 |
|
|
|||||
Researchers at Northwestern University just found a way to make a temporary pacemaker thats controlled by lightand its smaller than a grain of rice. A study on the new device, published last week in the journal Nature, found that the tiny pacemaker delivered effective pacing in both animal subjects and human hearts from organ donors. The device is designed specifically for patients who need temporary pacemakinglike newborn babies with heart defects or heart surgery patientsand its made with materials that allow it to safely dissolve into the body once its no longer needed. The current standard in temporary pacemakers (called an epicardial pacemaker) involves sewing electrodes to the heart via wires, which then protrude out of the patients chest and connect to an external box. By contrast, the Northwestern researchers new device is small and dissolvable, and it can be implanted without any wire. The design could potentially help patients avoid complications involved with temporary pacemakers and open new possibilities for heart synchronization. From left: A traditional pacemaker and leadless pacemaker dwarf the tiny new device. [Photo: Northwestern] ‘Wires literally protrude from the body’ Generally, pacemakers are small, implanted devices that use electrical impulses to regulate the heart’s beating. Temporary pacemakers are a subcategory, and they have a few primary uses. To start, around 1% of babies worldwide are born with congenital heart defects that require surgery, after which the child needs a pacemaker for about seven days to allow the heart to self-repair. According to study lead John A. Rogers, a bioelectronics engineer, and co-lead Igor Efimov, an experimental cardiologist, pediatric use-cases were the main motivation behind designing the tiny new pacemaker. Theres a crucial need for temporary pacemakers in the context of pediatric heart surgeries, and thats a use case where size miniaturization is incredibly important, Rogers explained in a press release. In terms of the device load on the bodythe smaller, the better. Outside of pediatric cases, temporary pacemakers are also commonly used for a period after heart surgery in order to support recovery and minimize complications. However, Efimov notes, the standard temporary pacemakers can also present complications. Wires literally protrude from the body, attached to a pacemaker outside the body, Efimov said in the release. When the pacemaker is no longer needed, a physician pulls it out. The wires can become enveloped in scar tissue. So, when the wires are pulled out, that can potentially damage the heart muscle. A less invasive pacemaker Rogers and Efimovs new pacemaker is designed to address the risks presented by the wires used in existing temporary pacemaker models. Instead of using wires to transmit the small electrical pulses that keep the heart on track, the new device relies on a surprising tool: light. The patient wears a small, soft device on the outside of their chest (just a bit larger than a penny), which is tasked with tracking their heart rate. When their pulse drops below a certain level, the wearable is triggered to emit a tiny pulse of infrared light through the skin and tissues to the pacemaker. Inside the body, the pacemaker has a kind of light-activated on and off switch, which is calibrated to give an electrical pulse whenever its in the on state. Alongside eliminating the need for wires, the light-based activation technology also allowed Rogers and Efimov to scale their prototype down so significantly. The researchers had previously developed a quarter-sized dissolvable pacemaker powered by a form of wireless communication, which required the device to include a receiver antenna. Once they swapped that with the infrared light scheme, it allowed them to scale the pacemaker down to just 3.5 millimeters in length, making it the smallest pacemaker ever made. The pacemakers size and lack of wires also allow insertion to be minimally invasive. Typically, a surgeon will attach (sew or glue) it to the heart after surgery, when they have direct access to the heart, Efimov explained in an email to Fast Company. In cases where a patient needs temporary pacing but isn’t having heart surgery, he added, the device is small enough that it can be inserted through just a small incision in the skin. Efimov’s team is also working on a syringe-like device that will safely inject the pacemaker into the heart for emergency pacing, like in the wake of a heart attack. After insertion, patients wont have to worry about a potentially dangerous removal surgery, given that the tiny pacemaker is made from dissolving, bioreabsorbable materials. The current prototype is designed to dissolve after a weekwhich is the standard amount of time needed for the heart to return to normal pacing after surgerybut Efimov says the design might allow researchers to expand the lifespan of the device up to several months. In the future, Rogers and Efimov believe that their pacemaker design could have broad applications for various heart conditions. For those with arrhythmias, for example, multiple small pacemakers could be placed around the heart to correct its rhythm. Beyond heart conditions, the researchers posit that the light-based, dissolvable implant technology could be applied for nerve problems, wound treatment, and pain blocking. Currently, the tiny pacemaker is still in its testing phase. Efimov says the regulatory climate makes it difficult to know when the device will be ready for use in human patients, but he believes it could be available within the next five years.
Category:
E-Commerce
During his family’s annual summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, high schooler Ajith Varikuti began to notice something concerning. Homes on the narrow line of barrier islands that Varikuti had grown up visiting from his hometown Charlotte were no longer there. I started seeing more and more news articles about entire houses being completely destroyed. And it started clicking, because some of those houses that were being destroyed I’d seen in my previous years there, he says. Varikuti, who was then a 9th grade student, knew there had to be a solution. So, as part of a student design competition organized by the design software company Autodesk, Varikuti put his mind to coming up with a design for a home that could better withstand the extreme conditions of the Outer Banks. (This year’s student design competition, Make it Home, is open until June 30 for students 1321.) Ajith Varikuti [Photo: courtesy Autodesk] His design is a modular, 3D printed home that sits on flood-resistant stilts and can be disassembled and moved if its site becomes untenable. The design was the grand prize winner in Autodesk’s 2024 Make it Resilient design competition, with a $10,000 prize. To create the design, Varikuti taught himself how to use computer-aided design, or CAD, software, starting with an entry-level educational version called Tinkercad before moving on to Revit, the industry-standard 3D design program used by architects and engineers around the world. Using online tutorials, he learned how to use the software to develop a structurally sound design that could be segmented into individual parts or modules. I broke down each of the individual drawings into its own box, so that way you could build various combinations of houses with of the same set of modules, he says. I thought that was the most intuitive and allowed for the most freedom to design whatever house you wanted to. [Image: courtesy Autodesk] The resilient home design was influenced by his own interest in engineering, and specifically 3D printing, which he’d begun exploring during the pandemic. Before even starting high school, he had designed and printed his own toy, a knight on a horse. That experience made him think that 3D printing parts of the house could be a viable way to make its individual modules, and allow them to be both assembled and disassembled. Varikuti’s resilient home design also accounts for the extreme conditions of the Outer Banks, using simulations within the software tools to test its capability to withstand hurricane-force winds. He even reached out to a structural engineer at the firm AECOM to fine-tune his design. He pointed out various inefficiencies and inadequacies in my design, Varikuti says. I had too many pillars that were way too big originally. This input also led him to redesign the footings for the house’s foundations so that they wouldn’t be affected by potential frost heaving. [Photo: courtesy Autodesk] For a design created by a teenager, Varikuti’s is a surprisingly buildable concept, and one that could be a solution for the extreme conditions faced by the Outer Banks. There are currently no plans to get the house built, but Varikuti, who’s now in 10th grade, says the process of designing it has got him excited about creating projects that could get built one day. This entire experience has made me realize how big of a world the engineering world is, and how there’s so many opportunities, he says. It’s led me to want to pursue a career in engineering, hopefully using CAD tools one day to make projects that will be implemented in real life.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Flying Sun 1000 is exactly what its name implies: a very powerful light source that flies. It is not as strong as the sun, but fitted with a powerful 3,333-watt light sourcethe equivalent of a typical flood lamp in a stadiumit is enough to turn night into day instantaneously.This drone is aimed at commercial and government users for the rapid deployment of industrial-level lighting solutions, such as construction and engineering jobs, area security, and disaster relief efforts that require 24-hour operation. A single operator can deploy the Flying Sun in minutes, instantly illuminating as much as 130,000 square feet.According to its manufacturer, Freefly Systems, the drone solves the problem of having to use traditional light towers for illumination. The Woodinville, Washington-based company designs and builds camera movement systems and stabilizers for cinematography. It says these are bulky, slow, and costly to set up, often leaving gaps in area coverage. But since the drone-mounted spotlight can move around, the Flying Sun can provide continuous aerial lighting that moves with work crews and rescue teams as they progress through an area. Furthermore, by eliminating the need for extensive installations of towers and cabling on the ground, the Flying Sun avoids risks in disaster areas, where theres often flooding and other potential electrical and trip hazards. The company also points at a less critical but potentially game-changing use: lighting for film and television productions, which can benefit from the drones ability to turn night into day in a split second.Not like a helicopterPerhaps a spotlight doesnt sound like a game changer for these industries. After all, you can light up the ground using a helicopter and a spotlight. But helicopters have huge associated costs and generate thundering noise and wind (not to mention that their operation time is limited). The Flying Sun can fly tethered to a power source in the grounda 5kW generator, batteries, or electric vehicle will workwhich allows it to fly virtually forever. This is a lot of power, so the drones lamps get hot. Freefly says it designed a system in which the LED light panels are kept cool by the drone operation itself. It utilizes the downwash from the Alta X drones propellers to actively cool the LED lights. This efficient cooling system is crucial for enabling the LEDs to operate at high power levels without overheating, which could damage the components or reduce their life span. This effective thermal management contributes to the manufacturers claim of thousands of hours between light service. [Image: Freefly Systems]How bright is it?The system consists of four panels of 72 LED lamps mounted on an Alta X heavy-lift quadcopter, an industrial drone platform manufactured by Freefly Systems. Thats a total of 288 high-power LED lamps that can generate an astonishing 300,000 lumens, which is a typical amount for modern LED lights used in football stadiums, baseball fields, or large concert venues.The Flying Suns lamp array offers a 60-degree spotlight, which translates into a wide coverage area even at low altitudes. At about 100 feet, the system covers approximately 14,000 square feet at 10 foot-candles, which is the typical lighting of a hallway or a mall parking lot (for comparison, urban street lighting goes from 2 to 5 foot-candles). Thats enough intensity to work seamlessly as if in daylight. As the drone gets higher, the coverage area gets wider. But that comes at the expense of light intensity: At 316 feet, the drone will light a 137,000-square-foot area but only at 1 foot-candle (more than moonlight, less than a streetlight). So while it is dim, its usable. And theres the option of combining several Flying Suns to cover more area with more intensity. Granted, at $60,000 a popincluding the tethered power cables and control systemthat wont be cheap. But it beats the cost of the installation of posts and flood lamps. While the Flying Sun 1000 drone may have higher up-front costs (10 lamps and poles cost about $20,000), it offers significant long-term savings due to lower operational expenses, reduced labor (theres no setup crew required), and minimal maintenance. The drone also provides superior coverage, instant repositioning, and enhanced safety by eliminating ground hazards. While traditional systems are cheaper for small, fixed installations, this droneor similar solutionswill be the best choice in dynamic environments like emergency response, construction, or large-scale events, where mobility, rapid deployment, and energy efficiency outweigh initial investment. Also, the drone will have a lower environmental impact, since no installation and removal are required. The more I look at the video, the more it feels to me like this is the typical how the hell didnt anyone think about this until now idea that is both brilliant and truly game-changing for a lot of industries.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||