Health tech

When a nuclear apocalypse comes calling, the first thing most of us will yearn for is a drink. And thanks to our government's foresight and willingness to bomb stuff, you can rest assured that the surviving cans of PBR and Bud Light found in your now flattened local 7-Eleven will be safe to chug.

This is actually no joke. Alex Wellerstein, an American Institute of Physics science historian who also runs a blog about nuclear secrets, recently posted some old government documents and photos from "Operation Teapot."

The subtitle to this 1955 report (PDF) on the experiment undertaken at the Nevada Test Site says it all: "The effect of nuclear explosions on commercially packaged beverages."… Read more

Today, patients with chronic lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis or asthma can't easily monitor how their airways are doing. Instead, they have to go to the doctor's office and blow into a special device called a spirometer as hard and fast as they can.

So for the past two-plus years, grad students at the University of Washington in Seattle have been working to develop an app that can measure lung function just as accurately but without the need for additional hardware. (Existing apps either require hardware or are for entertainment purposes only.)

In other words, they've been trying to turn a smartphone into a spirometer.… Read more

I have a very basic grasp of sign language, including the alphabet and few simple words like "thank you," "snake," and "chicken."

The last time I spoke with someone who was speech impaired, we resorted to a scrap piece of cardboard and a pencil to get our messages across. A new invention may help break down those barriers.

The EnableTalk smart glove recognizes sign language gestures and sends them for text and voice translation to a smartphone or other device. … Read more

For many urban dwellers who live close to work, commuting by bike is like eating vegetables. You know you should, but sometimes you just want the burger and fries.

Industrial designer Adam Taylor, who is working toward a master's degree in future design in England, has devised a system that he thinks will help motivate commuters to pedal to the office. The two key features are the system's self-powered smart card and the bike itself, which is a beauty.

On the blog Bicycle Design, Taylor says he envisions the bike, which he calls "Tim," and the system, which he calls "Go Fara," to be bought in bulk by major corporations that institute a "green employee of the week" rewards program. Using the smart card, the employer has access to mileage and time stats to reward the highest achievers.… Read more

I had that dream again the other night. The one where I (oops!) forgot to go to class all semester and it's time for the final, and OMG, but wait, maybe somehow I can fake my way through it?

Apparently, this dream plans to dog me no matter how far away from college I get. I've had it so many times it deserves its own soundtrack. And now, it turns out, it can get one.

Computer scientists from Finland's University of Helsinki have developed software that makes music out of sleep patterns. … Read more

It's been 12 years since Chad Ruble's mother suffered a stroke that led to aphasia, a disorder that affects language processing but not intelligence. Most of the one million Americans who have the disorder experience difficulty both reading and writing, according to the National Aphasia Association, and Chad's mother Lindy was unable to recognize text and thus unable to use a keyboard.

So Chad did what any computer-savvy son should: he hacked a Kinect to help her.

After designing a visual dashboard of emoticons (happy, sad, angry, tired, etc.), each of which can be further qualified by an amount (expressed as signal strength -- one, two, three, or four bars), Chad says he turned to a Kinect, some gesture recognition code, and the simple OpenNI library for Processing to track the position of his mother's hand. A green arrow button sends the email and a red X resets the screen.… Read more

Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, is not an issue I've had to deal with. In fact, it's not something that crops up in women much. Statistics show about 1 in 10 men have some form of color blindness, so if you're not color blind yourself, you probably know someone who is.

That means there's a good chunk of the population that wouldn't mind a little assist in the color department. This is where sunglasses maker EnChroma hopes to make its mark. … Read more

It's still no match for the human hand, but RSL Steeper's BeBionic 3 looks way cooler.

The company is launching a more powerful, durable version of its prosthetic today at a gathering of the American Orthotic Prosthetic Association (AOPA) in Boston.

The BeBionic 3 has an aluminum chassis, improved electronics, a redesigned thumb, and new motors that increase the power grip strength from 16.8 pounds to 31.5 pounds, according to SteeperUSA.

In hook mode, when a weight is carried by all fingers, the hand can bear 99 pounds, up from 70.5 pounds. … 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