Cancer surgery is invariably difficult, in part, because doctors have always had a hard time determining exactly where the healthy tissue ends and the tumor begins. Not anymore. A new "intelligent knife" can actually sniff out the cancer cells during an operation and keep the doctor on track.
People who have been blind since a young age can sometimes learn to develop a sort of low-grade echolocation. This technique, used by the likes of Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Ronnie Milsap, and Ben Underwood, works much the same way as it does in bats and dolphins. But people who have just recently lost their sight can’t harness this ability innately. They need the vOICe to do it for them.
At least 35 million people around the planet live with HIV, and it kills over 1.7 million people each year, so the fact that it’s currently untreatable is one of the biggest medical problems of our time. But in recent years scientific advances seem to be kicking HIV’s ass more effectively than ever—so is there hope that we neutralize the virus’s threat? The answer is more hopeful than you think.
It’s turning into quite a year for HIV treatment. First a baby girl was functionally cured
Plaster casts are bulky, obnoxious, heavy, inevitably sweaty, occasionally pink. In short, they are no fun. But this 3D-printed "Cortex" cast could change all that. Sure, it looks a little like a fishnet stocking, but have you seen a old-fashioned cast lately?
Whether you don’t like needles, or whether you really don’t like needles, there’s some good news on the horizon: a special "bioadhesive" coating that was just developed at Brown University is bringing us one step closer to saying goodbye to injections and hello to things like insulin pills.
Contact lenses are great if your only issue is near or farsightedness, but for those struggling with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness among older adults, those flimsy little lenses ain’t going to cut it—or at least not the kind of contact lenses you’re used to. But soon, AMD-sufferers could see their vision vastly improving thanks to a slim, adjustable telescope that sits right in the middle of their eye.
This map may look like a fairly reasonable representation of the world—but that’s all the more impressive when you realise it’s actually made up of microscopic cells from parts of the body that cause problems for people who live in each country.
Who needs gigantic dialysis machines? The first portable blood filter has just been approved for testing on humans, and it’s practically pocket-sized.
We’ve known for awhile that certain illnesses can have a very, er, special smell for the olfactory-inclined