The New York Times (sub reqd) mentions George Dvorsky’s commentary and the IEET in an article about a South African double amputee sprinter with special sprinting prostheses who wants to compete in the regular Olympics. His competition decry his enhancements.
Companies are marketing drugs to pull stem cells out of your bone marrow. The Scientist asks if they are safe.
The company Alive Technology is marketing a set of biomonitors that bluetooth to your cellphone, and auto-send your vitals to your robo-doctor.
Nanowerk reviews the myriad promises and potential toxiciological issues of nanomedicine. That’s particularly of concern in the unregulated area of cosmetics, an industry experimenting with a variety of new ‘smart’ delivery technologies including nanomaterial compounds.
Two more groups, from University of Miamai and U of California Berkeley, show that nanomaterials provide a stimulus and scaffolding for the regeneration of damaged neurons.
A team at the University of Queensland have located the source of neural stem cells in the brain, and the process that generates them, promising breakthroughs in the treatment of brain disorders.
A team at the University of Maryland have built a blood filter out of nanomaterials that can trap viruses and toxic molecules. Another reason to get a dialysis shunt.
Britons debate the ethics of GPS-chipping our kids in order to keep them safe, and make sure they aren’t lounging in the local crack den.
Teams at Harvard and Princeton University have built implantable biological computers out of DNA, RNA and proteins which can detect mutated cells (like cancer) and output chemical signals detectable with lab tests.
The latest issue of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (16(3), July 2007) has eight papers on the bio-implants and nano-neural interfaces, including “The Ethics of Enabling Technology,” “The Bodily Incorporation of Mechanical Devices: Ethical and Religious Issues, “Becoming Borg to Become Immortal: Regulating Brain Implant Technologies,” “Design and Engineering Ethics Considerations for Neurotechnologies,"Ethics in the Clinical Application of Neural Implants” and Keith Bauer’s “Wired Patients: Implantable Microchips and Biosensors in Patient Care”:
Abstract: After decades of specialization within the sciences, the development and application of implantable microchips and biosensors are now being made possible by a growing convergence among seemingly disparate scientific disciplines including, among others, biology, informatics, chemistry, and engineering. This convergence of diverse scientific disciplines is the basis for the creation of new technologies that will have significant medical potential. As of today, implantable microchips and biosensors are being used as mental prostheses to compensate for a loss of normal function, to remotely monitor patients’ vital signs, to control the delivery of medications, and to communicate with geographically distant healthcare professionals and the outside environment.
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