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“The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.”

Engineers at Duke University believe that the results of feasibility studies conducted in their laboratory represent the first concrete steps toward achieving this space age vision of the future. Also, on a more immediate level, the technology developed by the engineers could make certain contemporary medical procedures safer for patients, they said.

For their experiments, the engineers started with a rudimentary tabletop robot whose “eyes” used a novel 3-D ultrasound technology developed in the Duke laboratories. An artificial intelligence program served as the robot’s “brain” by taking real-time 3-D information, processing it, and giving the robot specific commands to perform.

“In a number of tasks, the computer was able to direct the robot’s actions,” said Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University Ultrasound Transducer Group and senior member of the research team. “We believe that this is the first proof-of-concept for this approach. Given that we achieved these early results with a rudimentary robot and a basic artificial intelligence program, the technology will advance to the point where robots – without the guidance of the doctor – can someday operate on people.”

The results of a series of experiments on the robot system directing catheters inside synthetic blood vessels was published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control. A second study, published in April in the journal Ultrasonic Imaging, demonstrated that the autonomous robot system could successfully perform a simulated needle biopsy.

Advances in ultrasound technology have made these latest experiments possible, the researchers said, by generating detailed, 3-D moving images in real-time.

The Duke laboratory has a long track record of modifying traditional 2-D ultrasound – like that used to image babies in utero – into the more advanced 3-D scans. After inventing the technique in 1991, the team also has shown its utility in developing specialized catheters and endoscopes for real-time imaging of blood vessels in the heart and brain.

In the latest experiment, the robot successfully performed its main task: directing a needle on the end of the robotic arm to touch the tip of another needle within a blood vessel graft. The robot’s needle was guided by a tiny 3-D ultrasound transducer, the “wand” that collects the 3-D images, attached to a catheter commonly used in angioplasty procedures.

“The robot was able to accurately direct needle probes to target needles based on the information sent by the catheter transducer,” said John Whitman, a senior engineering student in Smith’s laboratory and first author on both papers. “The ability of the robot to guide a probe within a vascular graft is a first step toward further testing the system in animal models.”

While the research will continue to refine the ability of robots to perform independent procedures, the new technology could also have more direct and immediate applications.

“Currently, cardiologists doing catheter-based procedures use fluoroscopy, which employs radiation, to guide their actions,” Smith said. “Putting a 3-D ultrasound transducer on the end of the catheter could provide clearer images to the physician and greatly reduce the need for patients to be exposed to radiation.”

In the earlier experiments, the tabletop robot arm successfully touched a needle on the arm to another needle in a water bath. Then it performed a simulated biopsy of a cyst, fashioned out of a liquid-filled balloon in a medium designed to simulate tissue.

“These experiments demonstrated the feasibility of autonomous robots accomplishing simulated tasks under the guidance of 3-D ultrasound, and we believe that it warrants additional study,” Whitman said.

The researchers said that adding this 3-D capability to more powerful and sophisticated surgical robots already in use at many hospitals could hasten the development of autonomous robots that could perform complex procedures on humans.

The research in Smith’s lab is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Other Duke members of the team were Matthew Fronheiser and Nikolas Ivancevich.

Source: News.Duke.Edu

The next time your children get cavities, they might get tooth regeneration instead of fillings.

That’s because materials scientists are beginning to find just the right solutions of chemicals to rebuild decayed teeth, rather than merely patching their holes. Enamel and dentin, the materials that make teeth the strongest pieces of the body, would replace the gold or ceramic fillings that currently return teeth to working order.

“What we’re hoping to have happen is to catch [decaying teeth] early and remineralize them,” said Sally Marshall, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco. Marshall gave a talk last week at the spring meeting of the Materials Research Society on rebuilding the inner portions of teeth.

While regrowing your uncle’s toothless grin from scratch is still a decade away, the ability to use some of the body’s own building materials for oral repair would be a boon to dentists, who have been fixing cavities with metal fillings since the 1840s. Enamel and dentin are remarkably strong and long-lasting, and they can repair themselves. But as scientists are continuing to find out, dentin in particular is a remarkably complex structure.

The outer covering of teeth is enamel. The body makes it by growing tiny mineral crystals in a highly regular crystal lattice. Underneath that ceramic-like covering, dentin is like hard clay reinforced by fibers of collagen, similar to the way adobe bricks contain clay reinforced by straw fibers.

“The tooth is a beautiful structure,” said Van Thompson, dentistry professor and chairman of New York University’s Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics.

But teeth, because they are made from minerals, are susceptible to what is essentially erosion. Acids, like those produced by bacteria or Coca-Cola, demineralize the enamel of the teeth. Usually the body is constantly repairing small amounts of damage, Marshall said. But when the body’s defenses become overwhelmed, bacteria break through into the dentin below, and you get tooth decay, commonly called a cavity.

The acid produced by the bacteria eats into the minerals in the dentin, turning it mushy and useless. Normal dentin is twice as stiff as pinewood, but damaged dentin is more like rubber, which makes it pretty hard to chew with.

Marshall’s newest work, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Structural Biology, focuses on regrowing dentin in damaged teeth with the help of a calcium-containing solution of ions (electrically charged particles).

By putting a layer of the solution on individual test teeth, Marshall has already been able to remineralize some parts of the teeth. The challenge is to get the crystals to regrow throughout the dentin.

To heal properly, the crystals need to form from the bottom of the tooth up to the enamel. Marshall isn’t sure whether that’s happening yet, but she is confident that she’ll find a way to restore dentin functionality over the next few years.

Stephen Bayne, professor of dentistry at the University of Michigan, noted that while many groups are working on regrowing teeth, Marshall has “incredible stature” in dentistry for her groundbreaking work helping dentists understand the structure of the tooth.

Still, even with the recent progress, the very complexity that Marshall and other researchers have discovered in the humble tooth is likely to keep her technique out of your local dentist’s office for a few more years.

“We’re still a ways from being able to grow back dentin and enamel,” Bayne said.

Source: Wired

‘Computer scientists have devised two tools to help people interact with autistic children. Videotaping interactions allows teachers or parents to replay situations and evaluate the cause of particularly good or bad behavior. Cataloging actual data, rather relying on memory or interpretation, proves to be a more accurate measure of a situation.‘

Autism affects one in every 165 children. For the parents and teachers of those boys and girls … knowing what works and what doesn’t can be key to their development. Now, new technology is helping them help these kids.

From riding on dads back … to bouncing around the kitchen. There’s little down time in the Abowd home. Both of Gregory Abowd’s sons have autism.

“With Aiden you have to work really hard to get him to say anything. With Blaise you have to stop him from what he wants to say, to get him to actually communicate with you,” Abowd told Ivanhoe.

It’s his boys who gave this human computer interaction professor his next project at Georgia Tech.

“It was very disappointing for me to see how much people were relying on their memory to figure out what was going on,” Abowd said.

CareLog allows parents and teachers to catch moments on tape.

“So what happens here there is a camera in the living room actually pointing down … if something interesting happens … I just press a button. When that behavior occurs … sometime before and sometime after the incident is now saved to go over and take a look at,” Abowd explained. This takes the memory out of the picture.

For example, often times when a child is trying to get the attention of his teacher it can get frustrating. When she doesn’t see him … he may begin hitting himself. Now the teacher knows why.

“Someone can observe it and describe it to you, or you can see it,” Abowd said.

Another tool called the Abaris also catches moments on tape. A teacher can compare video to her notes, taken down with a special pen and paper that automatically charts a child’s progress on a computer. She may then realize a student is distracted. The teacher then can get more on his level to help him focus.

“They’d see themselves doing therapy and say oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize I was doing that,” Julie Kientz, computing expert at Georgia Tech, told Ivanhoe.

Two ways technology is helping at home and in the classroom.

Source: ScienceDaily

‘Giving young children vitamin D supplements may reduce their risk of developing type 1 diabetes later in life, research suggests.‘

Exposure to sunlight allows the body to
manufacture vitamin D

Children who took supplements were around 30% less likely to develop the condition than those who did not.

Type 1 diabetes results from the immune system destruction of pancreatic cells which produce the hormone insulin.

The study, by St Mary’s Hospital for Women and Children, Manchester, appears in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Type 1 diabetes is most common among people of European descent, with around two million Europeans and North Americans affected.

It is becoming increasingly common, and it is estimated that the number of new cases will rise by 40% between 2000 and 2010.

The Manchester team pooled data from five studies examining the effect of vitamin D supplementation.

Not only did the use of supplements appear to reduce the risk, the effect was dose dependent - the higher and more regular the dose, the lower the likelihood of developing the disease.

Sun exposure

Previous research has found that people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes have lower concentrations of vitamin D than those without the condition.

Studies have also found that type 1 diabetes is more common in countries where exposure to sunlight - which enables the body to manufacture vitamin D - is lower.

For instance, a child in Finland was 400 times more likely to develop the disease than a child in Venezuela.

Separate research has linked low levels of vitamin D and sunlight to other autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Further evidence of vitamin D’s role comes from the fact that pancreatic beta cells and immune cells carry receptors or docking bays for the active forms of the vitamin.

It is thought that vitamin D helps to keep the immune system healthy, and may protect cells from damage caused by chemicals which control inflammation.

Dr Victoria King, of the charity Diabetes UK, said: “Much more research, in particular controlled trials which compares the results when one group of people are given vitamin D supplements and one group is not, are needed before we can confirm a concrete association between vitamin D and type 1 diabetes.”

Governnment experts recommend vitamin D supplementation for at least the first two years of a child’s life, although the Chief Medical Officer for England has suggested supplements for the first five years is a good idea.

Source: BBC News