MagneticResonanceImaging
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This is what the inside of your head looks like when you sing
There's a lot more that goes into producing human vocalizations than just the dual flaps of your larynx and a gust of air. More than 100 muscles throughout your face and neck coordinate to create the wide range of complex sounds people make. And thanks to a new MRI technique, researchers can watch that muscular symphony at work in real time. As you can see from the video below, the results are simply jaw dropping.
Researcher brings modified Touchpad into the MRI room, breakthrough ensues
Yes, the Touchpad is officially dead, but that hasn't stopped Stanford researcher Andrew B. Holbrook from using HP's tablet in a somewhat unexpected setting: the MRI lab. Holbrook, it turns out, has been developing a new, webOS-based system that could make it a lot easier for doctors to conduct interventional MRI procedures. Unlike its diagnostic counterpart, this brand of MRI can only operate within highly magnetic fields, thereby posing a threat to many electronic devices. Holbrook, however, may have found a way around this barrier, thanks to a modified Touchpad. With the help of HP engineers, the researcher stripped his tablet of metallic components, including its speakers and vibration motor, resulting in what the manufacturer calls a "minimally metallic device that could be used almost anywhere within the magnet room." With his Touchpad primed and loaded with apps for data manipulation, Holbrook went on to successfully integrate the device within an MRI system. He also developed a series of apps that allow technicians to monitor and manipulate an MRI procedure on their devices, regardless of whether they're in the magnet room itself, or outside. Holbrook says he's already started applying the same approach to webOS phones, in the hopes of providing doctors and researchers with an even more compact way to keep track of their patients. For more details on the system and future developments, check out the source link below. [Thanks, Mina]
Sectra virtual autopsy table available now, Stan Brakhage nonplussed
Though not offering the sort of stark, terrible beauty (or the gore) of The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, Sectra's Visual Imaging Table will let you perform a "virtual autopsy," by using CT and MRI scans to place 3D recreations of a patient's body on a large, multitouch table. What's more, the body can then be examined -- and even cut with a "virtual knife." And it's finally available "to the masses," as one company rep put it in an email this morning (although we sort of figure that if you have an MRI machine you probably aren't one of "the masses"). Check out the PR after the break, or hit up the source link to get one for yourself.
Intel's mind reading computer could bring thought controlled interfaces to a whole new, frightening level
Thought controlled devices are pretty primitive at this point. Sure, everyone from Honda to the U.S. Army (of course) is conducting research, but at this point we don't have much to show for it all besides an evening of experimental music in Prague. If the kids at Intel have their way, computers will soon be able to look at a person's brain activity and determine actual words that they're thinking. The idea here is that the activity generated in the average person by individual words can be mapped and stored in a database, to be matched against that of someone using the thought control interface. So far, results have been promising -- an early prototype exists that can differentiate between words like screwdriver, house, and barn, by using a magnetic resonance scanner that measures something like 20,000 points in the brain. Anything more effective than that, such as dictating letters or searching Google with your mind alone is probably years in the future -- though when it does come to pass we expect to see a marked increase in expletive-filled liveblogs.
Virtual Autopsy Table brings multitouch to the morgue
Ever wonder what the insides of a human being really look like but lacked the grit or credentials to watch an autopsy in the flesh? Well, whatever the reasons, we can all probably agree this is one of the best uses for a multitouch table surface ever. The Virtual Autopsy Table (developed by Norrköping Visualization Centre and the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization in Sweden) makes use of high resolution MRIs, rendered and processed into 3D images which are then accessible in the table itself. The results are super impressive and educational -- not to mention the fact that there's no actual cutting involved! The autopsy table was obviously developed with educational purposes in mind, and we wouldn't be surprised to see these cropping up in museums all over the globe any day now. Check out the truly riveting video after the break.
neuroArm gives surgeons extra dexterity, sense of touch
Considering that a BSOD within the robotic surgeon that's halfway through a critical operation on your innards is far from ideal, we're certainly in agreement with companies looking to make actual human doctors even better at their work. A team of Canadian scientists and engineers have concocted the neuroArm robot to allow doctors to perform microscopic operations on the brain in a more precise manner. Essentially, the uber-steady bot "will let doctors use surgical techniques on afflictions such as brain tumors that human surgeons are simply not dexterous enough to do," and when combined with a touchscreen stereoscopic viewer, it enables MDs to better visualize the area they're working with through advanced depth perception and "3D-like" imagery. The neuroArm system should hit clinical testing sometime within the next month or so, and if all goes smoothly (ahem), the long-term goal involves "manufacturing different versions" and selling them to a variety of hospitals.
