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After decades languishing in jars in the closet of an animal lab at the University of Texas, approximately 90 brains removed from mental patients are finally being documented—by a photographer and by college freshmen.
“Some of them are huge, some of them are really tiny. There was one that had no wrinkles at all,” says photographer Adam Voorhes. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
An experimental gene therapy program in Pennsylvania has helped numerous patients fight leukemia by using a disabled form of HIV to reprogram their bodies.
Photo source.
What I love about this story is that he took a tilt-and-zoom camera that was already being sold by Sony, attached it to a stand (built the prototype in his cubicle) and then took it to a hospital.
Traditionally we rely on Japan to build our products. I’m always looking for ways to improve workflow in the operating room. If you improve workflow, you improve patient care. It’s not a traditional role. Nobody said, “Why don’t you go do this?” I just went and did it because I thought it was a great idea, and I got support from the upper management to go for it. I created a PowerPoint presentation incorporating the feedback I had on the device from the field, and everyone understood this was an important device for Sony to move forward with.
Jack Andraka (center), a 15-year-old student from Maryland, came up with a paper sensor that detects pancreatic cancer 168 times faster than current tests. It’s also 90% accurate, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than today’s methods. In short: It’s a lot better.
Andraka was inspired to focus on pancreatic cancer because a friend’s brother was killed by the disease. “I became interested in early detection, did a ton of research, and came up with this idea,” he says.
While we’re all dimly aware that we take a lot of pills, we have no intuition for how big the problem is. And when you lay out the stats, the figures are nothing short of terrifying, as this infographic shows.
Brain Freeze: Beginning next year, a team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will put some patients who end up in the trauma center with gunshot or stab wounds in a deep chill, a process called Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation. Cooling the body slows down the metabolic processes of the brain and other organs. The Pittsburgh team hopes that will give surgeons more time to work before blood loss causes massive brain damage.
(Source: fastcoexist.com)
