medications

Devices that monitor inner ear activity could eventually be powered by the ear itself, according to research detailed in the current issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology by scientists from MIT, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

They say that for decades we have known the inner ear houses its own natural battery, but this is the first demonstration of its ability to power something external without compromising hearing.… Read more

If you're on Twitter, you've probably followed a live-tweeted gadget reveal or political convention or Olympics event or Mars rover landing in your day. You probably have not, however, followed a live-tweeted surgery. That could change tomorrow.

As Dr. Douglas Backous performs a cochlear implant operation at Seattle's Swedish Medical Center, his moves will be tweeted live, with still photos from inside the operating room posted to Instagram (presumably not by Backous himself). … Read more

The same researchers who last year developed "electronic tattoos" that bend and stretch on skin are now unveiling similar ultra-thin electronics, only these dissolve when their job is done.

Made of silicon, magnesium, and magnesium oxide and surrounded by a protective layer of silk, these "transient" electronics aren't built to last but rather to melt away and, in the process, reduce the need to pass or surgically remove tiny medical implants, researchers from Tufts and the University of Illinois write in the current issue of Science.

The researchers -- who have begun using their devices … Read more

A team of engineers out of Stanford is introducing a truly tiny wireless cardiac device to demonstrate that, thanks to a little ingenuity and impressive math, all medical implants may soon be powered wirelessly.

Which means that devices such as pacemakers, which owe the majority of their bulk to the battery, are about to get a whole lot smaller.

Head researcher Ada Poon, who earlier this year showed off a proof-of-concept, wirelessly powered device small enough to propel itself through the bloodstream, says the main achievement with the cardiac device is that it can be implanted on the surface of … Read more

Power suits are getting more commonplace. A paralyzed British woman has become the first person to take home a robotic exoskeleton that helped her walk the London Marathon earlier this year.

Claire Lomas, who finished the 26.2-mile race over 17 days, is setting the pace for home use of the ReWalk at home, according to Israeli maker Argo Medical Technologies.

The 32-year-old mother was paralyzed from the chest down after a 2007 horseback riding accident, but the motorized legs allow her to stand, climb and descend stairs, and walk around independently. … Read more

You'd never know it from looking at her, but my sister Rachel has pressure settings.

They're regulated by a surgically implanted valve in her head, part of a system called a ventriculoperitoneal shunt that makes her one of a growing number of humans medically augmented with implantable and attachable devices.

The shunt drains excess cerebrospinal fluid that would otherwise over-accumulate inside her skull due to a congenital condition called hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain," that can damage brain tissue if left untreated. The apparatus directs the fluid from the magnetized pressure valve in her head down through a tube that leads to her abdomen, where it's re-absorbed by her body.

Yes, my sister has a magnet in her head, and to answer a few questions commonly asked since her latest surgery a few months ago, yes, she'll be able to go through airport security scanners and metal detectors and stand near microwaves. But she'll need to be cautious of some kinds of audio headphones, and after she gets magnetic resonance imaging scans, a doctor will have to hold a special handheld device to her head to recalibrate her pressure settings.

Think of hydrocephalus as a plumbing problem. She needs tubes and valves to do what most of our bodies do naturally. … Read more

Do you have a cochlear implant? An intraocular lens in your eye? A prosethetic leg with microservos? You may not realize it, but you're standing on the front line of a new age of medical augmentation, one that's raising a host of complex questions.

Who owns the expensive implant that allows you to hear or see better or the sleek thin blades that let you sprint faster? How are upgrades to your device handled? What happens to you and your device if that company goes out of business? Do the answers change if the procedure is elective rather than life-saving?

No one has easy answers, or even much beyond informed speculation -- certainly not the doctors we spoke to for this article or the medical students who addressed medical augmentation at a Defcon 20 session last month in Las Vegas. But all agree on one thing: A new frontier of medical augmentation isn't just coming sooner than you think. It's already here, as society moves from medically necessary augmentation to elective procedures. Call it human hacking. … Read more

Modifications to the world's fastest camera are enabling the real-time identification of rare breast cancer cells in blood, with a record low false-positive rate of one cell in a million, according to new research out of UCLA.

"This technology can significantly reduce errors and costs in medical diagnosis," lead author Keisuke Goda, a UCLA program manager in electrical engineering and bioengineering, said in a school news release.

The team's approach could not only pave the way for earlier detection of cancer and monitoring of drug and radiation therapy but also prove useful in urine analysis, water … Read more

In the Fox TV show "Lie to Me," Dr. Cal Lightman was able to tell whether someone was lying by observing what he called "micro expressions" on their faces. The twitch of an eye, the quickening of a pulse, the beads of sweat on a brow -- he looked for clues too subtle for most of us to catch.

Now, researchers out of MIT are developing a video technology they call Eulerian Video Magnification that could do that and more -- by amplifying the motion in a standard video sequence to detect information not visible to … Read more