People stricken with Parkinson’s Disease often find it very difficult to write or draw due to a condition called Micrographia. The disorder causes cramped, difficult to read handwriting. In a lot of cases, the afflicted person simply gives up on trying to use pens or pencils.

ARC is a prototype device being developed by designers Lucy Jung, Tian-Jia Hsieh, Hwan Soo Jeon, and Danny Walklin. Collectively known as Dopa Solutions, the group has created the very first pen meant just for Parkinson’s patients who also suffer from Micrographia.

The ARC contains high frequency vibration motors inside of the pen’s body. The vibrations from the motors stimulate muscles in the hand to help the user write steadier and more clearly. The vibrations also serve to make the pen easier to move across the paper – a huge help to those who have difficulty with fine motor movements such as writing.

Although the designers have conducted only a small study with 14 patients, they reported an impressive 86% improvement rate in the participants’ writing. Given that one in 500 people has Parkinson’s, the vibrating pen technology could prove to be life-changing for so many people. There is no word yet on if or when the design team plans to release the ARC pen for commercial purchase.

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Bees are integral to the health of our planet, but they are also surprisingly good at detecting health problems in humans. Designer Susanna Soares built an unusual series of diagnostic devices that use this incredible ability to detect a variety of human maladies.

Studies have shown that bees can detect a wide range of diseases from diabetes to cancer to tuberculosis simply by recognizable odors in a human’s breath or apocrine (sweat) glands.

Soares’ project involved a set of glass objects and a small number of bees. The bees can be trained for their specific task in just ten minutes using a food reward system – and they retain this knowledge for the rest of their lives.

Each glass object is made of two chambers: a large chamber that holds the bees (only for a very short time) and a smaller enclosure that serves as the diagnosis area. To use the system, a human blows into one of the objects or allows the scent of their sweat to enter the diagnosis chamber. If the bees rush into the diagnosis area, this means that they detected the illness they were trained to recognize. If they stay in the larger chamber, the diagnosis is negative.

We can’t be sure how medically accurate this particular project is, but bees do have an incredible sense of smell ranging in the parts-per-trillion neighborhood. The medical community has already recognized the potential of bees as biosensors and in some areas have used them to help in early detection of some cancers and other diseases.

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Living with Parkinson’s Disease can make everyday activities incredibly difficult. Eating is often a challenge because the tremors caused by Parkinson’s make it hard to get food to the mouth without making a mess. A new spoon made just for people with Parkinson’s and other tremor-causing conditions is about to make life much easier.

The Liftware Spoon has a built-in microchips and sensors which cancel out movement made by the user’s hand tremors. The spoon counters tremors up to two inches, making the act of eating a much more enjoyable and less stressful endeavor.

Although the tremor-correcting technology isn’t quite perfect, it does greatly reduce the incidence of embarrassing tremor-related spills. The device is powered by a small, thin battery that can last for up to several days on a single charge. LiftWare plans to release interchangeable attachments for the base in the future, including a fork and a key holder.

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Everyone fears a bee sting, but recently researchers at Washington University have found that bee venom could have a potentially life-saving application: it can kill HIV. A toxin called melittin is found in bee venom, and somehow it is able to penetrate the little protective envelope that surrounds the HIV virus and destroy it. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be newsworthy since there are plenty of ways to kill persistent viruses – but most of those methods also destroy the surrounding normal cells.

The researchers at Washington University figured out a way around this by loading melittin onto nanoparticles. The nanoparticles are equipped with “protective bumpers” that cause them to harmlessly bypass normal cells. But the HIV virus is smaller than the nanoparticles, so it comes into contact with the melittin and is destroyed. Because the method attacks the physical structure of the HIV virus, there is no way for the virus to adapt to become immune to this type of treatment. The amazing discovery could lead not only to the prevention and cure of HIV, but to the successful cures of other viruses like Hepatitis B and C.

(top image via Treesha Duncan/Flickr)

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On-the-spot paper medical sensors are already used for a few applications such as pregnancy tests, but there is so much more that can be done with these low-cost tests. A team of chemists at the University of Texas at Austin has made significant strides in this field by developing a 3D paper sensor that can detect HIV and Malaria in seconds and for the cost of around 10 cents. The news is important because in remote locations and in countries without advanced medical facilities, traditional tests for these ailments may be too expensive – or the facilities to transfer blood samples and test results may simply not exist.

Besides using hydrophobic material such as wax to create tiny channels on the surface of the paper sensors, the chemists embedded specific reactive agents in the paper. The paper sensors are folded up and a biological sample introduced. The channels direct the biological sample – blood, urine or saliva – to the reactive agents, which indicate if the sample contains the biological markers for a specific disease. When the sensor is unfolded it can be read by eye with no special equipment needed. The sensors don’t need to be made or folded in high-tech facilities, so the production could be handled in the very developing nations that would most benefit from using them.

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