Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Plasma Scalpels May Make Surgery More Precise and Less Bloody
In medicine, plasma usually refers to the liquid component of blood. Now scientists are researching how to better harness the plasma found in stars and lightning--the fourth fundamental state of matter, alongside solids, liquids and gases--to cut into the body like a blowtorch for bloodless surgery. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - June 6, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Health,Medical Technology,Everyday Science,More Science,Biotechnology,Biology,Technology Source Type: news

Safe Water? Ask the Smartphone
A virtual cottage industry has emerged around finding innovative uses for smartphones, well beyond basic calling, texting and Internet access. In particular, there’s been a lot of interest in turning iPhones into something like the <i>Star Trek</i> medical tricorder . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 30, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Technology,Consumer Electronics,Medical Technology,Health,Technology Source Type: news

3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life
Kaiba Gionfriddo was six weeks old when he suddenly stopped breathing and turned blue at a restaurant. Kaiba’s parents quickly rushed him to the hospital where they learned that his left bronchial tube had collapsed because of a previously undetected birth defect. During the next few weeks the life-threatening attacks recurred, increasing in number until they became everyday events. Physicians and researchers, however, used some of the most sophisticated bioengineering techniques available to 3-D print a synthetic tube to hold the baby's airway open. Kaiba had the surgery in January 2012 and hasn’t suffered...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 24, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Medical Technology,Biotechnology,Technology,Biotechnology Source Type: news

Google CEO s Condition Spotlights Vocal Cord Paralysis and Its Treatment
When Google CEO Larry Page blogged about his struggles speaking and, at times, breathing last week on his Google+ page he spotlighted a rare condition, bilateral vocal cord paralysis , which leaves sufferers short of breath and with few viable treatment options. This is likely to change in coming years. Page has deep pockets and has promised to fund research into the disorder via the Voice Health Institute . In the meantime scientists are experimenting with electrical stimulation technologies to enhance existing voice therapy as well as surgical treatments. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 22, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Technology,More Science,Language & Linguistics,Language Linguistics,Consumer Electronics,Biotechnology,Medical Technology,Communications,Computing,Health,Biotechnology Source Type: news

Patient-Specific Human Embryonic Stem Cells Created by Cloning
From Nature magazine [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 15, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Technology,Society & Policy,Medical Technology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Ethics,Health,More Science Source Type: news

White House Limits on Plan B Put Science in Backseat
Responding to an April mandate from a federal district court that would make the emergency contraception drug Plan B available without a prescription to all women regardless of age, the Obama administration reduced current age restrictions on the pill from 17 to 15. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 13, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Society & Policy,Pharmaceuticals,Ethics,Medical Technology,Health,More Science Source Type: news

Do Electronic Cigarettes Really Help Smokers Quit?
Everyone knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Yet 45 million Americans smoke , a habit that shaves a decade off life expectancy and causes cancer as well as heart and lung diseases. Nearly 70 percent of smokers want to quit , but despite the deadly consequences, the vast majority of them fail. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 7, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mind & Brain,Health,Medical Technology,Addiction Recovery,Psychology,Biology,Society Policy Source Type: news

Medical Equipment Donated to Developing Nations Usually Ends Up on the Junk Heap
Medical equipment donations enable hospitals in developing countries to get their hands on expensive and much-needed technology. But there’s a growing concern that those donations do more harm than good. Hallways and closets often become cluttered with unused or broken-down equipment for which locals lack parts or training in how to make repairs. Outdated electrical systems groan under the strain of large medical devices, possibly compromising a hospital’s power. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - May 6, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Medical Technology,More Science,Health,Society & Policy Source Type: news

From Baghdad to Boston: War Lessons on Amputations Help Blast Victims Walk Again
Medical professionals treating the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings have one advantage over first responders at the Oklahoma City bombing: the accumulated knowledge of treating blast injuries gained over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 17, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Society & Policy,Medical Technology,More Science,Infectious Diseases,Health,Everyday Science Source Type: news

Lab-Grown Kidneys Transplanted into Rats Become Functional
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have fitted rats with kidneys that were grown in a lab from stripped-down kidney scaffolds. When transplanted, these 'bioengineered' organs starting filtering the rodents’ blood and making urine. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 15, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Health,Medical Technology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Biology,Technology Source Type: news

Friction over Function: Scientists Clash on the Meaning of ENCODE s Genetic Data
Twelve years after the completion of the Human Genome Project, its successor made a big splash with one big number: Around 80 percent of the human genome is "functional," the researchers leading the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project said. Their claim drew immediate criticism from biologists, many of whom said it is evolutionarily impossible for so much of the genome to truly function for human health. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 12, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Medical Technology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Biology,Society & Policy Source Type: news

How Real-Time Brain Scanning Could Alleviate Pain (preview)
Melanie Thernstrom lies motionless inside the large, noisy bore of a functional MRI scanner at Stanford University. She tries to ignore the machine's loud whirring as she trains her attention on a screen mounted inside the scanner, right in front of her eyes. An image of a flame bobs and flickers, shifting subtly in size. To her, the flame is a representation of the searing pain in her neck and shoulder, with its fluctuations reflecting the rise and fall of her discomfort. To the neuroscientists scrutinizing her through a window from the control room next door, the flame is a measure of the activity in a part of her br...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 10, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mind & Brain,Mind Brain,Everyday Science,Medical Technology,Neurological Disorders,Neuroscience,Thought Cognition,Health,More Science Source Type: news

Home Is Where the Health Is: Obamacare Positions Telehealth Tech as a Remedy for Chronic Hospital Readmissions
Chances are, when patients check out of a hospital for home or another health care facility, they will end up back in the hospital within a month if they have not worked out the details and logistics for ongoing care. Too often such planning falls by the wayside, resulting in frequent hospital readmissions . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 9, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Technology,Health,Society & Policy,Everyday Science,More Science,Consumer Electronics,Biotechnology,Medical Technology,Pharmaceuticals,Communications,Computing,Biology,Biotechnology Source Type: news

What's Next for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine?
Researchers are now experimenting with stem cells--progenitor cells that can develop into many different types of tissue--to coax the bodies of a few individuals to heal themselves. Some of the most advanced clinical trials so far involve treating congestive heart disease and regrowing muscles in soldiers who were wounded in an explosion . But new developments are happening so quickly that investigators have come up with a new name--regenerative medicine--to describe the emerging field. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 7, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Health,Society & Policy,Everyday Science,Medical Technology,Neurological Disorders,Neuroscience,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Ethics,Biology,More Science Source Type: news

Neural Stem Cell Transplants May One Day Help Parkinson's Patients, Others (preview)
[More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Medical Technology - April 6, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Health,Health,Mind & Brain,Everyday Science,Medical Technology,Neurological Disorders,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Ethics,Biology,More Science Source Type: news