Health tech

A friend of mine has a pre-teen daughter who recently asked if her mom had to wait for high school to get her first iPhone. Apparently the girl has no memories pre-2007.

Add to the "that is soo last year" list the ritual of going to a clinic to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Testing may soon require little more than a computer chip and a place to pee on one.

In an attempt to cut the UK's rising rates of herpes, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, British health officials say that sexually-transmitted infections will soon be able to be diagnosed … Read more

Ever wanted to glance at your arm and see not a watch but the time displayed right there on your wrist, alongside an illuminated read-out of your health and a glittering tattoo? A team from the University of Illinois has taken a step in that direction with the creation of tiny LED arrays that can be implanted beneath the skin to show the condition of wounds or deliver cancer-beating drugs.

The band of intrepid scientists has published in the journal Nature details of miniscule LED arrays measuring 2.5 micrometers thick and 100x100 micrometers square. That's slightly less than … Read more

As National Breast Cancer Awareness month comes to a close, a professor at Manchester University is bringing hope to women (and men) worldwide with his new invention--a portable real-time breast scanner.

Zhipeng Wu has invented a scanner in the shape of a cup to fit over a bra, and uses radio frequency to find differences in tissue instead of measuring density, as mammography does.

The patented scanner still needs to undergo rigorous testing, but looks at this point to be both safe and inexpensive (compared to existing systems), and it can fit in a case the size of a lunch … Read more

For those who have never suffered from a bout of vertigo, the condition might evoke thoughts of Alfred Hitchock and a dizzying fear of heights. Those people would be misguided.

Imagine instead that, for anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes, you are both falling and spinning, and yet you are also lying perfectly still in bed. It is not only nauseating and terrifying, but the disconnect is also completely frustrating.

Millions of people around the world are thought to suffer from one of a number of balance disorders, some of which are still poorly understood (do the problems stem from the ear, brain, or some combination of the two?). However, a new device could help those who suffer from one such problem, called Meniere's disease, avoid symptoms the moment an attack begins.

The implantable device consists of a cochlear implant and a processor with new software and electrode arrays designed by University of Washington researchers who specialize in head and neck surgery, signal processing, brainstem physiology, and vestibular neural coding.

It has been designed specifically to treat Meniere's disease--which affects an estimated 615,000 people in the U.S., typically between ages 40 and 60 and which typically affects one ear--because the disease is well understood. (The attacks result from rupturing of the inner-ear membrane, causing a sensation of spinning in the direction of the failing ear.)

The most common way for those with Meniere's to fight the symptoms of a vertigo attack is to lie very still for hours or, in severe cases, to elect for surgery that essentially shuts off that ear altogether, permanently affecting hearing and balance.

"We have a variety of existing treatments for Meniere's disease, and any time there's a variety it's because none of them are optimal," says Dr. Jay Rubinstein at UW's Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, who himself has never experienced vertigo--"other than from drinking too much in college"--but who for years has seen first-hand how debilitating it can be. "In theory this is potentially an optimal therapy that could really change how we treat Meniere's."

The device, implanted last week in a 56-year-old patient who is the first of 10 to be involved in the first clinical trials, is essentially an override, Rubinstein explains. "It doesn't change what's happening in the ear, but it eliminates the symptoms while replacing the function of that ear until it recovers."… Read more

You doubtless know the old maxim about necessity being the mother of invention. So it was that recent spate of reports of a bedbug breakout in many cities was incentive enough to convince a New York iPhone app developer to get coding.

"Everyone's biggest fear is now bedbugs. It seems to be everywhere you turn--Bloomingdales, the Waldorf--you're hearing about it," said Adam Kotkin, CEO of Apps Genius.

His 11-person company today is releasing an app that will let people go online and map out reports of the latest bug infestations in 10 major American cities. It … Read more

When it comes to measuring oxygen levels in the brain to chart neurological activity--a technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)--things can get a little hairy. Literally. As in, the patient's hair gets in the way.

So researchers at the University of Texas have engineered a novel device, which they call a "brush optrode" (variant of word optode), whose fiber tips thread past hair to increase scalp contact, thereby improving signal levels as well as overall cost and efficiency of the optical scanning technique. They will present their findings at the Optical Society's 94th annual … Read more

Amanda Boxtel hasn't walked since a skiing accident left her paralyzed nearly two decades ago.

In the video below, she stands and walks for the first time in 18 years using eLegs, a 45-pound wearable robotic exoskeleton aimed at getting paraplegics out of their wheelchairs and onto their feet. It's an amazing sight.

"To take my first step in the eLegs was just astounding," Boxtel says with tears in her eyes, "because I bent my knee for the first time in 18 years and I placed my heel on the ground. And then I transferred … Read more