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mad medicine
mad medicine
Robot Surgeons to put Human Docs out of Work
The next time you have to go under the knife, a robot may be doing the cutting. Engineers at Duke University are pushing the envelope of cutting edge surgery with a robot arm they've built that can perform simple procedures all by itself. The system guides itself using 3-d ultrasound imaging as its eyes, and has shown it can accurately guide two needle probes through tissue in a simulated biopsy and blood vessel graft. The bot's still in its experimental phase, but ultrasound specialist Stephen Smith and his research team believe the day is near when robots will autonomously conduct surgery without the need for human guidance. More »
mad medicine
Ketamine Makes a Good Anti-Depressant
At first blush, you want to chuck this in the "no-kidding-that's-why-it's-abused" department. But the horse tranquilizer and hallucinogenic pleasure drug ketamine may have found a clinical home next to Prozac. A serious study by people smarter than most of us suggests ketamine ("Special K" to friends and close acquaintances) restores normal activity in an area of the brain that's usually in overdrive in people with diagnosed clinical depression. More »
robots
Meet McSleepy, the World's First Robot Anesthesiologist
Anesthesiologists are required to participate in every surgery, standing by to administer drugs and monitor the patient's vital signs while surgeons do their jobs. But now a group of researchers at Montreal's McGill University have invented a device that could replace human anesthesiologists with robots in the next five years. An anesthesia bot called McSleepy has just successfully completed its first surgery, administering drugs to a patient undergoing a tumor removal on his kidney. More »
mad medicine
Regrowing Fingers Using Pig Bladders
Lee Spievak regrew his fingers from powdered big bladders. While tinkering with his model airplane two years ago, Spievak accidently sliced a half inch off of the middle finger on his right hand — nail and all — in the propeller. Doctors told him he'd never get it back, but his brother Alan sent him some powder derived from a pig bladder. Spievak rubbed the powder on the stub every day for a month and the finger grew back. In four months, the nail was also back, fully formed (pictured). Find out how below. More »
nanotech
Nanoparticles Causing Heart Attacks, Kidney Stones?
And you thought the nanotoxic gym socks were bad. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine have found nanoparticles in kidney stones, gall stones, and in the hardened arteries which can lead to heart attacks. All of these conditions are caused by calcium build up, and researchers believe nanoparticles may be the seeds that set the calcium deposits growing. More »
mad medicine
Stick Your Severed Spine Back Together with a New Biochemical Gel
Severed spines may not mean paralysis for much longer. Inject a special gel into mice with severed spinal cords and six weeks later the mice are back on their feet. It's a pretty neat trick, one that scientists at Northwestern accomplish by impregnating the gel with biochemical signals that hinder the growth of scar tissue and promote growth of myelin, the sheath that protects nerve cells and fosters their growth. More »
mad medicine
Woman Gives Birth to Her Own Kidney
Got kidney cancer? Any non-functioning organs you want to get rid of? If you have a vagina, you're in luck because doctors have discovered a new use for it beyond pleasure and procreation. It's called Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopy Surgery (NOTES) and it means that doctors can magically pull your own kidney, appendix, or other annoying internal body part out through your vagina, or if you prefer, your mouth. Find out more about this bizarre new organ-removal method below. More »
mad medicine
Injecting Your Breasts with Nanoparticles to Detect Cancer
Next time you need to get tested for breast cancer, doctors may blast a few of your cells with nanoparticles and then run a small magnetic device over them. The device, pictured here, is called a HistoMag, and it can detect cancer cells with far greater accuracy than current techniques, as well as being much faster. Could this increase survival rates for breast cancer, while also eliminating the need for those awful, uncomfortable mammograms? More »
mad medicine
