MRI noise reducing headset is developed
GAINESVILLE, Fla., April 24 (UPI) -- U.S. engineering students say they've designed a headset that muffles the extremely loud noises produced during magnetic resonance imaging exams.
The University of Florida students said their prototype headset reduces the repetitive, industrial-like noises that accompany MRI procedures. The noises -- often as loud as a jet engine -- can cause involuntary patient movement, blurring the image and necessitating repeat examinations, said Stephen Forguson, one of the researchers.
Forguson, Chad Dailey, Paul Norris and Christopher Ruesga designed the headset in collaboration with the Invivo Corp., a manufacturer of MRI accessories.
Although noise-canceling earphones are commercially available, they use electronics that aren't permitted within a MRI chamber. Passive systems are insufficient to combat the noise.
The newly designed headset uses existing "air phones," or headphones attached to small tubes connected to specially crafted electronics and algorithm software located outside the MRI machine. Since MRI sounds are repetitive and the piped-in sounds are timed to occur on top of the repetitions, the patients hear the same sound they would without any intervention -- but at a much lower volume.
The team is now experimenting with further improvements, said Professor Gijs Bosman, the students' faculty adviser.
Brain disease studied at the atomic level
COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 24 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have, for the first time, inspected the atomic level of the protein that causes hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy.
The disease, thought to cause stroke and dementia, is initiated by certain kinds of proteins called prions that produce degenerative brain diseases such as CAA, mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. All are incurable and fatal.
The researchers, led by Ohio State University Assistant Professor Christopher Jaroniec, used solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to inspect a tiny portion of the protein molecule that is key to the formation of plaques in blood vessels in the brain.
"This is a very basic study of the structure of the protein and hopefully it will give other researchers the information they need to perform further studies and improve our understanding of CAA," he said.
The research that included doctoral students Jonathan Helmus and Philippe Naudaud, as well as scientists at Case Western Reserve University, appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
NASA reports Mars rover malfunction
PASADENA, Calif., April 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says a motor in the robotic arm of its Mars rover Opportunity that began stalling more than two years ago has become more troublesome.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are diagnosing why the motor, one of five in the robotic arm, stalled April 14. NASA said the engineers are also examining whether the motor can be used and assessing the impact on Opportunity's work if the motor is deemed unusable.
The malfunctioning motor controls sideways motion at the shoulder joint of the rover's robotic arm. Other motors provide up-and-down motion at the shoulder and maneuverability at the elbow and wrist. A turret at the end of the robotic arm has four tools that are used to study rock and soil composition and texture.
"Even under the worst-case scenario for this motor, Opportunity still has the capability to do some contact science with the arm," said John Callas, project manager for the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit.
Opportunity and Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 to begin a three-month mission. They have continued operating for more than four years.
Cancer scientists study the adenovirus
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., April 24 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have clarified a complex series of biochemical steps involved in abnormal cell proliferation that can lead to cancer.
The Cold Spring Harbor (N.Y.) Laboratory researchers said they used the adenovirus -- a DNA tumor virus that causes the common cold, but whose genome contains known oncogenes, said William Tansey, who led the study with Professors Scott Lowe and Gregory Hannon.
The team focused on an adenoviral oncogene called E1A, and a protein that it codes for with the same name. Since a DNA virus is little more than a tiny segment of DNA enclosed within a protein shell, the researchers said it must find a way to enter the nucleus of a living cell and hijack the cell's reproductive machinery in order to reproduce.
"It's not adenovirus itself, but the things it does when it enters a cell, that really interest us, Tansey said.
Understanding how a tumor virus like adenovirus promotes cancer can reveal "the most vulnerable pathways and nodes that are linked to tumorigenesis," Hannon added.
The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.