Thursday, February 6, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Bionic hand allows patient to 'feel'
Bionic hand allows patient to 'feel
Scientists have created a bionic hand which allows the amputee to feel lifelike sensations from their fingers.
A Danish man received the hand, which was connected to nerves in his upper arm, following surgery in Italy.
Dennis Aabo, who lost his left hand in a firework accident nearly a decade ago, said the hand was "amazing".
In laboratory tests he was able to tell the shape and stiffness of objects he picked up, even when blindfolded.
The details were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Implant
An international team carried out the research project, which included robotics experts from Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
"It is the first time that an amputee has had real-time touch sensation from a prosthetic device" said Prof Silvestro Micera from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa.
The scientific advance here was not the hand itself, but the electronics and software that enabled it to give sensory feedback to the brain.
Micera and his team added sensors to the artificial hand which could detect and measure information about touch. Using computer algorithms, the scientists transformed the electrical signals they emitted into an impulse that sensory nerves could interpret.
During an operation in Rome, four electrodes were implanted onto nerves in the patient's upper arm. These were connected to the artificial sensors in the fingers of the prosthetic hand, so allowing touch and pressure feedback to be sent direct to the brain.
Mr Aabo, 36, a property developer, spent a month doing laboratory tests, firstly to check the electrodes were functioning, and then with these fully connected to the bionic hand.
Dennis Aabo spent a month doing laboratory tests of the bionic hand
He said: "The biggest difference was when I grabbed something I could feel what I was doing without having to look. I could use the hand in the dark.
"It was intuitive to use, and incredible to be able to feel whether objects were soft or hard, square or round."
Hero
The bionic hand is still a prototype, and due to safety restrictions imposed on clinical trials, Mr Aabo required a second operation to remove the sensors.
"He is a hero," said Professor Paolo Rossini, neurologist, University Hospital Agostino Gemelli, Rome.
"He gave a month of his life and had two operations to test this device.
"We are all very grateful to him."
Prof Rossini said a lot of pre-training was done involving surgery on pigs, and with human cadavers, to ensure they knew exactly how to attach electrodes to the tiny peripheral nerves in the upper arm.
Another member of the team, Dr Stanisa Raspopovic said: "It was a very exciting moment when after endless hours of testing....Dennis turned to us and said with disbelief, 'This is magic! I can feel the closing of my missing hand!'"
Those working in the field in the UK were also enthusiastic.
"This is very interesting work, taking research in upper limb prosthetics into the next stage by adding sensory feedback, said Dr Alastair Ritchie, Lecturer in Biomaterials and Bioengineering, University of Nottingham.
"This technology would enable the user to know how firmly they are gripping an object, which is vital for handling fragile objects - imagine picking up an egg without any feeling in your fingers."
Although a milestone in prosthetics, the bionic hand of movies remains the stuff of science fiction
The international team is now working on how to miniaturise the technology so that it could be used in the home.
"We must get rid of the external cables and make them fully implantable" said Prof Thomas Stieglitz, University of Frieburg, Germany, whose laboratory created the ultra-thin implantable electrodes.
Recently, scientists in Cleveland, Ohio released a video of a patientusing a the fingers of a prosthetic hand to pull the stalks from cherries while blindfolded. But the research has yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
There is no precise timetable, but scientists think it could be a decade before a sensory feedback bionic hand is commercially available.
And they believe it may pave the way for more realistic prosthetic devices in the future which can detect texture and temperature.
'Bring it on'
But it will undoubtedly be very expensive, well beyond the means of most patients. And artificial hands still lack the precision and dexterity of the real thing.
The super-functioning bionic hand of science fiction films remains the stuff of fiction.
Nonetheless, Dennis Aabo, who now has his old prosthesis back, is ready to swap it for the bionic hand in any future trial.
"If they offer it to me, I will say bring it on, I'm ready."
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Japan's epic snowball fighting championship - weird sports - video and pics
Skiing, snowboarding and speed skating will likely be the highlights in Sochi this month, but in Sobetso, Japan, a different sport is taking the spotlight.
Yukigassen, which literally means “snow battle”, elevates snowball fighting to a professional sport every February when more than 100 teams compete to become world champions of the Showa-Shinzan International Yukigassen. Described as a cross between capture the flagand dodgeball, Yukigassen pits two teams of seven players against each other on a snow-covered field, as players lob snowballs in hopes of hitting the opposition and tagging them out.
- The Showa-Shinzan International Yukigassen in Japan. (Courtesy of tofugu.com)
The snowballs are far from the hand-cupped backyard variety; in fact, a specialised snowball-making machine produces the ammunition at a standard size (6.5cm to 7cm in diameter). Each team receives 90 snowballs for the three-minute match, and win either by tagging the entire other team out, or by capturing the other team’s flag on the opposite site of the rectangular field. The team that wins two out of three matches advances in the tournament.
- Snowballs are prepared for the Finnish Yukigassen Championship in Helsinki in 2010. (Heikki Saukkomaa/AFP/Getty)
The location of the world championship is as interesting as the game itself. Located on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost major island, the field is built annually at the foot of Mt Shōwa-Shinzan, a 398m-tall volcanic dome that rose up out of the ground after a series of earthquakes in 1944. Today the peak still vents smoke, but it has not erupted since its initial formation.
The Yukigassen tournament was created in 1989 as a way to draw tourists to the region in the cooler months, and has been such a success that the sport has grown outside Japan, with countries such as Canada,Finland, Australia and the United States hosting their own competitions throughout their winters. Winners from other countries can earn themselves an automatic spot among the more than 100 teams expected to compete in this year's world championship, which will be held 22 and 23 February. Players in countries that do not currently have a competition can apply for a select few wild card slots.
- Team Skadam fights during the Finnish Yukigassen Championship in Helsinki in 2010. (Heikki Saukkomaa/AFP/Getty)
Even visitors that do not make the cut can watch the snowballs being made in-between matches or enjoy the nearby snow park festival area, stocked with food and hot drinks to warm hands after any non-sanctioned snowball throws.
- Team Vahasen Soturit fights during the Finnish Yukigassen Championship in Helsinki in 2010. (Heikki Saukkomaa/AFP/Getty)
Monday, February 3, 2014
Castaway - true story - 14 months lost at sea drinking turtle blood
A man who spent 14 months lost at sea is enjoying his new-found celebrity status on the Marshall Islands.
Sporting a mane of bushy hair and burly beard, the man previously identified as Jose Ivan - who survived by drinking turtle blood and eating fish and birds he caught with his bare hands - clutched a can of Coke as he was helped down the gangplank of a police patrol boat.
It is understood he has spent more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean, after apparently setting sail from Mexico in late 2012.
He was spotted yesterday, when he came ashore at the remote Marshall Island capital, Majuro.
Offering a wave and a smile, he told the MailOnline: "I'm alive and I can't believe it. I cannot remember much about my journey. It has all gone into one thought - the sea, the sea. "I thank God and I thank the birds I caught to eat. I caught fish and at times I drank my own urine to have liquid."
About 1000 curious onlookers crowded the dock for a glimpse of the long-haired fisherman, who smiled and waved briefly before he was whisked away for a medical check-up at Majuro Hospital.
The castaway told US ambassador Thomas Armbruster, acting as an interpreter for Marshall Islands authorities, that he was from El Salvador but had been living in Mexico for 15 years before his epic voyage.
"He said he is a shrimp and shark fisherman," Armbruster said yesterday in Majuro, minutes after talking to him. "He looked better than one would expect."
And foreign ministry officials said he had told them during a debriefing aboard the patrol boat that his full name was Jose Salvador Albarengo.
He was found disoriented and clad only in ragged underpants last Thursday, after his 7.3-metre fibreglass boat floated on to a reef at Ebon Atoll, the southernmost cluster of coral islands in the Marshalls.
Unable to speak English, he communicated to his rescuers through pictures and gestures that he had survived by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood when there was no rain.
No details have yet emerged about why he began drifting the 12,500km expanse between southern Mexico and the Marshall Islands, or about the fate of a companion he said had died a few months ago.
Marshall Islands immigration chief Damien Jacklick said authorities were still gathering information and the foreign affairs department planned to contact overseas officials for his repatriation.
Medics plan to give Albarengo a thorough medical check before he is interviewed by detectives.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Super Bowl: Seahawks win 43-8
The Seattle Seahawks have won their first Super Bowl title, crushing the favored Denver Broncos 43-8.
Linebacker Malcolm Smith returned an interception of Peyton Manning 69 yards for a touchdown late in the first half Sunday, and Percy Harvin returned the opening kickoff of the second half 87 yards for another TD.
The Seahawks led 36-0 before Denver finally scored on the last play of the third quarter.
Manning was 34 of 49 for 280 yards, but most of that came after Seattle had all but put the game away. He was flustered by Seattle's defense for most of the first half, throwing two interceptions.
The second fluttered into Smith's hands after Cliff Avril struck the five-time NFL MVP's arm as he was releasing the ball.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)