• Korean researchers have improved on their earlier method to increase the viewing angle of 3-D displays, but the Japanese are not holding their breath — Sharp’s 3-D laptop goes on sale next month. And 3-D ultrasound, invented by a Japanese 20 years ago, is likely to become ubiquitous within five years.
• Biochips (a.k.a. microarrays) are expanding upwards into the third dimension, portending a full-scale, if very miniature, laboratory.
• Self-cleaning paint, and fabrics that shrink to fit the wearer, are among the possible applications for a new molecular motor that spins when illuminated.
• Sunlight has been harnessed to power surgical lances; a potential boon for surgeons and their patients in sun-blest underdeveloped countries.
• Computer game simulation software that puts the user “inside” the game might one day find its way into surgical simulators, one new example of which uses real instruments on a virtual patient, with real-world complications thrown in.

Other reports of interesting devices include:

• An update on marketing of the VeriChip implanted ID chip,
• An IV drillto eliminate the problem of finding a vein,
• “X-ray glasses” that use radar to see through walls,
• A fuel cell powered by hydrogen from E.coli, and
• An update on motes — tiny wireless networked sensors.

3-D From Any Angle

Korean researchers have devised a method that widens both the horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 3-D integral imaging systems based on the clustered-lenses arrangement of insect eyes. Such arrays provide high-quality three-dimensional pictures and don’t require special viewing devices, but they tend to have only a narrow viewing angle. Their earlier mechanical solution involving high-speed shutters has now been replaced by a non-mechanical method using a beam splitter which widens the viewing angle vertically as well as horizontally. The beam splitter separates images into two opposite polarizations, one to widen the horizontal angle and one the vertical, and switches between the two polarizations faster than the eye can detect, creating a single, three-dimensional image with double the viewing angle of the original. The technique could be in use in static 3-D displays within two years, and in 3-D TV systems within a decade.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “3D Display Goes Vertical.” Technology Research News, July 15.

See also other articles about 3-D displays in the February, June, and Julyissues of Health Futures Digest.

3-D Laptop Arrives Next Month

Sharp’s Mebius 3-D laptop goes on sale October 27 in Japan. Apart from its ground-breaking display technology, which does not require the user to use any external 3-D devices, the laptop is a standard Pentium 4 machine running Windows. There is currently hardly any software written to display in 3-D, but that could change quickly now that a machine is available to display it, given that games, CAD, and medical applications would benefit greatly from 3-D.

Health Futures Digest has previously reported the imminence of Sharp’s laptop and continues to report, including in this issue, on refinements and breakthroughs in 3-D, which we believe is a significant advance in technologies affecting healthcare.

Reference: Kageyama, Yuri (2003). “Sharp Will Sell Laptop Showing 3-D Images.” Associated Press wire story published at Excite.com, September 11.

3-D Ultrasound

A Japanese scientist developed the first successful 3-D ultrasound system for obstetrics as long ago as 1984, but it is only now that sufficient computing power is available at low enough cost to make the technology readily available. One researcher anticipates that every ultrasound machine in use will be 3-D capable within five years, bringing better diagnosis through better images.

The technology has uses beyond obstetrics — for finding blood clots in veins and arteries, performing noninvasive breast biopsies on suspicious lesions, diagnosing musculoskeletal problems, and analyzing pains or masses in the abdomen or thyroid, for example.

Reference: Staedter, Tracy (2003). “3-D Ultrasound.” Visualize, July/August.

Lab Chips

The current generation of microfluidic “biochips” used for substance analysis and processing is made from two-dimensional flat surfaces with channels etched on them. The next generation, for which a patent has already been filed, will contain three-dimensional networks of channels. Chips for DNA and blood analysis and for drug discovery will become much more powerful. Essentially, it will be a true “lab on a chip” — chemical reaction chambers and all.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Mighty Micromixer.” Technology Review, Prototype section, July/August.

See also “Nanolab” in the August issue.

Molecular Robots

Molecular motors are common in nature, but until now their movement has been uncontrollable. Nanotechnologists have now produced “molecular motors” that spin and move when directed by a beam of light. They consist of two small molecular rings linked by hydrogen bonds to a larger ring. The small rings move around the big one when illuminated with light of different wavelengths, which breaks the bonds.

Within five to ten years, the motors could be used in self-cleaning paint and plastics and fabrics that change shape — for use in, say, “shrink-to-fit” clothes, or bandages, or tourniquets.

Reference: Hamblen, Neil (2003). “Paint changes colour in tiny world of molecular robot.” The Herald, July 10.

Solar-powered Surgery

Surgeons have performed liver surgery on rats using sunlight in place of scalpels or laser lances. It is a hundred times cheaper than laser and does not risk damage to the surgeon’s eyes. The catch? — The sun has to shine throughout the operation, disqualifying it from use in much of the world, but not in those underdeveloped regions where sunlight is plentiful and lasers are scarce.

The rugged, portable device consists of parabolic mirror to collect sunlight and a $1,000 fiber-optic concentrator (compare to a $100,000 laser) to amplify the sunlight into “several watts” of solar radiation.

Two and a half watts of radiation routed through an optic fiber was enough to make two incisions on the livers of the test rats. The rats appeared to recover well, and post-euthanasia autopsy revealed no significant differences from laser surgery.

Reference: Philipkoski, Kristen (2003). “Putting Sunburns to Good Use.” Wired News, July 30.

Simulation: Get In the Game

Shades of TRON, the movie that featured a human “sucked in” to a video game, where he battled the game’s cartoon characters. Sony’s new EyeToy uses a motion-tracking video camera to do essentially that. A cartoon “avatar” of the user mimics, on-screen, the user’s every real action. The device will be in American stores in October.

Computer games employ some of the most sophisticated hardware and software available, often leading rather than following heavyweight business applications. The technology could presumably be adapted for surgery simulations.

Reference: King, Brad (2003). “Appeasing the Control Freaks.” Wired News, July 29.

Surgery Simulator

One simulator under development will allow cardiologists and vascular surgeons to practice with stents, delivery wire, and balloon catheters connected to a virtual patient. Screens display a digital X-ray image of the arteries along with the progress of the stent’s guidewire.

The simulator is programmed with ten common clinical scenarios, some involving debris, blockages, and splitting blood vessels that happen in real life, with more scenarios under development. The simulator might one day be used in board certification tests for intervention cardiologists, and could be modified to simulate other conditions.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “California physicians test virtual heart surgery simulator.” iHealthBeat, July 16.

Implanted ID Chips

Applied Digital Solutions has begun selling its VeriChip injectable ID microchip implant, already available in the United States, in Mexico. The chip is the size of a grain of rice and implanted in the arm or hip using a syringe-like device under local anesthetic.

The chip could contain medical data, but because it would then come under FDA regulation, the company has chosen to simply store a unique serial number, which can be read by a scanner and linked to relevant health or other data held in a computer database. The company hopes to implant 10,000 chips in Mexico and install scanners in at least 70 percent of Mexico’s hospitals. A chip costs $150 plus a $50 annual fee. The scanner and related software cost $1,200.

A GPS-capable version of the chip is being developed, so the location of the implantee would be known at all times.

Reference: Joya Alonso Soto (2003). “Implanted ID Chip Heads South: New Chip Can Be Implanted in Humans.” Associated Press, July 18.

IV Drill

Between ten and 15 percent of patients who need an emergency IV don’t get one because caregivers fail to find a suitable vein. A new device delivers fluid into easy-to-reach bone marrow instead. Under local anesthetic, a small, battery-powered drill is used to insert a hollow needle into the core of the shin bone, just below the knee. The whole process takes about ten seconds. FDA approval of the device is reportedly imminent.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Marrow Measures.” Technology Review, Prototype section, July/August.

X-ray Glasses

A low-frequency radar device sees through walls and floors up to nearly a foot thick over a 75ft range. The successful prototype is now being scaled down to a size a soldier or emergency rescue worker can carry. Like an air traffic control radar, it does not produce a photographic image but icons representing the objects it sees. There are no plans to make the device available to the public.

Reference: Hurley, Kevin (2003). “British troops try out ‘James Bond’ style X-ray specs.” The Scotsman, June 29.

Bacterial Fuel Cell

A prototype microbial fuel cell captures the hydrogen produced when E. coli bacteria consume sugar. The device’s anode is coated with a conducting polymer which lets the small molecules of hydrogen through but not the larger molecules of other elements. The coating also helps prevent bacterial excreta from sticking to the anode. The prototype can produce up to .0015 amps sustained over several hours, enough to continuously run a .4 volt ventilator motor. A practical production device is at least five years away.

We reported in June 2003 on a related approach to create hydrogen using the bacteria in sewage sludge.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Better Bacterial Fuel Cell Demoed.” Technology Research News, July 25.

Dust: Update on Motes

Commercial development of inexpensive, disposable “dust mote” sensors continues. Each self-contained mote has a two-way radio and microprocessor, and can run for years on battery power. Early versions were the size of a cell phone, ran on AA batteries, and cost about $100. The current push is to get all that functionality onto a single microchip in an aspirin-sized mote for a dollar. The motes are self-organizing and self-healing, and a network of them will continue to operate even if several motes fail or are destroyed.

One can envisage an application for motes in monitoring patients and their environment in the home or hospital (see “Taking the Lead in In-home Care” in the Acceleration section of this issue.) Millennial Net is already developing similar devices to measure glucose levels, pulse, or oxygen saturation, and relay the data back to the patient or a physician.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Berkeley researchers develop tiny monitoring sensors.” iHealthBeat, July 2.