DailyDirt: Tiny Robot Surgeons

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Minimally invasive surgery requires surgical tools that are pretty small, obviously. As technology allows robots to get smaller and smaller, it's increasingly possible for tiny robots to perform complex medical procedures -- improving recovery times and avoiding unnecessary tissue damage. Check out a few of these robot projects that could make going under the knife a little less unpleasant.

• Research on Drosophila could be automated by a $5,000 robot that can perform brain surgery on fruit flies and analyze 1,000 flies in less than a day. Graduates students will have a ton more data to work with -- without having to squint through a microscope and fumbling with tweezers. [url]
• Cyberplasm sounds like a horrible name for a medical robot that could swim around inside your body looking for evidence of disease. A painless and convenient robot that replaces invasive surgical procedures will probably trump the name, though. [url]
• An intracranial robot inspired by maggots feeding off dead flesh could remove brain tumors more effectively than current methods. A prototype robot is under development, and it could improve the outcomes of some neurosurgeries. [url]

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Filed Under: automation, biomimicry, cyberplasm, drosophila, health, medicine, robots, surgery

DailyDirt: More Than A Little Collaboration Necessary

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Science is getting more and more complicated as we learn more and it becomes nearly impossible for any single human being to understand, let alone perform, all of the experiments necessary to push the boundaries of knowledge out a little further. It seems that the field of particle physics is quite accustomed to publishing papers with "kiloauthors" without a problem, but the practice may be extending to other fields now as well. (Just imagine how long the copyright should last... lifetimes of the authors plus 70 years.)

• The paper describing the first observation of the Higgs Boson has 5,154 authors listed. The Higgs Boson is responsible for imparting everything with mass, and apparently its observation imparts nearly every physicist with credit. [url]
• A recent fruit fly paper named 1,014 authors and sparked a discussion about the meaning of authorship. The names of over 900 undergraduate students were included in this publication, recognizing those students' "significant intellectual contribution" to the project [url]
• The previous record-holder for most number of authors for a scientific paper is "Initial Sequencing and Analysis of the Human Genome" with over 2,900 authors. This paper missed credits for 6 authors and added them to the top of the list. Recognition is always appreciated..... [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: authorship, collaboration, drosophila, fruit fly, genomics, higgs boson, human genome, hyperauthorship, kiloauthors, large hadron collider, science

DailyDirt: Staying In Space Isn't Healthy...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Getting into a metal can bolted to a rocket is inherently dangerous. And even after you've escaped the full force of the Earth's pull, you're still not safe floating around in microgravity. There's radiation and the obvious nothingness that'll kill you in a few minutes if you're exposed to the vacuum of space. Assuming you're protected in a nice shielded spacecraft with plenty of food/water/air, you can spend months up there, but then you'll have problems getting back to terra firma. Survive the landing, and you may find out that your muscles have atrophied substantially. Here are just a few more links to possible challenges with manned space explorations.

• Drosophila flies born in space have weakened immune systems, making them much more susceptible to infections. Fly eggs were raised in space, and when they returned, they couldn't fight off a fungal infection that flies raised under normal (and hyper-) gravity could. [url]
• Space-born jellyfish have a hard time telling up from down when they return to normal gravity. Normal jellyfish can sense up/down from the motion of small calcium sulfate crystals that stimulate hair-like cells (similar to the way humans' inner ears give us balance), but astronaut jellyfish don't develop those cells in the same way without gravity. This could mean that baby humans born and raised in microgravity might also have some balance problems -- in addition to other complications. [url]
• The Committee on Human Spaceflight has collected some papers on the effects of space on humans. These papers include various risks to astronaut health but also benefits to earth-bound humans in technology advancement and scientific discoveries. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: astronauts, drosophila, health, human spaceflight, infection, jellyfish, manned space exploration, microgravity, space