One of the insidious aspects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is that in most cases, the damage is not visible. The gold standard for diagnosis is a CT scan, but this is not possible on the battlefield or football field. Medical personnel are generally limited to questionnaires and concussion screening protocols. The US Marine Corps has adopted a new product to help identify … [Read more...]
Light Helps Chemo Patients Grow Hair
The number of deaths in the U.S. due to cancer have declined steadily since the early 1990s, while the number of cancer survivors continues to climb. Innovations in medical treatments have resulted in improved outcomes, though the process is not easy for many patients. Chemotherapy relies on massive doses of toxic chemicals that attack the fast-growing cancer cells, a process … [Read more...]
Tiny Chip Measures Blood Flow
Ever listen to a train, or airplane, or helicopter as it approaches, passes, and then starts going away? The sounds are higher pitched when approaching, and lower pitched as the source of the sound moves away. The reason for this is that relative to your stationary position, the sound waves get "bunched up" on approach, then "stretched out" on departure, thus changing their … [Read more...]
Lasers Lift-Off Thin and Flexible Displays
The photo above shows a small patch of thin plastic on a subject's skin. How thin is the plastic? 0.004 mm, or about 1/25 of the width of a human hair. That's thin. It's not remarkable that this flexible patch of plastic is so thin; what's remarkable is that it has all the electronic features required to create a display. We often mention here that in order for Health Tech … [Read more...]
Light Can Help Save Premature Babies
Why is the ocean blue? And what does that have to do with premature babies? The ocean is blue because water acts like a color filter, absorbing the red portion of the spectrum, and reflecting back shades of blue. The fact that different substances absorb different wavelengths of light may show the way to helping premature babies survive. One of the many challenges facing … [Read more...]
