Thursday, July 27, 2006
A ray of hope for the disabled
I just thought this was cool:
Aided by a tiny chip implanted in his brain, a 25-year-old quadriplegic played video games, controlled a television and operated a mechanical arm using only his thoughts, researchers said recently.
The technology, reported in the journal Nature, is the latest step toward enabling people paralyzed by stroke, spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, to control their wheelchairs or feed themselves simply by thinking about those actions....
A wire the thickness of a strand of vermicelli carried the impulses from the brain to a half-inch-tall pedestal attached to the skull. From there, an external cable transmitted the signals to a computer.
The patient, Matthew Nagle, played the video game Pong and performed other tasks by imagining he was moving his arm. Researchers said that although Nagle's accuracy was as high as 90%, he couldn't react as quickly as able-bodied people.
Still, Nagle said he often defeated lab technicians who challenged him at Tetris.
Aided by a tiny chip implanted in his brain, a 25-year-old quadriplegic played video games, controlled a television and operated a mechanical arm using only his thoughts, researchers said recently.
The technology, reported in the journal Nature, is the latest step toward enabling people paralyzed by stroke, spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, to control their wheelchairs or feed themselves simply by thinking about those actions....
A wire the thickness of a strand of vermicelli carried the impulses from the brain to a half-inch-tall pedestal attached to the skull. From there, an external cable transmitted the signals to a computer.
The patient, Matthew Nagle, played the video game Pong and performed other tasks by imagining he was moving his arm. Researchers said that although Nagle's accuracy was as high as 90%, he couldn't react as quickly as able-bodied people.
Still, Nagle said he often defeated lab technicians who challenged him at Tetris.
Med Mal: fix errors or fix the courts?
How should government deal with rising healthcare costs? Part of the GOP plan -- on state and national levels -- is attacking the ‘problem’ of medical malpractice. Ezra Klein in Slate does a nice job of tackling the ‘malpractice myth’ and examines a countering idea from Senators Clinton and Obama that would “cut the number of medical malpractice cases by reducing medical errors.”
The difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, Klein notes, is Republicans generally favor tort reform (“suits and payouts are the ill”) while Democrats believe the problem is “a slew of medical injuries of which the suits are a symptom.” And studies show Democrats are right. Read the Slate piece here.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, Klein notes, is Republicans generally favor tort reform (“suits and payouts are the ill”) while Democrats believe the problem is “a slew of medical injuries of which the suits are a symptom.” And studies show Democrats are right. Read the Slate piece here.
