A Better Lithium Battery

Posted on August 1, 2011 by pourcirm

Batteries will always limit the capabilities of our portable electronics so it’s always good to see articles about groups who are trying to solve the battery life problem. This article talks about a group from MIT who have created a new lithium battery which uses air (oxygen) to create lithium peroxide, which can be broken down to create electricity. Apparently they have been able to create batteries that hold 4 times the electricity compared to current batteries of the same weight.

It would definitely be nice to have a laptop or cell phone battery with 4 times the life.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-better-lithium-battery

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Injectable Implants

Posted on July 30, 2011 by pourcirm

This article I found interesting due to the two uses of such a technology. The article talks about a new injectable implant developed by BME’s at Johns Hopkins University. The team has developed a implants out of a combination of hyaluronic acid (HA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG), which can be injected under the skin as a liquid and then massaged into a desired shape or area before using an LED light source to crosslink the PEG and create solid hydrogels that are held into place by the HA particles. The material can even be tuned by modifying the amounts of HA and PEG so that it can more accurately match the properties of the tissue surrounding it.

It should be interesting to see how this technology is used by the public. I’m sure the goal was to help surgeons and reconstructive surgeries, but inevitably I’m sure it will find a much greater demand in the plastic surgery fields.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=injectable-implants-for-soft-tissue-reconstruction

Posted in Biomedical Engineering, Medical | Leave a comment

Fingerprint Scanner to Thwart Zombies

Posted on July 30, 2011 by pourcirm

I thought this article was kind of funny with all the talk of zombies and the added photo, but I can understand the real applications of fingerprint scanners telling the difference between dead and living tissue. Sounds a bit scary to think of someone cutting off your hand to gain access to your car, but luckily it sounds like this shouldn’t be much of a problem with this new development.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128225.100-fingerprint-scanner-to-spot-the-living-dead.html

Posted in Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Technology | Leave a comment

Missing Gene Helps Mice Run for Hours

Posted on July 30, 2011 by pourcirm

This is an article I found on the Science Magazine website. Apparently scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have removed a gene from mice that have caused them to be capable of running six times further than normal mice do. When investigated further it was found that the mice exhibit more mitochondrial cells to produce energy as well as more muscle fibers. The team hypothesizes that fast twitch muscle in the modified mice was converted to more slow twitch muscle giving them greater endurance. The study also looked into this gene variation in Olympic and world-class athletes finding that endurance sport athletes commonly had a certain variant of the gene in question.

I’m curious if we’ll be seeing ultra-endurance athletes who have been modified like these mice in the future Olympic games. Surely it would change the outcome of marathons all over the world and perhaps make them even longer than they already are to challenge a new breed of athlete?

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/missing-gene-helps-mice-run-for-.html

Posted in Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, Medical | Leave a comment

Synthetic Trachea Transplant

Posted on July 29, 2011 by pourcirm

An interesting story from earlier this month about a synthetic wind pipe being implanted in a patient. The cool thing about this is that it was created with the patient’s own stem cells so it should not cause any type of immune or foreign body response after implantation.

I’ll keep my eye out for a follow up story to see how well it’s being accepted and how well the patient is doing as the time goes by.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/07/trachea.transplant/

Posted in Biomedical Engineering, Medical | Leave a comment