Health tech

I gave up on trying to eat a healthy lunch long ago. I'm at the mercy of the burger joints around me. In theory, I could bring my own lunch from home, but I'm 34 years old, so that just sounds silly.

Maybe if I had someone to make my lunch each morning, I might change my tune on that. But not if I'm using this new lunchbox concept from Ochanomizu University in Japan. It has an integrated camera and video touch screen that's activated when the lid is opened.

It's an experiment in family communication. If someone's packing the lunch, it records them doing so to play back later when the lunch is being eaten, and vice versa. The idea is that the eater will see the care that went into packing the lunch, prompting them to return a "thanks, that was tasty!" or something equivalent to the lunch packer. Conversely, the packer gets the satisfaction of a thanks, and can see what the eater liked and didn't like.

It's cool in theory, but I don't like people watching me eat as it is. A noontime Eye of Sauron keeping an eye on me as I munch my Lunchables isn't my idea of a relaxing lunch break. That said, I could see this being very popular with the helicopter parents crowd if it ever makes its way to production.

Check out the video after the jump to see it in action, and maybe get some ideas yourself.

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Your doctor may still be human, but your pharmacist may soon go cybernetic. A robotic drug dispensary system at the University of California, San Francisco is spitting out oral and injected medications for all kinds of patients.

Getting the wrong medication is the greatest risk facing patients under traditional pharmacy systems, according to UCSF Medical Center CEO Mark Laret. But the automated system has prepared some 350,000 doses without a single error, the institution says.

The room-size robots store drugs in dozens of small boxes in a sterile environment. After the 12-hour prescription is received as a digital file, a robot arm finds the correct labeled drug, prepares the proper dose in bar-coded plastic bags on a ring and spits them out into a large bin.

Nurses will begin scanning the bar codes at patient bedsides this year to confirm the doses are correct. Doctors, meanwhile, will begin inputting prescriptions directly into computers next year.

Three of the robots are Robotic IV Automation (RIVA) systems, made by Canada's Intelligent Hospital Systems. They also prepare hazardous chemotherapy drugs. … Read more

When a school therapist suggested that a family buy their autistic 3-year-old son Hudson an iPad, the Holmquists were willing to give it a try, and turned to ChipIn to raise money for a tablet for their child. Now the family is telling news media the device is a miracle.

Hudson, who was diagnosed with autism in 2010, went from several violent meltdowns a day (including one screaming session that lasted from morning until late evening) to, well, fewer violent meltdowns.

"The iPad has given us our family back," Laura Hudson told FoxNews.com. "It's unlocked a new part of our son that we hadn't seen before, and given us insight into the way he connects with his world."

Perhaps more surprising is that autism experts aren't surprised. Hudson is able to use the tablet not just for gaming and making puzzles but even for communicating ideas to a family that is really just now getting to know the kid behind the tantrums. … Read more

For the first time, a device that gives the sightless a second chance to see has been approved in Europe.

CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports that the FDA may do the same here soon.

Barbara Campbell lost her sight 20 years ago from retinal disease, but now her world is a lot brighter than it used to be. That's because 2 years ago, she was one of the first patients to get an artificial retina.

"My goal was to see colors and go the Grand Canyon," Campbell said.

With the new retinal-replacement device, Barbara … Read more

It's an age-old question: why am I sleeping poorly?

As we reported earlier today, a new study from the National Sleep Foundation says the active use of electronic devices such as TVs, smartphones, computers, and video games one hour before going to bed might be what's keeping us awake.

For its 2011 Sleep in America poll, the NSF queried a random sample of 1,508 adults between the ages of 13-64. Almost everyone surveyed, 95 percent, said they use some type of electronics at least a few nights a week within an hour before bed.

CBS "Early Show" contributor Taryn Winter Brill, like many, goes to bed with the TV on or has her laptop or BlackBerry close by. She decided to set up an unscientific sleep experiment to find out why she's sleep-deprived. What happened when Winter Brill pulled the plug on all of her technology? She shares the results with "Early Show" viewers and co-anchor Erica Hill.

This article originally appeared on CBSNews.com. … Read more

Originally developed in the early 1990s to promote plant growth on board space shuttles, the light technology behind NASA's Astroculture 3 is now being repurposed to help soothe the painful side effects that can result from chemotherapy and radiation treatment in patients with bone marrow and stem cell transplants.

The treatment device, called WARP 75, uses High Emissivity Aluminiferous Luminescent Substrate, or HEALS, which lets LED chips function at their maximum irradiance--the equivalent light energy of 12 suns from each of the device's 288 grain-of-salt-sized LEDs--without emitting heat.

Researchers studied the effects of the technology to treat oral mucositis… Read more

Nobody likes a conversation interrupted by the mobile-device grab, that increasingly familiar maneuver by which someone betrays a total lack of interest in said conversation and searches for whatever else might be going on in the world instead.

But when your physician gets device-happy in the middle of your next doctor's visit, even in the ER, chances are it's for a good cause, such as looking up the latest on your condition in a reference guide.

Rosen and Barkin's best-selling 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult has, for years, been a six-pound, 1,300-page clinical reference tome designed to support urgent care providers. Now, Unbound Medicine is releasing the new-and-improved fourth edition for mobile devices (including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, etc.) in a "proven, rapid-access format."

At $99.95, the price tag is heftier than it is for the paper product (at the time of this posting the hardcover is $81.64 on Amazon), but it features not only the guide's 600-plus urgent care topics and updated protocols and treatment guideline, but also personalized "favorites" (perhaps not the best word) for symptoms and conditions a user might encounter more frequently.… Read more

Viruses are small. Very small. There are millions of types, and the 5,000 or so that have been studied in detail are typically between 10 and 300 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) in diameter.

Because the wavelengths of visible light range from roughly 300 to 800 nanometers, viruses aren't exactly visible under normal lighting. Only optical fluoresce microscopes can see inside a virus, and then only indirectly, using dye, which cannot actually penetrate a virus.

So the "microsphere nanoscope" developed by scientists at the University of Manchester's School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering in the U.K. and described in the journal Nature Communications is remarkable on two counts: It breaks the world record of direct imaging under normal lights by 20 times, viewing objects as small as 50 nm wide, and what's more, the tech behind it imposes no theoretical limit in the size of feature that can be seen.

This incredible jump in capacity could allow humans to see inside human cells and even live viruses for the first time, which in turn could give us many new insights into their structures and behaviors.… Read more

I don't run much because I'm counting on getting superhuman robotic legs in the future. But if I were a runner, Merrell's new Go Barefoot running app might be kinda appealing now that I understand it's only half-serious in suggesting I go running barefoot.

The new free app is the first barefoot running training and education app for the iPhone, according to the footwear maker, which happens to make a line of "minimalist shoes" called Barefoot. Hence the app name.

Minimalist shoes are flat, with the barest of protection from the elements and the terrain.

Go Barefoot "provides the proper training and education for a barefoot or barefoot-like running experience," a publicist explained, dispelling my confusion. So you can use it with or without shoes.

The app has four stages of expert training, including how to run barefoot by striking the ground closer to the ball of the foot instead of the heel. You can also track time and distance with the GPS function.

The app also comes with an iTunes mix of music that plays at 180 beats per minute to sync with a running cadence.

Go Barefoot is structured around a 40-day regimen of workouts and fitness tests to prepare for the challenge of a "1.5-mile barefoot run," which presumably means no shoes whatsoever.

Not even Barefoot shoes. … Read more