Category Archives: Medicine

Old Body, New Parts

Researchers and practitioners are making dramatic progress in producing usable human tissues via (highly modified) 3D printers. Although we aren’t there yet, eventually we can expect to see whole kidneys, livers, hearts, and lungs produced in vats or via printer-like devices. These will be a godsend for patients who otherwise would be looking for an […]

Top Ten Tweets; October 12, 2010

…this time Stephen chooses ten topics from his recent tweets. Robots: Drudge Report: …self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles http://drudge.tw/9PJ6rD Barry Ptolemy: Computers Are Driving Cars In Traffic http://fb.me/ItKWo1Wa Pete Cashmore: 10 Amazing Real Life Robots – http://mash.to/2RodQ Space: Drudge Report: Private spaceship makes 1st solo glide flight… http://drudge.tw/cM9dD0 Scientific American: Mission To Mars […]

Let's Not Get All Excited

Image via Wikipedia It sounds pretty exciting when you first start reading it, but when you get to the bottom you realize that there might less to this than meets the eye. It all sounds plausible enough — use RNA interference to knock out liver cancer by depriving tumors of the ability to to make […]

Let’s Not Get All Excited

Image via Wikipedia It sounds pretty exciting when you first start reading it, but when you get to the bottom you realize that there might less to this than meets the eye. It all sounds plausible enough — use RNA interference to knock out liver cancer by depriving tumors of the ability to to make […]

Body Shock Contest

This sounds pretty cool: May the best health idea win. BodyShock is a call for ideas to improve global health over the next 3-10 years by transforming our bodies and lifestyles. NextNow members are invited to enter today! Read the full press release (with video) here – http://www.iftf.org/node/3514 Are you: a DIY scientist trying to […]

Robo-Pharmacists

Pretty much the sort of thing I’ve been talking about: Dispensing medicine is about to get more efficient. New Jersey’s Holy Name Hospital is using robot pharmacists to package, store and dispense medications, while an automated system at an Ohio children’s hospital is preparing I.V. drugs for patients. Automation in medicine is reducing human error […]

Managing Scarcity

Our saga continues. I finally got out of the hospital FIVE HOURS after the doctor said I was good to go. It didn’t matter that much, I suppose. I went from lying in a hospital bed with fluids being pumped into me to lying on the couch at home sipping Gatorade. It could be argued […]

The (Coming) Age of Medical Capability

Personal update: I’m hoping to check out of the hospital today. I’ve been in for the past two nights after the back and chest spasms that initially caused me to miss this week’s show turned into a whole melange of seemingly unrelated symptoms. The final diagnosis is severe gastroenteritis of unknown cause. A CT scan […]

Cancer Breakthrough!

Scientists crack ‘entire genetic code’ of lung and skin cancer. Professor Mike Stratton: This is a fundamental moment in cancer research. From here on in we will think about cancers in a very different way. We will think about them in terms of the number of abnormalities…