Health Tech

If you're in need of a little back pain relief and have $149 to spare, keep an eye out for the newly approved WiTouch by medical device developer Hollywog.

Putting a fresh spin on old tech, the device employs electrical stimulation (called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation -- aka TENS) to ease back pain. But unlike its predecessors, this one is wirelessly remote controlled.… Read more

Wheelchair-using British artist Sue Austin can fly... underwater. In a series of live and film events called "Creating the Spectacle," Austin uses a modified wheelchair to move gracefully about in the blue.

Austin is challenging the perception of wheelchairs with her creation. According to BBC News, the wheelchair is fitted with two dive propulsion vehicles to propel it through the water.… Read more

After spending eight years developing a tiny sensor that can sniff out a variety of airborne substances, a chemical engineering professor is working with a company to bring the resulting prototype -- a so-called "electronic nose" -- to market.

The tech could be used in a wide range of settings, including industrial sites to detect gas leaks, agriculture to detect pesticide levels, and the military to detect chemical warfare agents.

Developed by Nano Engineered Applications, the prototype includes a computer chip, USB ports, and temperature and humidity sensors and is just the first in a series of similar … 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

If you're prone to lying about your age, steer clear of structural magnetic resonance imaging. When used to scan your brain, no matter how good (or bad) you may look, a new imaging technique that uses MRI won't lie. In fact, it probably knows your age to the exact year.

"We have uncovered a 'developmental clock' of sorts within the brain -- a biological signature of maturation that captures age differences quite well, regardless of other kinds of differences that exist across individuals," Timothy Brown of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine says in a news release.… Read more

A cure for blindness could be brewing at a Cornell University laboratory.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York say they've successfully decoded the brain signals that allow mice to see. Using this information with a new type of prosthetic retina, they were able to restore vision in mice.

Next up, the researchers say they've cracked the code of a monkey retina, which is nearly identical to that of a human. If the prosthesis works on monkeys too, the researchers think they may eventually be able to help people who've lost their eyesight.… Read more

Let's face it: How much sun is too much sun is, for most of us, one giant guessing game. We can use all the sunscreen we want and watch the clock like hawks, but the surest signs that we've had too much -- the pink burn, the blisters, the vomiting -- come well after the damage has been done.

Chemistry professors at the University of Strathclyde in Sweden hope to remove some of the guesswork with their UV-detecting wristband, which they plan to bring to market in 2013.

The device, which uses what is called UV dosimeter technology, relies on concepts that have been used in clinical research for years. An acid-release agent decomposes in sunlight, while a dye responds to pH levels, so that as sun exposure increases the color of the band gradually shifts from yellow to pink.… Read more

Imagine being able to navigate our own biological tissue much in the way Google Earth allows us to zoom in on our own backyards. Only instead of mailboxes and fences, you could spot, say, rogue cancer cells.

Researchers out of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands may be making such a future possible by stitching together molecular- and cellular-level images of biological tissues into truly gigantic composite images.

One such landscape -- of a zebrafish embryo -- consists of 26,000 images, is 281 gigapixels, and boasts a resolution of 16 million pixels per inch.

The researchers explain their … Read more

Thanks to 3D-printed plastic appendages, 4.5-year-old Emma Lavelle now plays with blocks.

Born with a rare neuromuscular condition called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita that causes contracted joints and muscle weakness, Emma has almost nonexistent biceps that cannot move against gravity. Her "magic arms," as she has dubbed them, change that.

The plastic appendages attach to a Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX) developed at the Center for Orthopedics Research and Development at Delaware's Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. The WREX is a modular body-powered upper-limb orthosis generally mounted to a wheelchair.

"The existing WREX is all metal parts and is kind of big," Tariq Rahman, a mechanical engineer and head of pediatric engineering and research at Nemours, explains in the video below. "Emma was too small for that, so it required something light and small that would attach to her body that would go with her." … Read more