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The Star Trek tricorder diagnosed any illness at once.Ten finalists have been chosen in a $10m (£6m) competition to develop a real-life "tricorder" - the medical scanner used in the Star Trek series.The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, launched last year, challenges anyone to develop a wireless device capable of detecting a range of diseases. The technology employs sensors and imaging to measure vital signs and diagnose conditions non-invasively. X Prize officials said the technology was now "fact, not science fiction". The 10 finalists come from a range of backgrounds, including universities, medical device manufacturers and tech start-ups. One research team...

U.S. Army warns of potential 'airborne' Ebola Virus could be transmitted by means other than contact NEW YORK – While Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization officials continue to insist Ebola cannot be transmitted by air from one person to another, an Army manual clearly warns the virus could be an airborne threat in certain circumstances. The handbook published by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRID, titled “USAMRID’s Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook,” is now in its seventh edition. The most recent edition was published in 2011, with more than 100,000 copies distributed...

Kevin LoriaOctober 6, 2014 The idea that Ebola could go airborne is terrifying. Once you are infected, few diseases are more likely to kill you — and death by hemorrhagic fever, diarrhea and vomiting often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure, sounds particularly awful. At present it's hard to get infected — healthcare workers and family members caring for victims are at highest risk — but that would change if the virus were to mutate so that it could be transmitted through the air while keeping its present lethality. That's a nightmare scenario. But it's more the stuff of bad...

Bloomberg - link and title only.

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>

The pitch was intriguing: U.S. health officials wanted to fast-track trials for an Ebola vaccine and sounded the call for volunteers. Charles Sullivan called up the hotline on a whim, figuring the National Institutes of Health already had filled its queue and wouldn’t need him. But he was accepted for three rounds of shots of a deactivated virus, a year’s worth of blood analysis and a $900 check for his trouble. The clinical trial went well, and the vaccine seemed promising. A decade later, the country is still waiting for a vaccine amid a worldwide Ebola outbreak, and Mr. Sullivan...

Allergy to Some Metal Implants Linked to Rare Skin Cancer, Study Says - TUESDAY Oct. 14, 2014: A rare type of skin cancer has been linked to allergic reactions to metal implants, researchers said. Some patients who have metal devices implanted near the skin may develop chronic skin rashes caused by contact allergies to metals such as nickel, cobalt and chromium. These rashes may lead to an unusual and aggressive form of skin cancer, the researchers said. The study's authors described the case of a woman who had a metal rod implanted to repair a broken ankle, and later developed...

Islam isn't just at the heart of the terror threat posed by the Islamic State. The religion is also contributing to the other major crisis plaguing the globe: the spread of Ebola. Washington and its media stenographers won't tell you this, lest they look intolerant, but Islamic burial rituals are a key reason why health officials can't contain the spread of the deadly disease in West Africa. Many of the victims of Ebola in the three hot-spot nations there — Sierra Leone and Guinea, as well as neighboring Liberia — are Muslim. Roughly 73% of Sierra Leone's and about 85%...

Colombia is closing its borders down to people traveling from Ebola-affected countries. The Latin American nation announced the decision made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs despite the fact no Colombian Ebola cases have been reported. The border shut down doesn’t mean people can’t return to Colombia if they have been visiting West Africa; what it means is that strict detainment protocols will be enacted for individuals under suspicion of having contact with the virus. These restriction methods include an epidemiological questionnaire developed by the National Health Institues to be used by Colombian consulates during the visa application process, as...

The news that health workers fighting against the Ebola outbreak in Liberia are threatening to strike over long hours and unsanitary conditions should come as no surprise, given the high toll the healthcare community has had to pay for this virus.

While new and novel might be exciting, routine and habit can help create a structure and framework for success. From eating breakfast, brushing our teeth or exercising every day, much of our lives are driven by routine. This reliance on routine behavior can startle us when we are driving and find ourselves not at our planned destination, but at our routine destination. In my case, the power of routine was driven home last May, after my family moved. For weeks afterward, I would find myself driving to our old house rather than to our new home. Routine's influence goes beyond...

Just Breaking on News Wires now.

<p>Going to school these days isn’t what it used to be. Kids are marched through metal detectors on the way to a disappointing lunch of arugula with a side of alfalfa sprouts. Now they’re ruining recess. Swings in Seattle are now forbidden.</p>

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Monday said it "would not be surprised" if other healthcare workers at a Dallas hospital are diagnosed with Ebola. CDC Director Tom Frieden said he did not know how many workers might have been exposed to the virus, but estimated it was a "relatively large number." "We’re concerned, and unfortunately would not be surprised if we did see additional cases in healthcare workers who also provided care to the index patient," Frieden said. A nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was found to have Ebola over the weekend. Her case is the first-ever...

I have no interest in adding to the rising level of fear-mongering and finger-pointing that we're reading, hearing, and seeing about Ebola. It is scary enough without a bunch of people running around like a character in an Edvard Munch painting. I just looked this up. According to webmd.com an outbreak"happens when a disease occurs in greater numbers than expected in a community or region or during a season." An epidemic "occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people. In 2003, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic took the lives of nearly 800 people worldwide." A pandemic...

Conclusions: Recent changes in public health and social support policies recognize the economic burden of informal caregiving. Our estimates reinforce the high economic burden of stroke in the United States and provide up-to-date information for policy development and decision-making.

Leon WatsonOctober 13, 2014 The Ebola outbreak is the "most severe acute health emergency in modern times", the World Health Organisation has warned. The agency's director-general Margaret Chan said the epidemic had proved "the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health emergency". She added that new cases of Ebola are now "rising exponentially" in the three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In a statement to a regional health conference in the Philippine capital Manila, she said: "I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in...

As the Ebola infection rate and death toll continue to rise rapidly on the African continent, many of us have become complacent with the measures we have taken to protect Americans from this deadly disease. Other nations, such as England, have gone so far as to ban flights emanating from the affected regions of Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and various infectious-disease specialists have done a yeoman's job in their efforts to prevent infected individuals in our country from contaminating others. They have put excellent protocols in place that would virtually guarantee complete safety. Unfortunately, all of those valiant...

A Dallas hospital's bizarre bungle of the first U.S. case of Ebola leaves me wondering: Is someone covering up for a crony billionaire Obama donor and her controversy-plagued, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company? Last week, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital revealed in a statement that a procedural flaw in its online health records system led to potentially deadly miscommunication between nurses and doctors. The facility sent Ebola victim Thomas Duncan home despite showing signs of the disease -- only to admit him with worse symptoms three days later. Hospital officials, who came forward "in the interest of transparency," initially cited workflow...

President Barack Obama said on Monday his administration was working on additional protocols for screening airplane passengers to identify people who might have Ebola and would step up efforts to make medical professionals aware of what to do if they encounter a case. Obama made the disclosure after meeting top administration officials involved in attempting to prevent an outbreak of Ebola in the United States. After a series of missteps involving the handling of a man who arrived in Dallas from Liberia with Ebola, Obama said "we have learned lessons in terms of what happened in Dallas."