Cardiovascular Research: Look inside your heart ♦ Studying cardiac arrhythmias in nematodes ♦ Exercise and stop smoking to improve depression after heart attack

Look inside your heart Quantifying the damage caused to specific parts of the heart by cardiac arrest is key to providing effective treatment and accurate prognoses for millions of people worldwide. Now, researchers have developed a computational method that uses magnetic resonance imaging data to assess the extent of damage to the left ventricle, the heart’s powerhouse.

Studying cardiac arrhythmias in nematodes A simple model using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been developed that can be used to test substances for treating genetically-mediated cardiac arrhythmias. They used the nematode feeding apparatus for this purpose, a rhythmically active muscle pump that resembles the muscle cells in the mammalian heart.

Novel prosthetic heart valve developed for treatment of severe heart disorder A novel prosthetic heart valve has been developed, known as VeloX, which can be implanted through a small incision for the treatment of a serious heart valve disorder called mitral regurgitation. This is a condition in which the mitral valve on the left side of the heart does not close properly. The device is particularly beneficial to patients who are of high surgical risk or are unsuitable for existing clinical interventions

Transplantation of unique, newly discovered stems cells may lead to promising stroke therapy When rats modeled with stroke were transplanted with newly discovered and unique Muse cells, neuronal regeneration resulted in significant improvements in neurological and motor functions and did not cause cancer, as other cells often do, scientists report.

Exercise and stop smoking to improve depression after heart attack  Exercise and stop smoking to improve depression after a heart attack, experts urge.

Health News: Toxins found in ice cream discovered ♦ Thousands of directly hackable hospita devices found exposed ♦ Ancestral background can be determined by fingerprints

Toxins found in ice cream discovered Although 2015 will not go down as an ice-cream summer, the world's favourite frosty treat has just become a little bit safer, thanks to an innovative Scottish food safety company which has contributed to an important new test. Test kits made by Glasgow-based R-Biopharm Rhône have been crucial to an investigation into contaminated cow's milk in ice cream.

Thousands of directly hack-able hospital devices found exposed Thousands of critical medical systems – including Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines and nuclear medicine devices – that are vulnerable to attack have been found exposed online. Security researchers Scott Erven and Mark Collao found, for one example, a "very large" unnamed US healthcare organization exposing more than 68,000 medical systems.

New tech automatically 'tunes' powered prosthetics while walking When amputees receive powered prosthetic legs, the power of the prosthetic limbs needs to be tuned by a prosthetics expert so that a patient can move normally -- but the prosthetic often needs repeated re-tuning. Biomedical engineering researchers have developed software that allows powered prosthetics to tune themselves automatically, making the devices more functionally useful and lowering the costs associated with powered prosthetic use.

Ancestral background can be determined by fingerprints It is possible to identify an individual's ancestral background based on his or her fingerprint characteristics, new research shows -- a discovery with significant applications for law enforcement and anthropological research

Prototype lab in a needle could make real-time, mobile laboratory testing a reality A lab in a needle device has been created by researchers that could provide instant results to routine lab tests, accelerating treatment and diagnosis by day