Wearing an implantable pacemaker or cardiac defibrillator equipped with wireless technology can make life a lot simpler for heart patients. Wireless technology gives physicians the ability to perform remote device checks, freeing the patient from time-consuming and potentially costly office visits. However, according to a team of researchers from three prominent universities, such devices could also make life more complicated by exposing a patient’s confidential medical information to theft or, even worse, allowing unauthorized hackers to tamper with or reprogram the devices.

Working in a laboratory environment, the team used an inexpensive software radio to capture signals sent from an implantable cardiac defibrillator. In addition to determining the make and model number of the unit, the researchers were able to gather detailed personal information about a hypothetical patient including name, date of birth, medical ID number, and diagnosis. They were also able to access real-time electrocardiogram results; turn off therapy settings stored in the device, rendering it incapable of responding to dangerous cardiac events; and even deliver a shock capable of inducing ventricular fibrillation, a potentially lethal arrhythmia.

To date there have been no known cases of a patient with an implantable cardiac defibrillator or pacemaker being targeted by hackers. The purpose of the experiment, according to the researchers, was to identify potential problems so that the industry can proactively take the necessary steps to prevent them.

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Nanotechnology has taken another significant step toward someday revolutionizing the computer industry. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently used Rensselaer’s Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations, the world’s most powerful university-based supercomputer, to measure the key characteristics of both copper nanowires and carbon nanotube bundles using advanced quantum- mechanical computer modeling. It was the first time quantum mechanics had been used instead of empirical laws to study the performance of copper nanowire.

After months of intense number crunching, the researchers concluded that carbon nanotube bundles exhibit much less electrical resistance than copper nanowires. What this means, potentially, is that carbon nanotubes may hold more promise for use in electronic interconnect applications than copper nanowires. “Given the data we collected,” said team leader Saroj Nayak, an associate professor at Rensselaer’s Department of Applied Physics and Astronomy, “we believe that carbon nanotubes at 45 nanometers will outperform copper nanowire.”

The reason researchers are so excited about this discovery is because as computer chips shrink, so do their interconnects. As copper interconnects get smaller, their resistance increases, which degrades their ability to conduct electricity and generates additional heat.

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Tests on the influence of a stress-related hormone in ground squirrels could have an impact on understanding how it influences human learning, according to Jill Mateo, a University of Chicago researcher. The squirrels learn more quickly if they have a modest amount of cortisol – a hormone produced in response to stress – than those with either high or low levels of cortisol.

Mateo simulated a natural setting with a maze and connected it to the squirrel’s home nest box. She noninvasively altered the amount of cortisol in the pups’ systems and found that those with high or low cortisol levels took an average of 13 to 14 trials before they navigated the maze, while a control group of non-treated pups with a modest amount of cortisol needed just nine.

Unlike with animals, researchers cannot moderate cortisol levels in humans to study its impact, and little is known about the impact of low cortisol on learning. Some pregnant women who are exposed to stress, such as those who directly experienced the collapse of the World Trade Center, developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and have had significantly lower cortisol years later, as can their babies. The animal tests help to understand the potential impact of low cortisol on human learning, Mateo said.

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The Marshall Space Flight Center is working on the use of controlled illumination by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to treat mucositis and to accelerate healing of wounds. The basic idea is to illuminate the affected area of a patient with light of an intensity, duration, and wavelength chosen to produce a therapeutic effect while generating only a minimal amount of heat.
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An improved apparatus has been invented by the Marshall Space Flight Center for use in determining the osmotic second virial coefficient of macromolecules in solution. The invention helps researchers understand conditions that affect protein crystallization.
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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has invented a system of electronic hardware and software that noninvasively tracks the direction of a person’s gaze in real time. This system operates at a frame rate of several kilohertz and offers enhanced capability for applications that involve human-computer interactions.
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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered how a genetic circuit in HIV controls whether the virus turns on or stays dormant, and have succeeded in forcing the virus towards dormancy. Further studies are under way on the feasibility of using this approach for anti-HIV therapy.

The scientists explored the Tat circuit – the genetic master circuit of HIV – and built upon previous work that showed that it did not function like a standard on-off switch. The HIV circuit is driven by cellular noise, or random events, which activate the circuit for a limited amount of time before it turns off.

In the current study, the scientists were able to exploit this noise in the HIV Tat circuit to measure how long HIV remained activated in the cell, and deduce that the time spent in the active state drove HIV’s
decision to destroy the cell or not. Then the researchers increased the levels of the native cellular gene SirT1 – a gene implicated in aging – to reduce the lifespan of the HIV virus and force HIV-infected cells to
go dormant.

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