Researchers from North Carolina State University and Elon University have developed a technique that allows them to remotely control the movement of soft robots, lock them into position for as long as needed and later reconfigure the robots into new shapes. The technique relies on light and magnetic fields.

Wearable human-machine interfaces — devices that can collect and store important health information about the wearer, among other uses — have benefited from advances in electronics, materials and mechanical designs. But current models still can be bulky and uncomfortable, and they can’t always handle multiple functions at one time.

Scientists have long suspected that a quantum phenomenon might play a role in photosynthesis and other chemical reactions of nature, but don’t know for sure because such a phenomenon is so difficult to identify.

Nuts contain vitamins and minerals and offer a variety of benefits, such as improved heart health and potential weight loss. They can also help with the prevention and management of diabetes and lowering cholesterol – and now researchers have discovered that nuts can can improve sexual function and the quality of orgasms in men.

Questions about sexual function

The study, published in Nutrients scientific journal was conducted by Albert Salas-Huetos and URV’s Human Nutrition Unit, and CIBERobn Network led by URV professor Jordi Salas-Salvado.

83 participants who followed a western diet (high in animal fats and low in fruit and vegetables) were split into two groups: one group who continued to follow their normal diet over a period of 14 weeks, and another group who added 60g of walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds to their diet every day. After the study, participants completed a questionnaire known as the IIEF-15 which asked various questions about their sexual function.

Findings revealed that by adding nuts to an unhealthy western diet did in fact improve orgasm quality and sexual desire. Researchers did, however, state that further studies with larger numbers of participants need to be carried out in order to confirm results and to to pinpoint what exactly caused these benefits. 

In another study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the same researchers described how certain nuts improved the quality of sperm, even though there were no studies demonstrating the effects of the nuts on sexual function.

Factors associated with ED

Erectile dysfunction, also known as impotence, is the inability to maintain an erection sufficient to ensure that both partners are satisfied during sex. The study pointed out that it affects 2% of men under the age of 40, 52% of men aged 40–70 and 85% of men over the age of 80. Causes of impotence range from genetics to physical aspects, including:

• Neurological problems
• Vascular problems
• Structure of the penis or surrounding tissues

Risk factors for erectile dysfunction include stress, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of physical exercise and an unhealthy diet.  

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Deeanne Daniels

Carers mistakenly paid too much benefit must repay the cash and some face court action.

This will help speed up dementia research and the search for a drug treatment, experts say.

Okay let's be real: We all sleep way too close to our phones and phone chargers (let me guess: It's your alarm clock, right?). But after seeing what a generic phone charger did to a 19-year-old's neck, you might consider sleeping with your beloved device at least an arm's length away. 

The girl's story, outlined in a new case report in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, is especially terrifying because it's so damn common: "She was lying on her bed with the end of a generic (non-Apple brand) iPhone charger underneath her pillow. The charger was plugged into an electrical outlet but was not plugged into the telephone," the report explains.

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"She was also wearing a long, chain necklace. Sometime after lying down, she felt a sudden burning sensation and severe pain around her neck." The girl pulled the necklace from her neck and went to the emergency room.

Luckily, the incident didn't cause anything worse than a burn around her neck, which doctors think happened when the electric current from the phone charger touched the girl's necklace, which transmitted the current to her skin. She was treated with morphine, and her wound was debrided. (This means doctors had to remove bits of her necklace or damaged tissue or both.)

RELATED: Exactly What to Do to Treat a Kitchen Burn at Home

The report warns that not only burns, but also electrocutions can be caused by phone chargers—which means that making sure your phone charger is out-of-reach at night is pretty essential for your health, says Baruch Fertel, MD, an emergency medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic. That's because an electric current is going through that phone charger, says Dr. Fertel And with electricity, the charger also produces heat—two things that can up your risk of suffering from a burn. He adds that chargers that deviate from manufacturer specifications, such as the one the girl in the case report was using, are especially dangerous

Of course, burns aren't the only reason not to sleep with your phone right next to you. Phones can also disrupt your sleep, which is important from both a physical and mental health point of view, says Dr. Fertel. And sleeping with your phone physically on your face (like, if you fall asleep while scrolling Instagram) is also unhealthy on your skin and eyes. 

So the next time you're drowsing off while trying to keep up with all the group chats you're in, maybe try to remember this girl's story, and put the phone down.

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When an Ohio woman woke up from a 10-day coma, she was shocked to learn that both her legs and arms had been partially amputated—especially because the last thing she remembered was feeling sick and lying down on her couch.

“When I opened my eyes I didn’t know where I was,” Marie Trainer, who ended up spending more than 80 days in the hospital, told local news station Fox 8 Cleveland. “It was very hard to find out that they had to remove my legs and my arms…very hard to cope with.”

It all started when Marie and her husband Matthew Trainer returned from a vacation to the Caribbean. Marie started feeling nauseous and having back pain, she told Fox 8. She thought it was the flu, but then her temperature suddenly spiked and plummeted. That was the first sign that it was something more serious. “Her temperature went up then went down to about 93 degrees, that’s when we rushed her to the hospital,” Matthew told the news outlet.

RELATED: I Thought I Had the Flu—but It Turned Out to Be Sepsis

At Aultman Hospital in Canton, Ohio, Marie underwent aggressive treatment, but her condition only worsened. Within hours, she had developed sepsis, an extreme bodily response to infection, in which inflammation throughout the body can lead to organ failure and sometimes death.

Marie was then placed into a medically-induced coma, as her limbs began to deteriorate as a result of gangrene, or dead tissue.

Finally, Marie's blood tests revealed her diagnosis: She had contracted a bacteria called capnocytophaga.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), capnocytophaga is commonly found in the mouths of dogs and cats. It can spread to humans through bites and scratches, but most people who contract it do not become sick. However, in rare cases, like Marie's, it can be life-threatening. About 30% of people who develop serious infections from capnocytophaga germs die. Some infections can even lead to death within 24 to 72 hours after symptoms start.

The Trainers have two dogs and suspect they might have licked a small cut on Marie’s arm.

RELATED: 16 Things You Can Catch From Your Pet

The bacteria caused a number of blood clots in Marie's body, and though doctors tried to remove as many of the clots as possible, they couldn't save her limbs. Doctors told the family that had they not done the amputations, Marie would have died. 

“It was so rapid in progression…there was nothing they could do,” Marie’s step-daughter, Gina Premier, who works as a nurse practitioner at the hospital, told Fox 8. 

After eight surgeries, Marie is now on the road to recovery. She said she still loves her dogs and is excited to be reunited with them, although she's urging people to be careful around pets if they have a cut or scrape. 

The CDC says if you've been bitten by a dog or cat, you should be sure to wash the bite area with soap and water right away. You should also call your doctor, even if you don’t feel sick. People with weakened immune systems, such as those who have conditions like cancer or diabetes, should consider talking to their doctor about how to protect themselves when coming in contact with pets. 

To help with medical expenses and the cost of prosthetic limbs, Marie's family started a GoFundMe page.

RELATED: This Woman Died After Contracting an Infection from Her Dog's Saliva

US scientists have successfully built functional heart parts out of collagen using a 3D bioprinter, a breakthrough they say could one day create entire organs.

Their technique, which was described in the journal Science on Thursday, replicates the body’s own complex biological scaffolds that provide the structure and biochemical signaling organs need to function.

“What we were able to show was you can actually 3D print a heart valve out of collagen, and they function,” Adam Feinberg, one of the paper’s co-authors told AFP.

Previous attempts at printing these scaffolds, known as extracellular matrices, had been hindered by limitations that resulted in poor tissue fidelity and low resolutions.

Collagen, which is an ideal biomaterial for the task since it is found in every tissue of the human body, starts out as a fluid and attempting to print it resulted in puddle of jello-like material.

But the scientists at Carnegie Mellon University were able to overcome these hurdles by using rapid changes in pH to cause the collagen to solidify with precise control.

“That’s the very first version of a valve, and so anything that we engineer as a product will actually get better and better,” Feinberg said.

The technique could one day help patients awaiting heart transplants, but it will need to validated through animal testing and eventually human.

“I think more near term is probably patching an existing organ,” such as a heart that has suffered a loss of function through a heart attack, or a degrading liver, said Feinberg.

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When asking for advice on eating for optimum health, many dietitians will tell you the same thing – include plenty of vegetables in your diet, especially green ones.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple for those people who can’t stomach the taste of vegetables, especially bitter greens such as spinach, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. But there is a way you can teach yourself to like these foods, and reap their health benefits, researchers at the University at Buffalo say.

Your response to bitter foods all depends on the specific proteins found in your saliva, which affects your sense of taste and diet composition, according to a new study published in the journal Chemical Senses.

What does your saliva have to do with it?

Not only can the bacteria in your saliva hold clues to your overall health, but specific proteins in your saliva determine how you perceive certain foods. Everything we eat first gets dissolved by saliva before it interacts with taste receptor cells, according to research.

“What you eat creates the signature in your salivary proteome, and those proteins modulate your sense of taste,” says Ann-Marie Torregrossa, an assistant professor in UB’s Department of Psychology and the associate director of the university’s Center for Ingestive Behavior Research in a news report. 

“We’ve shown in previous work with rats that changing your diet changes what proteins are in your saliva. Now we’re showing that the proteins in your saliva change how you taste.”

“If we can convince people to try broccoli, greens and bitter foods, they should know that with repeated exposure, these vegetables will taste better once they regulate these proteins,” says Torregrossa.

So, how many times should I try before I taste a difference?

Unfortunately, the study doesn’t indicate precisely how many times you should choke down a mouthful of your most dreaded vegetable before you start enjoying it.

“Our data doesn’t provide a number, such as 12 servings of broccoli. However, for people who avoid these foods because of their bitterness, but would like to include them in their diet, they should know their taste will eventually change,” says Torregrossa.

Bitterness is also a near-universal characteristic of paediatric medicines, and getting infants to swallow a bitter liquid, which by nature they want to reject, can be a challenge.

“An additive to that medicine to make it less bitter would increase compliance,” she says. “It’s similar to liquid dietary supplements in the geriatric population, which often contain sugar to tame the bitterness. Achieving the same result without sweeteners has obvious benefits.

“Trying to convince someone that a salad tastes great isn’t going to work because to that person it doesn’t taste great. Understanding with taste that we’re dealing with something that’s moveable is significant.

“It’s an elegant physiological shift allowing you to put these foods into your diet,” says Torregrossa

For the study, Torregrossa trained rats to choose from one of two water bottles after tasting a solution, to indicate whether it tasted bitter, according to the news report.

Animal research in this case allows for tighter dietary control, and the variation of specific proteins can be monitored in a way that’s difficult to achieve with human participants, according to the research.

“The variation around sweet is very small,” she says. “Nearly everyone likes a cupcake, but the variation around liking broccoli is enormous.

“This research helps explain why that variation with bitter food exists and how we can get more people to eat broccoli instead of cupcakes. The point of the research is to try and combat an obesity crisis by getting people to make healthier food choices.”

How can I enjoy my vegetables?

For now, here are some simple tactics to help you include more vegetables in your diet:

• Be open to experiment with new textures and tastes.
• Switch up your cooking methods – try roasting your vegetables for extra crunch and flavour. Steaming is also better than boiling, as it maintains the crisp texture of the veggies, instead of cooking them until they are bland and mushy. 
• Make spices your friend. A dash of olive oil and sweet herbs such as rosemary and thyme can transform a dull head of broccoli.
• Blend a cup of spinach into a fruit smoothie to disguise the taste.
• Add vegetables to your favourite soups and sauces. Not only will you enjoy the benefits of fibre-rich veggies, but you will also require less meat if you’re preparing a Bolognese with extra veggies.
• Don’t only focus on the colour green – eat as many colours as possible, as purple vegetables such as red onions and beetroots contain the greatest amounts of antioxidants.

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Compiled by Marelize Wilke