Medgear

A 3-D ultrasound scanner for use in minimally invasive brain surgeries has been discovered by a team of biomedical engineers at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. This brain-scanner can be used for bedside patient monitoring in the absence of CT and MRI facilities.

The following image (Credit: Image courtesy of Duke University) shows senior researcher, Stephen Smith, with the brain-scanner.

Brain surgeons currently rely on 2-D ultrasound or MRI, but a lot of information is missed in 2-D. Also MRI machines are expensive and requires a separate room and only special surgical instruments can be used near its strong magnetic field.

Last year the team reported the development of a 3-D ultrasound device for endoscopic surgeries through a tiny hole of around 3 cm diameter. To make it suitable for brain scanning, they have further shrunk the probe so that it can now go through a 10 mm key-hole in the skull. Also they had to shift the orientation of the ultrasound beam with respect to the probe. Rather than capturing a side view, the probe looks straight ahead and shoots ultrasound like water from a hose and that is how the brain’s image can be produced with only a tip inserted through the keyhole.

The team has successfully demonstrated the brain-scope on a dog’s brain, a team member was able to insert a needle into a particular part of its brain just like how it is required in brain surgeries to drain cerebrospinal fluid. They also demonstrated the use of dyes to make blood vessels clearly visible in ultrasound images of the brain.

Image:sciencedaily

Heart patients, if you are looking ahead to get some device to monitor your heartbeat in the comfort of your home, Wearable Technologies Congress in Munich, Germany has introduced this new heartbeat monitoring gadget that fits in your hand like a glove, apparently just for you.

Developed by the German company Beurer GmbH, this PM100 Pulse Monitoring Glove functions via Plethysmography to record your heart rate and comes bundled with an in-built sensor that measures reflected light from the bloodstream inside a vein of your finger.

By just inserting some values like your age and weight, this portable device or watch can calculate your maximum heart rate, calorie consumption and recovery tests when exercising and features clock, stopwatch and alarms to wake you up early in the morning and all this in just a few hundred dollars.

Via: Slipperybrick

After being a pioneer in the American internet industry for years, this is the exact sort of thing that you would expect from Barry Schuler. The former CEO of AOL, Schuler, has built his new company Raydiance Inc. around the radical concept of laser sans the heat. Schuler claims that his USP (Ultrashot Pulse Lasers) will revolutionize the way lasers are used in myriad of fields, be it medical or for that matter metallurgy.

Why ultrashot pulse represents a technological breakthrough is a question easily answered. While existing laser techniques are more or less effective, they still pose a big problem in that they depend on heat beams. Consequently, whenever they are used, say is eye operations for instance; there is a lot of pain involved and the surrounding area may be damaged by heat.

USP, as already mentioned, works without heat. These lasers vaporize matter by ionizing the oxygen atoms and then beaming power through those atoms which lasts for less than one-millionth of a nanosecond. This disrupts the bonds of target material and vaporizes it. Scientists are acquainted with this technology for nearly 25 years now.

Raydiance has, however, improved USP’s ease of use considerably. While it was earlier the size of a room, the talented guys at Raydiance have managed to contact it so much that a USP laser now neatly fits a table top. This, you would agree, is no meant feat.

So what is next for USP and Raydiance Inc.? Well, the future is bright and since the technology is on a verge of a major breakthrough - having reduced its size - there’s no doubt that coming years will witness a major boom. The usages are countless (nearly 100 different medical uses have been identified for USP lasers.) for one thing, they can even remove the tattoos from you skin, painlessly, scientists claim.

Another plus for these devices is their capability to adapt their uses by making use of specialized software packages. Schuler is promising to sell his machines with softwares that can be uploaded via the internet (I told you he is a net pioneer!)

Then there is the negative side, these lasers are as easily convertible into weapons (although that day may still be far off.) Whether we use USP’s to make star wars like lightning guns or medical equipments that can help millions, I guess, the choice is ours!

Via

It is bit hard to believe that DVD’s and videos can decelerate your child’s vocabulary development but study conducted by US researchers witnessed it. Thus, if your infant is crazy about watching videos and DVD’s it is time to put halt because amount of viewing matters.

The study reveals that original DVD’s can also slowdown the knack of your child to learn fresh words depending on your child’s age or can either show no effect at all. Since, parents and teachers are child’s best tutors via whom child automatically adjusts its speed , eye gaze and social signals to sustain language acquisition.

Dr Dimitri Christakis, a paediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute who worked on the study quotes that parents frequently ask the value of watching such videos by their infants but she asserts that:

The evidence is mounting that they are of no value and may in fact be harmful

In addition, as per experts if this alert time is spent in viewing DVD’s and television instead of communicating with friends or family members, the babies don’t attain akin linguistic knowledge.

Via: Abc

We earlier reported that Japanese researchers have developed a prototype model of the micro medical robot that can reside and travel inside a human body to eliminate disease especially cancer. However, now, Dr. Nir Schwalb and Oded Salomon of the College of Judea and Sumaria in Ariel and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have unveiled their miniature robot that is only one-millimeter in diameter.

Dr. Nir Shvalb of the College of Judea and Samaria on Monday, said:

For the first time a miniature robot has been planned and constructed, that has the unique ability to crawl within the human body’s veins and arteries. The robot will be able to crawl against the bloodstream with a force typical of blood vessels within the body without any problem, which has not been possible before.

The scientists also anticipate to let this tiny android to swim through our veins and arteries to combat all kinds of troubles. It does not hold any onboard power and functions on external magnetic forces to impel itself through bloodstream. It is also reportedly said that this tiny android will chiefly aim to sort complications in cancer cells.

Will this tiny robot also combat attacking white blood cells? It is still unclear but we will definitely keep you posted.

Via: Blog.scifi

After I saw an amputee drag himself up Mt.Everest with his prosthetic leg, I knew that the world of prosthesis still has a long ways to go. Although, many would argue that it has come a long ways already. The artificial hands and legs are being fitted with microprocessors and they are gifted with Artificial Intelligence. The latest high tech device called PROPRIO foot is the most happening news in the world of prosthesis.

Over the past few years, many folks throughout the U.S. have adopted the technologically advanced hand or foot! The best part about the PROPRIO foot is that it thinks for itself. It wonderfully adjusts itself to varied terrain. The most advanced censor in the foot helps the food do wonders!

A powerful addition to the rapidly growing HD endoscopic and arthroscopic camera market is the new 3-CCD HD camera. Unveiled by Smith & Nephew’s Endoscopy Division, the 560 Series HD Camera has been designed to provide high-definition resolution in the complete image chain right from the video laparoscope, camera head and the control unit to the monitor. This consistency in resolution helps in achieving clearer and highly detailed surgical images.

A trend-setter in this category, the 560 D Series will help doctors perform better diagnostics during surgery leading to better surgery results. The camera has raised the bar higher for arthroscopic and endoscopic visualization with the best-in-class picture detail, color and field depth.

It goes without saying that the image quality in any visualization system relies on its components. Better the components, better the image quality. The design of the 560 Series is such that it can interface
with Smith & Nephew’s Endoscopy’s CONDOR Control System and the 660HD Image Management System for Digital Operating Rooms. The CONDOR Control System provides medical staff the ease of controlling the operative environment from a single panel and the 660 HD IMS allows the capture and storage high-definition surgical images. These images can be archived with the patient’s medical history for future use. All these ensure that the entire component structure of the visualization system is top-notch and there is no compromise on the image quality.

Via: medgadget

Australia’s HD Medical Group has introduced an innovative device that uses mechanical data (chiefly sound) to foretell approaching heart attacks.

According to the HD Medical Group Ltd, the wireless device called ViScope that detects heart noises can signal an impending heart attack. Almost 500 patients in a clinical trial at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital are reported to be examined via this device for its initial trial whereas the results of this trial will be unveiled sometimes at the end of this year with an application to get green flag from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration possibly in early 2008.

By explaining the functioning of this life saving device company’s managing director Jay Jethwa says that this life saving device functions by sending and receiving low-voltage radio waves to and from the heart, in the same way as fishermen uses sonar waves to locate fish.

It is also worth mentioning that this life saving device is an amalgamation of the company’s proprietary ViScope instrument and technology licensed from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization in December last year.

Via: Medgadget

To analyze your DNA in the comfort of your home, Spartan Bioscience Incorporation has announced the commercial launch of their Spartan DXTM real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) DNA analyzer.

This highly accurate DNA testing device is a ‘gold standard’ for molecular diagnostics that promises to offer DNA results in just 30 minutes or less for 4 samples at a time.

Though, it is a bit slow and expensive, since batched in contrast to mainframe-style DNA machines those are especially designed for highly-trained scientists to work on high-throughput environments and if we compare this machine with other mainframe-style DNA machines, Spartan DXTM is designed for non-batched, on-demand DNA applications in which speed and convenience is vital, whereas its applications are concerned it comprises low-throughput research experiments and non-batched testing for infectious diseases.

According to Dr. Paul Lem, Chief Executive Officer of Spartan:

In the same way that mainframe computers gave rise to personal computers, mainframe DNA machines are giving rise to personal DNA analyzers, DNA is in every organism on the planet and there will be major benefits as DNA testing becomes widely available.

This Spartan DXTM stands fit against industry-leading real-time PCR machines standards and is also quite attuned with industry-standard consumables that also comprises inexpensive reaction tubes, real-time PCR reagents and kits from leading manufacturers.

Now, you don’t have to stand in hospitals or clinics in long queues to test your DNA as the machine is available on manufacturer’s suggested retail price for USD $14,995.

Via: Medgadget

Researchers at the University of Michigan were preparing a new version of cochlear implant earlier this year. But now it seems like they are looking at a fresh auditory nerve implant , nicknamed as “a superior alternative” to the (now) old fashioned option.

The uber-thin electrode array is believed to be able to “transmit a wide range of sounds to the brain,” and give people suffering from hearing impairments the power to “to hear low-pitched sounds common in speech, converse in a noisy room, identify high and low voices, and appreciate music.”

Researchers on the project are confident that this technology, once set aside a too diificult, ambitiously outwits cochlear implants in every way. While preliminary patents have already been filed, it will still be nearly a decade before these things can make their way into human ears en bloc.