Surgeon's best friend
Some robots assemble cars and some vacuum floors. Soon, at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, a robot named Vince will be helping top doctors perform minimally invasive surgery.
The US$1.5 million robot, the first of its model to be installed west of the Mississippi River, is less C-3PO and more many-armed arcade game. A dual-lens camera on one arm captures a three-dimensional image, while three surgical arms enter the patient's body and operate through small incisions.
Vince is the latest upgrade in the shift toward endoscopic (or minimally invasive) surgery, which began in the 1990s. Unlike invasive surgery, where doctors cut open an area and operate directly, endo-scopic surgery requires only tiny incisions used for the entry of fiber-optic cameras and operating instruments, resulting in less scarring and faster recovery time.
Using endoscopic instruments and small incisions, Vince the robot adds a twist by translating a doctor's hand movements into much finer strokes.
As with most new procedures and equipment, Vince has a learning curve. "It's kind of like learning to dance. ... It takes a while before it becomes reflexive," Schaerf said.
Worth its salt?
Soft water may be, well, harder on your health and the environment than you realize. So say a growing chorus of US municipal water districts and Pasadena-based LifeSource Water, maker of a household water filtration system.
Water softeners work through a process that exchanges "hard" minerals for sodium, removing elements like calcium and magnesium while leaving chlorine in the water intact. Soft water also often has higher lead content (due to its tendency to leach lead from pipes). The resulting brew leaves less soap scum on bathroom tile, but the dubious trade-off has prompted water sanitation experts to speak up on the hazards of drinking -- or even bathing in -- soft water.
India moves to prevent epidemic
India will inoculate about a million children to prevent another epi-demic of Japanese encephalitis in the sprawling state of Uttar Pradesh, an official said on Sunday.
Over 5,800 encephalitis cases were reported last year in the state alone, where health care facilities for the poor are negligible.
The vaccination drive will begin within 10 days, a senior local government official said, starting in an eastern district where an outbreak of the disease last November killed around 1,500 people.
The number of children below 15 years of age in the state is about seven million but officials privately admit that the government does not have the resources to buy vaccines, which are coming from China, to inoculate them all.
"We are expected to get one million vaccines. Children below 10 years of age will be vaccinated in the first go," Manoj Mishra, joint director in the provincial health directorate said.
"More children will be inoculated if we get more vaccines," he said.
Outbreaks usually begin with the onset of the annual monsoon rains between June and September. Mosquitoes carry the disease from pigs to human beings.
Raspberries for rude health
Raspberries are fantastically healthy, even more so than the broccoli, kiwis and tomatoes that are better known for the healthy nutrients and antioxidants they contain.
Researchers at the agricultural college at Wageningen in the Netherlands say the pale red fruit contain much more in the way of healthy substances than any other food they have come across.
RSS