MTB Europe is reporting about a study conducted on paraplegics using an electric muscle stimulating training system from Therapeutic Alliances Inc. out of Fairborn, Ohio, a device called ERGYS2. One of the early adopters of this system was the late Christopher Reeve.
In an exercise study completed last year, patients who were paralysed from the chest or waist down experienced an average increase in their oxygen uptake by 25% and in their heart pumping volume by fully 37% after just eight weeks of training.
Never before has so much improvement or such impressive results been documented in this patient group.
The Ergys 2 is a stationary training bicycle, where the patient’s legs and feet are strapped to a leg holder and pedals. Electrodes are then fastened to the patient’s thigh and seat muscles, and electrical impulses trigger the muscles to contract and relax.
The impulses are computer controlled to guarantee the best possible effect. Even though it may seem like artificial training, it is real enough as it’s the patient’s own muscles that are working. And it is movement that demands energy: the blood flow increases, and the pulse goes up. The exercise has an effect on muscle mass, muscle strength, oxygen uptake and the heart’s pumping volume.
Cornell University, thanks to a major grant from the NSF, is moving forward on building an ultra powerful, ultra fast x-ray machine that promises to capture biomolecular processes happening in full motion video. Using technology developed at the university, called energy-recovery linac (ERL), the plan is to build a mile long linear accelerator on which multiple research projects can operate at the same time.
New research out of MIT has deciphered part of the bacterial communication network that has long frustrated scientists. The multitude of communication pathways in bacteria share common enzymes, yet they are still able to communicate without any interference or “crosstalk.” The MIT scientists were able solve this problem, and even program their own bacterial communication pathways, by finding pairs of amino acid co-evolution. Here’s more on the discovery from MIT:
An Oxford University professor has come upon a method that may one day replace the subjective, volunteer based Scoville testing method for determining the hotness of foods, with an objective chemical method using nanotubes and something called adsorptive stripping voltammetry.
An interesting personal scale, if it can be called in such a limited way, has been put to our attention as a nifty present for the health conscious and gadget obsessed man in your family. The device claims to provide accurate muscle mass and body fat numbers for each arm and leg, in addition to the body on the whole. And these and other numbers can be tracked via a graph screen on the top of the unit.
