Jiea Rutland Simpson

by Lucy Maddox, Mosaic Science

This summer, Laura gave birth to twins. Five weeks early.

Laura’s girls were looked after in the Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, England. Laura arrived there after a caesarean section, having lost more blood than expected and with a dangerously low temperature. Despite her condition, she remembers being wheeled through the double doors of the Centre for the first time: “It’s kind of a blur,” she says. “But I do remember the light just really hitting me.”

To reach the Dyson Centre you have to walk, or be wheeled, through the old corridors of the main hospital. It feels hot, that particularly uncomfortable hospital warmth that amplifies the medical smell. Your shoes click on the lino floors and the sound echoes off the plain walls.

As soon as you go through the doors to the Centre, things change. It is light, airy and spacious. Natural wood and soothing greens make it feel more like a Scandinavian spa than part of a hospital. You’re greeted by a wooden reception desk, and to the left, French windows open onto a Zen-like pebbled garden. It smells slightly of chlorine, like a posh swimming pool.

by Charles Q. Choi

When the body gets wounded, it naturally generates molecules known as growth factors that are critical to helping it heal. Now researchers have engineered new versions of these growth factors that can help repair wounds and bone defects in mice faster and more effectively than their own natural versions.

Scientists have long sought to use growth factors to help the body regenerate. These chemicals have led to therapies that help promote new blood vessel and bone formation.

However, low healthy doses of growth factors are often not as useful as one might like, while larger doses “have the potential to be harmful, by generating tissue like bone where you don’t want bone or by inducing cancer,” says Jeffrey Hubbell, a bioengineer at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne. “Growth factors have gotten, as a class, a bit of a black eye.”

ROBEAR Lifts!

It’s no secret that one of the biggest drivers behind Japan’s full-court press to develop useful robotics is its aging population. Government projections indicate 40 percent of Japanese will be 65 or older by 2060. That statistic actually contains a double whammy–a greying society means that there are fewer women in their childbearing years, which leads to fewer births and a shrinking population. What Japan is left with is a major demographic headache that will make it increasingly difficult to provide all the healthcare and elderly support services the country’s citizens will need.

Potentially stepping into the breach are machines like ROBEAR, a robotic nursing assistant being developed by the Sumitomo Riko Company and RIKEN, Japan’s largest research institution. The bot is designed to lift patients from bed or a sofa and place them into a wheelchair or to help those who can walk but can’t rise from a sitting position. 

We’re just not sure if the bear head is creepier than no head at all. What do you think? Read more and see the video below.

By  Reenita Das Via Forbes

Plant Nursery Browsing, Collin County, Texas. 2017

44°37'43.7"S 167°53'41.6"E

instagram/oftwolands

Shooting a video on history, culture & food traditions in Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro, Panama with the amazing Lamar. Watch out for the forthcoming Panama tours this fall! 

A little about Bocas del Toro:

Early 1800s Irish, British and Scottish planters from Jamaica, Barbados and San Andres brought enslaved Africans to the archipelago to labor. Later on, workers from the greater Caribbean came to work, whether Panama Canal or United Fruit Company, adding to the rich culture already produced from the indigenous, African and Caribbean peoples. Guari-Guari is spoken here, a language of English, Spanish and Guaymi.