Anyone who has had a chronic medical issue–or a family member with one–knows how difficult it can be to understand what their doctors are talking about. Enter Emmi Solutions, a health data visualization company that uses multidisciplinary art to explain complex concepts to patients of all ages. “Health care is very personal and can be really scary. People want to be involved, supported, reassured, and guided to make the right decisions for themselves and their families. Caregivers want that for their patients too, but haven’t always had the tools or the incentives to provide that,” says Greg Blew, the company’s chief creative officer. “So we started making interactive multimedia programs that educated patients about upcoming surgical procedures and set their expectations around factors like recovery time, postoperative pain, and potential risks.”
In one of the gutsiest performances in sports history, NFL quarterback Chris Simms had to be carted off the field after taking several vicious hits from the defense during a game in 2006. Remarkably, Simms returned to the game shortly thereafter and led his team on a scoring drive before having to leave the game for good.
As it turns out, Simms had ruptured his spleen and lost nearly five pints of blood.
While you can live without your spleen, it serves several important functions in the body including making antibodies and maintaining a reservoir of blood. It also works to keep the blood clean by removing old blood cells and antibody-coated pathogens.
Quoted: “Ethereum will also be a decentralised exchange system, but with one big distinction. While Bitcoin allows transactions, Ethereum aims to offer a system by which arbitrary messages can be passed to the blockchain. More to the point, these messages can contain code, written in a Turing-complete scripting language native to Ethereum. In simple terms, Ethereum claims to allow users to write entire programs and have the blockchain execute them on the creator’s behalf. Crucially, Turing-completeness means that in theory any program that could be made to run on a computer should run in Ethereum.” And, quoted: “As a more concrete use-case, Ethereum could be utilised to create smart contracts, pieces of code that once deployed become autonomous agents in their own right, executing pre-programmed instructions. An example could be escrow services, which automatically release funds to a seller once a buyer verifies that they have received the agreed products.”
Quoted: “The Factom team suggested that its proposal could be leveraged to execute some of the crypto 2.0 functionalities that are beginning to take shape on the market today. These include creating trustless audit chains, property title chains, record keeping for sensitive personal, medical and corporate materials, and public accountability mechanisms.
During the AMA, the Factom president was asked how the technology could be leveraged to shape the average person’s daily life.”
Kirby responded:
“Factom creates permanent records that can’t be changed later. In a Factom world, there’s no more robo-signing scandals. In a Factom world, there are no more missing voting records. In a Factom world, you know where every dollar of government money was spent. Basically, the whole world is made up of record keeping and, as a consumer, you’re at the mercy of the fragmented systems that run these records.”
The cause of autism is still unknown, but we are definitely closer to figuring it out. A new study published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, from researchers at the University of Chicago revealed that autism and intellectual disability (ID) rates are linked with exposure to harmful environmental factors during congenital development.
“Essentially what happens is during pregnancy… there are certain sensitive periods where the fetus is very vulnerable to a range of small molecules – from things like plasticisers, prescription drugs, environmental pesticides and other things. Some of these small molecules essentially alter normal development. Autism appears to be strongly correlated with rate of congenital malformations of the genitals in males across the country, this gives an indicator of environmental load and the effect is surprisingly strong. The strongest predictors for autism were associated with the environment; congenital malformations on the reproductive system in males.” (1) - Andrey Rzhetsky, professor of genetic medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago
A modified version of the Clostridium novyi (C. novyi-NT) bacterium can produce a strong and precisely targeted anti-tumor response in rats, dogs and now humans, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers.
In its natural form, C. novyi is found in the soil and, in certain cases, can cause tissue-damaging infection in cattle, sheep and humans. The microbe thrives only in oxygen-poor environments, which makes it a targeted means of destroying oxygen-starved cells in tumors that are difficult to treat with chemotherapy and radiation. The Johns Hopkins team removed one of the bacteria’s toxin-producing genes to make it safer for therapeutic use.
Scientists have for the first time grown a complex, fully functional organ from scratch in a living animal by transplanting cells that were originally created in a laboratory. The advance could in future aid the development of ‘lab-grown’ replacement organs.
Researchers from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, at the University of Edinburgh, took cells called fibroblasts from a mouse embryo and converted them directly into a completely unrelated type of cell — specialised thymus cells — using a technique called ‘reprogramming’. When mixed with other thymus cell types and transplanted into mice, these cells formed a replacement organ that had the same structure, complexity and function as a healthy native adult thymus. The reprogrammed cells were also capable of producing T cells — a type of white blood cell important for fighting infection — in the lab.
Even with advances in gels and dressings, burns remain a difficult injury to treat. This applies particularly to parts of the body where the skin bends around bones and joints, creating surfaces unfavorable to most types of bandaging. But researchers from Japan’s Tokai University have developed a new ultra-thin material that clings to those trickier locations, serving to ward off infectious bacteria.
The researchers liken the material as akin to cling wrap in its ability to adhere to not only flat surfaces without any adhesives, but also irregular surfaces that can be prone to dog-eared Band-Aids and curling gauze.
Fran Fulton is 66, and she’s been fully blind for about 10 years. A few weeks ago, all that changed.
“When they ‘turned me on’ so to speak it was absolutely the most breathtaking experience” — Fran Fulton
Fulton suffers from retinitis pigmentosa – a degenerative eye disease that slowly causes light-sensitive cells in the retina to die off. Over the course of several years she lost her sight, and for the past 10 years she hasn’t been able to see anything at all. But in late July, Fulton was outfitted with a system called the Argus II. A pair of camera-equipped glasses are hooked up to electrodes implanted in her eyeball, which feed her brain visual information. Using the system, she can now see the world again. What’s the experience like?
In a recent poll, a majority of Americans believe air travel restrictions are a necessity to stop the spread of Ebola in the United States. In fact, 56 percent said the federal government should bar those who have “recently” been in Ebola nations from entering the U.S. It is obvious we must find better ways to use technology to our advantage to detect people who are showing symptoms of the virus. This is where augmented reality and wearable technology can improve our detection rate of sick people stricken with Ebola.
Currently Ebola screening is taking place at five United States airports: Newark, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Washington. US government officials claim that 95% of travels from West Africa would go through those airports to enter the United States. Once a traveller passed a screener check-point, they would be free to enter the US without being monitored after that point.
Recent promising technology developments show that thermal imaging devices can be attached to smartphones for use. Common sense would dictate that if we can leverage thermal imaging devices on smartphones that we can also use Augmented Reality (AR) wearable glasses for the same use. Meta Space Glasses, Vuzix, Epson, Google Glass and a host of other new wearable AR glasses could create an incredible opportunity to detect people with fevers that may be contagious with the Ebola virus just by looking at them with this promising technology.
FLIR One has an attachable device for the iPhone 5S that can turn it into a thermal imagine device for $349.99. That alone is impressive. This is a tangible use that is already on the market. Redesigning an Augmented Reality use would not be an impossible feat. A key feature, according to some online reviews of the FLIR One, is that the device can determine the temperature of a person or object in view.
I am not an expert in thermal imaging, but current technology should be able to develop an alert of a temperature on a person that exceeds 99 degrees Fahrenheit. If my Augmented Reality thermal imaging glasses detect a person with a heat signature of over 99 degrees Fahrenheit, a digital overlay alert pop-up could appear in front of my eyes. Border Patrol agents, police officers, medical professionals, school officials, and other vital stakeholders could easily monitor areas all over the country and world to be quickly alerted to someone who has a high fever. Many civilians would buy the device just to protect their own family! Medical teams could quickly identify someone who may be infected with the Ebola virus.
This is an incredible opportunity to finally show how Augmented Reality, coupled with other cutting-edge technologies can save countless lives. This solution can permeate throughout the United States and the world. If we look at computer security, a firewall alone is not the best defense to prevent a computer virus. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) , along with a firewall, can detect suspicious traffic within a computer network and thwart a serious breach of security. AR thermal imaging glasses tweaked with accurate temperature alerts can be our Ebola IDS system which we desperately need.
The clock is ticking and we need to think outside the box to protect our communities and our families. The Augmented Reality community is an international group that has been pushing AR in a positive direction. It is our moment to shine and step up in this challenging time in history. The future of humanity may depend on it.
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[Update 10/18/14] — Augmented Legality Expert Brian Wassom responded to this article and discussed some of the legal ramifications of scanning someone with a thermal imaging device. Click HERE for his legal insight.
Brian Wassom also alerted me to a new thermal imaging device that rivals the FLIR One called the Seek Thermal Infared camera for smartphones for $199. Thanks to Twitter user @seeingwithsound. Wired.com reviews the device. What is interesting is that you can set the device to scan for skin temperatures of humans.
AR expert Frank Maggiore also advised me of the IR-Blue DM which also “connects using Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device to show the temperature readings as colors on the screen” for $195. This clearly shows there are new options of devices on both Android and iOS to potentially use to stop Ebola.
Image Credit: Flickr By spcbrass
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Joseph Rampolla is a police Captain who has been teaching in the realm of cyber-crime, counter-terrorism, and emerging technologies. His passion is to teach about the positive uses of emerging technologies while raising awareness to the potential downside of innovation. He has dedicated his life to teaming up with eWarriors and Lifeboat supporters around the globe to protect the innocent in this lifelong mission. ” The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” by William James is one of his favorite quotes.
Joseph currently is the host of a global podcast called Augmented Reality Dirt. AR Dirt explores how augmented reality influences society, cyber-crime, and our legal system. AR Dirt has listeners in over 99 countries and can be heard free via iOS, Android, and Window devices. Go to href=“www.ARdirt.com/ourapp” target=“_blank”>www.ARdirt.com/ourapp to find out how to download it for free on your smartphone or tablet.
