Massachusetts General Hospital

19 results

Dr Eddie Chang helps Pancho speak through an implant in his brain. Photograph: Mike Kai Chen/New York Times
18 years after he was paralysed, brain implants are letting this man communicate again

He has not been able to speak since 2003, when he was paralysed at age 20 by a severe stroke after a terrible car crash. Now, in a scientific milesto(...)

“The current study underscores just how pervasive and immediate the effects of exercise can be.” Photograph: iStock
Growing evidence exercise improves health by transforming cells

While we exercise, we raise and lower the levels of hundreds of molecules in our bloodstreams that are related to our metabolic health, even if we wor(...)

Neurologist Francisco Lopera in Medellín, who has been painstakingly collecting brains, birth and death records from one sprawling Colombian family to study Alzheimer’s. Photograph: Federico Rios/The New York Times
The woman who should have got Alzheimer’s by 50, but didn’t

The woman’s genetic profile showed she would develop Alzheimer’s by the time she turned 50. She, like thousands of her relatives, going back generati(...)

In recent years, scientists have uncovered clues that the microbiota, the community of trillions of microbes that live in the gut, plays a role in weight gain and metabolic disease. Photograph: iStock
Researchers turn to ‘poop pill’ in search of cure for obesity

Dr Elaine Yu, an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was inundated with volunteers when she put out a call a few years ago fo(...)

Our immune cells can sometimes recognise and destroy cancer cells without assistance. But tumours may hide by taking advantage of a gene called CD47
Researchers destroy tumours by genetically reprogramming bacteria

Scientists have used genetically reprogrammed bacteria to destroy tumours in mice. The innovative method one day may lead to cancer therapies which tr(...)

Scientists report the first large-scale demonstration of an approach that can identify this hidden brain function right after injury, using specialised computer analysis of routine EEG
Scientists find hidden brain function in unresponsive patients after brain injury

Doctors have known for years that some patients who become unresponsive after a severe brain injury nonetheless retain a “covert consciousness,” a deg(...)

Jo Cameron, who has a rare disorder that means she does not experience pain or anxiety, in Gilsland, England. Photograph: Mary Turner/The New York Times
The intriguing link between sensitivity to physical and psychological pain

A recent article about Jo Cameron – who has lived for 71 years without experiencing pain or anxiety because she has a rare genetic mutation – prompted(...)

Actor Luke Perry (pictured here in 2015), who rose to stardom on the 1990s US television drama Beverly Hills 90210, died on Monday at the age of 52. He had been in hospital after suffering a ‘massive’ stroke last week, his publicist Arnold Robinson said. Photograph: Frederick M Brown/Getty Images
Just 52, Luke Perry died following a stroke – this is how that happens to someone his age

Luke Perry’s death, following a massive stroke, is both a tragedy and a bit of a mystery. The actor was just 52 years old, and the vast majority of st(...)

“Not an hour went by without some kind of disruption. It’s a terrible way to start recovery.” Photograph: iStock
Slumber puncture: the perils trying to sleep in hospital

If part of a hospital stay is to recover from a procedure or illness, why is it so hard to get any rest? There is more noise and light than is conduc(...)

Netwatch co-founders David Walsh, left, and Niall Kelly with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, centre. Photograph: Conor McCabe Photography
‘Think big, talk big, make it happen’

With more than 300,000 customers in the US and Europe and 500 staff spread across three countries, Netwatch is well on the way to achieving its founde(...)

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