‘Medicine’ Archives
A Lifeline For Heart Failure
Image based on a model from Google 3D Warehouse by www.pradodesign.com Cardiology: Breakthrough Getting Noticed. Slowly. This is a big deal. A big, big deal. But it's early days. Congestive heart failure's ANOTHER disease you don't want. There are many. You REALLY don't want to struggle, weak and breathless all [...]
Was TOO Locked-In Syndrome!
Neurology: A Case Of Facilitated Communication Rom Houben was nearly killed in an accident 23 years ago. Bad. Couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't wiggle a finger. They figured he was in a type of coma, a persistent vegetative state. But he wasn't. He could think. And he could hear. And he could listen to [...]
Portable Peanut Detector
AllergyResearch: Personal Peanut Alarm Chase has an idea. He explains that his nephew is allergic to peanuts which, I know, is a VERY bad thing. The slightest granule can do unspeakable things. I tell him I’m familiar with the problem. “What,” Chase asks, “if we come up with a cheap, [...]
Cancer Superweapons
RadiationTherapy: A Life Worth Living Cancer. It seems so somebody-else-but-not-me. And yet.. you're the one in the back-flapper gown. Crappy, expensive, uncomfortable, inconvenient, and, potentially deadly, cancer is just a THING now. It CAN take you down but, mostly, it's a bunch of medicine that you're not gonna [...]
Healthcare My Butt!
Image by me HealthCareDebate:THE COST OF DYING BADLY My wife and I have been trying to figure out what’s what with medical costs. Haven’t you? Why is it that costs in this country are so dramatically much higher than elsewhere? Is it simple “greed” or incompetence?A target for frustration is always so nice. Dr. [...]
Pancreatic Cancer And Libraries and Whatnot
photo courtesy of Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/timetrax/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 LibaryScience:The Future Of Libaries Books are being digitized. Google's taking the lead. Having already digitized several million books, Google hopes to become a digital "Library of Alexandria", a modest claim since the collection of the ancient [...]
RHEOENCEPHALOGRAPHY.
Dr. Mike Bodo in his laboratory (photo courtesy of Dr. Bodo) Brain_Research:rheoencephalography As you can imagine, the war in Iraq resulted in lots of head trauma - the most since Vietnam. But changes in how major head wounds are treated, more attention to relieving internal pressure, and a tendency to remove debris only when [...]
Another Step In Hearing Research
Photo (modified) from morguefile HearingResearch: Restoring Hair Cells OK. It's getting exciting. John Brigande, of the Oregon Hearing Research Centre in Portland, (Centre? Isn't that a little pretentious for Portland) has implanted a gene and demonstrated growth of hair cells in the inner ear. Functional and quite [...]
BREAKTHROUGH ON BOMB DETECTION
Photography by Tela Chhe under a creative Commons License SurveilanceTechnology: DETECTING SUICIDE BOMBERS If I ever start a "Politics Ain't So Bad" blog (Don't count on THAT!), I'll go into more detail, but it doesn't take a political genius to figure out that suicide bombing's a bad thing. It's also a frustrating thing because it's so [...]
Flight Data Recorders. A Radical Solution
EngineeringDesign: AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 447 Frustrating. The Flight Data Recorders of Flight 447 are in the ocean. When the batteries for its “pingers” run down, that it. Gone. I suggested, last time, that the data in those “Black Boxes” could have been broadcast or “streamed” to a receiving station (perhaps via [...]
