Posts Tagged ‘Health’
WakeMate Helps You Sleep Smarter With Your iPhone [Sleep]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on January 2nd, 2010
The WakeMate, a sensor-laden wristband packaged with sleep analysis software, determines the optimal wake-up point in your REM cycle and adjusts your alarm for that moment. It also lets you say you really use your iPhone 24/7.
One of the fundamental reasons we love gadgets is because they help us do things better and smarter while we go about our days. But there are considerably less gadgets that help us go about our nights. Sure, there are some, but by and large the activity of sleeping is one that is untouched by technology and thus unoptimized. Enter WakeMate.
The WakeMate wristband uses Actigraphy to monitor your sleep cycles and pinpoints the precise moment when you should wake up, in a twenty minute window set to your specifications. (Otherwise, my "optimal wake up time" would be sometime around noon, seven days a week.)
But that's only half of it. The WakeMate collects your nightly sleep data and over time develops a detailed analysis of your sleep schedule.
Though I'm not sure I need quantify things with a "sleep score"—Sleep? That's where I'm a viking—it's hard not to get excited about the prospect of sleeping smarter with the help of gadgets like WakeMate. The WakeMate is set to ship by the end of the month and is available for preorder now. [WakeMate Thanks Mikey!]
Invetech Delivers World’s First Production Human Tissue Printer [Medicine]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on December 31st, 2009
Or, as they call it, a "3D bio-printer." Essentially, it allows scientists to build tissue cell by cell. It's that cool sci-fi medical stuff we all dream about.
"Scientists and engineers can use the 3D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3D," Murphy said. "Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand."
The system includes software that enables engineers to build a model of the tissue before layering cells with laser-calibrated print heads. So, it seems pretty similar to a standard 3D model printer. Hopefully, most of us will live to see the day when we can have new hearts and livers printed on demand. That would be handy. Teeth would be great in the short term too. That whole Polygrip lifestyle where corn cobs and apples could lead to disaster does not seem appealing. [Livescience]
Scientists Find an Antibody Which Hunts and Kills Prostate Cancer [Health]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on December 29th, 2009
Researchers have discovered an antibody which, when injected into mice, will bond with prostate cancer tissue and “initiate direct cell death” in it. If results carry over to humans, this discovery would almost be a cure to prostate cancer.
I say that it would almost be a cure for that particular type of cancer, because in initial trials with mice “F77 bonded with tissue where prostate cancer was the primary cancer in almost all cases (97 percent) and in tissue cores where the cancer had metastasized around 85 percent of the time.” This means that while the antibody even attacked advanced stage cancer cells, it did not attack them all. Still, this is fantastic news and I hope that further research lives up to the initial optimism. [PhysOrg]
No, those aren’t the happy, cancer-free mice. They’re some lab rats photographed by jurvetson.
Stem cell therapy restores British man’s eyesight
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on December 23rd, 2009
Continue reading Stem cell therapy restores British man's eyesight
Stem cell therapy restores British man's eyesight originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Channel 4 | Email this | Comments Maine mulling cancer warning labels on cellphones, manufacturers mulling warning label on Maine
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on December 21st, 2009
Maine mulling cancer warning labels on cellphones, manufacturers mulling warning label on Maine originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Yahoo | Email this | Comments Lightweight Wheelchair Designed For Man With One Limb [Health]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News, Technology on December 15th, 2009
I can't even imagine what it's like to lose one limb, let along three, but it's reassuring to know that at least there's a wheelchair out there that's suitable for those in a similar situation to Bryan Anderson.
As a soldier in Iraq, he lost both legs and his left hand, making it difficult to use your everyday type of wheelchair. Luckily designer Mark Veljkovich created this super lightweight and minimal wheelchair, which allows Bryan to represent Quantum Rehab, a sector of Pride Mobility, traveling the US "delivering his message of perseverance and determination in major rehab facilities."
Stripping back the wheelchair to the bones, you'll notice this design is literally just four wheels, a slim carbon fiber seat and lightweight skeleton. Looks like a work of art to me. [Bryan Anderson via Yanko Design]
New Artificial Larynx Could Give Cancer Patients a Natural Sounding Voice [Medicine]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on December 4th, 2009
An ad with someone telling you to quit smoking in the cold robotic voice of a mechanical larynx is powerful imagery. This new artificial larnyx could screw up that whole angle for anti-smoking advocacy groups.
The system utilizes a palatometer, a device traditionally used in speech therapy, to track the movement of the tongue. A cluster of 118 pressure sensors collect the data and send it off to be reproduced by a small sound sythesizer that's kept on the person. The device can also be calibrated to recognize inflection, which helps to generate a voice that is far more natural than the raspy or robotic sounds of current devices. Plus, it doesn't require any surgical implants.
Of course, several problems need to be addressed before this technology is ready for prime time. Accuracy can be as high as 94.4 percent, but the library of recognizable words needs to be vastly increased. The system also needs to be converted to wireless and the processing speed needs to be improved. At the moment, there is a one second delay between when the word is mouthed and the sound is produced—making it seem like you are acting in a bad kung-fu movie dubbed in English. The good news is that it probably won't be long before those issues are corrected. [Technology Review via PopSci]
Doubt Cast on Man Found to Be Conscious After 23-Year Coma [Health]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 25th, 2009
Remember that story about the guy who was supposedly revealed to be fully conscious (but physically paralyzed) and not in a 23-year coma? There are some serious concerns about the validity of that discovery, with some calling it bogus.
The problem lies in the main tool used to sniff out the man's supposedly active brain, a technique called facilitated communication. Facilitated communication, in which a helper assists a physically disabled but mentally capable person to type out his or her thoughts, has been widely discredited for decades, after independent tests revealed that the technique is totally unreliable and often the result, conscious or not, of the assistant typing, not the patient. Basically, assistants would often pick up a patient's hand and jam the patient's finger into the keyboard, which I think we can all agree is not the most reliable form of communication.
If facilitated communication is part of this, and it appears to be, then I don't trust it," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. "I'm not saying the whole thing is a hoax, but somebody ought to be checking this in greater detail. Any time facilitated communication of any sort is involved, red flags fly.
Ultimately, there is definitely more brain activity in this particular case than was first thought; the patient, Rom Houben, is able to indicate yes and no with a slight movement of his foot. But the elaborate, heartbreaking and eloquent notes he supposedly wrote through facilitated communication could well be totally bogus. [Wired]
British surgeons using radiation beams to halt macular degeneration
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 23rd, 2009
We've seen more eyesight restoration efforts than we could easily count, but rather than tooting their horn about some theoretical discovery, boffins at Kings College Hospital in London are actually putting their hard work to use on real, live human brings. The new process, which goes by the name brachytherapy, is a one-off treatment for macular degeneration. In essence, surgeons carefully light up a beam of radiation within the eye for just over three minutes, which kills harmful cells without damaging anything else. A trial is currently underway in order to restore eyesight in some 363 patients, and everything thus far leads us to believe that the process is both safe and effective. As for costs? The procedure currently runs £6,000 ($9,889), but that's still not awful when you consider that existing treatments involving injections run £800 per month. Hop past the break for a video report.Continue reading British surgeons using radiation beams to halt macular degeneration
British surgeons using radiation beams to halt macular degeneration originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Sky News | Email this | Comments Finally, Hospital Lighting Reminiscent of a Cylon Base Ship [Lighting]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 19th, 2009
Granted, the green-tinged fluorescence of most hospital rooms is by no means comfortable, but Philips' solution, seen here, looks like a straight-up alien probe chamber—or so I've heard.
The company is testing the implementation of their lighting technology alongside their medical technology in Ambient Experience suites across the world.
And luckily, the other 9 modes appear far more serene than the "Australia" theme in our lead shot. Patients, in fact, are allowed to choose their own color palette, along with accompanying sounds and video that will surround them during procedures. In fact, this media environment can be so relaxing (or simply distracting) that it was said to reduce sedation needs by 28% in one Chicago-based study.
Actually, on second thought, that pink freaks me out even more than the red. [Philips via CNET]
