Lifeboat Foundation

To reduce the damage to his brain and organs, Brooks was rushed to the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Lance Becker and his team cooled the young man’s core temperature to below 90 degrees Fahrenheit—a process called “induced hypothermia.” This is often done to cardiac arrest patients, either by injecting them with a cold saline solution or placing ice packs on them to increase their chances of complete recovery.

The dose of cold saved his life. Brooks had no brain damage, a remarkable feat that has led doctors to explore more ways to use induced hypothermia in emergency settings.

Now Dr. Sam Tisherman and his team at the University of Maryland, in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh, plan to put 10 patients into a more severe form of hypothermia than what Brooks got, something known as “suspended animation.” They’ll flush their bodies with a cold fluid, cooling (and therefore preserving) tissue. The experimental trial, known as emergency preservation and resuscitation for cardiac arrest from trauma ( EPR-CAT), is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, and it is the first time doctors are harnessing profound hypothermia (pushing body temperatures to as low as 50 degrees) to save lives.

Continue reading “Freezing People After Heart Attacks Could Save Lives” »

The classic image of a robot is one clad in a rigid metal shell, but that might not be practical in situations where man and machine will need to work together. The emerging field of soft robotics is helping to make that collaboration safer, but recreating muscle is no easy task. Now, mechanical engineers from Columbia University have developed a synthetic soft muscle that’s said to be much more simple to make and run than others, and is three times stronger than the real thing.

Most soft robots are powered by pneumatic or hydraulic systems, with their movements controlled by filling and emptying bladders with liquids or gases. The problem is, that usually requires bulky external components like compressors, which prevent the systems from being shrunk down to practical sizes.

Continue reading “3D-printable synthetic muscle is three times stronger than you” »

Chinese scientists used an adapted version of a controversial gene-editing technique to correct a disease-causing mutation in human embryos, a medical first cautiously hailed by other experts Thursday.

The team used a so-called “base editor”—an adaptation of the CRISPR-Cas9 DNA snipping tool—to correct a single, mutated “letter” among about three billion in the intricate coding of the human genome.

The targeted mutation can cause humans to be born with beta-Thalassaemia, a potentially fatal genetic blood disorder.

Das ist great news!

There’s a lot of water to work with.

Microsoft looks to the future with the upcoming release of its own quantum computing programming language.

Last year, we reported that Microsoft and Facebook were teaming up to build a massive undersea cable that would cross the Atlantic, connecting Virginia Beach to the northern city of Bilbao in Spain. Last week, Microsoft announced that the cable, called Marea, is complete.

Marea, which means “tide” in Spanish, lies over 17,000 feet below the Atlantic Ocean’s surface and is around 4,000 miles long. It weighs 10.25 million pounds. The data rates (which let’s face it, that’s what we’re all really interested in) are equally staggering: Marea can transmit at a rate of 160 terabits/second. And it was finished in less than two years.

What’s really interesting about Marea, though, is that it has an open design. This means that Microsoft and Facebook are trying to make the cable as future proof as possible. It can evolve as technology changes and demands increase for more data and higher speeds. Its flexibility means that upgrading the cable and its equipment to be compatible with newer technology will be easier.

The nation’s space industry has been active for decades, yet a government space agency is only now taking form.

A robot in China has successfully performed dental surgery on a volunteer. The recent procedure records the first successful autonomous implant surgery, and could change the way dental surgery is performed in China.

Brave Volunteer, Successful Surgery

Would you willingly get dental surgery from a robot? One woman did and because of her bravery, experts saw how the robot was able to perform dental surgery successfully and efficiently — not to mention she got two of her teeth replaced with dental implants.

Continue reading “LOOK: Robot In China Successfully Performs Dental Surgery On Living Person” »