Medgadget » not funny

DIY Biofeedback Game Controller Uses Your Guns to Find the Princess

Scott Jung — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:12:36 +0000

If you’re noticing that your 20-hour Skyrim gaming marathons are causing you to lose muscle definition, you might want to check out Advancer Technologies‘ “USB Biofeedback Game Controller.” It’s a DIY project based on our favorite Arduino microcontroller and contains electromyography circuit boards to detect electrical activity in muscles. The kit comes with four muscle sensors that can each be programmed to control four buttons. For example, squeezing your hand could trigger the button to make a character move, and flexing your bicep could cause the character to jump.

It’s probably the nerdiest way to show off the power of your guns (and the strangest way to control Mario), but it’s certainly an interesting and offbeat use of electromyography!

More Fun With the Da Vinci Surgical Robot: Grape Peeling

Scott Jung — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:21:08 +0000

It brings us great relief knowing that the same robot that can perform complicated surgical procedures in the morning can help prepare lunch for the hungry surgeon after the operation is over.

Here’s a video from the North Bristol NHS Trust in the UK showing the da Vinci surgical robot peeling a grape:

Experience Pregnancy With the Mommy Tummy 8.0 Simulator

Scott Jung — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:24:41 +0000

Sympathy pads are so last year! To allow men to better experience the joys of pregnancy, Kosaka Lab at the Kanagawa Institute in Japan has developed “Mommy Tummy 8.0″, a high-tech simulator that replicates many of the joys of a full-term, 10-month gestation period in only two minutes.

To use the simulator, the user (the dad) places a special jacket on himself. The jacket is connected to a water tank which fills the jacket with water to simulate the weight gain of the fetus. The water is even warmed to make the experience more realistic. A vibrator in the jacket simulates the baby’s heartbeat and various balloons throughout the jacket can inflate, simulating the baby moving and kicking in the womb. There’s even balloons in the chest area to simulate breast development.

Phone Oximeter – The Musical

Scott Jung — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:28:25 +0000

Romance! Suspense! Freddie Mercury singing! It’s everything you’d want marketing a medical device, right?
Perhaps not for every medical device, but researchers at the University of British Columbia‘s Electrical & Computer Engineering in Medicine have put out this campy YouTube video to demonstrate a very real device that integrates an FDA approved pulse oximeter with your smartphone.

“The Dentist Of Jaipur”

Gene Ostrovsky — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:36:44 +0000

Here’s a short thought-provoking and bloody documentary by German filmmaker Falk Peplinski about the latest dentistry advances happening on the sidewalks of Jaipur, India:

Functional Bad Ass Wheelchairs

Gene Ostrovsky — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:13:07 +0000

Humor site Cracked.com is profiling stories of five souped-up wheelchair projects. If you already have four wheels and a frame, might as well install a flame thrower on it. Or how about a motorcycle with a wheelchair docking system?
Link: The 5 Most Incredible Stories of Pimped Out Wheelchairs…

A Message from Dr. Fiona Godlee, Earth-Loving Editor-in-Chief of British Medical Journal

Gene Ostrovsky — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:46:54 +0000

Dr. Fiona Godlee of BMJ, a globetrotter who is always concerned about your carbon footprint, has issued the following alarm:

Bon voyage to France, Dr. Godlee! Hopefully it’ll be a coach Eurail.

I Can’t Shut My Mouth and All I Can Do Is Scream

Gene Ostrovsky — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:59:37 +0000

Here’s a cute story of a girl who yawned so hard in class that her jaw misaligned. A bit of clinical trickery using wood tongue depressors and a steady hand of the doctor is what’s in the prescription. The responsible party is, of course, the professor for not being lively enough for this student.
From BBC Three Bizarre ER show:

Da Vinci Robot Excises Wish Bone During Operation Board Game

Wouter Stomp — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:01 +0000

The stream of reports of fun things you can do when you have a multi-million dollar da Vinci robot laying around idle just doesn’t stop. After folding paper planes last week, this week the robot is set to a more critical task. Students at the Johns Hopkins University Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics used the robot to play the good old board game “Operation”, every doctor’s favorite childhood game. Watch the video below to see how they use it to skillfully and precisely remove the wish bone from a patient’s chest:

Control Your Email With Your Body…Compliments of Google

Scott Jung — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:05:31 +0000

Gesture-based computing is starting to do wonders in the world of medicine, with potential applications in areas such as imaging and surgery. On the other hand, with the success of Microsoft’s Kinect sensor, the Nintendo Wii, and the Playstation Eye, gesture computing is also a great entertainment tool.
But what about those of us who aren’t medical professionals, or don’t have the time to be playing video games?