Tag Archives: medicine

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Heart monitors hacked

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heart-mosaic I don’t need to remind you that computers are everywhere – this is the intarwub, after all. But even I get a bit surprised at some of the specific places computers end up – I never knew that people are being implanted with heart monitor/defibrillators that can broadcast data about the patient’s condition back to their doctor. [image by CarbonNYC]

Having found that out, though, I’m not at all surprised to hear that researchers have found a security vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to compromise and deactivate the device and prevent it from delivering the heart-restarting shocks it is designed for.

Repeat after me – everything can and will be hacked.

On the subject of electric shocks to the body, you can choose to have them for fun as opposed to for your health; the grinders point out the arrival of the Mindwire V5 electroshock force-feedback device, which will interface with your games console and deliver a brisk jolt to your hands when you get PWNED. Pain is fun, kids!

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Immune system in a jar could speed vaccine development

474px-Human_brain In old science fiction movies, mad scientists and the like always seem to have, somewhere around their lab, a brain in a jar.

I never much saw the point of that. How about something really useful: an immune system in a jar? (Via New Scientist Invention Blog.)

Invented by George Lewis, a virologist at the University of Maryland, this simple replica immune system would allow scientists to test vaccines in the laboratory to make sure they trigger the production of antibodies, without having to take the sometimes dangerous step of actually testing the vaccine in a living human being. This could greatly speed the process of producing new vaccines.

They simply culture white blood cells in the presence of an antigen (which could be a virus, or could be a vaccine designed to stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies against a specific virus). The cultured cells respond by producing new cells that make antibodies against the antigen.

Mad scientists, however, will probably want to stick with the old brain-in-the-jar: cultured white blood cells just don’t have the same visual impact.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]medicine,vaccine,disease,mad scientists[/tags]

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Developing the hospital bed of the future

Mary_Mallon_(Typhoid_Mary)_in_hospital A European Union-funded project led by Philips Electronics aims to develop a hospital bed that can passively assess a patient’s heart rate, sleep quality, temperature and other criteria without the need to wire up the patient directly. (Via MedGadget.)

According to a BBC story:

The bed would include, not only an electronic weight scale and blood pressure monitor, but also sensors which measure heart rate, breathing rate and body movement while sleeping.

In addition, the patient could wear a vest with woven-in electrodes to provide a full electro-cardiogram reading.

All this information would be analysed on a PDA and the results sent via a telephone line or broadband connection to doctors.

The device, it is claimed, could even provide clues to interrupted sleep by measuring sleep phase patterns.

No word on whether it would have a big monitor over the bed with flashing lights and a cool beeping noises, a la Dr. McCoy’s sick-bay beds on Star Trek.

An interesting caveat from Dr. Nick Robinson of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Telehealth forum:

“We are used to making decisions based on taking a blood pressure reading on an occasional basis – and all the evidence we have for intervening is based on this. The real challenge for this technology is not taking the measurements, but working out what to do with it, so that we are not constantly getting false alarms.”

Can too much information about a patient’s condition actually be a bad thing?

(Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]medicine,hospitals,technology,Star Trek[/tags]

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Vaccines delivered by tattooing

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tattoo-machines First the good news – there may be a more efficient way to receive vaccinations than traditional injections.

But before those of you with a phobia get too excited by the prospect, the alternative still involves needles – the needles of tattoo machines, in fact.

“… administering pieces of DNA from the human papillomavirus virus into the skin of mice by three tattoo-gun injections produced a 200-fold greater production of antibodies to the virus than was achieved with the old method of a needle injection into a muscle.

Vaccines made with bits of DNA are not new, but the usual ways of delivering them have not worked very well. The reason that tattoo injections are so much more effective is thought to be because the repeated puncturing of the skin by the rotating tattoo needle does real damage to the skin — the presence of a bona fide wound causes inflammatory cells to flood into the site, where they speed and enhance the immune response to the vaccine.”

So probably more painful than traditional hypodermic injections, but cheaper and more effective – two factors that matter a lot in the world of health-care. [via grinding.be] [image by Frenkieb]

We can assume that someone will come up with a less painful way to achieve the same results, too. How about some sort of sticky patch that uses an enzyme to create a skin wound, then delivers the vaccine and starts the healing process, all in one?

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Scientists create dynamic holographic display

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3ddisp_hol Scientists from the University of Arizona have figure out how to make holographic displays, viewable without special eyeware, that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes. (Via PhysOrg.)

Dynamic hologram displays could be made into devices that help surgeons track progress during lengthy and complex brain surgeries, show airline or fighter pilots any hazards within their entire surrounding airspace, or give emergency response teams nearly real-time views of fast-changing flood situations or traffic problems, for example…and no one yet knows where the advertising and entertainment industries will go with possible applications…

The prototype display is only four inches by four inches and only comes in red, but larger displays in full colour are considered possible. The researchers are aiming for a one-foot-by-one-foot display next, then a three-foot-by-three-foot display. Eventually they hope to be able to display life-sized holographic images of humans that can be updated every few minutes.

Watch a video here.

The researchers point out that a great deal of data is lost when three-dimensional information, such as that collected by an MRI or CAT scan, is displayed in two dimensions on a flat computer monitor. As they say, “…when we develop larger, full-color 3-D holograms, every hospital in the world will want one.”

And two minutes after the first one is installed, hospital staff will be referring to the room it’s placed in as the “holodeck.”

(Image: University of Arizona.)

[tags]medicine,optics,holograms,technology[/tags]