Intelligent Scalpels Through Touch Technology

DullTrev writes: "The BBC News site is running a story about touch technology. Basically, haptics is the science of incorporating a sense of touch into technology. Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a sensor which can feel. So you could have a surgeon operating with a scalpel incorporating this technology, the scalpel could push back against the surgeon when he tries to slice and dice an artery. I'm sure there could be loads of applications for this technology - most uselessly the test these scientists have been doing - stopping cutting a hardboiled egg when you get to the yolk..."

Comments

Eggs aren't useless...

[Igirisu]

IIRC, surgeons practice on eggs because they have the same sort of 'feel' as human internals do.

...Or am I thinking of oranges? They have the same properties as human skin, ISTR.

Anyway - would you rather they test this out on real living tissue (e.g. your heart) or on something which is already dead and gives a similar consistency/texture/feel?

I know which I'd rather they try first.

--
Igirisu

Its beyond experimentation

[Alomex]

I attended a presentation by a French team three years ago, in which they had actually used feedback scalpels in the operating room.

The doctor usually stops cutting well before any feedback is felt, but sometimes it goes near the feedback and overrides it, because his visual inspection is better than the PET scan used to determine feedback levels. The feedback is simply a way to tell a doctor "stop, are you sure about what you are doing?".

They also had samples of robots sawing bones, opening crania and doing, get this, prostate inspections. By the end of the presentation all the males in the room had placed our hands instinctively covering that sensitive area.