All posts tagged: Heal

French Startup Uses Special Polymers to Better Help Nerves Heal

French Startup Uses Special Polymers to Better Help Nerves Heal

Published by skeptic

Roughly 500,000 Americans suffer nerve injuries that require treatment each year, whether from an errant attempt to hack out an avocado pit or an unfortunate woodworking accident. Many will never get full feeling back in their fingers. But a startup has developed a thick and sticky liquid that could change that, and it’s begun deploying it with surgeons in the US. French firm Tissium is working to replace and supplement medical stitches with a liquid that attaches to tissue when exposed to light. A biopolymer made of fatty acid and glycerol—both of which naturally occur in the body—the liquid acts like a splint to hold the nerves in place while the tissue mends itself. It then biodegrades after the body heals, leaving nerves intact. Peripheral nerves make up the sprawling network of the nervous system, branching off from the brain and the spinal cord to the rest of the body. When one is cut, often through injuries involving knives or machinery, the two ends need to be held in place while the nerve slowly repairs …

Injectable nanorobots may help heal spinal injuries

Injectable nanorobots may help heal spinal injuries

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Despite significant medical advances, spinal cord damage remains one of the most difficult physical injuries to treat. Scarring frequently gets in the way of nerve fiber regrowth, while nerve cells usually cannot regenerate on their own. A possible solution? A fleet of stem cell-infused, injectable nanorobots that can help nerve cells regenerate. The tiny bots are detailed in a study recently published in the journal Nature Materials. To build their new tools, a team at ETH Zurich in Switzerland engineered microscopic machines that combine living neural progenitor cells (NPCs)—specialized stem cells developed for the spine—with customized nanoparticles. These customized nanoparticles feature two layers—one that is sensitive to magnetic fields and another that translates them into electrical signals. “We place a reservoir in the …

Expert: Murrell may have been trying to heal psychological wound with purchases

Expert: Murrell may have been trying to heal psychological wound with purchases

Published by Sam Flores

Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell will have rationalised his embezzlement of more than £400,000, acting on a possible internal pressure to have the “lavish lifestyle that he craved but could not afford” a criminologist suggested. Dr Nicola Harding said Murrell’s case was a “textbook white collar crime” involving someone in a “position of respectability”. But she said that Nicola Sturgeon’s ex-husband may have been “trying to fill a gap within himself” with his series of lavish purchases, which were paid for with party cash. Murrell with his then wife Nicola Sturgeon – who announced their separation in January 2025 Speaking the day after more details about how Murrell’s crimes were committed were revealed in court, the expert said: “What I know from the fraudsters, financial criminals I have worked with, is purchasing, what they try to gain out of it is not really about the items themselves, it is about how those items make them feel.” Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme, Dr Harding said: “They are often coming from a place of …

A moment that changed me: I became an uncle – and it helped me heal from childhood bullying | Family

A moment that changed me: I became an uncle – and it helped me heal from childhood bullying | Family

Published by Sam Flores

When I found out I had become an uncle, I was 22 and on a year abroad as part of a languages degree, living in Madrid. I’d spent much of my time there having raucous fun on the city’s gay scene, dancing till the early hours then sloping off with Spanish men. It felt a long way from my family life back home in Bolton. As this was 1997 – a time before mobile phones – calls from landlines had to be rationed to once a week. But my mum phoned to tell me my sister had gone into labour and then, two days later, the phone rang again with the news that I had a nephew. It felt like an abstract concept, not quite real. I was desperate to meet the baby but had to wait six weeks till the end of the academic year and my flight home. So I reverted to having wild nights out in Madrid. When I woke up with a strange man and an apocalyptic hangover, I couldn’t see …

Red light therapy claims to heal wounds, improve pain and reduce wrinkles. But the evidence for it working is dim | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

Red light therapy claims to heal wounds, improve pain and reduce wrinkles. But the evidence for it working is dim | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

Published by Sam Flores

The world of wellness is constantly expanding. There are new fads coming out almost every week, from the weird new mushroom powders that are suddenly essential for everyone’s health to the newest diet that is supposed to shave kilograms off your figure. It’s a quagmire of unproven, disproven and almost certainly ineffective things that grows every day. But one mainstay is red light therapy. While red lights are seeing a massive renewed surge in popularity – it’s hard to go on TikTok or Instagram without being assaulted by at least one very confusing video of a person wearing what appears to be a horror mask shining red light on their face – they’ve been around for quite some time. You can find people discussing red light and its possible benefits all the way back to the 1990s. The question is, then, what in the world can shining red lights on your skin actually do? A mountain of studies but the evidence is unclear Given the decades of interest we have in this technology, we should …

Syria cannot heal without a rebuilt health system | Syria’s War

Syria cannot heal without a rebuilt health system | Syria’s War

Published by Sam Flores

Last week, European Union and Syrian officials met in Brussels for high-level talks on the country’s reconstruction. The EU’s support for Syria’s health system, including 14 million euros ($16.25m) to rehabilitate Ar-Rastan Hospital in Homs, is a significant contribution that merits recognition. While the EU is demonstrating what strategic investment can achieve, the gap between the conditions returnees face and what they need for a healthy life remains a major barrier for the country’s recovery. After 14 years of conflict, Syria is facing a public health crisis that no government can address on its own. The restoration of health services will instead require large-scale, coordinated action from across the international community. A recent report authored by my organisation, Relief International, details the crisis at hand: many of the 3.7 million Syrians who have returned home are encountering a health system left fractured and struggling after years of devastation. According to our findings, 78 percent of returnees in Deir Az Zor reported that healthcare was unavailable. In al-Tebni district, 41 percent of surveyed households said at …

Scientists discover why deadly lung scarring from IPF refuses to heal

Scientists discover why deadly lung scarring from IPF refuses to heal

Published by Jenni Sidey

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis slowly turns the lungs stiff and scarred, but researchers may have found why the damage keeps building. Their work points to a survival signal inside key cells, and to a treatment approach that could help the lungs recover. Every breath depends on millions of tiny air sacs inside the lungs working smoothly. In people with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, that delicate system slowly breaks down. Healthy lung tissue becomes stiff and scarred. Oxygen struggles to move into the bloodstream. Even simple activities can leave patients exhausted and gasping for air. Doctors have long known that scar-forming cells called fibroblasts play a major role in the disease. These cells normally help repair injured tissue. Once healing is complete, many fibroblasts die through a natural process called apoptosis, which acts like the body’s cleanup system. In pulmonary fibrosis, that process fails. A new study from researchers at National Jewish Health and collaborating institutions may finally explain why. The research, published in Nature Communications, found that a protein called BCL-2 helps harmful fibroblasts avoid …

Good Dog! More Children’s Hospitals Turn to Furry Caregivers to Help Kids Heal

Good Dog! More Children’s Hospitals Turn to Furry Caregivers to Help Kids Heal

Published by Sam Flores

CINCINNATI (AP) — The first time 5-year-old Calvin Owens went outside in more than a month, he met up with his canine friend Hadley on a hospital patio. Despite being tethered to equipment with wires and tubes, the little boy managed to stand up near his wheelchair long enough to toss her a ball. He smiled as she ran to fetch it. Caregivers cheered. “Look how good you’re doing!” said Hadley’s handler, Schellie Scott. Such small victories and moments of joy are common whenever Hadley or one of the other three facility dogs at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital show up. These furry caregivers aren’t the typical therapy dogs volunteers bring to hospitals to comfort patients. They are specially trained, full-time working dogs that provide emotional support during stressful procedures, motivate kids to move around and make hospitals seem less scary. And experts say their ranks are growing at children’s hospitals across the nation. A mounting body of research shows that even short interactions with facility dogs can improve children’s overall well-being, decrease the pain they feel …

Can tuning music to 432Hz really heal you? Scientists explain the viral trend

Can tuning music to 432Hz really heal you? Scientists explain the viral trend

Published by José Betancourt

If you scroll through social media for long enough, you’ll probably find videos claiming that listening to songs tuned to “A 432Hz” can provide an amazing sense of calmness or healing. It’s even claimed that listening to music tuned to this frequency can align your internal frequencies to those of the universe. It’s an alluring idea – that simply listening to music tuned in a specific way could improve your health. But does it have any scientific basis? An ancient idea Firstly, what does it even mean if songs are tuned to A 432Hz? Hertz (or Hz) is a measurement of frequency, or the number of times sound waves vibrate per second. Sounds are transmitted as waves through the air which hit our eardrums to create the sensation of hearing. The more quickly those sound waves are vibrating, the higher the pitch of the note. In standard concert tuning, the note A above middle C is tuned to 440Hz. A 432Hz tuning simply means the pitch of that A and all the other notes in …

Gen Z Man Watches TV To Heal His Brain From Doomscrolling

Gen Z Man Watches TV To Heal His Brain From Doomscrolling

Published by Jenni Sidey

Studies preaching about the negative effects TV had on kids’ brains were the bane of most of our childhoods, but some experts say it may actually be the antidote to too much doomscrolling.  That’s not to say there wasn’t solid evidence to suggest TV harmed children, especially for those with seats 10 inches from the screen or who didn’t open a book until high school. In today’s world, however, the dangers of too much TV have been replaced with a different evil, known as short-form content.  Somewhat surprisingly, many Gen Zers seem to be waking up to the impact a steady diet of TikTok videos has had on their attention spans. The solution one man proposed sounds a bit unconventional, though. A Gen Z man said he uses TV to ‘unfry’ his brain from endless short-form content. A Gen Z content creator known as @mmmmmmdelicious on TikTok admitted his penchant for short-form content, whether on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or elsewhere, has made it nearly impossible for him to watch anything longer than a short 30-second clip …