Security, In the Blink Of An Eye

Very short, but cool video of this spooky kinetic art that I took today.

It is by artist, Tim Tate and it's called The Guardian.

We talked about putting this right in front of the door when you walk into the house.

Keeping an eye on things:

1) G-d
2) Spirits of our ancestors
3) Guards
4) Smith and Wesson 
5) Dogs very hungry
6) Gates, doors, and other barriers
7) Surveillance cameras
8) Sensors and alarms
9) Traps and tripwires
10) This cool art piece

Hope you enjoy! ;-)

Security, In the Blink Of An Eye

With Surgical Precision

This is awesome--the iKnife ("Intelligent" knife) for cutting away cancer, can also detect the cancerous cells. 

I had previously heard about dogs being able to sniff cancers such as lung, ovarian, and skin--but never a surgical knife doing this. 

With the iKnife, a surgeon can use a electrosurgical knife to cut/burn away cancerous tissue, but even better yet, this knife sucks away the smoke containing the vaporized tissue to a mass spectrometer that analyzes the particles and is said to be 100% accurate (so far) in detecting cancerous tissue (from those that are normal).

This is critical because it can be lifesaving in guiding surgeons not to miss any of the cancer (and therefore also helps avoid repeat surgeries) as well as not removing unnecessary tissue that is not cancerous. 

Dogs can help alert us to hidden cancers within and the iKnife can help remove them with greater precision and success. 

Hopefully, with G-d's help, one day we won't need either anymore. ;-)

With Surgical Precision

Sniffing Out Cancer

A few years ago, researchers found that Dogs could actually identify people with cancer at a 99% accuracy rate by simply smelling human's breath. 

One of the problems with this diagnostic method though is that hospitals and doctors offices have not been inclined to house and care for these animals in medical facilities treating people.

Technology to the rescue and this one has no dog in the fight...

The Metabolomx is a computing machine with attached breathing tube that can be rolled over to a patient who breathes into it for just 4 minutes to can get a diagnose on the spot.

This is very different from current methods and is without painful and intrusive tests (such as biopsies) or waiting weeks for lab results to come back and be read by your doctor.  

The machine captures and analyzes the chemistry of the person's exhaled breath in the form of aerosolized molecules and determines it's "smell signature".

According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (5-11 March 2012), by comparing the sample smell to the biomarkers for cancer, the Metabolomx has already achieved an 80% success rate for detecting lung cancer.

A newer version of the machine is 100 to 1,000 times more sensitive, which should greatly improve accuracy, hopefully hitting at or above 93%, which will make it viable for commercial use.

The Metabolomx is envisioned be able to detect and differentiate between various types of cancer such as lung, breast, colon, and more. 

Moreover, this technology is not limited to just cancer--but other companies such  as Menssana are testing it with tuberculosis and pediatric asthma.  

Further, another benefit of the Metabolonx is that is can not only be used to diagnose cancer, but to signal reduction or elimination of the cancer with various treatments.

I hope the next step for technology like the Metabolomx is to not only detect the cancer, but be able to "zap it" and rid it from our bodies--then we'll have a technology that can really snuff out the cancer.

Sniffing Out Cancer

High-Tech Pooper Scoopers

A few weeks ago (17 September 2011), I blogged about the Peepoo for human waste disposal, and now we have the AshPoopie for handling doggie waste.

Made by Pauli Clean Tech, this device turns dog poop into odorless, clean, 100% sterile ash.

With push-button ease, the AshPoopie picks up the poop and mixes it with a capsule at high speed to render it into simple ash for easy disposal.

AshPoopie is scheduled for release in first quarter 2012.

A welcome site and refreshing smell to our doggy doo streets.

While I personally am not obsessed with this fecal subject matter, I am a fan of cleanliness...

So cheers to these high-tech pooper scoopers. ;-)

High-Tech Pooper Scoopers