The post Tiny Humidifier Fits on Any Water Bottle first appeared on Dornob.

Though you can take steps to limit their presence, like buying less toxic products and washing your bedding at least once a week, an air filter is probably the best way to breathe cleaner air at night. A new product called the AirTulip Sleep may be the best solution yet, building a high-powered air purification system right into the headboard.

Fluid dynamics and aerodynamics expert Arjen de Jong teamed up with Raoul Valstar to design the AirTulip Sleep in response to COVID-19. The duo wanted to offer advanced air filtration technology in a new form that wouldn’t just take up a bunch of space in the home. The AirTulip Sleep replaces a conventional headboard, directly shielding you from contaminants in your most vulnerable state, and it’s virtually silent to boot.

How the Air Purifying Headboard Works

AirTulip Sleep uses a unique type of airflow to reduce contaminants. Fans, hairdryers, A/C vents, and even the wind spread contaminants through the air in a motion called turbulent airflow. The blowing motion stirs up pollutants and mixes particles and gases with clean air, which makes it hard for most conventional air purifiers to work efficiently.

The AirTulip uses laminar airflow instead, creating a chamber of clean air directly around the headboard where you need it. Laminar airflow is used in hospitals, medical labs, and other scientific facilities that require a sterile environment. The AirTulip Sleep uses it to create an output of clean air without the kind of blowing motion that brings in pollutants from elsewhere in the bedroom.

The product has been tested and verified by the Eindhoven University of Technology, which confirmed that it’s able to reduce the air particle count to zero. The AirTulip sleep also uses Ultra-Low Particulate Air Filters (ULPA) that filter 99.9997 percent of air particles, making it 100 times more efficient than a standard HEPA filter.

Even More Benefits

The AirTulip Sleep is a smart headboard, so you can use the accompanying app to track your sleep quality on your Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura Ring, or Garmin Fitness Watch. It also offers dual-zone temperature regulations.

The addition of active cooling and heating options on each side of the bed allows you to individually control the temperature between -7 degrees Fahrenheit cooler and +7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the bedroom itself. The laminar flow feature ensures that you won’t feel the temperature difference on the other side of the bed.

Other features include a “day mode” for more powerful air filtration when whisper-quiet operation isn’t as important, a storage shelf along the back for plants or other objects, two integrated wireless smartphone chargers, a reading lamp, a USB charger, and ambient lighting.

How to Order One for Your Home

The AirTulip Sleep comes in all common bed frame sizes, including US twin, full, queen, and king sizes, and European 80/90cm, 140cm, 160cm, and 180cm mattresses. It integrates seamlessly with existing bed frames with the same mounting points. Available colors include mint fabric with a light oak frame, pearl fabric with a birch frame, stone fabric with a titanium-colored frame, and anthracite fabric with a black wood-colored frame.

AirTulip just wrapped up a successful round of crowdfunding on IndieGogo and Kickstarter, with rewards shipping now. It’ll soon be available for retail purchase for $1499 and up; subscribe to the AirTulip newsletter for updates.

The post Air Purifying Headboard Creates a Bubble of Clean Air Around You As You Sleep first appeared on Dornob.

In October, multinational pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. declared that it was exercising its option to jointly develop and commercialize a personalized cancer vaccine (PCV) from Moderna that is already undergoing human trials. Called mRNA-4157/V940, the vaccine is designed for high-risk melanoma patients. According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, the vast majority of skin cancer deaths are from melanoma, resulting in roughly 20 American deaths every day.

While most vaccines try to prevent the body from ever getting a disease, cancer vaccines of that nature have proven elusive in the past. The mRNA-4157/V940 takes a different approach, teaching the immune systems of those with melanoma how to fight off tumors based on their individual cancer markers.

Here’s how it works: The scientists take samples of a melanoma patient’s mutated cancer cells. They then sequence the tumor genes, identifying the antigens that will trigger an immune response. From there, they create an individualized mRNA vaccine that can tell the patient’s body to generate T cells to combat the specific mutational signature of the tumors, thereby halting the progress of the cancer.

Biotechnology firm Moderna was one of the first major companies to develop an effective vaccine against the COVID-19 disease, helping to dramatically reduce the severity of the global pandemic. That vaccine used breakthrough mRNA technology to teach the body to recognize and fight a disease without ever having encountered it (by contrast, traditional vaccines introduce a weakened or inactivated germ into the body so it can learn to combat it in the future). As this technology proved successful at preventing SARS viruses, many companies have since started developing mRNA vaccines for everything from heart failure to food allergies to dementia.

The fact that Merck has exercised its option with Moderna on this mRNA cancer vaccine means that human trials are going very well. The two companies first established the agreement in 2016 for Moderna to develop a cancer-fighting injection, but none of the research was promising enough for Merck to want to jump in on the action until now. Merck will pay Moderna $250 million to help with and share in the profits of further development, sales, and distribution of mRNA-4157/V940.

The cancer vaccine is currently being administered in Phase 2 clinical trials among 157 patients who have had their cancer surgically removed but are at high risk for recurrence. Some of the patients in the trial receive nine doses of mRNA-4157/V940 every three weeks, in addition to Merck’s powerhouse cancer immunotherapy Keytruda every three weeks. The rest of the patients only receive Keytruda. The study’s main goal is to determine how long patients stay recurrence-free based on both treatment options. Primary data is expected in the fourth quarter of 2022, but preliminary results are extremely encouraging, according to both companies.

“This long-term collaboration combining Merck’s expertise in immuno-oncology with Moderna’s pioneering mRNA technology has yielded a novel tailored vaccine approach,” says Dr. Eliav Barr, Merck’s Senior Vice President, Head of Global Clinical Development, and Chief Medical Officer, in a press release, adding “We look forward to working with our colleagues at Moderna to advance mRNA-4157/V940 in combination with KEYTRUDA as it aligns with our strategy to impact early-stage disease.”

“Together we have made significant progress in advancing mRNA-4157 as an investigational personalized cancer treatment used in combination with KEYTRUDA,” explains Stephen Hoge, M.D. and President of Moderna. “With data expected this quarter on PCV, we continue to be excited about the future and the impact mRNA can have as a new treatment paradigm in the management of cancer.”

The post The World’s First Cancer Vaccine Could Be Ready This Year first appeared on Dornob.

Three new facilities are planned for the cities of Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta in Greece. The largest of the three in Thessaloniki will be a dedicated children’s hospital. Not only will these new hospitals bring much-needed modernization to underserved areas that have suffered economically since the country’s government debt crisis started in late 2009, they’ll also act as templates for state-of-the-art hospitals throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Developed as part of the international SNF Health Initiative, the hospitals will focus on equity, serenity, dignity, and comfort just as much as high-quality medical care.

This philosophy is rooted in three core values: the therapeutic power of nature, environmental sustainability, and medical excellence paired with holistic patient-centric care. That translates to spaces and practices that provide privacy, personalized care, direct connection to the outdoors, and room to grow so hospitals can avoid stagnancy by keeping up with changing needs and ideas. Piano’s designs are all similar in their appearance, featuring long rectangular buildings topped with overhanging flat roofs covered with solar panels. These visible structures host clinical centers, while other buildings tucked into the surrounding hillsides contain labs and other technical facilities.

When SNF first started researching this project, they spoke to the local communities where the hospitals are being built and asked them what they’d like to see included in the design. They asked for healing gardens, upper-floor patios, art on display, and recreation areas along with green campuses ringed with trees instead of massive parking lots. In fact, the landscape was designed specifically so that patients can see trees from the windows of their hospital rooms. Plentiful windows and skylights let natural light come pouring into all spaces, including intensive care units and operating rooms.

Healing gardens have become more common in medical settings in recent years, mostly for the benefit of patients. But doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff will also benefit from the ability to walk out into a lushly planted outdoor space to take much-needed breaks from the stress of their jobs. Family members waiting to hear news of a patient’s prognosis or to comfort them after a procedure can experience a sense of relief in these spaces, complete with areas for kids to play, as an alternative to dim, institutional lobbies.

“The basic idea in the tree projects is, to give shape to facilities, which are totally immersed in nature, in order to foster a quiet, relaxing environment for patients and their relatives, but also for doctors, nurses, and all staff,” says the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. “Nature has in fact a ‘therapeutic’ role in every patient’s rehabilitation process, as in the ancient Asklepeion.”

The post Renzo Piano Integrates Therapeutic Gardens into 3 New Hospitals in Greece first appeared on Dornob.

The problem starts when a person with diabetes gets a sore on their foot. When someone without diabetes gets a cut or blister on their foot, they can feel it, a signal to them to take care of it and put less pressure on that foot as it heals. However, one of the major side effects of diabetes is nerve damage that can keep patients from feeling their feet at all. Consequently, when they get a foot injury, they don’t recognize it until it turns into an ulcer. Diabetes also causes reduced blood flow, which makes wounds heal slower and makes them more susceptible to infection. If that happens and the infection spreads to the bone, the last recourse is amputation.

After treating thousands of diabetic patients in his practice, Dr. Hanft was disturbed by how little progress had been made during his tenure. After interviewing 5,000 patients and clinicians, he realized that the issue lay with the medical boots given to patients with foot ulcers. Patients reported they were hard to walk in, hard to get on, and attracted extra attention, making them feel self-conscious.

“That was my light bulb moment. We’re asking morbidly obese people, for the most part, to reach down to the bottom of their foot to put devices on,” Hanft told FastCompany. “And they can’t reach down to the bottom of their foot.”

He added, “We know what we need to do. We need to create a device that’s easy to use and patients want to use in their daily activities of living, which is what we feel has been missing in the care of these wounds.”

After raising capital for a new kind of diabetic boot, Hanft reached out to Michael DiTullo, a former designer at Nike and Converse, to help create a shoe that would work both physically and aesthetically. DiTullo got right to work, initially trying to tweak the traditional medical boot to better fit diabetic needs. Unfortunately, it turned out to be extremely expensive to make even small changes to the existing boots, preventing him from making the needed stylistic and structural adjustments.

“A year in I said, ‘I think we’re doing this wrong,’” DiTullo said. “We need to stop trying to teach a medical factory to make a consumer-grade good, and go to a shoe factory that knows the fit and finish we need and teach it how to build with the precision we need.”

He and Hanft went back to the drawing board to create a design from scratch. The new shoe needed to redistribute weight off the balls of the feet, where most sneakers place it for optimal sports performance. DiTullo instead put a heel drop of 2 millimeters into his boot, allowing the wearer to tilt slightly toward their heels.

“Thinking of someone who is often over 250 or 300 pounds, there’s a lot of pressure coming down,” he explains. “We want to make sure there’s more suspension travel, so they never experience bottoming out.”

He also made it easier for patients to get into the shoe by designing two separate pieces. The Velcro front of the Foot Defender can be completely peeled off for easy foot insertion into the back’s injection-molded hard structure. Once the foot is inside, a 1980s Reebok’s-style pump button on the side inflates an inner bladder near the ankle to lock the heel into place. The result is a boot that can reduce the force on the bottom of the wearer’s foot by up to 80 percent compared to other medical options. Plus, it looks cool, like a Jordan high-top, increasing the likelihood that patients will actually wear it.

While still in its infancy, the Foot Defender has already won an award from the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care. Hanft and DiTullo hope to have its benefits validated through a peer-reviewed study in 2023, but interested patients can already buy the $250 boot online today at the company website.

The post Former Nike Designer and Podiatrist Partner to Create an Amputation-Preventing Boot first appeared on Dornob.

Toi Labs founder and CEO Vikram Kashyap became obsessed with the smart health toilet as a result of his own struggle with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes colon sores, bloody diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and abdominal pain. As he sought to understand this uncurable condition, he worked with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco to analyze his own stool samples as part of a four-year study. After the results were published in Science magazine in 2010, Kashyap started his own company to make valuable health data more available, especially for the elderly.

Building his Toi Labs company in San Francisco, he and his team got to work on the TrueLoo, a smart toilet that uses sensor technology to evaluate human waste to identify a variety of urinary and digestive disorders. It can be installed in just a few minutes like a bidet, and its optics-based urine and stool measurements can aid in detecting dehydration, viral infections, and urinary tract infections — an especially common ailment for seniors.

The concept of testing urine and feces for disease proved very valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because people could be asymptomatic while carrying COVID, many municipalities around the world began tracking COVID markers in city wastewater to get a better picture of it local prevalence.

Other studies have confirmed the efficacy of urine and stool analysis for discovering various health issues. Researchers Joshua Coon and Ian Miller at the University of Wisconsin, Madison tested over 100 of their own urine samples in 10 days and found that using advanced technology, waste monitoring could detect not only things like glucose levels, viral and bacterial infections, signs of kidney disease, and cancer, but also measures of caffeine-consumption and exercise levels. Of course, the type of machinery they used are not yet compatible with smart toilets, but Kashyap’s sensor models are a good jumping-off point.

Some senior care communities are already incorporating these smart toilets in their facilities to provide better health care for their residents. The Legacy Senior Communities in Dallas and Plano, Texas installed the TrueLoo in their private residences to more easily collect important health data. This can be especially helpful with assisted living and memory support occupants, who may not be able to describe their physical ailments as well.

“The TrueLoo smart toilet enables us, in a dignified and valuable manner, to better monitor and follow up when important changes to output are identified. This expedites our response and increases the accuracy and timeliness of important data,” said Legacy Senior Communities CEO Melissa Orth in an interview with a local news outlet.

Kashyap chimed in on the added efficiency his smart toilets provide these facilities, noting: “TrueLoo technology provides a higher level of wellness for residents while better leveraging the time of care staff.”

After the pandemic forced people around the world into lockdown, millions of people suffered from other diseases and infections because they had no access to their doctors for months. Home healthcare monitoring options like the TrueLoo make sense for avoiding similar situations in the future.

“I think at the end of the day, we’re increasingly moving towards a world where people are going to be making their own health care choices themselves and having the data that can be generated from themselves,” Kashyap said in an interview with Onezero. “I think it’s going to just completely shift the power in health care and the way consumers engage with the healthcare system.”

The post These Smart Toilets Can Tell if You’re Sick first appeared on Dornob.

Despite this, even the most up-to-date and sophisticated tech is sometimes unable to navigate the human anatomy in the most efficient way. After all, our bodies are a maze of tunnels and tight spots, and some intuitive tools are only as effective as the humans that operate them. But thanks to new innovations in robotics and nanotechnology, researchers are finally able to create diagnostic tools that are not only more maneuverable, but completely autonomous, too.

Enter the magnetic tentacle robot. Flexible and futuristic, this robot navigator has the potential to be a medical advancement that, despite its small size, could have epic implications for mapping the notoriously tight and maze-like bronchial tubes, making it easier to collect tissue samples and even potentially diagnose possible cancer treatments.

The technology was developed by a team of researchers at the University of Leeds, who recently completed a proof-of-concept robot that could more easily navigate a patient’s bronchial tree anatomy. A tentacle-like device (hence the name), the flexible catheter is more maneuverable than the current medical standard for navigating and exploring bronchial tubes, the bronchoscope. Somewhat limited in range, the current diagnostic tool would definitely benefit from a more sleek and autonomous upgrade —in this case, a “smarter” version controlled by magnets attached to robotic arms.

Using an autonomous system to lead the way by working with a map of the patient’s lungs, the magnetic tentacle robot would be able to go where no other scope has gone before, accessing those hard-to-reach areas of the bronchial tubes. It’s “an important clinical tool in the investigation and treatment of possible lung cancer and other lung diseases,” according to a recent statement made by Pietro Valdastri, who supervised the university’s research at its Science and Technologies of Robotics in Medicine Lab.

Currently in the early stages of development, the magnetic tentacle robot’s two millimeter magnetically-controlled maneuverability still needs to be tested on the lungs of a cadaver before it ever enters the body of a living patient, but initial tests using a 3D replica of the bronchial tree have been promising. According to the university, it could take years before the magnetic tentacle robot makes an appearance in an actual clinical setting, but it’s still an important step forward in the field of future diagnostics. And let’s be honest, the name is pretty cool.

The post This Magnetic Tentacle Robot is the Future of Medical Diagnostics first appeared on Dornob.

As helpful as it is, Grandin’s squeeze machine isn’t exactly easy to integrate into the average home or public space. So when designer Audrain Alexia was challenged to produce a piece of furniture that meets a real unmet need, she decided to adapt Grandin’s active, customizable pressure concept into a chair she calls OTO. This modern armchair looks similar to high-back privacy chairs, with a top that curves over the user’s head but incorporates inner walls that inflate to apply deep pressure to the chest or legs.

Designed to mimic the “squeeze machine” but in the form of “more aesthetic, less stigmatizing furniture,” the OTO chair has a remote with + and – signs to inflate or deflate the cells. Its cocoon-like shape grants the user a sense of privacy and safety while also muffling external sounds. People with autism seeking the calming effect of deep pressure might usually try to achieve it with an intense hug, a passive weighted blanket, or even by asking someone else to lay on top of them, but these solutions either require the help of a companion or a private place to lay down. OTO, on the other hand, looks enough like normal furniture to offer discreet relief, even if it were installed in places like lobbies and workspaces.

Created during Alexia’s studies as a cabinetmaker and designer, OTO was developed with the assistance of educators who work with autistic people and the input of autistic people themselves. Alexia spent a year and a half researching the therapeutic effects of pressure, creating prototypes and testing them before coming up with the final design. The chair has been tested in the child psychiatry department of PR Bonnet-Brilhault, a French autism research center, since January 2021.

“The integration of users in the design process allowed me to improve the user experience and focus on noise or light emitted by the chair and understand what could be an issue for a person with an autism spectrum disorder,” Alexia says. “This approach will help me to produce furniture that is useful, usable, and used in the long term. For people with autism who are sensitive to touch, a sensoriality course has been carried out. This decor composed of different materials such as wool felt or soft resin brings a graphic design to the armchair. Pastel colors have been chosen with care for their calming effect. The interior trim is fully removable and its velvet fabric is machine washable.”

The OTO chair is currently undergoing additional testing in various environments to fine-tune its effectiveness, and Alexia hopes that it will be commercially available by September 2022. The design was named among the top 20 international entries in the 2021 James Dyson Awards.

The post OTO: The Hugging Chair Designed to Comfort People with Autism first appeared on Dornob.

“I can visit with people and brighten their day with social stimulation… but can also do talk therapy, take bio readings, and help healthcare providers,” Grace told Reuters in a demonstration at Hanson Robotics’ Hong Kong workshop, standing alongside her older “sister,” Sophia (who famously became the first robot to be granted citizenship by any country.)

The prototype robot’s facial features are inspired by anime characters, with large eyes and a neutral, friendly expression. Hanson Robotics founder David Hanson says Grace is able to simulate the action of more than 48 facial muscles thanks to a proprietary nanotech skin called Frubber. “A human-like appearance facilitates trust and natural engagement because we are wired for human face-to-face interactions,” he adds.

Hanson Robotics envisions Grace as a way to support overloaded medical staff as well as elderly patients and those isolated by COVID-19. Capable of taking patients’ pulses and temperatures with an integrated thermal camera, Grace is also designed to mimic the kind of interaction you’d get from a human care provider, and speaks English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Her behavior can also be tweaked according to her context, simulating either Asian or Western customs as needed. Naturally, Grace won’t be able to replace medical professionals altogether, but she can step in to perform routine tasks and socialize with patients when human staff aren’t available.

The company says it will begin mass-producing its robots, including both Grace and Sophia, by the end of 2021. Grace will be fully deployed next year in medical facilities in Hong Kong, mainland China, Japan, and Korea. Though the cost of a single humanoid robot is currently close to $100,000 USD, that price is expected to come down as the company manufactures them in larger quantities.

Public acceptance of humanoid robots like Grace will likely vary according to cultural differences. Social robots are already in common use in Japan, and throughout the world, more people are considering their value as companions for lonely seniors. But a recent study found that most people still experience the creeped-out “uncanny valley effect” when robots resemble sentient beings, and questions remain about whether social robots will deepen an overarching loss of human contact as technology evolves.

In the U.S., the pandemic is still raging, and hospitals are facing deepening staff shortages complicated by the new federal vaccine mandates. It’s clear that we need a diverse array of solutions in the face of an aging Baby Boomer population and potential future pandemics, and that robotics have a role to play. Of course, helping medical students afford increasingly outrageous tuition, hiring more staff, and properly compensating medical caregivers would also go a long way.

The post Robot Nurse “Grace” Will Soon Be Caring for Isolated COVID Patients first appeared on Dornob.

Albert Zhang, founder and CEO of AiTreat, began his career as a trained TCM physician. He quickly found that delivering treatments was “tedious and repetitive.” He began formulating the idea of EMMA as a way for doctors to use their time more efficiently.

“One physician can only see one patient at a time, but with EMMA, the physician can operate two robots and see up to four patients simultaneously,” he told CNN.

While he doesn’t intend for robots to replace professional masseuses, Zhang says they can do the majority of the massage therapy, allowing their human counterparts to “focus on the 10 percent highly skilled part” and saving them from the exhausting strain on their muscles throughout the day.

“By using Emma to do the labor-intensive massages, we can now offer a longer therapy session for patients while reducing the cost of treatment,” said Zhang in the Robotics Business Review, adding that “the human therapist is then free to focus on other areas such as the neck and limb joints, which EMMA can’t massage at the moment.”

And EMMA can replicate human touch in her massage movements quite convincingly. Using sensors and 3D vision technology, the machine measures muscle stiffness and identifies pressure points. Having been programmed with thousands of data points like various body shapes and sizes and massage types, the AI machine can develop a custom regimen tailored to each patient’s meridian and acupoints. EMMA’s robotic arm also moves extremely methodically, with soft touch treatment modules warmed to a comfortable range of 100 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

“The principle of traditional Chinese medicine is all about personalized treatments,” Zhang explains, stressing that his smart machine is “highly flexible and customizable.”

As an added safety measure, the force exerted by EMMA is limited to a maximum of 100 Newtons, or “an impact that will feel no more painful than getting struck by an [elevator] door (commonly 150 Newtons),” the company website assures. And patients always have complete control over the robot during the massage. They can adjust the strength of the movements as well as stop the treatment immediately at any point.

Zhang’s massage robot has been operating for over four years now, with 11 functioning versions of EMMA at eight different clinics in Singapore. To gain widespread acceptance of the AI masseuse, he is planning to conduct clinical trials in Germany, China, and Singapore to test her medical efficacy. He is already seeing great interest from practitioners in China and the US.

“I think it’s only the beginning,” says Zhang. “I can see that with support from the physicians, from different countries, the robot will be better and better, and more and more people will benefit from this robotic technology.”

The post This Robot Uses AI and Sensors to Deliver Perfectly Personalized Massages first appeared on Dornob.

Use Lighting Wisely

Just as harsh, bright white overhead lighting can have an invasive, clinical feel, soft ambient lighting sends us subliminal signals that it’s time to unwind. An abundance of natural lighting is ideal for positive feelings of well-being as well as intense concentration, so make the most of your windows by choosing curtains and blinds that don’t cut off too much light during the day, like sheers or roman-style shades. Full spectrum LED light bulbs can also mimic the effect of daylight, if you find your available windows lacking. At the end of the day, turn off any lighting that leans blue in color, which can suppress the melatonin our brains produce as a natural sleep aid, and turn on warm, low lights in shades of yellow and amber.

Maintain Flows of Air and Movement

If you’re feeling stagnant, trapped, or claustrophobic, it’s time to change the flow of energy in your space. You can accomplish that in a few different ways – namely, by reducing clutter, bringing in fresh air, and changing the layout of your furniture to make it easier to physically move through the room. Simply opening your windows, letting the sunshine in, and cleaning the glass can make a world of difference, especially if you can get a cross breeze from one window or door to another.

Think about your patterns of movement in the space. Is your typical path intuitive and unimpeded, or are there obstacles you have to work around? Try eliminating objects that don’t get enough use and moving your furniture around until the room feels more spacious and easier to navigate. A deep cleaning can also do wonders for your mental health.

If this concept speaks to you, a book about feng shui can help you learn more about inviting positive energy into your home. Feng Shui for Healing by Rodika Tchi is a great place to start.

Make Calculated Color Choices

Color has a major impact on how any given space affects our mental well-being, but depending on your cultural upbringing, you may react to certain shades differently than other people. The important thing is to be aware of how color affects you, and which hues make you feel cheerful, energized, calm, content, worried, irritated, or depressed.

For instance, gray has been a major color trend for the past few years, but it can make many people feel gloomy. Bright red can be agitating, while neon yellow is invigorating. Purple reads as luxurious and noble to some, but in countries like Thailand and Brazil, it’s a color of mourning. When you’re choosing paint, flooring, textiles, and furniture for your space, think about the emotions each of these colors bring up for you, matching them to the moods you’re trying to set in individual rooms.

Affirm Your Connection to Nature

Humans evolved in constant contact with nature, and we need that contact to feel balanced and healthy, even (or especially) if we live in urban environments. Houseplants can be a big help, even if you don’t think of yourself as an especially attentive plant parent. Start with plants that can get by even when neglected, like snake plants, succulents, cast iron plants, and ZZ plants, and you might find that after a while, caring for your greenery becomes a sort of meditative task. Apps like Planta make it easy to log the plants you own, reminding you when it’s time to water or give them more light. Bouquets of fresh flowers, when replaced often, can also make for a bright spot in any room.

Another way to connect to nature through interior design is by choosing items with curving, organic shapes instead of hard angles and straight lines. Find items like wall art, couches and chairs, coffee tables, lamps, and throw pillows with pleasingly curvaceous silhouettes to mimic the shapes of natural forms and foster the feeling of a womb-like contentment.

Indulge Your Senses

Don’t forget about the power of scent, sound, taste, and texture when decorating your home or workspace. Create little vignettes where you can surround yourself with whatever you find most comforting, affirming, or motivating. For relaxation, you could set up a reading nook with a cozy chair, a silky throw blanket, your favorite scented candle, and a smart speaker to play some quiet music or ambient noise. For studying or concentration, give yourself inspirational things to look at, like images of your idols or poignant quotes, infuse the area with an invigorating aroma like lemon, peppermint, or jasmine, and give yourself something to fidget with while you’re thinking.

The post 5 Ways to Boost Your Mental Health Through Interior Design first appeared on Dornob.

As a high school junior in October 2019, Dasia Taylor first took on the project as a science fair entry. “I read an article about how these scientists created these stitches that involved this really fancy technology that I perceived to be inequitable to those that would actually be able to need this technology,” she said in an interview with PBS.

Most of the “smart stitches” she read about required the use of smart technology, not always available in third-world countries. A Pew research poll in 2017 found that in Tanzania, for example, just 13 percent of the population owned smartphones. And while the numbers are higher in some African countries, the viability of smart sutures in that continent is minimal.

But infections are high. In low-and middle-income countries, 11 percent of all surgical wounds develop infections, according to the World Health Organization, compared to just four percent of all surgeries in the U.S.

Taylor, who graduated this past spring from high school, was particularly moved by how many African women suffer from infections after cesarean sections. In some nations, up to 20 percent of those who delivered by c-section develop potentially life-threatening infections.

Taylor subsequently tried to find a cheaper, more readily available solution to identifying wounds gone wrong. Since human skin is naturally acidic, with a pH of about five, she looked for natural indicators that could detect pH changes (when skin is infected, it can have a pH of up to 9). After learning that fruits and vegetables change color with pH level, she struck upon a feasible solution.

“I found that beets changed color at the perfect pH point,” Taylor told Smithsonian Magazine. “Bright red beet juice turns dark purple at a pH of nine. That’s perfect for an infected wound. And so, I was like, ‘Oh, okay. So beets is where it’s at.’”

She then tested various suture materials that would hold the beet juice dye and found that a cotton-polyester blend worked best.

Using artificial skin pads, Taylor sewed on her sutures and exposed them to different pH levels. When the stitches encountered a high pH, they changed from red to purple, making it clearly visible when alterations were happening at the surgical site. And if the site was free of infection, the sutures faded to gray after three days.

Kathryn Chu, the director of the Center for Global Surgery at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, praised Taylor for her efforts toward health equity. “I think it is amazing that this young high school scientist was inspired to work on a solution to address this problem,” she wrote in an email. “A product that could detect early [surgical site infections] would be extremely valuable.”

For her work, Taylor was named one of the top 40 finalist in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search. Even as she prepares to attend the University of Iowa this fall, she is working on a patent for her beet-juice stitches.

Of course, concept isn’t perfect quite perfect yet, with sterilization being at the top of the issues to be solved. The cotton thread that accepts the beet dye effectively is also more prone to picking up infection-causing bacteria than standard surgical material.

Asked if she still counts her invention as a success, Taylor replied, “Yes, because it works. It does detect pH. It does change colors where it needs to change colors. There are just some details that need to be worked out, but they’re not insurmountable.”

The post High School Student’s Color-Changing Sutures Detect Infections as They Happen first appeared on Dornob.

The point, the architects explain, is to appeal to young people. Whether they understand the reference to Twin Peaks or not, visitors will get the sense that the space is hipper than the average dental office. Eschewing the typical bland but professional vibe, Raúl Sánchez wanted the space to feel interesting and engaging – not just an aseptic clinical setting for dental procedures, but a destination. They even built a stage area into the clinic for events, concerts, or demonstrations of Impress treatments.

The layout and design of the clinic is a response to the site’s irregular shape, which is long and narrow and only briefly makes contact with the street. A large central area acts as a waiting room while functional spaces like exam rooms, restrooms, and offices are enclosed within curving volumes. These shapes allow light to filter into the interiors and subtly reference the Impress corporate logo. Some of the walls are covered in pale blue carpeting matching the color of desks and built-in benches, with glowing lines of LED lights cutting across the ceilings.

The blood red room in the back is the focal point of the entire space. Set atop an awkward area where the top of an underground car park juts up into the clinic, the stage features four tube-shaped seats facing each other. Moody promotional images depict an employee in a white robe standing in the room like Laura Palmer waiting to whisper something bizarre into Agent Cooper’s ear. Thematically, it’s an odd choice. Many people are already creeped out by regular dentist offices, let alone those that might resemble the fever dreams of David Lynch. But visually, it’s incredibly striking, and the red shade is part of Impress’s branding, so it fits. Sort of.

“The curves dominate the space, and the existing elements (pillars) that remain in between are treated with mirrors to erase the spatial barriers and add spatial complexity through reflections,” say the architects. “The curves are lacquered in white, and the access doors to the cabinets are pine wood boxes embedded in the curves. Inside the cabinets, blue and white play in diagonal designs, which are a benchmark for the brand, and which signifies Impress’s commitment to new-generation dental clinics.”

“On the ceiling the diagonal direction is reproduced in the position of lighting and grilles. The sales spaces are resolved in blue tones, covering the walls with carpets, and executing the furniture in situ with mass-colored fiberboards. The red tones in the background are precisely a claim to convert what a priori was the most residual and dark area into the most special area of the clinic.”

The post Striking Dental Clinic References the Surreal Visuals of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” first appeared on Dornob.

Located within a historic four-story building in the center of the city, the new Maria Nila Salon is a vision in soft pastels, evoking the relaxing sensual pleasures of high-end salon services with fluid organic shapes. Giant MDF and plexiglass cut-outs in dripping shapes call to mind endlessly flowing hair products and introduce a youthful, playful, and creative feeling. The whole salon is awash in dreamy shades of lavender, mint, turquoise, pink, and peach.

ASKA wanted to give the building itself a voice in the design, as well. They chose colors and design elements that would complement original features like floors made of checkered marble and wood laid in a herringbone pattern. At the entrance, the purple plexiglass installation hanging from the ceiling frames the antique wooden door for a contrast of old and new.

The salon is designed to show off the company’s products while doubling as office space. Softly undulating product shelves are spread throughout each room, their shapes taking inspiration from natural elements like water, trees, caves, and coral reefs in a nod to Maria Nila’s nature-centric approach.

“The concept of the House of Maria Nila is to always be inviting, have an air of friendliness, and encourage a modern way of expressing beauty,” states Maria Nila. “While the townhouse Maria Nila now calls home is located in Lärkstaden, an area fully built on the design that dominated Swedish architecture in the early days of the 20th century, it’s clear that the inside speaks young-at-heart and playful.”

“With a wish to not compromise with the old soul of the house, Maria Nila asked the new and upcoming architecture firm ASKA to take on the mission to create an interior that would mirror the values of the brand: friendly, curious, and honest. A task that fitted well with the philosophy of the trio. ASKA’s belief is that styles, design expressions, and epochs will pass with time. But the essential architectural qualities, the residuals – aska in Swedish, will always remain. With the use of pastel colors, round shapes, and soft materials, ASKA has mixed the old soul of the building with the young spirit and energy of Maria Nila.”

ASKA visited the space often throughout the renovation to fine-tune certain elements as necessary, like adding their own custom acoustic panels when a particular room was found to be too noisy. They designed and crafted much of the furniture seen throughout the salon and brought in objects made by hip young creators like furniture designer Gustaf Westman and LED artists Josefin Eklund and My Zachrisson.

The post Undulating Pastel Office Space Captures the Spirit of Hair Care Brand Maria Nila first appeared on Dornob.

Enter the 2021 Index Award, a biennial accolade with a focus on design and its potential for creating solutions that tackle (and perhaps solve) critical global issues. There’s even a category that focuses exclusively on the body, creating an opportunity for entrants to address gendered issues within the world of medicine — especially those that may often be considered taboo. Index Project CEO Liz Chong spoke about the importance of these new and innovative designs, explaining that: “there is still so much shame around female, trans, and non-binary bodies that impose harmful barriers to healthcare…[which serves] to sideline vital conversations and deny people access to helpful and even life-saving resources.”

But the finalists in the body category are hoping to change that through their design projects, all of which seek to create a more equitable future in medicine for all genders.

Below are some standout projects among this year’s Index Award finalists:

Creating Change Through Strategic Redesign

Some of the finalists’ work focuses on finding new, more innovative takes on already existing tools, devices, and technologies For example, the Hegenberger Speculum is a silicone device designed to be more comfortable for patients who require perineum stitching after childbirth. The current model is made of metal and has not been updated in over 100 years. The updated version’s creator, Malene Hegenberger, feels that the “taboo subject” of this common (9 out of 10 women experience perineum tears post-childbirth) health concern has contributed to the tool not being updated, or even discussed, in past decades.

Another finalist, Cirqle Biomedical, is looking to test a new form of birth control that is both non-hormonal and far less invasive than many current birth control methods. The product, a gel capsule called Oui, could provide more flexibility and comfort for women seeking to avoid the discomfort of implants like IUDs, and the unpleasant side effects of hormonal birth control treatments. Here too, a lack of innovation has left women with few options, many of which have side effects that can be anything from uncomfortable to life-threatening.

“Women’s health has been under-prioritized and neglected for decades,” said Cirqle’s CEO in a statement. With developments like these, the Index Project’s finalists hope to change that.

Creating Change to Tackle Systemic Issues

Another incredibly important redesign featured among this year’s Index Award finalists is improved rape kit for DNA collection. Complete with color coding, easier instructions for health care providers, and an accompanying instructional app, this kit, designed by Antya Waegemann, is just the first step in reimagining the whole system and creating a completely different culture around how rape kits are tested, making it easier for law enforcement officials everywhere to process them. Her company Margo also wants to work on other products and services, including increasing the widespread availability of kits, improving the tracking of processed kits, and providing much-needed support for victims.

DNA collection kits are incredibly important tools in sexual assault cases, and they often remain untested. In the U.S. alone, there’s an alarming number of backlogs for testing DNA in these cases, and the whole process, from collection to testing, tracking, and storing, is riddled with issues that are less localized and more widespread and systemic in nature. But at a time when nearly one in three women over the age of 15 and one in two transgender people have experienced sexual violence, the process needs to be reexamined and, in some cases, overhauled. Waegemann knows the importance of her task and remains hopeful, stating that she “really believe[s] that a product itself can change a system in a way that policy sometimes cannot.”

She’s not entirely wrong, either. New and reimagined technologies, products, and innovations in health care have the capacity to change and improve people’s lives, especially those who are historically under and misrepresented in these arenas. Through the efforts of these Index Project finalists, issues previously thought of as “taboo” enter the forefront of design strategy, spurring important, necessary action that has the capacity to make a real difference.

The post 2021 Index Award Finalists Provide Innovative Solutions to Pressing Women’s Health Issues first appeared on Dornob.

While technically located on Earth, these interiors are truly out of this world. If they remind you of 70s sci-fi films like the original Star Wars trilogy, that’s because the designers took inspiration from pop culture retro-futurism for the concept, updating the aesthetics for the 21st century. More specifically, the lialawlab team envisioned the space as a “series of spatial scenes” that set the mood for customers entering Formoral, the flagship location of an independent skin care brand emphasizing medical science and the fusion of nature and technology.

The space is designed so visitors feel like they’re exploring a laboratory on a primitive “desert planet.” Instead of presenting their products in an ordinary retail setting, Formoral wanted the store to be more of an experience that tells the story of their brand. Sculptural elements are layered upon each other, like slices through the ceiling embedded with LED lighting, diagonal planes that break up the vertical space, and arched doorways leading into treatment rooms. To create this effect, the designers used a combination of smooth surfaces and textural gray paint evoking a meeting of organic and artificial materials.

The arc shape seen throughout the space is a unifying design element that repeats in various forms and sizes. The largest, with a radius of nearly 100 feet, makes up the entire roof. Delineating different functional areas with these rounded and undulating shapes makes the 1300-square-foot space seem much larger than it really is.

The lialawlab team explains that: “A rising ‘planet,’ a futuristic tunnel clad with matte silver foil and aluminum plates, and two cabin doors along the tunnel tie together the eight functions, including brand display, skin testing and product selling, rest and communication, events and demonstration, self care and washing, office space, product storage, and a break room for employees, while also helping denote the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and define the public and private realms.”

“To trigger people’s desire to explore the space, [we] carved out a 200 millimeter-wide gap at the height of 1.25 meters of the massive sphere and the tunnel. The gap is complemented with mirrored material, allowing customers to stay, wonder, stare, and rest. It also offers a visual continuity so that the staff can better serve customers.”

The skin care center is set within a shopping mall, which makes it even more of a marvel. Who doesn’t wish they could escape to another planet sometimes? Lialawlab’s design has been so well-received so far, it’s even been nominated for a 2021 World Interiors News Award in the “Independent Shops or Small Chains” category.

The post This Science-Focused Skin Care Center Looks Like a Secret Lab for Alien Experiments first appeared on Dornob.