Researchers at McGill University discovered that Tetris could help train both eyes to work in unison. The researchers conducted a small study involving 18 adults who played the game instead of using traditional treatments. Traditional treatments involve covering the good eye to make the weak eye work harder.

The researchers discovered that playing Tetris was more effective than using that traditional patch treatment. The team now wants to test if playing the video game can also help treat the condition in children. The experiment the researchers used involved a special pair of video goggles making both eyes work as a team.

Nine volunteers that suffered from lazy eye wore the goggles for an hour a day over a two-week period while playing Tetris. The special goggles used allowed one eye to see blocks falling down the screen and the other can only see the blocks that accumulate on the ground. Another group of nine used for comparison in the experiment more similar goggles, but had the good eye covered with a patch and viewed the game using only the lazy eye. At the end of the two-week period, the group use both eyes had better improvement in their vision than the group that used the patch.

[via BBC]

Better’s iPhone app will, depending on which subscription the user chooses, provide 24-7 access to Mayo Clinic information, as well as nurses and doctors. That aforementioned bug bite? With the app, you’d be able to snap a picture and send it off to a professional, along with your symptoms, for some real medical advise. This instead of Googling your symptoms and getting results about rare tropical insect-like harbingers of death.

The device was demonstrated by Geoff Clapp, Better’s founder, who used it to check symptoms for a fake round of stomach pain, which the app indicated was celiac disease. He then called a Mayo Clinic nurse via the app and spoke with her, getting information and suggestions, as well as a blood test scheduled for when he returns.

Such is an example of how the app works. Like all things, such a level of service won’t come without a price, however – unless you use the free version of the app, which provides access to the Mayo Clinic website and the ability to create health records. The next level, which isn’t finalized, would, for example, provide access to a nurse, while the most expensive option would provide 24/7 access to a doctor, as well as medical bookings and such. Prices could be as high as several thousand a month, with the app’s founder saying that the best range is between $100 and $500 monthly.

An iPhone beta app is available now, with a full iPhone app rolling out this summer. Eventually an Android app will also be available.

[via AllThingsD]

The photo above is a good representation of what the 3D-printed material looks like and how it fits on the skull. The material has specially-designed textures and holes in it to encourage the growth of cells and bone, and not result as a hindrance to the body, but rather become part of the skull just like ordinary bone. In other words, it’s more than just a simple piece of hard plastic.

Oxford Performance Materials is the company behind these 3D-printed implants, and they’re predicting that this practice will take off shortly, and it could open the door for around 500 patients per month who need bone transplants. The US Food and Drug Administration granted approval of the 3D-printed implant on February 18, and the company is now looking to spread the technology.

The company says that it can produce an implant within two weeks of obtaining 3D scans of the affected area needing transplanted, and recipients can range from injured construction workers to wounded soldiers, according to Oxford Performance Materials. There are no other details as far as further transplants with the new technology, but we should be hearing more about it sooner or later.

[via News]

FDA approval for the system marks a new point in the field of vision research promising to help restore sight to some people who are blind. The artificial retina is a sheet of electrodes that is implanted into the person’s eye. The patient is also fitted with glasses that feature an integrated camera and a portable video processor.

The entire system is known as Argus II and allows visual signals to bypass the damage portion of the retina in be transferred directly to the brain. The artificial retina doesn’t allow the blind to see in the conventional sense that most of us are used to. It does give those fitted with the system the ability to identify outlines and boundaries of objects. It is said to be particularly effective when there is high contrast between light and dark areas.

The Argus II is made by a company called Second Site Medical Products and is specifically designed to treat people with severe retinitis pigmentosa. People with this condition have deteriorated photoreceptor cells in the eye that are meant to take in light. About 100,000 Americans are believed to suffer from this medical condition and somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 are expected to qualify for the Argus II system. To qualify people have to be over 25 and had previously useful vision. The system will cost about $150,000 not counting surgery and training and it remains unclear if insurance companies will cover the system.

[via NYT]

The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Samsung said that they plan on becoming one of the world’s leading medical equipment company by 2020. The acquisition of NeuroLogica is simply just another step to reach that goal. Samsung plans to “continue to strengthen its capabilities and product portfolio to establish itself as a trusted leader in the health and medical equipment industry.”

As a part of its 2020 vision to become a leader in the medical technology field, the company said that it’s committed to exploring new avenues of growth and progress in the healthcare business, and they want to do this by enhancing medical imaging diagnosis, which would benefit not only the doctors, but the patients as well.

Samsung just recently announced the addition of Samsung Health & Medical Equipment, which merged employees from its 2010 acquisition of Medison with its Enterprise Business Division. The acquisition of Medison was yet another big step for Samsung to achieving its 2020 goal of becoming a medical technology powerhouse.

The method to accomplish this would involve using Neanderthal DNA to reconstruct its genetic code, which would then be applied to human stem cells. This process would be repeated multiple times, each time bringing them closer to that of the Neanderthal. This part of the equation is possible now, according to Church.

“If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal. We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone.”

The rest of the process is something that won’t happen for a long time, however. Cloning itself is still a controversial act, and having a human serve as a surrogate for a Neanderthal clone is not something anywhere in the realm of possibility at this point. Still, Church says that such a move could be beneficial for both the sake of diversity and understanding, with Neanderthals possibly thinking differently than humans as well as offering an evolutionary boost to our species.

[via NBC]

A South Korean rocket was called off at launch – right down to the count-down, in fact. The Samsung Galaxy Note II launches this week on Verizon with 4G LTE: we’ll be bringing on some hands-on action to you very, very soon! The folks at Nintendo are apologizing for the Wii U and its update nightmare while the Wii Mini lurks in the shadows.

Over at the LA Car Show you’ll want to take a look at the Hyundai Veloster C3 concept as well as the brand new Volkswagen Beetle. The Porsche 2013 Cayman has also been revealed as well as the Jaguar XFR-S, complete with 550HP ready to cut you in half. Don’t forget the 2013 Fiat 400 Abarth Cabrio for your futuristic Asphalt racing.

According to a supply chain source, orders for the Microsoft Surface RT have been cut in half. The Wii U has been released in the UK just a bit earlier than expected. Sharp is in talks with Dell, Intel, and Qualcomm about $240 million bucks and the IGZO.

This unit goes by the name SCOUT and is ready to connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth in a snap – the team is currently working on apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone (with no plans for BlackBerry at this very moment). Once you’re synced up, you’ve only to press the SCOUT device up to your temple and let it sit for 10 seconds. In those 10 seconds you’ll find that your vital signs will be scanned with great accuracy, this including your temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, ECG, and SPO2.

Photo via Scanadu’s official Facebook page showing Tan Le and Kim Vu “Scouting” themselves.

Development of this project happened rather rapidly if you count only the time since it was announced until now – that, again, being less than a year. If you’re counting the amount of time since Scanadu co-founder Walter De Brouwer prototyped his first tricorder effort, it’s a bit more extended. De Brouwer’s first tricorder was backpack-sized and didn’t quite have the consumer potential that this new SCOUT project does.

The SCOUT will retail for under $150 and is small enough to easily slip into your pocket – and it’s not just made for doctors. In fact, De Brouwer made it clear this week with FastCO that it’s made primarily for those everyday citizens that want to keep themselves monitored on a daily basis.

“We really want to show people their health stream. You go to a doctor and you get data points. You probably forget about them. But in this time of personalized readings we should have personalized parameters. What is a fever for me might not be a fever for you.” – De Brouwer

The SCOUT is just one entry in the massive rally for the Qualcomm Tricorder X prize – that being $10 million USD for the best tricorder that meets specifications set up by Qualcomm itself. In addition to the SCOUT, Scanadu is bringing forth a couple more medical-oriented tiny gadgets as well: ScanaFlo and ScanaFlu.

The ScanaFlo is a urine analysis system made specifically for pregnant women, scanning for signs of complications like preeclampsia and diabetes. The device works with a set of 20 cartridges that are dipped in urine with data sent back to the Scanadu app – again, on your smartphone. ScanaFlu is a saliva test that’s made primarily for the flu, but also checks for upper respiratory infections of many kinds. Each of these three products is set to be released by the end of 2013 in their final form.

Despite Sony’s first retail OLED product being discontinued, Sony has still been working on OLED technology. Sony’s medical systems division has recently teased a new OLED display that is a work in progress. Sony is specific in noting that the 20.5-inch OLED display is not available for sale in the United States.

The display isn’t available anywhere else for that matter. Sony is offering some details on the monitor other than noting it has a 20.5-inch screen. The display uses a monochrome organic light emitting diode panel. The display is monochrome because it aimed at medical imaging such as x-rays and other procedures where color isn’t as important as high resolution and contrast.

The display has a resolution of 2048 x 2560 and promises exceptionally high contrast and deep, rich black reproduction. Sony says that the black level for the display is less than 0.001 cd/M² and 500cd/M². All of the specifications offered are preliminary. Sony will show off its new 20.5-inch display at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago later this month. There is no indication of when this display might come to market.

This work was started 50 years ago by Gurdon and was complimented by a 2006 experiment by Yamanaka which searched for ways to cure disease by growing healthy tissue. With “regenerative medicine” we’ll be able to cure ourselves with ourselves, so to speak. The Nobel Assembly at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute noted that “these groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells.”

Stem cell research has been marred by the controversial necessity for the cells to come from embryos – or what’s known as a fetus inside a woman’s womb. If the studies conducted by the scientists here are able to turn adult cells back into cells that regenerate like stem cells, the research would blossom at a rate that’s yet unknown.

Gurdon was the first scientist to clone an animal back in 1962 with the DNA from a tadpoles intestinal cell. In 2006, Yamanaka was able to produce mouse stem cells from an adult mouse’s skin cells with an insertion of a set of genes. Stem cells that come from adult cells such as these are known as “induced pluripotency stem cells” – aka iPS cells – and will quite likely be able to be both taken from and given back to the same adult. If this process is perfected, the body will be able to repair itself – so to speak – with just a bit of help from third party processes.

“The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds. We would like to be able to find a way of obtaining spare heart or brain cells from skin or blood cells. The important point is that the replacement cells need to be from the same individual, to avoid problems of rejection and hence of the need for immunosuppression.” – Gurdon Institute

This work will continue on the part of both scientists and their teams while groups around the world use this situation as hope for the future. Nobel Committee member and professor of Molecular Development Biology at the Karolinska Institute Thomas Perlmann said Thanks to these two scientists, we know now that development is not strictly a one-way street. There is lot of promise and excitement, and difficult disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, like perhaps Alzheimer’s and, more likely, Parkinson’s disease, are very interesting targets.”

[via Reuters]

In return for its 50 billion yen, Sony will get 34,387,000 Olympus common shares, giving the company an 11.46-percent voting right. The first bunch of shares will be passed over on October 23, with the second due sometime between then and February 28.

Someone of Sony’s choosing will also be appointed to the Olympus board, or at least Olympus “will make every effort” to ensure that happens.

The name of the new medical business venture has not been decided upon, though it will have four Sony-nominated directors and three by Olympus; each will suggest an auditor and a representative director, while Sony will elect the president and Olympus the deputy president. Kicking off with a 50 million yen investment – 51-percent from Sony, the remainder from Olympus – it will focus on 4K-resolution (or higher) surgical endoscopes that may also include 3D support, together with the hardware needed to use them.

Eventually, Sony says, it expects the medical business to become a consolidated subsidiary of its own, though there’s no telling when, exactly, that will happen. The goal is a market share in excess of 20-percent by 2020.

The technique the New York-based neuroscientist has come up with is non-surgical and uses high-tech glasses embedded with tiny video camera and a computer chip to restore sight. She believes that the technique could be tested on humans within two years. The special glasses could restore sight to millions of people around the world suffering from blindness due to degenerative eye diseases.

The scientist says that this type of blindness is often caused by diseases that damage certain parts of the retina used by the eye to detect light and the neural pathways that attach to the retina. However, the cells within the retina that communicate with the brain, called ganglion cells, are typically left intact. The technique bypasses those damage cells and sends the encoded visual information directly to the brain.

The breakthrough in the technique came after Nirenberg was able to decipher the code of neural pulses that the mouse brain forms into images. Nirenberg uses a two-path approach that includes a prosthetic device that produces the code plus gene therapy that activates the ganglion cells. She said, “It’s just an injection into the eye.”

The code needed was placed onto a chip and combined with a mini projector. The chip converts the images into electrical impulses and then the projector transforms those pulses into light that is able stimulate proteins inside the ganglion cells. The information travels up to the brain where the brain recognizes the data as a sharp image. One key factor giving hope that this could be used to treat human blindness is that Nirenberg has worked out the code needed for a monkey retina, which is almost identical to the human retina.

[via NY Daily News]

The researchers hope that the development will lead to more than robotic jellyfish. The goal of the team is to make it possible harvest cells from one organism and then reorganized them using bioengineering for human use such as in heart repair. The team hopes to be able to do things such as make a heart pacemaker it doesn’t require battery power.

The artificial jellyfish that the team designed uses a silicone polymer and is a centimeter long. The artificial jellyfish is comprised of a membrane with eight arm-like appendages that are overlaid with muscle cells obtained from a rat heart. The cells are aligned in a particular pattern which one researcher Kevin Kit Parker says were “coaxed” into self-organizing so that they matched the jellyfish’s muscle architecture precisely. The team called the robot Medusoid and when it’s placed in a salty fluid capable of conducting electricity, it contracts in a synchronized manner when a voltage is applied to the fluid. The team of engineers hopes to design an artificial jellyfish that is capable of gathering food on its own in the future, Medusoid is unable to gather its own food.

[via WSJ]

The jet injection device can squirt the medication directly through the skin into the body without needing to puncture with a needle. The device MIT researchers have developed can be programmed to deliver a range of medication doses at various depths. That is a significant improvement over jet injection systems that are available right now. Different medications have to be delivered at different depths within the body to function. For instance, some medications need to go in the muscle whereas others need to be deposited in the fatty tissue rather than muscle. The sort of needleless injection system is a big deal for medical workers as well.

By removing the needle from the equation, medical workers are much less likely to accidentally poke themselves with a dirty needle. Having no needle is also a big help for people that have to routinely deliver medications to themselves in the home, such as diabetics. The jet injector developed at MIT is built around a mechanism called a Lorentz-force actuator. The device is small, but powerful magnet surrounded by a coil of wire with a piston attached inside the drug ampoule. The medication is injected by this device out of the needleless injector at high-pressure and very near the speed of sound in air. The opening in the end of the jet injector is about as wide as the mosquitoe’s proboscis. The researchers are developing a version of the device for delivering drugs found in a powdered form. In this instance, the device vibrates turning the powder into a fluidized form that can be delivered through the skin like a liquid.

So, if you’re thinking this is another way for humans to become even lazier than they already are, don’t fret. This product won’t see that kind of commercial application for a long time. Right now, its goal is to help patients with paralysis. Case in point – a video that demonstrates the technology shows a 58-year-old woman who has been physically paralyzed for 15 years. She has no control of her arms or legs.

And yet, with BrainGate’s robotic arm, she was able to grasp a thermos, raise it to her mouth, and drink. That’s the level of precision that the incredible contraption offers. According to BrainGate, this marked the first time in 15 years that the woman was able to have a sip of coffee without the help of another person. The implications are of course potentially vast. These are the kinds of stories we like to see.

[via Reuters]

The physicians took healthy nerves from the man’s body and used those nerves to bridge the damaged nerves and rewire the man’s nervous system. The groundbreaking surgery was performed by surgeons at Washington University’s school of medicine, and the operation could be a breakthrough for some people suffering from spinal cord injury. The man the surgery was performed on is a 71-year-old who broke his neck in a car crash in 2008.

Prior to the surgery, the man had limited use of his arms, but he had lost the ability to grasp or hold things in either hand. The surgeons used the healthy nerves above the spinal breakage and connected those healthy nerves to the anterior interosseous nerve in the forearm that controls hand movement. After surgery, the men underwent physical therapy, and began to move his thumb and fingers of the left hand eight months after the surgery, and could move fingers on the right hand 10 months after the surgery.

“To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of thumb and finger flexor reinnervation after a spinal cord injury. While the results in this patient are usually modest, due to the severe joint stiffness, his function has improved significantly with his ability to feed himself,” the team writes in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

[via Guardian]

The facility apparently has several of the ReWalk devices costing about $85,000 each that were donated. While wearing these exo-skeleton systems, paraplegics are able to walk and move around including climbing stairs and getting in a car at speeds similar to those anyone else with use. For now, these devices are limited to use by paraplegics only.

There is hope that eventually a system for quadriplegics will be introduced that allows people paralyzed from the neck down to get up and move around. Wealthy paraplegics can’t buy their own ReWalk system just yet because the device has only been cleared for use in the hospital. Work is being done to get the device approved for home use.

[via KTLA]

According to the donor registries in two different states, on the first day after Facebook started the new organ donor initiative, the states recorded as many new donor registrations as they typically see in a month. By Tuesday night, the first day the new organ donation tool was in place, 100,000 people had declared that they were organ donors via their Facebook profile.

Out of the 100,000 people that said on their Facebook profiles that they were organ donors, 10,000 of that number link through Facebook to sign up directly with state organ donation registries. That means that the Facebook tool accounted for 10,000 registrations in a single day. Organ donation advocates think Facebook’s program could help save untold numbers of lives.

“I think it’s possible that we will see an impact over the next couple of years, where we would imagine eliminating the transplant waiting list,” Dr. Andrew Cameron, a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who helped bring the idea to Facebook, told ABC News.

[via ABC News]

For her, being told she’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life was nothing more than a jolt to make sure that didn’t happen. It was in 2006 when her horse clipped its shoulder, causing him to move uncontrollably, flinging Lomas into a nearby tree. She was paralyzed from the chest down and also broke her neck, back, and ribs. She found out about a device called the ReWalk, a bionic walking contraption that she humorously compares to the “wrong trousers” episode of Wallace & Gromit.

She had such a desire to walk again, and with the help of friends and family managed to raise the £43,000 (~$70,000) needed to buy the ReWalk. And it worked. Despite all odds, she was walking again, albeit with a robotic assistance device. But even with that, even just a few weeks ago, she was only physically capable of taking about 30 steps. But her inspirational dedication has caused her to break those physical boundaries. She has been walking nonstop, staying at hotels along the way, to increase her speed and bring her back to some sense of normalcy. Isn’t it nice to see stories like this?

[via BBC]

Researchers at the University of Dundee managed to lift and rotate a rubber disc suspended in water by using ultrasound. It marks the first time that ultrasound waves have been used to rotate objects rather than simply push them, and the development could lead to ultrasound waves that can be manipulated to target specific spots in the body.

Dr Mike MacDonald says that the research “confirms a fundamental physics theory [and] also demonstrates a new level of control over ultrasound beams which can also be applied to non-invasive ultrasound surgery, targeted drug delivery and ultrasonic manipulation of cells.” The technology is said to have great potential and could lead to the development of new surgery techniques.

[via BBC]

The candidates are names you should recognize, both of them being pioneers in their fields for their discoveries and innovations. Linus Torvalds is being recognized this year for his creation of the open source operating system for computers, this leading to the most famous software of all: Linux. As the academy writes:

“The free availability of Linux on the Web swiftly caused a chain-reaction leading to further development and fine-tuning worth the equivalent of 73,000 man-years. Today millions use computers, smartphones and digital video recorders like Tivo run on Linux. Linus Torvald’s achievements have had a great impact on shared software development, networking and the openness of the web, making it accessible for millions, if not billions.” – Technology Academy Finland on Linus Torvalds

The other candidate Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is known, on the other hand, for his discovery of a method of developing medical research-worthy induced pluripotent stem cells which in turn do not rely on the controversial use of embryonic stem cells. As the folks at the academy write:

“Using his method to create stem cells, scientists all over the world are making great strides in research in medical drug testing and biotechnology that should one day lead to the successful growth of implant tissues for clinical surgery and combating intractable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Dr. Yamanaka is specifically cited for his prominent work in ethically sustainable methodology.” – Technology Academy Finland on Dr. Shinya Yamanaka

These two will be up for the prize this summer, the winner to be announced at “a festive ceremony” in Helsinki on the 13th of June, 2012. Dr Ainomaija Haarla, President of Technology Academy Finland, added the following:

“We had many worthy nominations that we deliberated over, but ultimately we narrowed it down to these two candidates who have made such a significant impact in the field of computing and stem cell research. I hope this announcement will lead to added recognition for these extraordinary scientists and the technologies that they have developed. These two men may well be talked about for centuries to come.” – Haarla

We’ll let you know who wins when the time comes! Who do you expect will take the prize? Which of these two candidates would you choose?

The surgery was funded by the U.S. Navy in hopes that the technique can help injured soldiers in the future. The operation lasted 36 hours in Norris’ case and 72 hours overall with multiple transplants going from one donor to five different people. So far, the transplant was a success.

Doctors say that Norris is recovering well and has already brushed his teeth and shaved. Norris will have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life to prevent his body from rejecting the new face. Norris is said to have regained his sense of smell from the operation, which included underlying nerves and muscles.

[via BBC]

That’s if you believe the futuristic warnings of security company Fortinet. At a recent security conference, Black Hat Europe, the company’s senior manager of threat research Guillame Lovet discussed what we might be dealing with in the not too distance future. He said there has been research into distinguishing the differences – and similarities – between the way computers fight viruses and the way humans fight viruses. After all, it is no mistake that we use the same word for both cases.

“We came to wonder if there can be some kind of convergence between human viruses and computer viruses. It may sound like a scenario for a bad Hollywood movie, but it is not such a stupid question,” Lovet said. Fortinet actually penned a research paper on the subject, noting that you can boil down a biological disease into a series of formulas and coding. One researcher even compared a Denial of Service attach to HIV, since both aim to overload a system. Is it still just high-concept dialogue or is this an actual threat? At least someone is trying to solve that question.

[via Infoworld]

Normally a laser is shot through an ordinary piece of fibre, follows the path of the cable, and is received on the other end. MIT have modified their own fibre to include a drop of fluid in the core: when the laser hits the fluid, it is refracted in all possible directions, creating a 360 degree laser beam.

Liquid crystal also comes into play, with four layers being wrapped around the fibre core. Transparency can then be obtained by varying the voltage applied through the layers, and since it can be done on a “pixel” basis, the laser can emerge at any point along the fibre. ExtremeTech explains how the technology could be applied to a 3D display: thanks to the large amount of control over the laser light, viewers could potentially see different images depending on where they’re sitting in relation to the display.

The other application of the technology could be used to fight cancer. Right now, a method called photodynamic therapy is one of the only ways to effectively fight cancer without being invasive or toxic. This new laser could be inserted into the body and give surgeons extremely fine and accurate controls.

Infrared LEDs were placed on a frame and on the subject’s forehead. At that point, movements of a user’s head would be synced and monitored. There was nothing particularly new about the actual test that was performed for diagnosis; the only thing new was the tool that was used. And in comparative studies, researchers found that the Wii setup was very close to the results of the widely used cervial range of motion device used by doctors.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Nintendo involved in medical science. Aside from all the stories that revolve around the Wii helping with fitness and the DS helping keep your brains trained, the company also gained a lot of attention when it revealed the Vitality Sensor peripheral, which scans a player’s finger and can monitor things like heartbeat and pulse. It’s an interesting niche for a gaming company, but it has made a name for itself in it.

[via Medgadget]

A new study in the journal Neuron looked at 31 schizophrenia patients. The study specifically looked at patients who had longstanding schizophrenia cases, with most of them living with the disease for more than half their lives. In a computer program that aimed to encourage patients to focus on reprogram their minds, researchers found that the damaged cognitive processes were able to be at least partially restored.

The breakthrough study showed that people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia are not stuck that way for life. “People can do better. They need to be using their brains as a muscle that gets better the more you work at it,” said research director Karuna Subramaniam, who works at the San Francisco Veteran’s Administration and the University of California, San Francisco. The computer program in question was the product of more than 20 years in brain research.

[via WBUR]

This app was created for touchscreen interfaces in a world where a blind person’s ability to see through touching has been rapidly reduced by the oncoming storm of the flat, buttonless display. What you’ll see in the video here in this post is Romero demonstrating the application on an iPhone plus a bit of an explanation for why it needs to exist. Have a peek at the simplicity here:

The app will be offered up for free and will be open-source eventually so that people can take and modify it for their own needs. As Caleb Southern from the School of Interactive Computing notes:

“We are currently designing a study to formally evaluate BrailleTouch through both quantitative and qualitative methods. We will measure the typing speed and accuracy of visually impaired users and capture the feedback from study participants in areas such as comfort, ease of use and perceived value.” – Southern

BrailleTouch has recently won the MobileHCI 2011 competition for design at the MobileHCI conference in Stockholm, Sweden, and took part in Abilities Expo-Atlanta 2012 with a live working beta-version of the app. The iPhone version is ready to go, as is the iPad version (not pictured here) and the team is currently in the process of creating the Android version as we sit and wait with great anticipation!

[via Georgia Tech]

The study was done on women with severe bone-thinning osteoporosis, a condition that required patients to frequently administer shots of medication. Due to the daily injections, many patients had a tendency to quit the regimen due to the hassle of daily shots. With the implanted chip, this issue can be alleviated.

Eight women with the condition in Denmark were implanted with the chip just below their waistlines. Only one implant was found unresponsive to signals, while the other seven were ready to automatically emit a once-a-day dose of medication.

The medication did not begin until eight weeks later after the scar tissue that typically envelops implants formed. Once the scar tissue formed, the 20 once-a-day doses began and results so far have shown that the implants delivered the medication as successfully has traditional daily injections. A larger scale testing is planned for 2014.

[via USAToday]

The operation took place in Europe, with a team of medical professionals from Belgium and the Netherlands involved in the groundbreaking procedure. They used a 3D model of her lower mandible and printed it out using titanium. Upon the successful printing process, the “bone” was sprayed with a compound that made it look and feel more like a real part of a human body. While 3D printing has been used in limited capacity in medical procedures before, never had there been an attempt to use the technology to replace an entire jaw.

This is without a doubt one of the most remarkable uses of 3D printing to date. The still-niche industry is poised to bring monumental changes not only to medicine but to production, manufacturing, and personal consumption. It is even possible to print more than half of the components required for a 3D printer, from a 3D printer (it’s the rest of the printer that’s a bit more difficult). As for the 83-year-old patient, she was able to speak and swallow normally just one day after the surgery, and now has a perfectly functioning mouth.

[via Forbes]

It’s a fascinating thing to think about. Every day, doctors get in the operating room and instead of sitting at the patient’s side, he is at a computer console, operating the controls of robotic machinery that performs the delicate operation. Ever since the first successful surgery of its kind was performed several years ago, there were all kinds of hopes that patients would have extremely limited recovery time and a quicker return to their sex life.

Duke University Medical Center prostate surgeon Judd W. Moul, however, says that has not been the case. Moul, who led the Urology study, said patients who had the robot-assisted surgery were actually less satisfied in the long run. This, he conjectures, is because they have very high expectations. 89% of prostate cancer patients who had the robotic surgery said they expected to be out of the hospital in less than one day and to be back in perfect physical order within six months. And while Moul believes that is possible, the expertise in performing the surgery just isn’t there yet.

[via Vancouver Sun]

The X Prize foundation is now moving from a spacecraft to offering a $10 million prize to the person or team that can invent a real life tricorder, like the one Bones used on Star Trek. The Tricorder was the medical device used on the old sci-fi series and allowed the doctor to diagnose injuries and illnesses without having to poke or prod the patient.

A real tricorder would change medical diagnostics for sure. The tricorder prize is a daunting challenge. Professor Jeremy Nicholson, head of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London said that bringing the tech to a handheld device to win the prize would be daunting. He said the tech would likely need to be something that detects metabolites. He then points out that the machine used in his lab is the size of a Mini. He expects the price will not be won soon.

[via BBK]

There’s a promotional video for this project that you’ll be able to see below, and the folks at Gizmag had a talk with Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research Connections Desney Tan to see what they’re all about. This isn’t the first set of experimental contact lenses that’d be able to help out those with diabetes make their life simpler, but it’s certainly the most advanced. As Tan notes:

“There are now various groups working on non-invasive measurement of tear glucose. Professor Zhang’s lab has been largely using nanostructured optical probes embedded in hydrophilic hydrogen lenses, and they’ve had some successes recently. This required a whole new engineering process, since traditional integrated circuit processes would not work. …

[We've] only begun to scratch the surface of the opportunities that exist with this type of platform. The most important challenge is really in the deep exploration of all the things not yet imagined with this platform, and new platforms enabled by this new-found capability to create other technology of this form.” – Tan

This project is creating what they’ve tentatively named Functional Contact Lenses, and within them is an enzyme which interacts with tear fluid. As the enzyme reacts, specific measurements are made as changes in current occur, this monitoring done by bio-compatible electrodes on the lens. As this project creeps ever closer to completion, Tan notes that its certainly possible that “as soon as everything is ready” the first models will report information wirelessly to a device inside its range, a device which “could be an augmented smart phone.” We’ll see about that!

[via Gizmag]

Leave it to the industrious Japanese to come up with an automatic diaper called the Humany pad. This thing has a pouch for the penis that helps funnel the urine and a sensor that recognizes the urine and kicks off a suction pump. That pump takes the urine for the diaper into a tank.

That allows the wearer to avoid sitting in urine inside the diaper until someone can change it out. The suction machine apparently removes all the urine in the diaper except for about 0.5 cc of liquid. This sounds like a medical gadget that would save effort on the caregiver’s part and keep the wearer much more comfortable.

[via CNET]

X-rays and scans taken back in 1986 showed nothing pen like hiding in the body. The woman later left and then forgot about the pen for 25 years. Recently she was seen by a doctor for some severe stomach pain and on inspection to find the cause of the pain, the doctors found that felt tip pen neatly lodged inside the woman’s stomach after 25 years.

The docs performed a procedure with an endoscope that was sent down her gullet into the stomach and removed the pen. The most surprising part to the team of docs was that once removed the pen still worked and was in good order after all those years of being pelted with food and sitting in stomach acid. I wonder if they used the pen to write her prescriptions. I can only imagine the number of I told you so’s that she lashed her husband with after having that pen removed. The stomach pain had nothing to do with the pen; it was a common condition among the elderly called diverticulitis.

[via Telegraph]

The first reason is the simplicity of Apple products. The medical field is complicated enough as it is with doctors having to keep on top of the developments in disease pathology, mechanisms of illness, and treatments. On top of that, most of the equipment they use in the hospital setting, such as an ultrasound machine, may be proficient at what they do, but have horrendous user interfaces, making doctors appreciate even more the simplicity and ease of Apple devices.

Second reason is the solid build quality of Apple devices. Although some hospital equipment may have terrible user interfaces, when it comes to the hardware, especially in the surgical arena, it is especially fine tuned and precise. Doctors find this “medical grade” feel in Apple’s devices, where precision detailing and overall design and build is superior to competitors.

And lastly, the uniformity of Apple products also attract doctors. This reason overlaps with the first in that doctors already have so much on their plate to figure out, they don’t have the free time to tinker with their devices to optimize its user experience. That user experience should be optimized by the manufacturer, not the end user. Doctors believe that devices should “just work,” a mantra often heard from former Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs, who intuitively understood and strove to deliver this need in user experience.

[via TUAW]

Today these implanted devices have a battery good for about ten years. After that, a surgery is required to replace the battery. Considering things like pacemakers for the heart are required for the people to live, the ability to recharge the devices inside the human body is huge. The device a Japanese team of researchers has developed uses carbon nanotubes that are embedded in a silicon mix.

A laser shined from outside the body heats up one side of the power generation device allowing a temperature difference that creates a small voltage via the Seebeck effect. That small temperature change is then turned into energy to keep the device powered. The carbon nanotubes absorb heat very well and the implant for power would not need to be any larger than a half centimeter cubed. This could be one of the most life altering inventions for people depending on implanted battery powered devices to live in years.

[via PhysOrg]

Researchers studying bird flu using ferrets have manufactured a strain of the bird flu virus known as H5N1 and over five mutations the researchers found a very virulent strain of the bug. All of the ferrets that had that fifth strain of the virus died. Ferrets are used in testing because viruses multiply in the animals in a way similar to humans.

The scientists have determined that it is possible for the virus to change into a form that can infect humans easily and the mutation to infect people is easier than they thought it would be. Even more disturbing is that while the scientists could create a strain of the virus that can infect humans, they say the same mutation could happen in a natural setting as well. Humans have been infected with bird flu and some have died already, but the virus isn’t spread easily between humans. The new research proves that may not always be the case.

[via ABC News]

Apparently, a woman in Miami wanted to go a bit more roundish in the rump area. She heard about a “doctor” (pictured) that could give her butt more bling for only $700. The “doctor” in question surprisingly wasn’t a doctor. Upon seeing the supposed doctor and witnessing the horror that is that supposed doctors body and then learning that the “doc” had performed the surgery on herself the woman patient still decided to fork over her $700 and the series of injections started.

The “doc” didn’t inject anything the FDA would recommend in a million years. The patient ended up getting an injected mix of tire sealant, cement, mineral oil, and super glue. I am sure that cement would give the woman a seriously toned bum. The downside is every chair she sat in would be hard as a rock. Apparently, the idiot patient nearly died from the procedure. Six Mix-a-Lot does not approve.

[via Miami Herald]

The robots are designed to help with specific tasks like assisting a person to walk, assisting users for walking exercises, assisting with balance training, and to assist in transferring from the bed to a wheelchair or other device. The Autonomous Walking Assist robot looks like a fancy leg brace that goes from the knee down to the foot of the wearer. It can swing and draw the leg forward and has sensors inside to control foot and thigh movement. This is the same device used for the walking exercise assist.

The Balance Training Assistance robot uses games that remind me of those on the Wii using the balance board. The robots help the person playing the game to move in the direction of the characters on screen to teach balance. The final bot is an assisted care transfer device that can assist with arm and trunk weight retention. It holds the arms and is designed to help the user move from one device to another if they can’t stand alone. There is no word on pricing at this time or availability outside Japan.

The business of prosthetic bits doesn’t come up often here on SlashGear, but when it does, it’s awesome. Everything from a £35K artificial hand to a full-on tentacle to a Dalek-style gripper has us applauding the industrial design world for their class. Now we’ve got this fellow Prideaux together with no less than official Nokia communications chiefs and a group of medical experts who’ve together created this special custom build.

What they’ve done here is to carve a phone-shaped fibreglass cradle into prototype arm build, this cradle able to hold and grip Prideaux’s Nokia C7. Prideaux believes this to be the first time this setup has been executed in the world, and notes that he’s proud to be part of the project:

“I can now take calls and make texts just by using my one hand, while the phone sits inside my arm. The phone slots smoothly and securely within my limb and is easily removable, when required. I think this would help a lot of people with prosthethic arms – especially those who were not born with the disability. People who have had motorbike crashes and soldiers who have lost limbs – they could all benefit from this.” – Prideaux

Prideaux is a caterer by trade, and has always had his limbs specially made at a place by the name of Exeter Mobility Centre in Devon. Once he had the idea to add a holster for a smartphone in his prosthetic arm, he contacted Apple to try to get ahold of a blank iPhone casing to test the idea out, but he notes that the group “refused to co-operate.” Next he went to his local O2 carrier when it was time to upgrade the device he already had to a new Nokia, the Nokia crew agreed to help him and the technicians at Exeter Mobility Centre to create the new limb.

Specifically it was prosthethist Steve Gallichan, undergraduate worker Sarah Bennett, and technician Les Street and created a prototype of the arm. The fiber cast of the phone was laminated and built into the limb where it could hold Prideaux’s mobile device.

“Now when I get call I can either hold my arm up to my ear or put it on speaker phone. I can also take it out if I need to. Texting is also much easier and a lot safer. I am hugely grateful to the people EMC. This is a leap forward which has helped me out a lot and can also aid others.” – Prixeaux

Now we’ve just got to get something like that for human skin implants as well – could you live with just one size? I imagine your favorite smartphone would really, truly have to be your favorite for you to be able to choose one mold. Love it all!

[via Telegraph]