Testicular cancer used to be a brutal condition with a low survival rate, but that’s all changed in recent years thanks to improved treatment. While just over half of patients survived a half century ago, today 96 percent of men who contract the disease are cured.
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Some people are champs about having blood drawn and even go back as often as they’re allowed to donate blood. If you’re one of those people that’s frickin great. Go pat yourself on the back. If not you are probably thinking that you don’t want a robot coming anywhere near you with a needle. But the robot might actually be the better bet.
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Remember the names Martin Kaltenbrunner and Takao Someya — that way, you’ll have someone to blame when kids start pointing and laughing at gadgets we consider high-tech today. Leading a team of University of Tokyo researchers, they have recently developed a flexible, skin-like material that can detect pressure while also being virtually indestructible. Think of the possibilities: with a thickness of one nanometer, this could be used to create a second skin that can monitor your vital signs or medical implants that you can barely feel, if at all. Also, temperature sensors could be added to make life-like skin for prosthetics… or even robots! Like other similar studies, however, the researchers have a long journey ahead before we see this super-thin material in medicine. Since it could lead to bendy gadgets and wearable electronics first, don’t be surprised if your children call iPhones “so 2013″ in the not-too-distant future.
Via: iO9, ABC Science, New Scientist
Source: Nature
Technology might be transforming the world of healthcare, but it’s also throwing up its fair share of problems, too: according to a new study, 1 in 4 surgical errors is a result of a technological glitch.
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Every year the UK’s British Heart Foundation runs a competition to find the most interesting images produced by its researchers—and 2013 is a good, good year. Here are some of our favorites.
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“Anything you can do, I can do cheaper,” says the Tokyo Institute of Technology while jabbing a rude elbow in the ribs of Intuitive Surgical. The Japanese institute is showing off IBIS, a surgical robot that is expected to cost between a third and a tenth of the $2 million it takes to buy one of Intuitive’s da Vinci droids. Unlike its electrically powered American rival, IBIS is pneumatic, making it significantly cheaper and able to provide force feedback to surgeons when the arms touch something. The engineers behind the ‘bot are hoping to produce a practical version within the next five years, and we’re already thinking about inviting both machines along for a fight at Expand 2020. In the meantime, you can catch IBIS in action in the video after the break.
Filed under: Robots
Source: Diginfo
Despite all of the wonderful advances we’ve seen in modern medicine over the last century, we still have yet to crack a stubborn little virus: the common cold. What a letdown.
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One in every thousand or so babies born today will suffer from Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of a third copy of chromosome 21 that results in learning disabilities, a heightened risk of bowel and blood diseases, and a severely heightened risk of dementia later in life. But a radical new genome treatment method could hold the key to turning off that extra chromosome 21 like a light.
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Diabetics might appreciate high-tech glucose sensors when they’re available, but the option for other advanced treatments is certainly intriguing. Take, for example, this new method developed by North Carolina State University researchers that uses injectable sponge to control blood sugar levels. No, it’s not the same sponge you use to clean at home — the material is made out of a substance taken from crab and shrimp shells called chitosan. This spongy material forms a matrix that’s approximately 250 micrometers in diameter, where a rise in blood sugar causes a reaction in the pores that leads to the drug’s release.
Fighting diabetes is but one of the things this miraculous sponge can be used for; developed further, it could even “intelligently” release anticancer drugs whenever the chitosan reacts to tumors or cancer cells in close proximity. Seems like medical technology is getting smarter with each passing day.
Source: North Carolina State University
Here’s one for the medical journals: researchers at London’s Imperial College have created a high-tech scalpel that can differentiate between cancerous and non-cancerous tissue as it cuts. The team calls it the iKnife (intelligent knife), and by analyzing vapors created during electrosurgical dissection in real time, it takes only seconds to distinguish healthy flesh from affected tissue. The device’s inventor, Zoltan Takats, says it has the potential to speed up cancer surgery considerably, as current analysis techniques performed mid-operation can take up to 30 minutes. It could also prevent follow-up surgeries prompted by undetected cancer cells. Unfortunately, the iKnife still has to go through more tests before we can add it to our arsenal of weapons against cancer — until then, we’ll just have to make do with run-of-the-mill electrosurgical knives.
[Image credit: Markus]
Via: Reuters, The Telegraph
Source: Science Translational Medicine
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