I noticed a pretty unnerving problem recently. It was a normal day at work. I, being a blogger, spend a lot of time pounding on a little keyboard and staring at a big screen. While working on an especially stressful post and a particularly challenging paragraph, I started getting lightheaded. I’d stopped breathing.
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Deep water and the unprotected human body don’t play well together—like, at all. But what if there were a way to get around the body’s chemical limitations, a means of deep diving without the bends or lengthy decompression? Actually, there is. And we’ve almost figured out how to do it without killing ourselves in the process.
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During any form of physical exertion, most people don’t think about breath until they’re gasping for it. The most advanced exercisers among us are conscious of trying to breathe lower, into their bellies. But there’s an even better way, and making this simple switch will get more oxygen into your blood, faster. More »
The next time you wake up with morning breath, you can take pride that though it smells bad, no one else’s is quite like yours. According to a recent study, you’ve got a “breathprint” that is not only unique to you, but could also predict diseases. More »
Those who have to use a wheelchair are often bound to the elevation of the seat if they want to reach something, which isn’t fair when some parts of our world are still built for standing height. Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University is redressing that imbalance with the i-Transport. Its robotic vehicle can raise the driver to an upright level and shift them into a better position to grab objects that wouldn’t otherwise be at arm’s length. The added independence doesn’t stop with the assistance, either, as the i-Transport carries its own blood pressure and breathing monitors to keep checkups to a minimum. NCKU hasn’t said how likely it is that we’ll see the robot enter mass production, but we hope it forges ahead — the potential freedom would be worth the effort.
Filed under: Robots, Transportation
Source: NCKU
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
