Scientists have successfully controlled a living creature’s heart with a laser beam, taking a first step towards technology that could prevent serious heart defects. The procedure used pulses of light to pace the heart of a two-day-old quail embryo.
The Heart Chamber Orchestra is a stirring audiovisual project, involving an orchestra that generates its own musical score (and accompanying visuals) in real time. The catch? The source of the music is the heartbeats of the orchestra’s own members.
The heart that beats inside Charles Okeke’s chest is completely artificial. It keeps him alive, but at a price: he’s tethered to a 180kg machine in a hospital. Thanks to a revolutionary backpack-sized breakthrough, he can finally go home again.
The iPhone’s password security system works just fine, but compared to what Apple has in the works it’s downright rudimentary. A recently filed patent indicates that our iPhones may someday identify us by the beating of our hearts.
Here’s something you don’t see in your local gadget store: a machine that takes a dead animal heart and keeps it beating so scientists can perform various tests on it. Gross!
Ah l’amour! I love being in love as much as I hate this USB Plasma Heart, which of course comes from the good/evil genius of Brando just in time for Valentines, my darlings.
I’m not saying that your significant other would walk out on you if you were to serve them up a fried egg in the shape of a love heart (although some might) – I’m saying that if you’re the kind of person who thinks that buying a love-heart shaped egg ring is a good idea, you’re probably lonely already.
Artificial heart technology has been around a while, but this new invention by European scientists is so convincing in its emulation of a real heart’s action that if you plot its output blood flow and show “the graphs to a cardiac surgeon, he will say it’s a human heart” apparently. It also beats previous designs in that it shouldn’t need external wiring connectors and its biosynthetic “skin” means it won’t develop clots that pose a stroke risk to patients.
Heart surgery is usually a case of “be still my beating heart” since it’s easier to work with static tissue, despite the risk of brain damage and all the complications of cardiopulmonary bypass machines. No longer, perhaps: some clever bods at Harvard University and the Children’s Hospital Boston have come up with a robotic system that can compensate for the movements of a heart in real time…meaning certain procedures can be performed to fix a dicky ticker without halting its beat.
