Scientists in Australia have developed a ‘bionic spine’. This device has successfully been tested in sheep and will be implanted in three patients next year. If it works, it will allow paralysed patients to regain movement using subconscious thought. Traditionally, devices to directly stimulate the brain require invasive surgery, as for example in the deep brain stimulation treatment of Parkinson’s disease developed using non-human primate research. But in this study, researc

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine is shared between William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, and Youyou Tu, who contributed to fighting parasitic diseases, among which malaria. The research behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine has once again relied on animal research – over the past 40 years, every Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine bar onehas done so. Youyou Tu’s group screened over 200 herbs from traditional Chinese medicine on monkey and mouse models