Emerging tech

Guided by surgeons at a console, the da Vinci Surgical System enables access to the thyroid through the armpit, thereby doing away with the neck incision that has led to the hallmark scar of thyroid surgery, a team of surgeons in Georgia and Texas says.

The group adds that the robots first helped revolutionize urologic and gynecologic surgery in recent years, and that the thyroid gland--roughly the size of a kiwi that sits beneath the Adam's apple--can be accessed without too much trouble through the armpit.

The thyroid controls the body's metabolic rate, and diseases both benign … Read more

Using a $400 Olympus E-330 digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and University of Texas cancer researchers report in PLoS ONE this week that they are able to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells with only a little tweaking.

"Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms for diagnostic imaging," says lead author and Rice professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum in the school's news release. "Based on portability, performance, and cost, you could make a case for using them both to lower health care costs in developed countries and to provide services that simply aren't available in resource-poor … Read more

With an increasing number of 3D movies hitting theaters, we'll be wearing theater-provided 3D glasses more often. The only problem is, those glasses could harbor all kinds of bacteria that might make some of us think twice about seeing "Avatar" for the fourth time.

According to Good Housekeeping, which tested movie theater 3D glasses that were both unwrapped and wrapped in plastic, several of the frames carried "bacteria that can cause conjunctivitis, skin infections, food poisoning, or even sepsis or pneumonia."

The publication's research lab found that "none of the glasses" it … Read more

Chemical engineers at MIT are designing carbon nanotubes that can be injected beneath the skin to reveal continuous blood glucose levels in real time. If it works, people with Type I diabetes may not have to prick their fingers multiple times a day to monitor their glucose levels.

Dubbed a "tattoo" that's designed to detect glucose, the nanotubes are wrapped in a polymer that is sensitive to glucose concentrations. A wearable device roughly the size of a wristwatch shines infrared light through the skin and onto the nanotubes, which fluoresce when in contact with glucose.

So it's really a tattoo in hiding. And at this point the sensor is estimated to have a shelf (or is it skin?) life of roughly six months.

But the team, which plans to start testing on animals soon, says that if the readings are accurate enough to pass the Clarke Error Grid analysis for glucose sensor accuracy, the system could revolutionize continuous glucose monitoring.

"The most problematic consequences of diabetes result from relatively short excursions of a person's blood sugar outside of the normal physiological range, following meals, for example," said Michael Strano, a professor at MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering. "If we can detect and prevent these excursions, we can go a long way toward reducing the devastating impact of this disease."… Read more

The earliest known reference to medicine in pill form dates back to 10th century Arabic medical literature, long after Egyptians were rolling active medicinal agents into breads and clays but some 900 years before the first patent for a tablet was granted in 1843.

Not much about the technology has changed in a millennium of pill production. Each tablet, shaped for swallowing, acts as a carrier of medicine. The active ingredient is typically one-thousandth the volume of the pill, meaning 99.9 percent of a typical pill is essentially filler material or agents that help digest the drug. (It is … Read more

If you're one of the 17 percent of American adults who reportedly suffer from some type of hearing loss, listen up: hearing aids--and earphones--may be about to enter a new generation of superior fit and functionality, thanks to molds based on a 3D imaging technique instead of plaster.

Time was, getting fitted for a hearing aid took an hour in a chair with an audiologist, who would fill a patient's ear canals with a silicone substance that hardened into a mold from which the aid would be constructed. The molds are only so detailed, which means the fits … Read more

Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have created a synthetic cell that can survive and reproduce itself according to an artificial DNA sequence, promising designer genomes with which researchers can produce sophisticated artificial organisms.

The new bacterial cell, "Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0," is the result of a 15-year, $30 million effort by genetics pioneer Craig Venter. The study, led by the institute's Dan Gibson, is reported in the May 21 edition of the journal Science.

The team of 25 researchers took Mycoplasma capricolum bacteria and completely rewrote its genetic code of more than 1 million base pairs of DNA. The data was sequenced as chemical DNA fragments and sewn together using yeast and E. coli bacteria.

The synthetic genome was transplanted into empty Mycoplasma mycoides bacteria, which were transformed into a new species. The creature's software-like name, JCVI-syn1.0, reflects its status as the first of its kind.

To prove the genome is synthetic and to assert their ownership, the scientists even "watermarked" it by forming encoded words with the alphabet of genes and proteins. They included three quotations, among them a line from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life." They also added a URL and e-mail address to allow researchers who decode the words to notify the institute. … Read more

During exercises focused on practicing elements of local and regional port security plans Tuesday, the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program took part in a joint training program with the San Francisco Police Department dive team designed to identify underwater threats including mines, improvised explosive devices, and enemy divers.

Using highly trained dolphins and sea lions selected for their quickness, intelligence, detection capability, and mobility, officials demonstrated the unique ability of these animals to identify and neutralize threats in cooperation with human teammates. See the full gallery here.

For those with weakened leg muscles who don't need or want to use wheelchairs, there's a strange-looking new mobility device on the market, and Honda is its maker. As the Japanese multinational corporation (and the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles) writes on its Bodyweight Support Assist product page, "Most people think of Honda as an automobile company. But our main focus is and always has been human mobility."

Potential users can be assured that what Honda didn't spend on a catchy name campaign it did invest in the design. The Bodyweight Support Assist device … Read more