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Laser-bonded healing could replace needle and thread
It sounds more like something you'd see in X-Men than on an actual operating table in real life, but a team at Massachusetts General Hospital has developed a way to heal surgical incisions with laser light. Christened laser-bonded healing, the methodology has been studied for years, but up until now, scientists have found it impossible to find the perfect balance of heat required to coax tissue into healing itself back together. Irene Kochevar described the process as "nano suturing," as diminutive collagen fibers are woven together in a way that the old-fashioned needle-and-thread method simply can't match. The benefits, as you can likely imagine, are numerous: less scarring, faster recovery, the potential for fewer infections and bragging rights that you were struck with lasers and survived. Still, the procedure is far from becoming commonplace in ORs, given that the dermatological procedure hasn't even been submitted to the FDA yet. 'Til then, it's up to you and Wolverine to figure things out.
