The Jetsons? R2D2? The end of humanity as we know it?
Any nurse or nurse’s aide can tell you that lifting patients is one of the physically toughest parts of the job. Training stresses how to care for your back, but lifting a patient in ideal conditions isn’t always possible. And, often you want to lift a patient but you don’t have someone close by to help – and it’s not feasible for you to do it yourself.
Well, trust the Japanese to come up with a solution. Jetsons move over: meet the robot nurse.
This cute looking robot, RIBA (not the robot …read more

Here’s something you might not want to know. Most surgeons learn how to perform surgery on real live patients. Sure, they start off as students practicing on cadavers but mostly, they learn by performing actual surgical procedures under the guidance of senior surgeons.
However, researchers are looking to technology to change this learning pattern and have created virtual patient simulators for residents to practice on before using a scalpel on real patients.
Clinical trials are currently being held at the Stanford University School of Medicine to test the effectiveness of this virtual reality training.
They are integrating data from patient’s pre-op CT scans …read more

Everything and I mean everything seems to be virtual and wireless these days – including, thanks to this iPhone application,  even cemeteries.
I’m not too sure what to make of it really. The Pocket Cemetery lets you create virtual memories using cusomizable tombstones and cemetery plots with pictures, bios, and favorite memories.
And it doesn’t have to be just for your family. You can memorialize anyone, including celebrities and pets. You can even put virtual flowers and personalized messages can be placed on graves.
Given that family members are often spread around the world and can‘t always get home, this might not be …read more

Star Trek fans will remember Dr McCoy’s cool medical tricorder that could name medical ailments without even laying a hand on the patient.
But that was television and in reality, we all knew that the tricorder didn’t exist.
But now it’s starting to look as though it does.
Meet the Standoff Patient Triage Tool (SPTT), a 15-by-8-by-6-inch (or about 38-by-20-by-15-centimeter) machine that according to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate can gauge a person’s pulse, body temperature and muscle movement from up to 40 feet away.
Using the same type of laser technology already in use on airplanes and in …read more

A few days ago I posted about the brain on twitter. Well, it appears scientists everywhere are determined to prove that you don’t need your hands to do things like, for example, make music.
Meet the The Multimodal Brain Orchestra. They performed their very first live concert a couple of days ago at the Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.  Using their brains, the performers controlled variations of visuals, sounds, frequencies, and volumes in the a piece of music called Xmotion. Their goal – to see what the brain can do without the body.
It was a brilliant performance without musical instruments, although the music …read more

Wired Science has a fascinating post featuring 10 Gory Surgical Triumphs on YouTube.
Full of blood and gore, it’s definitely not for anyone who has a weak stomach. But if you ever dreamed of being a surgeon, love all the reality medical shows, then this might just be the list for you.
The list covers everything from open-heart surgery to amputations, sex-change operations to autopsies. They even remove a fish hook from an eye. Nothing, it seems, is safe from the internet.
Brain surgery anyone?

iPhone users wanting to quit smoking now have a new tool at their disposal – a new app that will link them to the National Cancer Institute’s quitline service where they can use live txt or speak directly to a live quitline coach to get advice and help on quitting smoking.
The app, which offers smokers a proven quit smoking therapy, was developed by the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) at George Washington University and the National Cessation Collaborative (NTCC) with support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Smokers can find this new app on their  iPhone or itunes site …read more

Think that beauty is only skin deep? Then you really need to check out this amazing talk by leading medical illustrator David Bolinsky and watch his stunning animations that show the bustling life inside a cell.

Want to know what diseases are bugging your favorite vacation spot before you get there ?
Interested in finding out where the latest salmonella or Avian Flu outbreak is?
Well, now you can thanks to Healthmap.
Healthmap gathers text from the World Health Organization, Google News, and many other resources and filters it down and puts it onto a map for everyone to see. Never has disease tracking been so accessible. Healthmap displays the outbreaks on a world map, color coding the severity of the outbreak based on current and up-to-date news reporting.
And it’s so easy to use. The zoom and scrolling features let …read more

Isn’t technology great?
Once you had to wade through heaps of medical texts to find out what symptoms match what disease. Then the internet showed up and you could access the same information much more quickly through the click of the mouse.
And now there is the A.D.A.M., the Symptom Navigator, a web application that has been created for the new Apple iPhone 3G which will allow people to identify health concerns on the go. It doesn’t matter where you are – on the beach, in the air, at the circus -as long as you have network access and a iPhone, you …read more