After the Covid-19 pandemic began early in 2020, Traverso and his colleagues turned their attention toward new ways to reduce interactions between potentially sick patients and health care workers. To that end, they worked with Boston Dynamics to create a mobile robot that could interact with patients as they waited in the emergency department. The robots were equipped with sensors that allow them to measure signs of life. The robots also carried an iPad that allowed for remote video communication with a health care provider.

This kind of robot could reduce health care workers' risk of exposure to Covid-19 and help to conserve the personal protective equipment that is needed for each interaction. However, the question still remained whether patients would accept this type of interaction.

In Traverso's study they were trying to tide that up and understand if the population accepts a solution like this one. The researchers first conducted a nationwide survey of about 1, 000 people, working with a market research company called YouGov. They asked questions regarding the acceptability of robots in health care, including whether people would be comfortable with robots performing not only classification but also other tasks such as planting a tube, or turning a patient over in bed. On average, the subjects stated that they were open to these types of interactions.

The researchers then tested one of their robots in the emergency department at Brigham and Women's Hospital last spring, when Covid-19 cases were flooding in Massachusetts. Fifty-one patients were approached in the waiting room and asked if they would be willing to participate in the study, and 41 agreed. These patients were interviewed about their symptoms via video connection, using an iPad cared by a log-like robot developed by Boston Dynamics. More than 90 percent of the participants reported that they were satisfied with the robotic system.

"For the purposes of gathering quick classification information, the patients found the experience to be similar to what they would have experienced talking to a person," Traverso says.

A three-year study comparing three different treatment options for tooth decay (腐烂) in children’s teeth has found no evidence to suggest that conventional fillings are more telling than sealing (封闭) decay in teeth, or using prevention techniques alone, in stopping pain and infection from tooth decay.

The FiCTION trial, the largest of its kind to date, also found that 450 children who took part in the study experienced tooth decay and pain, regardless of which kind of dental treatment they received.

Professor Nicola Innes, Chair of Paediatric Dentistry at the University of Dundee, said, “Our study shows that each way of treating decay worked to a similar level but that children with tooth decay at a young age have a high chance of experiencing toothache however the dentist manages the decay. From our trial, the best way to manage tooth decay is not by drilling it out or sealing it in, but it’s by preventing it in the first place.”

During the study, one of three treatment approaches was then chosen randomly for each child’s dental care for the duration of the trial for three years. The first approach aimed to prevent new decay by reducing sugar intake, ensuring twice-daily brushing with fluoride toothpaste (含氟牙膏). The second option involved drilling out tooth decay. For the third treatment strategy, tooth decay was sealed in to stop it progressing.

Of all three different ways of treating decay, sealing-in with preventive treatment was the most likely to be considered the best way of managing children’s decay if society is willing to pay a minimum of £130 to avoid an episode of pain or infection.

Professor Anne Maguire, Chair of Preventive Dentistry said, “The FiCTION findings have focused again on the need to prevent dental decay. The good news is that tooth decay can be prevented. Brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste, especially before bedtime, avoiding sugary drinks and snacks between meals and seeing a dentist regularly are all small habits that can help boost the overall health of your teeth.”

Delivering life-saving drugs directly to the brain in a safe and effective way is a challenge for medical providers. One key reason: the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from tissue-specific drug delivery. Methods such as an injection or a pill aren't as precise or immediate as doctors might prefer, and ensuring delivery right to the brain often requires invasive, risky techniques.

A team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new nano-particle generation-delivery method that could someday vastly improve drug delivery to the brain, making it as simple as a sniff.

“This would be a nano-particle nasal spray, and the delivery system could allow medicine to reach the brain within 30 minutes to one hour,” said Ramesh Raliya, research scientist at the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

“The blood-brain barrier protects the brain from foreign substances in the blood that may injure the brain,” Raliya said. “But when we need to deliver something there, getting through that barrier is difficult and invasive. Our non-invasive technique can deliver drugs via nano-particles, so there's less risk and better response times.”

The novel approach is based on aerosol science and engineering principles that allow the generation of mono-disperse nano-particles, which can deposit on upper regions of the nasal cavity via spread. The nano-particles were tagged with markers, allowing the researchers to track their movement.

Next, researchers exposed locusts' antenna to the aerosol, and observed the nano-particles travel from the antennas up through the olfactory nerve, which is used to sense the smell. Due to their tiny size, the nano-particles passed through the brain-blood barrier, reaching the brain and spreading all over it in a matter of minutes.

The team tested the concept in locusts because the blood-brain barriers in the insects and humans have similarities. “The shortest and possibly the easiest path to the brain is through your nose,” said Barani Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering. “Your nose, the olfactory bulb and then olfactory cortex: two steps and you've reached the cortex.”

To determine whether or not the foreign nano-particles disrupted normal brain function, Saha examined the physiology response of olfactory neurons in the locusts before and after the nano-particle delivery and found no noticeable change in the electro-physiological responses was detected.

This is only a beginning of a set of studies that can be performed to make nano-particle-based drug delivery approaches more principled, Raman said. The next phase of research involves fusing the gold nano-particles with various medicines, and using ultrasound to target a more precise dose to specific areas of the brain, which would be especially beneficial in brain-tumor cases.