Slashdot Mirror
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.
Doesn't seem to be any provision for selecting wavelengths. But I suppose if it works, it works.
But if someone has access to this thing, they probably have access to scalpels as well. The question remains, is this evolved ant-burner better than a scalpel?
Despite all the jokes on here about it, I think it has applications in 3rd. world countries where reliable electrical power isn't a given.
In countries like the United States, every hospital has backup power generators, uninterrupted power supplies, and so forth -- on top of being connected to a pretty reliable power grid. I can't see someone choosing sunlight over an electrically powered laser beam for surgery. The greater initial expense of the laser is quickly offset by money lost on surgeries that couldn't be performed due to weather conditions.
In a relatively undeveloped country, however, this might make a lot of sense! It could give new options to doctors who simply couldn't count on a laser-based setup to function reliably, or couldn't afford it to begin with.
Although the parent post was meant to be humourous, the point may be valid. In areas where power is unreliable, and equipment is expensive, something like this might be (if you'll pardon the expression) just what the doctor ordered.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I can't help but wonder that if regular concentrated sunlight can produce good results then can regular concentrated incandescent or fluorescent lights also produce good results. It seems to me that this is a spread-spectrum vs. coherent light proof-of-concept since there's nothing particularly special about sunlight itself (other than being free and bright) My guess is that manmade lights would still save lots of money over lasers but you could work 'em in the basement at midnight. TW
That's just annoying when clouds blow over half way into the incision.
"Failure of Windows operating systems is extremely rare. If it happens, it is usually due to operating system file c
I've always wondered about the idea of having natural light in a large building. I wonder if you could concentrate the light this much, it would be economical to run one 'super fiber' down 30 stories, then split it out. I would love being able to get natural light instead of the flourecent stuff...
Way to go Israel.
Here we suffered our only major terrorist attack and we can't seem to get our country back on track. Israel lives with attacks everyday, but they're still turning out cool shit.
These guys are hardcore.
My reaction was like yours... then I looked at my own giving. I don't go to church, so I don't put money in the plate every week like my folks did. I give stuff to Goodwill and gave my old Honda to Red Cross last year, but in truth that's just to get rid of clutter around the house. Yeah, I buy girl scout cookies, and susbscribe to PBS, but those are hardly acts of philanthropy in my book, 'cause I'm getting a tangible, immediate gain. Occasionally I cut a check to a charity, but it really isn't that much. Looking at my tax returns, it was well under 1%.
The fact is, I believe my giving is representative of most Americans who don't regularly go to church or temple or are intimately involved with a specific charity (little league coach, etc). He's giving a larger slice than many people are and he's putting it towards a very sensible cause with the vaccines (and, no, I don't defend him giving Windows away in the schols, so don't harp on that). Even if Bill is just giving 5% for the tax write off, who am I to judge him?
The moral: You can condemn Gates on any number of issues, bith as a businessman and a technologist, but he's a lot more complex than the simple good/evil labels we humans love so much.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Lithotripsy is the use of shock waves from external explosions focussed on e.g., a kidney stone, to break it up.
How it works.
The article mentions "concave dish" signifying that we are dealing with the reflective optics. Assuming that the mirror is Al coated (very reasonable assumption), we are talking about 90% or more of UV reflectivity. Some posts in this thread were referring to a "different focal lengths" which is non-applicable to the reflective objective (there is no chromatic aberration in the absence of dispersive media). Now the fiber light guide is a completely different proposition. It is probably not UV transparent though it might be. Anyway it is trivial to filter out UV if desired. That finally brings us to the cancer risks associated with the possible UV irradiation. The mechanism that triggers cancer growth involves cell mutation due to the photo-dissociation of the DNA. But it is also necessary that the mutated cell survives and produces a new generation of (now) tumor cells. With highly focused radiation of the "light knife" it is highly unlikely that any of the irradiated cells can survive.