Today on In Case You Missed It: The Airobotics drone system can autonomously launch UAVs and perform basic maintenance, like swapping out batteries. Researchers designed a device that agitates bubbles in the blood to get more chemotherapy into the...
Right now, mind-controlling a machine isn't pretty: you typically wear a silly cap or headset, or else subject yourself to open brain surgery to get a deeper link. Australian scientists might have a better way, though. They've developed a brain-mac...
By far the biggest danger of brain implants is rejection -- it can be just a matter of time before your immune system freaks out and makes a bad situation that much worse. That's where Washington University might come to the rescue. Its researchers...
How far would you go to create a brain-controlled speech decoder? Doctor Philip Kennedy already helped blaze a trail in brain-computer interfaces back in the 80s. Now, a report in MIT Technology Review explains how the neurosurgeon decided to crank...
The doctors at at Peking University achieved a huge milestone when they implanted the first 3D vertebrae in a 12 year old boy who was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his spinal cord. The...
Some guys are just super hardcore. Like Rambo hardcore. Able to stitch themselves up on the battlefield hardcore. Take this guy for instance. A man named Tim Cannon is a “biohacker,” and he had himself opened up and inserted a computer chip in his arm -with no doctor helping. I must be a wimp, because there is no way I could do this.
Don’t try this at home kids. Being a walking computer just isn’t worth it. Tim had a large “Circadia” board implanted into his arm. It is even larger than normal due to a special case. The chip is powered by a battery but can also be charged wirelessly.
This chip sends all of Tim’s biometric signals to an Android device. He would have used a doctor, but he says that no certified doctor could preform the operation to implant the device. So he had a “body modification enthusiast” named Steve Haworth do the surgery. Sadly for Tim, Steve isn’t an official medical practitioner, so he wasn’t licensed to use anesthetics. That had to be painful.
Here’s an update from Tim showing off the wireless charging process for his arm-implanted computer:
Have fun monitoring your biometric signals, Tim. My idea of fun is playing video games.
Scientists have toyed with printing ear implants for ages, but they've usually been more cosmetic than functional. Princeton has just developed a bionic ear that could transcend those mere replacements to offer a full-on upgrade. Rather than seed hydrogel with cells and call it a day, the researchers 3D printed a blend of calf cells, hydrogel and an integrated, coiled antenna made from silver nanoparticles. The frankly spooky project doesn't resemble a natural ear all that closely, but it merges organic and synthetic more gracefully than inserting a chip into an existing implant. It can also expand hearing beyond normal human levels: the experimental version picks up radio waves, for example. Although the ear is just the first step on a long path toward natural-feeling bionics, it already has us wondering if we'll be actively seeking out replacement body parts in the future... not that we're about to go all Van Gogh to get them.
A new blood-testing subdermal sensor has been developed by a team of scientists in Switzerland. While that may not sound particularly notable, this half-inch prototype can instantly beam several health metrics to smart devices over Bluetooth, monitoring cholesterol, blood sugar levels as well as the impact of medical treatments like chemotherapy using five built-in sensors.
The device has already been tested on animals and while the researchers hope to begin testing soon on patients that would typically require a lot of blood tests and monitoring, the module is still several years from a commercial release. According to the EPFL's video, the sensor can even predict heart attacks several hours before they occur, sensing minute changes in the bloodstream ahead of time. We've 'implanted' the explanation after the break, but if you're looking for some more medical-minded specifics, head to the source.
An eye-implanted chip from Retina Implant has restored patients' ability to discern light during its latest trial, according to German researchers. The device works in a similar fashion to the newly FDA-approved Argus II retinal prosthesis to return limited vision in patients with photoreceptor cell diseases like retinitis pigmentosa. Unlike that system, however, light is picked up via 1,500 pixels on a retinal implant instead of an eyeglass-mounted camera. The signal is boosted by a coil implanted in skin behind the ear and sent back to so-called bipolar cells still active on the retina, which in turn send an image to the brain through regular neural circuits. A small battery mounted behind the ear -- the only external sign of the device -- contains controls for brightness and contrast. The recent trial let 8 out of 9 patients see in varying degrees, with three in the study even able to read letters and see the faces of family members. Given that the Argus II finally crossed the FDA's bionic eye barrier, hopefully we won't have to wait nearly as long for research like this to become a product.
Those in the US suffering from blindness due to retinis pigmentosa (RP) will now be able to regain some vision bionically for the first time ever, thanks to Second Sight's Argus II retinal prosthesis. The device was just approved by the FDA for sale stateside after surmounting the same hurdle in Europe almost two years ago -- though it was first launched long, long before that. RP is a rare genetic disease that inflicts 100,000 or so Americans, destroying photoreceptors in the eye while leaving other cells intact. By implanting a device on the retina that receives a signal from the eyeglass-mounted camera, those cells can be stimulated as if receiving light, causing them to transmit an image to the brain. Due to the limited number of electrodes, patients would only be able to discern light or dark, but most have reported better functionality with the device -- being able to make out the shape of a curb while walking, or discerning between light, grey or dark colored socks, for instance. The Argus II has been certified by the FDA for "humanitarian use," meaning there's "reasonable assurance" that it's safe, and should start popping up in specialized clinics by the end of the year.
Today on In Case You Missed It: The Airobotics drone system can autonomously launch UAVs and perform basic maintenance, like swapping out batteries. Researchers designed a device that agitates bubbles in the blood to get more chemotherapy into the...
Right now, mind-controlling a machine isn't pretty: you typically wear a silly cap or headset, or else subject yourself to open brain surgery to get a deeper link. Australian scientists might have a better way, though. They've developed a brain-mac...
By far the biggest danger of brain implants is rejection -- it can be just a matter of time before your immune system freaks out and makes a bad situation that much worse. That's where Washington University might come to the rescue. Its researchers...
How far would you go to create a brain-controlled speech decoder? Doctor Philip Kennedy already helped blaze a trail in brain-computer interfaces back in the 80s. Now, a report in MIT Technology Review explains how the neurosurgeon decided to crank...
