Unexpected uses for the Wiimote benefit disabled, soldiers, and well, the people who just don’t want to push a vacuum.
Wii hackers worldwide are developing truly revolutionary, non-gaming, uses for Wiimotes including bomb disarming(!), robot control, and more. You can even vacuum your house!
What can you do with your Wiimote?
How now brown cow? That’s the question for Wilhelmina, an 8 year old dairy cow who sustained an injury to her cruciate ligament so severe, it would have normally been the end of her. Wilhelmina’s owners though, were willing to allow doctors from Kansas State University to attempt a radical procedure to completely replace her ligament with a fully synthetic material called “Wildcat Power Cord”.
An 8-year-old Jersey dairy cow is back at her Kansas farm thanks to a decade of research and an experimental surgery performed at Kansas State University’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
The cow, named Wilhelmina Jolene by the veterinary students assigned to her case, sustained a breeding injury in December 2007 when the cruciate ligament in her right knee ruptured. Dr. David Anderson, professor and head of agricultural practices at K-State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, replaced the ligament using synthetic material called monofilament nylon. The procedure’s success could have enormous implications for breeding quality cows and bulls with the same injury.
Fortunately, Wilhelmina’s owner recognized the value of saving her. Mike Frey is the son of Dr. Russ Frey, a prominent professor at K-State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “She’s owned by the son of an important faculty member in our college’s history,” Anderson said. “It’s wonderful that there is a connection to Dr. Frey with this case and that Mike understands the teaching value.”
Mike Frey said he was happy to be part of an effort that could help animals, producers and students.
“I was always under the assumption that an animal with this problem was going to be heading down the road,” he said. “If they could perfect this so that a cow could be kept in production, that would be worth quite a bit.”
The cruciate ligament is a dense tissue that connects the bones in the knee joint. Injuring it can be career-ending and often life-ending - until now, Anderson said.
The three surgical techniques for cruciate ligaments in large animals have a failure rate of approximately 50 percent, Anderson said. This fact caused him and surgery colleagues Drs. Guy St-Jean and Andre Desrochers to investigate alternatives in the 1990s. That’s when the team designed a cruciate ligament using braided polyester; however, the material was not strong enough for heavy cattle.
Anderson continued to experiment with a variety of materials until he discovered an unusual form of nylon monofilament, a solid material about the diameter of a coffee straw. But the question remained: Could this man-made material replace the natural ligament of a 1,500 pound animal?
On Jan. 17, Anderson replaced Wilhelmina’s torn ligament with the artificial one, dubbed the “Wildcat Power Cord.” Anderson’s surgery team included surgery residents Drs. Kara Schulz and Jose Bras, intern Dr. Manuel Chamorro, along with anesthesiologists, veterinary students and technicians.
The next day, the Jersey cow was led across the hospital’s video synchronization pressure mat to determine her level of lameness. “Her stride length had increased 30 percent, and she bore 25 percent more weight on her operated leg,” Anderson said. “To have that much improvement is spectacular.”
His long-term goal is to develop a replacement ligament strong enough for bulls. Lab tests reveal that the Wildcat Power Cord can withstand up to 12,000 newtons of pressure - roughly 50 percent more than an adult bull requires.
Wilhelmina retuned home and was kept in a box stall for a week or so, Mike Frey said. After that, she had the run of the free stall. “It’s been a tough winter with all of the snow and ice,” he said. “I didn’t think she’d get around as good as she did.”
Shelby Reinstein, a senior veterinary student from Tulsa, Okla., was one of the K-State students who worked with — and named — Wilhelmina the cow.
Reinstein said she appreciated the learning opportunities this case presented, especially those relative to anatomy of the stifle and monitoring Wilhelmina for specific conditions dairy cows are at risk for developing. These include inflammation of the udder (mastitis) or of the uterus (metritis), a metabolic imbalance (ketosis), ulcers and displacement of the abomasum, the fourth compartment of a ruminant’s stomach.
“We worked really hard for her and spent long hours at the hospital, but it was definitely worth it after seeing how well she did post-op,” Reinstein said. “I love being part of the discovery aspect of veterinary medicine, and it is always really rewarding to try something you’re not sure about and have it work. And, my parents were quite impressed that I could milk a cow!”
An Action Medical Research funded project, based at the Cambridge University Centre for Brain Repair, is on the brink of a major potential breakthrough in the repair of spinal cord injuries.The charity, which only funds the very best in cutting edge research, has said that the ground-breaking work may bring new hope to sufferers.Spinal cord injuries are a major cause of disability — in the UK there are more than 40,000(1) people suffering from injuries to their spine, which can take the form of anything from loss of sensation to full paralysis.
Cord injury is incredibly distressing for both the patient and their family because there is no cure — active lives can be turned upside down overnight. It is especially tragic because, cruelly, the average age at the time of injury is just 19.
Until now, despite the attempts of many scientists to find a cure, the problem facing neurologists has been that the body simply cannot repair damage to the brain or spinal cord.
Although it is possible for nerves to regenerate, they are blocked by the scar tissue that forms at the site of the spinal injury.
However, Professor James Fawcett’s Cambridge based team believes it is close to a clinical treatment that could allow nerve fibres to regenerate within the spinal cord and also encourage remaining nerve fibres to work more effectively.
This revolutionary discovery may ultimately mean treatments to improve the lives of people paralysed through spinal damage.
The Action Medical Research team has found that a bacterial enzyme called chondroitinase is capable of digesting molecules within scar tissue to allow some nerve fibres to regrow.
Excitingly it also promotes something called nerve plasticity. This means that any remaining undamaged nerve fibres have an increased likelihood of making new connections that could bypass the area of damage.
Recent work by Professor Fawcett’s team has found that using chondroitinase in conjunction with rehabilitation allows greater opportunity for nerve recovery than by using either technique alone. This is an important finding, because it shows that the treatment can open up a window of opportunity during which rehabilitation can be much more effective. The finding will probably also be important for rehabilitation after stroke and brain injury.
This ground-breaking discovery will need to be tested before it can be given to patients, to establish the optimum time for it to be administered.
Professor Fawcett said, “It is rare to find that a spinal cord is completely severed, generally there are still some nerve fibres that are undamaged.
“Chondroitinase offers us hope in two ways; firstly it allows some nerve fibres to regenerate and secondly it enables other nerves to take on the role of those fibres that cannot be repaired.
“Scientists have worked hard to produce treatments for paralysed patients with spinal injuries for many years, but it has proven extremely complicated.
Clinical trials have not yet been started, but the treatment is under pre-clinical development by Acorda Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in New York.
“Along with rehabilitation we are very hopeful that at last we may be able to offer paralysed patients a treatment to improve their condition.”
Dr Yolande Harley of Action Medical Research said, “The charity is proud to be at the forefront of medical advance thanks to brilliant researchers like Professor Fawcett.
“His work will give new hope to people with recent spinal injuries.
“Today the emphasis is on providing the best possible care and occupational therapy but eventually we hope to have a clinical treatment that will help to improve the underlying injury that is causing the patient’s loss of mobility or sensation.
“This is incredibly exciting, ground-breaking work and is truly innovative research from the very best in the field.”
- The Spinal Injuries Association Annual Report 2003/4 states an estimation of 40,000 UK sufferers
Professor Fawcett’s paper Therapeutic time window for the application of chondroitinase ABC after spinal cord injury has been published online by Experimental Neurology. A copy is available on request.
New advances in eye-movement recognition technology lead to hands-free surgery. Adaptation and cost-reduction of this technology will lead to significant advances in day to day living challenges for future generations.
James Randerson, science correspondent
The GuardianBritish researchers are developing a medical robot which can work out the intentions of a surgeon performing an operation, making surgery easier and more precise.
They hope new software will lead to less invasive operations, for example when conducting a cardiac bypass or tumour removal, allowing patients to recover more quickly.
The improvements have been made to the most advanced robotic surgeon on the market, the Da Vinci. It allows surgeons to sit at a viewing console directing the movement of the robot’s mechanical arms inside the patient’s body. The research team is working on using the surgeon’s eye movements to direct the robot, getting the best out of both human and machine.
“We want to empower the robot and make it more autonomous,” said computer scientist Professor Guang Zhong Yang, of the Hamlyn centre for robotic surgery at Imperial College London.
He said robotic surgeons are currently completely under the control of the surgeon. The robot responds only to the surgeon’s hand movements. “There’s a large amount of information that is not being explored at all. That’s the human part.”
The team has added a device which tracks the surgeon’s eye movements. By working out precisely where each eye is looking, software can build up a 3D map of the area of tissue the surgeon is looking at. “What that does is it uses the surgeon’s brain as a way in to calculating the depth of the tissue,” said the surgeon Lord Darzi, who heads the centre and is a government health minister responsible for improving patient care.
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