Posts tagged surgery

Here, microwires emerging from the green and orange tubes connect to two arrays of 16 microelectrodes. Each array is embedded in a small mat of clear, rubbery silicone. The mats are barely visible in this image. These microelectrode arrays sit on the brain without penetrating it, a step toward longer-lived, less invasive versions of “neural interfaces” that in recent experiments elsewhere have allowed paralyzed people to control a computer cursor with their thoughts. The new microelectrode arrays were placed in two patients at the University of Utah who already were undergoing brain surgery for severe epilepsy. The larger, numbered, metallic electrodes are used to locate the source of epileptic seizures in the brain, so the patients allowed the microelectrodes to be placed on their brains at the same time.

(Source: futurenow321)

Last June, an 83-year-old Belgian woman suffering from oral cancer and an infection that was eating away at her jaw received a jawbone transplant that took a team of 10 surgeons 11 hours to complete. The BBC reported on the story on Monday.

The operation was a success. Reportedly, the patient was able to eat and speak with the new jaw within hours. The operation was an even more remarkable success in one other respect: The jaw itself was manufactured with a 3-D printer.

It was built of titanium powder by a surgical team from Belgium’s Hasselt University and engineers from LayerWise, a Belgian provider of engineering and production services for industrial, dental, and medical applications.

(Source: futurenow321)

A man who had been paralyzed from the waist down and had lost all function in both his hands can move his fingers after doctors rewired his nerves to bypass the damaged ones in a pioneering surgical procedure, according to a case study published on Tuesday.

The 71-year-old man, who had become paralyzed after he was injured in a car accident in 2008, still had limited arm, elbow and shoulder movement, but because the C7 vertebrae in his spinal cord had been crushed, the nerve circuits responsible for sending signals from the brain to the muscles in his hands were severed and all control was lost.

However, the nearby nerves had not been injured in the accident and surgeons were able to cut an undamaged nerve in the man’s elbow and connect it to the damaged nerve responsible for activating muscles in the hand responsible for grasping objects. 

“The circuit [in the hand] is intact, but no longer connected to the brain,” Surgeon Ida Fox, an assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Washington University, explained to the BBC. “What we do is take that circuit and restore the connection to the brain.”

(Source: futurenow321)

If you’ve ever wondered what beer from the mid-1800s might taste like a group of researchers in Finland may soon be answering your prayers.

Scientists from the VTT Technical Research Centre said they analyzed two bottles of beer discovered in 2010 that came from a ship believed to have sunk in the 1840s off the Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea, Reuters reported.The researchers said they found living bacteria in the bottles that helped them retain a pale golden color and could originally have had hints of rose, almond and cloves. They said it’s possible that a smoky flavor in beer was appreciated at the time.Scientists said the discovery is the key to recreating the beer.”Based on the chemical analysis we made of the beer and with the help from a master brewer, it would be possible to try to make beer that would resemble it as much as possible,” researcher Annika Wilhelmson told Reuters.The beer bottles were found in the same wreck that contained the world’s oldest champagne still considered drinkable which has since been auctioned off.

(Source: futurenow321)

Dont forget to Reblog,Like,and follow! thanks

Single-wall nanotube arrays, grown in a process invented at Rice University are both much more electroactive and potentially cheaper than platinum, a common catalyst in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC), says Jun Lou, a materials scientist at Rice. When combined with newly developed sulfide electrolytes synthesized at Tsinghua University, the work paves the way for a low-cost, efficient alternative to silicon-based cells. Lou and co-lead investigator Hong Lin, a professor of materials science and engineering at Tsinghua, detailed their work in the open-access Nature journal.

(Source: futurenow321)

An engineering firm has developed a 3D bio-printer that could one day be used to create organs on demand for organ replacement surgery. The device is already capable of growing arteries and its creators say that arteries “printed” by the device could be used in heart bypass surgery in as little as five years. Meanwhile, more complex organs such as hearts, and teeth and bone should be possible within ten years.

The 3D bio-printer allows scientists to place cells of almost any type into a desired 3D pattern. It includes two print heads, one for placing human cells, and the other for placing a hydrogel, scaffold, or support matrix. The cells used by the device need to be the cells of what is being regenerated building an artery requires arterial cells for example. Because the patient’s own cells are used the new organ will not be rejected by the body. The printer fits inside a standard biosafety cabinet for sterile use.

(Source: futurenow321)