Eylea) has been approved in Germany since November 2012 for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG) the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the current standard therapy. Such an added benefit cannot be derived from the dossier, however, as the manufacturer did not submit any suitable data for this comparison.

http://bit.ly/ZYuJ3t

Source: imedicalapps .com

In lieu of the FDA’s recent inquiry into the uCheck urine analyzer app, it appears Apple might be tightening restrictions on medical app developers.

http://bit.ly/14HSLfl

Source: gizmodo .com

It's sort of a utopian nerd dream, using the internet to be educated by the best universities in the world. We have online universities now, but they've become more targets of mean jokes than legitimate means to further education. But increasingly, that's beginning to change.

http://bit.ly/11wvZt7

Source: gigaom .com

San Francisco health tech accelerator Rock Health is debuting its latest class. Out of a few hundred applicants, the program said it selected just 3 percent, making its fifth class the most selective yet.

http://bit.ly/ZuJJUt

Source: gizmag .com

The OrCam is a small camera linked to a very powerful wearable computer. It sees what you see and through your finger-pointing understands what information you seek, relaying auditory feedback through a bone conduction earpiece. Using an intuitive user interface, the device can read text, recognize faces, identify objects and places, locate bus numbers and even monitor traffic lights.

http://bit.ly/185lkdU

Source: engadget .com

We've seen the prototypes that led Google to Glass, but there are many devices that predate Mountain View's smart specs, and Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California was able to gather and display a historic number of such headsets this week. From Steve Mann's handmade WearComp 1 and EyeTap prototypes to Glass-like precursors from Optinvent and Vuzix, it's quite the comprehensive collection -- over thirty devices in all. While they may make their way into a museum some day, we're bringing pictures of them all to your screen right now. Enjoy.

http://engt.co/14z51yN

Source: kinja .com

Is architecture ready for Google Glass? The augmented reality that Google Glass promises may not seem architectural, but in truth the two couldn’t be more related. Augmented reality is, after all, the layering of information over the built environment.

http://bit.ly/15HhlQo

Source: ubergizmo .com

Hospitals are supposed to be extremely sterile places, but then again, it is also home to plenty of sick people and folks who are infected with a particular kind of disease, one way or another. Not only that, the smell of industrial cleaners in hospitals do take a certain getting used to, and doctors as well as surgeons know that washing one’s hands is an extremely important step to take – as approximately 100,000 people die from hospital-borne infections in the US alone annually. IntelligentM, a startup company has made the decision to work on a bracelet that will vibrate whenever someone has sufficiently washed his hands, as at this point in time. This is definitely the more cost effective method than employing select folks to monitor the hygiene habits of doctors and nurses alike on the sly.

http://bit.ly/1aZpksK

Source: gizmodo .com

Eye-Fi cards have been around since 2006 as a way to wirelessly transmit your digital camera photos to your computer or mobile device. The catch was that you had to connect to a Wi-Fi network before in order to do so. Not so with the new Eye-Fi Mobi.

http://bit.ly/18KLAXY

Source: medgadget .com

Flexible electronics is a hot research topic for medical device development which promises advancements such as turning simple vascular balloons into smart sensing devices and making contact lenses with built-in displays. While flexibility is key for many applications, also being transparent would be a major advantage for contact lens electronics.

http://bit.ly/Zq879C

Source: kevinmd .com

Google Glass will be like the Segway. It’s really cool but it will have only a few practical uses and won’t be a paradigm shifter. Segway never won widespread acceptance in a culture dominated by cars and Google Glass is unlikely to win over people who prefer to wear their smart phones on the waist instead of on their face.

http://bit.ly/18PLfFP

Source: facebook .com

On the first World Orthoptic Day, CERA recognises the essential role of orthoptics in the detection, diagnosis and management of eye diseases in both adults and children.
They work across a range of settings including hospitals, private specialist practices and research centres such as CERA.

http://on.fb.me/14dhuvj

Source: the-gadgeteer .com

If you suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) or from jet lag, you may have considered light therapy. Most light therapy devices I’ve seen are banks of lights that you must sit in front of for periods of time, and you may feel you don’t have the time to devote to this therapy. The Re-Timer glasses from Re-Time Inc say they will provide the light you need to keep your energy levels, sleep patterns, and body rhythms adjusted, but you won’t be tied to one location while you enjoy the therapy. The glasses are said to produce no UV. They’re portable and they even fit right over your glasses, so you can continue about your life while receiving the therapy. They are available in Australia and the US from the Re-Timer website for $273.90.

http://bit.ly/13zePKb

Source: medgadget .com

Sensus Healthcare (Boca Raton FL) received FDA approval to begin marketing its SRT-100 superficial radiotherapy system for the treatment of keloids, or scar tissue that forms over a wound whether from injury or surgical procedures. The system is used otherwise for treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers during in-office procedures.

http://bit.ly/10LjolP

Source: unboundmedicine .com

Purpose: The objective of this study was to determine the central corneal thickness (CCT) measurements in patients with Sleep Apnea Syndrome (SAS) and the relationship between the severity of SAS and minimal arterial oxygen saturation (min. SpO2) with respect to CCT. Materials and methods: Two hundred and fourteen eyes of 107 patients (58 males, 49 females) who were diagnosed as SAS and 80 eyes of 40 healthy subjects (20 males, 20 females) were included in the study. The SAS patients were divided into subgroups according to their Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) values as: AHI values between 5 and 15 as subgroup 1, between 15 and 30 as subgroup 2, and the values ≥30 as subgroup 3. The CCT was measured by an ultrasonic pachymetric system. Statistical analyses were an analysis of variance test and, for post-hoc analysis, the Dunnett C test.

http://bit.ly/15wY5Fp

Source: medscape .com

An overwhelming majority of people with age-related macular degeneration would rather test their vision with an iPad app than with traditional methods, a new study shows.

http://bit.ly/119Kejg

Source: kevinmd .com

The position paper from the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards, is a humbling reminder of the challenges that today’s physicians face when entering the online space.

http://bit.ly/11w6Mut

Source: kevinmd .com

“My wife gets migraines—really bad ones—and now my daughter seems to be getting them too. She’s only 7! Is she just copying what her mom does? Can a child really start getting migraines?”

http://bit.ly/11LMdjE

Source: gigaom .com

With an estimated 40,000 mobile apps for iOS and Android that want to help you lose weight, track your fitness, manage chronic disease and address other health issues, separating the truly useful from the trash can be a tough challenge.

http://bit.ly/18Hwcy8

Source: gizmodo .com

We've all seen our fair share of rocks, and most of them aren't that pretty. The ones that are though, can be totally mind-blowing. Ryoji Tanaka, a Japanese photographer and chemist, likes to capture some of the most striking elements, minerals, and compounds in close-up (like the Uranium-containing cuprosklodowskite you see above) and the results are crazy awesome.

http://bit.ly/145CqnI

Source: gizmodo .com

There's no easy answer for HIV; the sly virus uses our own immune cells to its advantage and mutates readily to shrug off round after round of anti-retrovirals. But thanks to the efforts researchers from the University of Illinois and some heavy-duty number crunching from one of the world's fastest petaflop supercomputers, we may be able to stop HIV right in its tracks.

http://bit.ly/145Cbcl

Source: gizmodo .com

Comic books and visual novels are difficult to translate into Braille; Usually, they’re novelized or retold in audio formats. But is it possible to tell a visual story using tactile means alone? A Berlin-based interaction design student named Philipp Meyer thinks so.

http://bit.ly/12VtNtd

Source: engadget .com

The Raspberry Pi camera has been out for less than two weeks, and it's already skirted the final frontier. Armchair astronaut Dave Akerman strapped the $25 shooter to the equally inexpensive Raspberry Pi, put it inside a protective case shaped like the berry that inspired the product's name, and then attached it to a weather balloon. Three hours and quite a few vertical miles later, his experiment was recovered by a stranger not too far from the launch site, who called the phone number written on the side of the Linux powered microcomputer. The resulting photos are beautiful (see more at the source link), and required no help whatsoever from NASA.

http://engt.co/11dGRMd

Source: gizmodo .com

Google just announced a new interface for you Gmail based around customizable tabs. The goal? To you help manage your goliath of an inbox. It looks pretty incredible.

http://bit.ly/11dGIZ8

Source: medgadget .com

SayAh, LLC is a unique company that creates digital tools for healthcare providers by designing surveys for patients to assess their physicians and clinic visits in a verified, real-time, and secure fashion. The company addresses the growing problem of unverified physician ratings on many of the “rate the doctor” sites. Medgadget recently had the opportunity to interview one of the co-founders, Mr. Adam Robertson, about the company.

http://bit.ly/1405iOg

Source: medgadget .com

Figure1 is a free iOS app (Android to come) debuting today at the Apple app store that hopes to be a “crowdsourced medical image library that healthcare professionals can use to share, rank, and discuss images.” This editor sat down with Annie Williams and Gregory Levey of MovableScience, the company putting out Figure1, back at TEDMED and reviewed a pre-release version of the app. In comparison to the MobileCT app we wrote about last week, this app is more focused on education and information dissemination rather than diagnosis. It is also not limited to radiology, since it is able to share images from the iPhone camera as well.

http://bit.ly/12iMBYs

Source: imedicalapps .com

When twitter initially launched I was largely skeptical on how it could be utilized in medicine. Initially I thought Facebook was a better option due to the ability to use more than 140 characters. Overtime though, it has become clear the medical conversations are happening on Twitter, not Facebook.

http://bit.ly/16lqKRC

Source: kevinmd .com

We think the reason doctors rarely make house calls is money. Doctors can charge, but it is hard to charge enough to justify the time it takes to drive door-to-door, fill the tank and attend lengthy visits. Thus, the house call has faded into history. However, I have another theory about the end of this valuable service: perhaps it is increased emotional distance between patients and their doctors.

http://bit.ly/12Zih1z

Source: kevinmd .com

How should doctors behave online? This is a funny question, isn’t it?
Medical establishment loves rules and hierarchy. Social media does not. Social media levels the playing field of who gets to talk; it gives real caregivers a voice. That’s very cool.

http://bit.ly/18mgPuB

Source: engadget .com

It may be the most watched sporting event, but SMI's more interested in how we watch the Champions League final than the game itself. The eye-tracking firm, in participation with the KMRC and University of Tübingen, will observe how 61 fans watch the Dortmund/Bayern tussle using its RED-m cameras. The project aims to discover if supporters of rival clubs perceive matches differently and, by tracking their eye movement, learn how those perceptions are formed. Of course, given our violently hysterical reactions when Didier Drogba sunk the winning penalty in last year's game, the researchers might have difficulty keeping the participants still enough to monitor.

http://engt.co/11jaTdb

Source: medicalnewstoday .com

Optical illusions have long been used in neuroscience to point out perceptions into how the brain functions, and now a visual test can detect impaired abilities to see large motions in high-IQ people, according to a new study.

http://bit.ly/10taXeX

Source: bmj .com

Abstract
Aims To report the local control and complication rates of orthovoltage radiotherapy in the management of medial canthal basal cell carcinoma (BCC).


http://bit.ly/18s673l

Source: cnn .com

It seems that anytime Brad Pitt speaks, the world stops to listen, and his latest interview with Esquire has been no exception.

http://bit.ly/157xjTc

Source: medicalnewstoday .com

Prostaglandin analogues (PGAs), drugs which lower intraocular pressure, are often the first line of treatment for people with glaucoma, but their use is not without risks. PGAs have long been associated with blurred vision, dryness, changes in eye color and other side effects. Now a new study has found that these drugs also cause upper and lower eyelid drooping and other issues that can interfere with vision. The findings are described in PLOS ONE.

http://bit.ly/1amNugc

Source: reuters .com

In a new study, people with high blood pressure who could communicate with their pharmacists online had better blood pressure control a year after that service ended.

http://reut.rs/1amNj4P

Source: kevinmd .com

“How can I find a doctor online?”
A seemingly simple question, but patients are often confronted with too much information on the Internet, with variable quality.

http://bit.ly/129E1Lq

Source: medscape .com

A diabetes drug looks promising for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), according to results of a small, proof-of-concept study.

http://bit.ly/12Wubt9

Source: medscape .com

Glucosamine supplementation was linked to significant, reversible increases in intraocular pressure (IOP) in a small, retrospective study published online May 23 in JAMA Ophthalmology. However, the investigators, led by Ryan K. Murphy, DO, from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, Biddeford, Maine, and colleagues, could not exclude the potential for permanent damage.

http://bit.ly/16hUgri