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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.
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Now I only have to hope my surgery doesn't get rained out.
--
"That's Homer Simpson sir. One of your drones from secotr 7G."
Since operations now can only take place on sunny days, surgeons won't be able to golf as much.
When do we get to see the real-world equivalent of that?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
If I undestand correctly, (and physics majors please correct me) UV radition is not transmitted along with color light radiation when light is reflected (by most reflective materials). Instead, it's absorbed by the reflecting material and transferred into heat. Therefore, what reaches the patient has no damaging UV component.
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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.
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
All you need is a good size, unexpected, solar flare during an operation and 6 hours later the surgeons will be trying to explain to you why you now have a second rectum! :)
You smell something burning?.......
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Hibbert: This is such a beautiful day, I don't know why we don't operate outside more often.
[Tennis ball falls from sky into open wound, ECG flatlines]
Hibbert: Time of death.. 10:15.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
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...
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.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
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!).
You could get skin cancer while having skin cancer removed.
"Derp de derp."