Solar Surgery

Chris writes "Scientists in Israel have developed a device based on a concave dish that intensifies sunlight by a factor of 15,000. By focusing this light into an optical fiber and delivering it to an operating theatre, the team says its solar-surgery setup promises to be a low-cost alternative to laser surgery." Everyone who used to operate on GI Joe figures with a magnifying glass is cheering for this to be commercially successful.

Comments

Boon for the third world... sorta

[Embedded Geek]

So, as I understand it, we're talking about a laser analoge that needs no electrical infrastructure, should require little or no maintenance, and should be relatively cheap to mass produce. For certain procedures, this will be a real boon for poor countries.

There are limits, though. The thing that a laser is real good for is high precision procedures (think Lasik) that will still require all the infrastructure to operate robotic machinery (computer, electrical power, etc.) Also, the big health issue in real poor countries is access to sanitation, trained health care workers, and vaccines (on that last, say what you will about Bill Gates, but he recognizes his philanthropy is better spent on vaccines than PDAs and gizmos for third world hospitals - the knee juerk techno solution I would've lunged at).

Still, this is a great development. Will it completely change health care in poor coutnries? No. But it is another (very useful) tool in the toolbox for health care in poor countries.

Re:Bad idea

[evilpenguin]

I'm afraid there are several special things about sunlight. One of them is that, like laser light, it is a coherent beam (all the rays are parallel). Actually, it isn't really, but we are so far from the sun, its rays are effectively parallel; the divergence is so small as to not matter. This allows the light to be concentrated and thus the power effectively amplified. You can't do this with light from other sources. That light scatters in all directions and thus a lens or mirror will deflect the light at various angles. You can't concentrate it at a point. That's the whole reason the laser was such an important invention.

On a totally different (but slightly relevant) subject: Does anyone else remember being subjected to a dopey little song in elementary school that began:

"The sun is a mass/of incandescent gas/a giant nuclear furnace..."

If you do remember a dopey little song like that, how does the rest of it go? (In case you are frightened of violating the DMCA, this would fall under fair use. If not, well, we could become a wonderful test case for the EFF or ACLU!).