Nov 5
Medgadget reported about the walking humanoid, PETMAN, developed by Boston Dynamics. I have never seen such a realistic movement from a robot.
I tried to find other similar videos just to highlight the difference:
And a walking robotic dog:
May 10
Jeffrey Dach used one of my recent posts (Personalized Medicine: Real Clinical Examples!) as a reference in his article describing the future of medicine. It’s a quite detailed and comprehensive essay about several fields of medicine and he doesn’t forget to mention personalized medicine and its impact on the future of healthcare:
Personalized Medicine is the combination of these two new powerful forces, Orthomolecular Medicine and Genetic Testing. In the future, Personalized Medicine will expand and ultimately play a dominant role in medicine. Example: Warfarin Genetic Testing allows improved calibration of coumadin dosage to avoid bleeding complications. Drug metabolism testing allows for personal modification of drug dosage.
Orthomolecular and personalized medicine together?
We will be able to sequence the entire genome of an individual human in milliseconds. The cost will be minimal and within the means of the average person.
Individuals will have ability to reprogram our own sperm and eggs. One will be able to buy new genes on the internet based on desired traits and features, and use these genes to make one’s own children as easily as buying a copy of Microsoft office.
My comment: If the government gets involved, then this sounds a lot like Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World.
Example of this new biotechnology: Human genes are inserted into microbes to make insulin. We will see a dramatic increase in gene therapies and treatments.
Well, I think and hope many of these will never come true, but it’s interesting to see how others predict the future. This fantastic video tries to show us some plans and projects that can really shape this century:
If you would like to know more about the future,
Oct 14
The R & D Magazine asked some researchers from around the world to choose and present the best innovations of 2007 at the forefront of technology.
The editors of R&D Magazine are proud to announce the winners of the 45th Annual R&D 100 Awards. This annual competition recognizes the best in innovation—on a global scale. Indeed, the products and technologies highlighted on the following pages are among the most innovative ideas from today’s technology powerhouses in academia, government, and industry, worldwide.
Here is my selection from the field of medicine:
Don’t hesitate to tell us if you find better ones.
Jun 16
Yesterday, I found a great place in Second Life while I was just crusing through the several medical islands. A place for people with disability: Wheelies @ Second Ability. You can try how it is like to use a wheelchair. In the Second Life Health mailing-list, I’ve seen many interesting discussions about how this virtual world can help people with any kind of disabilities.
If you know how Second Life could help on this field, let us know!
Anyway, I’ve also found some blogposts about weird and futuristic wheelchairs. First, Doctor’s Gadget describes a new robot that turns the concept of a wheelchair on it’s head:
And our favourite medtech blog, Medgadget presents some developments from Porsche:
Don’t miss this useful presentation about the history and the future of wheelchairs.
May 23
Nintendo Wii is a special video game console. I said special because the controller can be held with just one hand and uses technology that senses the player’s movements. There is an interesting Nintendo Wii video game called Trauma Center: Second Opinion that I would like to present you now.
You know well that one of my aims is to close the gap between medicine and laypeople. How can we reach it easier? We just make it possible for anyone to play a surgeon. It’s the same as in the case of Second Life. We just let people experience how it is like to be scanned by a CT scan, for example.
So now, in Trauma Center:
You play the surgeon in this exciting Medical Drama simulation. You’ll need to cure patients of everything from routine medical maladies to life-threatening designer viruses. And, of course, there’s all that drama waiting just outside of the operating room.
Your medical toolkit includes scalpels, forceps, defibrillator paddles, syringes and more–all designed for use with the Wii Remote!
Take a look at this link for more videos.
Further reading:
May 20
Revver is a a video-sharing platform used by physicians as well. It can be helpful when a conference is expensive to organize (and as we know, it is…) .
Click on the image below to watch the video:
The Human Productivity Lab’s video footage of the unveiling of the MedPresence Conference Room at Barrow Neurological Institute.
Follow Scienceroll on this short-post weekend!
Mar 13
It’s my honor to host this week’s Grand rounds, the weekly rotating carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere. Medical students think alike: in preparing for this edition I came across an earlier Monty Python theme, The Holy Grail of GR at The Rumors Were True. Now, I decided to use some medicine and health care related Monty Python videos to provide funny moments while reading all the nearly 60 submitted articles.
I hope you’re going to enjoy this edition. Let’s start with one of my favourite subjects: from prenatal care to childhood. Also don’t miss the Python’s hospital sketch about a childbirth below:
Let’s continue with many bloggers’ main subject, diet from several aspects:
Mr. Gumby, in the Python video below, can’t find a nurse, but we always find the best posts of our favourite nurse bloggers:
Posts on Diabetes care:
Before watching a video on a hospital in which the doctors relax and the patients do all of the work, let’s see the usual health care section:
Our medical bloggers provided us with many interesting and instructive cases:
Fun, musings, robotics and a strange video which proves that sometimes we can’t hear or see the patient even if it’s our fault. Consider this section as the editor’s choice:
I don’t know whether there have ever been an images’ section, but here it is:
At last, I hope I create a new section in the history of Grand rounds with medicine and web 2.0:
I hope you enjoyed this Grand rounds edition as I’ve had so much fun while doing it. Thank you, Nick Genes for the opportunity and all the help. Please prepare for the next edition at Blog, MD. Sorry for the irking medical Monty Python videos, but I must say that thank you for watching and good night a dingdingdingdingding…
Jan 30
HopeLab is a non-profit organization that combines rigorous research with innovative solutions to improve the health and quality of life of young people with chronic illness. What does it mean? They’ve created a PC-based video game, Re-Mission which is a 3D shooter with 20 levels that takes the player on a journey through the bodies of young patients with different kinds of cancer. Players control a nanobot named Roxxi who destroys cancer cells, battles bacterial infections, and manages realistic, life- threatening side effects associated with the disease. Why?
They’re trying to help young cancer patients to fight their disease, but in an unusual way. If you’re playing, it’s much easier to learn and to improve your capabilities. With a video game, you can convince a child that he/she is able to win this battle. That’s why the aims of Hopelab are:
And the results are incredible:
So this innovative method was helpful in 80% of the patients. By the way, there is a whole community behind it . You can find blogs, message board or lists like this one: What was Your Weirdest Treatment Side Effect?
If you can afford, please support their mission as they plan to create interventions even for sickle-cell disease, obesity, autism or major depressive disorder.
Update: a great video on the subject.
Jan 23
While learning ortopedic surgery (my last exam…), I’ve found several interesting links and some announcements. Prepare your warm coffee and let’s start:
Experts say safeguarding genetic privacy would encourage millions of U.S. residents to undergo testing for cancers and other diseases that could lead to earlier detection and treatment, the Times reports.
Some examples are the calculations of anion gap, corrected QT, Framingham cardiac risk or the Glasgow coma scale.
Here is the list of the challengers.Jan 20
An other great project from the National Institutes of Health, but without mentioning clinical genetics. I’ve only found some interesting articles on our subject among the upcoming events:
The Center for Information Technology (CIT) makes special NIH events, seminars, and lectures available to viewers on the NIH network and the Internet from the VideoCast web site. Videocasting is the method of electronically streaming digitally encoded video and audio data from a server to a client.
I hope that many more events on clinical genetics or newborn screening will be scheduled soon.
