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Researchers used CT scans to virtually unwrap a pristine mummy
The scans helped researchers learn new details about Egypt's 18th Dynasty.
You'll soon be able to get a 3D printed model of your brain
There are almost limitless possibilities when it comes to 3D printing. Design your own color-changing jewelry? Fine. Fabricate your own drugs? No problem. Print an entire house in under 24 hours? Sure! Now, researchers have come up with a fast and easy way to print palm-sized models of individual human brains, presumably in a bid to advance scientific endeavours, but also because, well, that's pretty neat.
NVIDIA's AI will help GE speed up medical image processing
Deep learning tech is making itself at home in hospitals by helping radiologists examine medical scans for just a buck per image. Now, GE Healthcare is bringing that AI tech directly to the scanners, thanks to partnerships with NVIDIA and Intel. It announced that it will update 500,000 of its medical devices around the world with NVIDIA AI tech, most notably its Revolution Frontier CT scanner (below). The tech "is expected to deliver better clinical outcomes in liver lesion detection and kidney lesion characterization because of its speed," GE wrote in a press release.
American Airlines to test automatic security screening this fall
It's bad enough that US airports engage in security theater that seldom makes you safer. However, it's made that much worse by the delays -- having to wait for agents to X-ray your bags is frustrating when you're desperate to get to your gate. American Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration aren't deaf to your complaints, though. They're partnering on a trial this fall for automatic screening technology that should be both more effective and save about 30 percent of your precious time in line. Among the improvements are automatic conveyor belts, a way of isolating risky bags without disrupting the queue, RIFD tags for bins and cameras that link outside photos of a bag to its X-ray.
Encrypted Text: Subtlety doesn't need a buff
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. You would have to be pretty dumb to play a subtlety rogue right now, right? If you check out World of Logs or DPS Bot, it's one of the game's worst specs. Subtlety is ranking down there with frost mages, as usual. Blizzard is buffing Sanguinary Vein by 4% in patch 5.2, which results in a slightly smaller overall buff for subtlety. Toss in a couple of extra Vanishes from baseline Preparation, and you're looking at a reasonable DPS boost for sub rogues. But how can a few percentage points of damage make up for the 50% gap that subtlety is showing on the meters? Subtlety is not doing just 50% of assassination or combat's DPS. In fact, top subtlety rogues are parsing right up there with the best assassination and combat rogues in the game. Subtlety's problem is self-fulfilling: the rogues with the most skill and the best gear aren't playing sub because it looks bad. Subtlety looks bad because there are so few parses from rogues with the appropriate skill and gear. Most subtlety parses are from poorly played rogues in PvP gear that are just soaking up valor points and leather gear.
Robopsy is a low-cost, disposable patient-mounted medical robot
In a less gelatin-centric demo, the Harvard-based team behind the Robotically Steerable Probe showed off some Robopsy devices during our visit to the school, rings that can help medical imaging technology like CT, ultrasound and MR physically pinpoint precise locations on patients. The devices, which can hold up to ten needles, are lightweight, mounting directly on patients via adhesives or straps. The medical robots are made largely of inexpensive injection molded plastic parts, making them disposable after they've been used on a patient, popping the motors and other control electronics onto another device. In all, the team says Robopsy rings are "orders of magnitude" cheaper and lighter than other medical robotic devices. Check out a video of the one of the Robopsy devices running after the break.%Gallery-161787%
Greenwich, Conn., Apple Store closed temporarily due to flooding
A mishap at a Greenwich, Conn., Apple Store resulted in the activation of the sprinkler system and significant water damage to the building. A cleaning crew working Tuesday night accidentally dislodged a sprinkler head, which activated the sprinkler system and fire alarm. Within minutes, the city's fire department responded to the call, but the main floor and two sub-basements were already flooded. The store was closed and initially determined to be unfit for occupancy due to possible damage to the electrical wiring in the building. The building was deemed safe by Greenwich building inspectors on Wednesday, but remains closed indefinitely while Apple begins the arduous cleanup process. Store employees would not comment on the loss of electronic equipment from the flooding, but it is expected to be extensive. This is not the first mishap for the beleaguered store, which opened in 2009. The Greenwich store made headlines in December 2010 when a break-in resulted in the loss of hardware estimated to be worth more than $10,000.
Five men rob Apple Store in Greenwich, CT
Apple Store burglars have struck again, this time in Greenwich, Connecticut. Police say that at least five suspects, seen in the surveillance photo to the right, broke through the front door and helped themselves to a whole bunch of Apple products valued in the tens of thousands of dollars. The store obviously had security cameras in place to record the break-in when it happened, but I wonder if any employees also got to watch the robbery in real-time, like this guy who watched on his iPhone as thieves robbed his house. So if you happen to live near Greenwich and receive an Apple product as a holiday present without a gift receipt, you may want to inquire as to where the generous gift-giver was on the morning of December 14. Most of these Apple Store robberies actually turn out well for the stores, since the police usually do a nice job finding the crooks. We'll have to see if the cops in Greenwich are able to catch the parties responsible here and recover any of the stolen merchandise.
Czech Republic says HD channels shouldn't be delivered OTA for free
Wait, what? In a section of the globe that needs to make every possible effort to up the adoption rate of high-def, we've got this winner trying to hold it down. Zdenek Duspiva, the head of the body overseeing the country's transition to digital broadcasting, has reportedly stated that HD channels should not be beamed out gratis to DTT viewers while speaking at the Teleinformatika conference in Prague. We can't imagine why he would possibly think that restricting the public's access to a better quality format would be beneficial for its technological progress at large, but we're sure glad he's not clocking into the FCC everyday.[Image courtesy of DigiZone]
Cell chip helps cure cancer (again)
Sony really hates cancer. So should you.PS3's Cell chip is being used to monitor a tumor's growth through CT (computed tomography) scans. According to Popular Mechanics, the Cell chip may be able to speed up CT scan results tenfold. That would offer earlier opportunities for diagnosis, treatment and preventative measures. Due to the mass scale production of the Cell chip for PS3s, researchers are hoping this will provide an affordable way of offering medical facilities the powerful computing necessary for advanced CT scans.This isn't the only time the PS3 has been used in the scientific community. PS3 Fanboy readers are familiar with Folding@home, which is used to analyze the way proteins fold. Looks like the Cell chip inside the PS3 really is quite incredible.[Via NeoGAF]
Toshiba one-ups Philips with AquilionONE CT scanner
Philips' Brilliance iCT sure had a nice run, but no sooner than it hit the spotlight, Toshiba has arrived fashionably late to steal a little thunder. The outfit's $2.5 million AquilionONE outdoes Philips' iteration by doing 320-slices instead of "just" 256, enabling doctors to see the entire heart while making patients hold their breath for merely "a second or two." Put simply, the machine should allow for heart disease to be spotted in its earliest stages without putting individuals through a lengthy tribulation, and the ultra high resolution 3D images it produces will allow medical personnel to quickly determine if there are any problems that need to be dealt with. Currently, the system is being tested at Toronto General's Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, but word on the street has the unit being readily available next summer.[Via Diagnostic Imaging, thanks lmwong]
Philips super high-res CT scanner shows you from the inside
Philips unveiled a new ultra-high-res 256-slice CT scanner called the Brilliance iCT at the Radiological Society of North America yesterday, a unit the company says not only produces higher quality 3D images using less radiation than previous scanners, but does it far more quickly -- a full body scan takes only a minute. The speedup is achieved because the rotating X-ray element spins some 22 percent faster than other models, hitting four revolutions a second at top speed. Getting in and out of the machine that much faster also cuts radiation exposure some 80 percent from a traditional X-ray machine, and Philips says the machine is accurate enough to capture a complete image of the heart in less than two beats. Metro Health in Cleveland is the first off the line with the new gear -- check the read link for a video of it in action.
CTProfiles is shutting down
WoW Insider reader Rakuen sent us a tip about a posting on the CTProfiles forums from the beginning of the month. It seems that even before this Tuesday's change to the Armory, the writing was on the wall for CTProfiles. In fact, if you try to go to the main site, you're redirected to the forum with this posting.From the post:It has finally got to the point where it's simply too much work to 'fix' things. With several offers of help, only a few minor things were ever completed, and leaving Cide as the only coder was just not enough to get out from the overwhelming load. We're not happy to see things not working, but it just isn't feasible to attempt to fix them. We still feel there is a very viable use for a custom profiling site, even with the armory out. The armory can't help you compare your crafted set to tier4 or 5, nor your arena gear vs. misc. pieces. We've started a very early stage of development for a CTProfiles2.0 project, which is essentially a complete recode, however we won't be releasing it any time soon. Our focus is going to be shifted back to CTMod, and we'll be working on a new unannounced mod that's been in the works for a few weeks, CT_RaidAssist2.0, some fixes and updates to older mods, and we'll continue to go from there. As for development of the CTP2 site, I won't even set an estimate of when we'd be starting work on it again. So, what's your take on CTProfiles shutting down? Did you ever get a chance to use this site? What will you miss, and what are you looking forward to seeing the CT team do next?
Infrascanner: the handheld NIR hematoma detector
As technology continues to make doctors' lives a bit easier (not to mention saving a few in the process), we've got yet another device that can detect a potentially fatal problem long before mere humans can figure it out. The Indian-based Infrascanner is a "handheld, non-invasive, near-infrared (NIR) based mobile imaging device used to detect brain hematoma at the site of injury" within the most important stage of pre-analysis. The device could also aid in the decision to proceed with "other tests such as head Computed Tomography (CT) scans" when not "facilitating surgical intervention decisions." While the methods behind the scanning are quite sophisticated, the unit uses diffused optical tomography to convert the light differential data seen in the local concentrations of hemoglobin into "interpretative scientific results." Potentially best of all, however, is just how close this thing is to actually hitting hospital wards, as it's simply missing the oh-so-coveted FDA stamp of approval before it can see commercial use.[Via MedGadget]
