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Comment Re:Great for Spinal Cord Injury but... (Score 3, Informative) 42

Not quite true.

The disorder in ALS is of the corticospinal tract, not the NMJ, but both points are irrelevant in this case. The researchers are decoding cortical signals and translating them drive a mechanical prosthesis. Theoretically, anyone with an intact motor cortex (spinal cord injured patient, as you point out, but also for ALS) should be able to manipulate one of these things.

Pretty cool stuff, but we're years away from anything clinically useful coming out of this because compared to other medical conditions, the research dollars just aren't there (the number of people with diabetes dwarfs all the SCI and amputees easily). Also, we need to figure out a way to use these non-invasively (i.e. outside the head) to avoid the problems with infection and the ethics of justifying an experimental brain surgery on a human...

Comment Re:Don't expect too much from this treatment (Score 1) 99

first of all, a complete resection of a infiltrative glioma is not possible, because frequently by the time they're diagnosed, they've already crossed the corpus callosum into the contralateral hemisphere (google butterfly glioma. and those are just the cells we can see with MRI. we already know there are micrometastases that are not visible by /any/ currently available clinical imaging modality)

theoretically, you could do a gross total resection (we do these all the time) and irradiate the surrounding parenchyma with white light to reduce the tumor burden due to micrometastases. of course, we could just find a slightly different form of EM radiation (like x-rays) that penetrate better than visible light and activate the nanoparticles that way.

interesting stuff.

Google

Submission + - FCC Investigates App Store Google Voice Rejection (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: "The FCC has opened an inquiry into the rejection of the official Google Voice app from the App Store, which occurred at the same time that the App Store was "cleansed" of any Google Voice-enabled third-party apps. On Friday, the FCC sent letters to all three parties involved: Google, Apple, and AT&T. While the letters to Apple and AT&T asked for an explanation for the rejection, the letter to Google simply asked questions about Google Voice as well as any prior Google apps accepted by Apple."

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