Tuesday, November 10, 2009
3D CT Scans of a Lego Toy MRI
Flickr user voxel123, who describes himself as "master of volume rendering (MRI, CT)," has posted a set of reconstructed CT images of a Lego MRI system.
Here's how voxel123 describes the picture above:
Some time ago, I built a Lego MRI system as a giveaway for a pediatric radiologist and had it CT scanned later.This is a volume rendering based on the axial scan. Note that the density of the bricks is different for each color.
Link: Lego MRI...
(hat tip: SCOPE blog @ Stanford Medicine)
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Nikon Small World 2009 Winners Announced
The winners in this year's Nikon Small World photomicrography contest have been announced. The competition, held annually since 1974, gives a good overview of how optics and digital technology have opened up the beauty of the microworld. Below is the grand prize winner and one of the runners up that we particularly enjoyed.
Link: Nikon Small World 2009 Winners...
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Video: The Beautiful Side of a Viral Infection
NPR's Robert Krulwich sat down with David Bolinsky of XVIVO, a firm that makes amazing animations for medicine and life sciences, to explain to the general public how viruses infect cells and reproduce themselves. For demonstration they used animation XVIVO produced for Zirus, a company developing novel methods to fight pathogenic viruses.
Watch the full video produced for Zirus here...
Link @ NPR: CDC: Swine Flu Cases Widespread And Rising...
XVIVO flashbacks: The Inner Life of the Cell; The Inner Life of the Cell: A Full Version ; Can a Digital Projected Heart Replace a Much Beloved Solid One?
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Monday, October 19, 2009
Wellcome Image Awards 2009 Winners Announced
Wellcome Images, an open source of high quality medically relevant photos and illustrations, has announced the winners of its tenth annual Wellcome Image Awards. The contest aims to profile the best that the collection has gathered over the previous year and to highlight the quickly developing world of medical science.
Nineteen extraordinary images have been chosen by a panel of judges based on the ability of the picture to communicate the wonder and fascination of science.From capillary networks and liver cells to summer plankton and bird of paradise seeds, miniature worlds are explored through microscopy and electron micrographs. Cutting-edge techniques reveal the intricate nerve endings around our hair follicles, and the beautiful patterns in compact bone and aspirin crystals. The selected images are now on display at Wellcome Collection, as well as on the Image Awards website, which explains the stories behind the pictures: how the images were created, what they add to scientific understanding and why the judges picked them out as the best images this year.
To mark the tenth Wellcome Image Awards, two additional categories were included this year in photography and illustration.
There were also two special awards, one given to the makers of animations showing the intricate structure of a mouse's head during development and the other for the unique capture of sensory nerve endings, both showing an astonishing level of detail and accuracy that has previously not been possible with conventional microscopy techniques.
Link: Wellcome Image Awards Winners' Gallery...
Press release: Wellcome Image Awards reveal the stories behind science...
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Friday, September 25, 2009
Medical Robotics Gets Moment in Spotlight
The Royal College of Surgeons of England has partnered with the Qvist Gallery at the Hunterian Museum to profile the history of the development of robotic tools for medical applications. The showing also includes some sci-fi work of Osamu Tezuka, an artist whose work many believe to be the inspiration for the Fantastic Voyage film.
Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots is the theme for the latest exhibition in the Qvist Gallery at the Hunterian Museum. The exhibition runs from 8 September to 23 December 2009 and explores the fascinating world of medical robotics including the pioneering Probot (1991), a robot designed to aid prostate gland surgery, Freehand, a robotic camera holder for keyhole surgery as well as mini-robots designed to make their own way around the inside of the human body.Many of these robots are still at the prototype stage. Exhibits include the prototype Robotic Camera Pill (2005). Swallowed by patients in pill form, doctors will guide the robot by remote-control, using images beamed back to a screen. Also included is the ARES Robot prototype (2009) which will require patients to swallow up to 15 different modules. Once inside the body the modules will assemble themselves into a larger device capable of carrying out surgical procedures.
Robots and related technologies are being designed to support every area of patient care. Toumaz Technology’s ‘Digital Plaster’ 2009 monitors a patient’s vital signs and alerts doctors if results fall outside predicted ranges. Sophisticated nursebots like ‘Pearl’ and Japan’s ‘RI-MAN’ are a futuristic solution to the care needs of an increasing elderly population.
The exhibition will also feature some famous medical robots from the world of science fiction, from the 1920s ‘Pyschophonic Nurse’, to Japanese Manga (printed cartoons) and Anime (animated films), and Britain’s own 2000AD, and ask whether science fiction reflects fact, or if scientists are inspired by the representation of medical robots in films, books and comics.
Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka whose creations include ‘Astroboy’ and the maverick surgeon ‘Black Jack’. Tezuka trained as a doctor but never practiced, choosing to follow his dream of becoming a manga artist. Many of his stories feature medical themes and one of his earliest works, ‘The Monster on the 38th Parallel’, has miniaturised humans entering a body to fight disease and is thought to have been the inspiration for the 1966 Sci-Fi classic ‘Fantastic Voyage’.
Link @ Royal College of Surgeons of England: Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots...
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Bleed to Make Light
Reading by candle light is so 20th century. The next innovation? Using your blood to make light. Yes, your blood. Design artist Mike Thompson has developed a one time use lamp that works by a flourescent reaction between human blood and an active chemical component dissolved in water.
Mike Thompson's thoughts on this design:
The average American consumes 3383kwh of energy per year. That’s equivalent to leaving the light on in 4 rooms for a whole year. The simple flick of a switch allows us to power appliances and gadgets 24/7 without a thought to where it comes from and the cost to the environment.For the lamp to work one breaks the top off, dissolves the tablet, and uses their own blood to power a simple light. By creating a lamp that can only be used once, the user must consider when light is needed the most, forcing them to rethink how wasteful they are with energy, and how precious it is.
We'll still stick with normal electricity for our blogging, though.
Mike Thompson: Blood Lamp...
(hat tip: Gizmodo)
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Monday, September 14, 2009
NanoTube Video Contest Winners Announced
The American Chemical Society just announced the winners of the second annual NanoTube contest. This year's video submissions focused on nanotechnology's potential to change the world. "NanoGirls," a music video from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, the grand prize winner, profiles how nanotechnology may vastly improve the efficiency of electricity generating solar cells.
Full announcement from the ACS: American Chemical Society announces winner of second nanotechnology video contest...
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Designer IV Bags Make Your Post-op a Fashion Statement
Designer Olivier Trillon's concepts make you wonder whether you'd prefer your post op morphine drip in a Yves Saint Laurent or a Chanel IV bag. Seeing how sexy medical gadgetry has been getting lately, perhaps this is a field for the fashion world to embrace with open arms.
More of Olivier Trillon's works from Trend.Land...
(hat tip: Interior design room)
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Friday, August 7, 2009
The Beauty of the Nanoworld Revealed at SPMage09
The International Scanning Probe Microscopy Image Contest 2009, featuring our beautiful world at a microscopic level, has just announced the winners of the competition. The submissions from around the world demonstrate how widespread the field of nanotechnology is, and the progress this field has achieved in only a few years.
Here are the five winners and their works above (left to right, top to bottom):
First Prize: Li Ang, National University of Singapore (Singapore) Second Prize: Sander Otte, NIST-Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (United States) Third Prize: Sviatlana Abetkovskaia, A.V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute (Belarus) Fourth Prize: Francesco Mantegazza, Universita' degli studi di Milano-Bicocca (Italy) Fifth Prize: Mar Cardellach Redon, Centre d'Investigació en Nanociencia i Nanotecnologia (Spain)
Link: Gallery of submissions to the SPMAGE09 contest...
(hat tip: Nanowerk)
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Man and Nature Combine to Make Exquisite Art
Eshel Ben Jacob, a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University, beautified photos of bacteria growing in Petri dishes with a bit of color and shading to create an amazing collection you can browse yourself.
Here's what the artist/scientist tells Medgadget about the works:
They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics. Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria - for example, by tampering with their communication - in our ongoing battle for our health.In a sense, the strikingly beautiful organization of the pattern reflects the underlying social intelligence of the bacteria. The once controversial idea that bacteria cooperate to solve challenges has become commonplace, with the discovery of specific channels of communication between the cells and specific mechanisms facilitating the exchange of genetic information. Retrospectively, these capabilities should not have been seen as so surprising, as bacteria set the stage for all life on Earth and indeed invented most of the processes of biology. As we try to stay ahead of the disease-causing varieties of these versatile creatures, we must use our own intelligence to understand them. These images remind us never to underestimate our opponent.
Link: Theories of Mind Art Gallery...
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Latest Print Ad Campaign for Zürich Chamber Orchestra
In a beautiful gesture to the fact that music can stimulate the body unlike anything else, the advertising design agency Euro RSCG, Zürich, Switzerland has created this ad campaign for Zürich Chamber Orchestra
(hat tip: Fubiz via Zayats)
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Sony's Mechanical "Heart" Strikes Fear in our Blood Pumps
Sony has produced what can only be described as a frighteningly awesome "mechanical heart" built for ads that will be aired during England's World Cup qualifying campaign. The heart was created by the special effects group Artem and is built from Sony TVs, DVD players, cameras, and even Walkmans. It looks like Sony has rediscovered that "fear factor" that has been missing from our latest medical devices.
(From Electric Pig via Engadget)
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009
IN Cell Competition Depicts Life's Beauty at Cellular Level
GE Healthcare is running a new photo competition that is meant to show off images created on the company's IN Cell Analyzer, a system for visualizing and analyzing cellular processes.
See all of this year's submissions at the IN Cell Image Competition...
IN Cell Analyzer product page...
(hat tip: NewScientist)
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Monday, December 22, 2008
And Now for Something Slightly Different...
Bill Harbaugh, an economics professor at the University of Oregon who focuses on neuroeconomics, or using neuroscience techniques like fMRI to examine people's economic decisions, has curated a small art exhibit he calls "Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art".
From the Museum:
This is the world's largest extant collection of anatomically correct fabric brain art. Inspired by research from neuroscience, dissection and neuroeconomics, our current exhibition features three quilts with functional images from PET and fMRI scanning and a knitted brain. The artists are Marjorie Taylor and Karen Norberg. Techniques used include quilting, applique, embroidery, beadwork, knitting, and crocheting. Materials include fabric, yarn, metallic threads, electronic components such as magnetic core memory, and wire, zippers, and beads.While our artists make every effort to insure accuracy, we cannot accept responsibility for the consequences of using fabric brain art as a guide for functional magnetic resonance imaging, trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, neurosurgery, or single-neuron recording.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
BioScapes 2008 Winners Announced
Olympus has announced this year's winners of the BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition, a contest of the finest photographs from recent research in the life sciences. Shown above is the overall winner, but do browse through the entire winner's gallery for all the amazing works.
A luminous golden ‘fairy fly’ that seems to defy gravity as it hovers with feathered wings against a dark background took top prize in the 2008 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition®, the world’s foremost forum for showcasing microscope photos and videos of life science subjects. Mr. M. I. “Spike” Walker of Staffordshire, England, took top honors for the shimmering image of what is called a fairy fly, actually a tiny wasp that may be the world’s smallest insect at only 0.21mm long, or 1/25 the length of the average red ant. The eerily glowing wasp, captured in exquisite detail, reveals the extraordinary delicacy, balance, beauty, and numerous colors in the diminutive creature.This year’s winning images reflect a fascination with the awe-inspiring influence of science in everyday life, with surprising views of white wine, human teeth, ticks, wings and feathers, fruit flies, honeybees, mosquitoes, moss, pollen, lobster eggs, tongues, snails and petrified wood among the honorees. Across the spectrum are other images that reflect the latest advances in neuroscience and cell biology, including the Fourth Prize image of zebrafish neurons captured by Albert Pan of Harvard University, using the “Brainbow” imaging technique, one of the most advanced fluorescence imaging methodologies available today. (Last year’s top prize winner was a Brainbow image captured by another researcher in the same Harvard University laboratory.)
BioScapes 2008 Gallery of Winners...
Press release: It's a Bug's Life, as Flawless Photo of Wasp Wins Worldwide Olympus BioScapes Competition
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Public Health Art Through The Decades
The National Library of Medicine is hosting an exhibition of 20th century public health posters collected from all over the world.
On the right is a U.S. poster from the 1940's, and it ain't about the dangers of tobacco.
From the New York Times:
Titled “An Iconography of Contagion,” the exhibition features work from numerous countries on an array of diseases, among them syphilis, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. The posters are on display at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington through Dec. 19.Much of the exhibition suggests a mash-up of advertising and public health. The posters tried to convey the danger of disease and get people to change their behavior, said the curator, Michael Sappol, a historian at the library of medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.
But “they’re also about the pleasure of the image,” he continued, adding, “There have been some very sexy, colorful, playful posters about some very serious diseases.”
Read the article at the New York Times...
Link to a quick slideshow of some posters from the NYT...
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
BMCA Medical Museum Goes Online
The British Columbia Medical Association put its collection of antique medical devices online for all to peruse, featuring items "that range from the curious to the macabre".
Here's info about the displayed breast pump from the mid-1800's:
A breast suction pump in green velvet lined box consisting of brass suction pump with piston rod, which has an ivory thumb rest and leather clad plunger base, which screws onto glass breast suction cup. Small oblong brass plaque on lid of box, lock plate and hook catches.Object parts:
a) Lined case with plaque, lock plate and catch hooks
b) Suction cup with red fixative holding fitting
c) Screw cap for suction cup brass fitting
d) Pump cylinder
e) Piston rodHistory of Use: Probably belonged to Dr. C.C. Covernton's great grandfather, Dr. Charles William Covernton, who graduated from Edinburgh c.1830. He moved to Simco Ont. 1836. He later moved to Toronto and became one of the 1st President of the Ont. Med. Assoc. 1881-1882.
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
Freeny's Anatomy: Disturbing, Very Educational.
Following in the footsteps of great medical illustrators, Henry Gray and Frank Netter, Jason Freeny--an artist/illustrator/crazy person--can now lay claim to his own atlas of anatomy. After countless hours of sleepless nights and dissections, he created detailed anatomical images allowing us to see the insides of not only the infamous Lego Minifig but also of the Gummi Bear and Balloon Animal. We here at Medgadget only hope that all participants willingly gave their bodies in the name of science.
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
Virtual Autopsy Photographer Takes 2008 Lennart Nilsson Award
This year's Lennart Nilsson Award for scientific photography, yet another prestigious prize administered by Karolinska Institutet, went to Swedish physician Anders Persson, MD, PhD, in recognition "of his innovative techniques for capturing 3-D images inside the human body." When we looked through his pictures on the award's website, we were quite amazed.
The following is from a press statement by Karolinska Institutet:
In selecting Anders Persson, the board of the Lennart Nilsson Award Foundation stated “Persson’s imaging methods combine cutting-edge technology with great creativity and educational value. He reveals the hidden mysteries of the body with unique precision, producing images that can be understood and interpreted by the lay public and experts alike.” Dr Persson is Director of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV) at Linköping University and the University Hospital in Linköping, Sweden, where he has developed 3-D imaging technology with considerable success. Dr Persson and his colleagues produce their images of the inside of the human body using a combination of imaging techniques including magnetic resonance, ultrasound and positron emission tomography. After capturing these initial images, Persson compiles them into pictures of great clarity that are rich in data.
The CMIV’s techniques open up completely new avenues for forensic medical experts to conduct analyses that are much quicker and simpler than conventional methods. Persson’s spectacular 3-D images have been featured prominently on CSI, a popular TV series about a team of forensic scientists.Dr Anders Persson (born 1953) began his career as an X-ray lab assistant in Bollnäs, Sweden, after leaving upper secondary school. He so enjoyed this work that he passed up the opportunity to study at the Royal Institute of Technology in order to train as a radiology nurse.
After working as a nursing instructor with Karolinska Institutet’s Radiology Assistant program, he went on to become a radiologist. For several years he worked as a consultant and senior consultant in Hudiksvall before becoming the head of radiology for the Hälsingland region.
In 2002, he was recruited by Linköping University to develop the CMIV and in 2005 earned his doctorate in the field of 3-D imaging. The CMIV has since expanded, and now comprises 70 research scientists and 30 postgraduates.
Check out more info, mind blowing pictures and videos at 2008 Lennart Nilsson Award...
Press release: Swede honoured with photography prize for virtual autopsy techniques...
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» Ex-Votos Exhibition at NLM (October 6, 2008)
» 2008 NSF Scientific Visualization Awards Announced (September 25, 2008)
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» The Interactive Heart from Hybrid Medical (June 24, 2008)
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» 2001 Space Odyssey Starchild: Your Baby in 4D Ultrasound (June 16, 2008)
» DNA Art: Looks Abstract, Really Not at All (June 6, 2008)
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» "Chickens Are Just Like You and Me, Except They're Chickens" (May 30, 2008)
» Anaglyphs of Anatomical Waxworks by Clemente Susini in 3D, on Flickr (May 12, 2008)
» Bassett, Gruber 3D Anatomical Atlas Going Online (April 28, 2008)
» Kaibo Zonshinzu Anatomy Scrolls Online (April 28, 2008)
» Med Lab Art (April 18, 2008)
» Cameras As Art (April 8, 2008)
» "Design and the Elastic Mind" at MOMA (March 25, 2008)
» Beating, Bleeding Heart (March 24, 2008)
» Anatomical Street Art (March 19, 2008)
» Wellcome Image Awards 2008 (March 12, 2008)
» Bees, Another Diagnostic Modality (March 6, 2008)
» Photography in the O.R. (March 4, 2008)
» "Bodies of Knowledge" (February 13, 2008)
» Neurostamps (February 12, 2008)
» Surgical Latex Glove Lamp (February 11, 2008)
» Dark Medical Art: Human Black Box (February 8, 2008)
» Sonic Body: Experience the Sights and Sounds from Inside (January 30, 2008)
» Historical Medical Photography (January 25, 2008)
» Nucleus Medical Art in CG Channel (December 3, 2007)
» DNA Portraits™ by DNA 11 (November 19, 2007)
» World's Most Popular Medical Animation? (October 10, 2007)
» Nikon Small World 2007 (October 5, 2007)
» Nano Object Pretending to be a Medgadget (October 4, 2007)
» 2007 NSF Scientific Visualization Awards Announced (September 28, 2007)
» Nanomedicine Video Wins Aurora Animation Award (September 13, 2007)
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» Antique Medical Art Auction at Christie's (September 4, 2007)
» Worst Case Scenario (August 7, 2007)
» 3D Animations from Nucleus Medical (July 30, 2007)
» Nikon Small World Voting Open (July 11, 2007)
» The Wellcome Collection (June 21, 2007)
» A Dancer on Prostheses (June 11, 2007)
» Cloaca Distills the Essense of Modern Art (May 29, 2007)
» The X-Ray Project (April 25, 2007)
» Science In Silico (April 23, 2007)
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» Eye Disease Gave Great Painters a Different Vision of Their Work (April 11, 2007)
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» It's Alive, and It's Kind of Disturbing (February 20, 2007)
» The Art of Cvetomir Georgiev (January 29, 2007)
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» Eye of Science (December 29, 2006)
» 2006 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition (December 15, 2006)
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» Metallosis Maligna and the Medgadget Sci Fi Contest (November 28, 2006)
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» Anti-smoking Message in a Cigarette (September 25, 2006)
» Shocking Into CPR (September 22, 2006)
» The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art (September 14, 2006)
» MedicalIllustrator (August 10, 2006)
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» Tissue Culture (August 3, 2006)
» The Future Home of Institute for Nanobiomedical Technology and Membrane Biology in Chengdu, China (July 31, 2006)
» Biomedical Image Awards 2006 (July 19, 2006)
» Dancers Plier about DNA (June 16, 2006)
» The 2006 Art of Science Exhibition at Princeton (June 9, 2006)
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» Of Human Bindings (May 16, 2006)
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» Beauty Is Not Skin Deep (But Ethics May Be) (November 18, 2005)
» Small World 2005 (November 1, 2005)
» Ecce Homology: Drawing with DNA (July 22, 2005)
» The 2005 Art of Science Exhibition at Princeton (June 13, 2005)
» Quack, Quack, Quack (March 31, 2005)
» Visionary Anatomies (March 24, 2005)
» Dream Anatomy (March 11, 2005)
» "The Human Body Revealed" at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (February 8, 2005)
">» "The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman" (December 27, 2004)
