UniversityOfBern
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Blood turbine to power your pacemaker, become legendary band name
Why bother with risky battery-changing surgical operations when your own cardiovascular system can provide all the power your heart-shocking pacemaker will ever need? Engineers at Switzerland's University of Bern have been working on tiny turbines; turbines small enough, in fact, to fit inside a human artery. Working like a blood powered hydroelectric generator, a working prototype -- tested in a simulated artery -- has been able to produce 800 microwatts of electricity. That's roughly eighty times the power required to power the average pacemaker; such a device could provide independent, sustainable power to neurostimulators, blood-pressure sensors, and other implanted medical gizmos. Researchers are concerned, however, that a blood turbine's adding agitation of blood flow might lead to clotting, and are continuing to tweak and rework the design to minimize this risk. Similar, but unrelated cardiovascular power designs have attempted to alleviate the concern by doing away with the rotating, fluid powered components, opting to generate electricity by oscillating magnets by utilizing changes in blood pressure -- which sounds awesome, but still falls shy of "blood turbine," in the contest for most Metal medical device.
Virtobot scanner performs 'virtual autopsies,' no body-slicing necessary (video)
Grossed out easily? If so, we suggest you hand this article off to someone more calloused while you read all about our recent Windows Phone 7 Series discoveries. For those of you still here, the Virtobot is one of the more ominous robots we've seen; used currently at the University of Bern's Institute of Forensic Medicine, the creature is capable of performing "virtual autopsies." In other words, corpses can be slid within the 3D scanner for investigation, all without ever cracking open the skull or slicing the cold, pearly skin. The goal here is to provide investigators with information on deaths even years after they happen, possibly after new evidence is dug up. It's hard to say what this means for you here on this Earth, but you can rest assured that 187 you were pondering might be a wee bit harder to get away with now. Video after the break, if you're dark enough to handle it.
