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Surgery Using A Sunlight Scalpel

Posted by timothy on from the good-old-pointy-sunlight dept.

Makarand writes "Research conducted by Israeli doctors has shown that it is possible to use concentrated sunlight instead of lasers to perform surgery, providing a safe and low cost alternative to laser treatment. In their experiments sunlight was transported into the operating room from outside using a system of optical fibers. The concentrated rays - containing several watts of energy - were then used in the experimental surgery conducted on rats." Here is Wired's similar story.

59 comments

  1. Confirmation by kinnell · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can verify that this is indeed feasible. I have myself performed exploratory operations on a number of ants and other selected insects using concentrated sunlight.

    --
    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
    1. Re:Confirmation by gooru · · Score: 1

      Yeah, my fifth grade teacher STILL has my magnifying glass he confiscated from me during recess! It's probably been sitting on his desk for the past 11 years.

    2. Re:Confirmation by cpeterso · · Score: 4, Funny

      When I was a kid, I attempted numerous cryogenic experiments on bees. I froze them in my freezer and would then try to wake them using sunlight or the microwave. Here are my results:

      Bee in microwave 0-5 seconds: no change in behavior
      Bee in microwave 5-10 seconds: rapid movement
      Bee in microwave 10+ seconds: no movement/game over

      I now regret my mad science experiments (there were many others), but at least I can share the scientific results with others. Let not those bees die in vain...

      --
      cpeterso
    3. Re:Confirmation by hrieke · · Score: 1

      Of course there is the light sculpture in England that was noticed for one fact: birds flying overhead tended to burst into flames.

      --
      III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
  2. Cloudy days. by Spudley · · Score: 4, Funny

    All fine and dandy... until the sun goes behind a cloud right at the critical moment! :-o

    --
    (Spudley Strikes Again!)
    1. Re:Cloudy days. by TripleA · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or, like in some parts of the world, the sun is intense enough only during May, June, July and August. I have indeed tested this myself. You can't fry ants in the winter, cause a) there are no ants to be seen, and b) the sunligth is not strong enough.

    2. Re:Cloudy days. by shachart · · Score: 1

      It doesn't do that in Israel. A camel may obscure the sun now and then, though.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, consult.
    3. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can't fry ants in the winter, cause a) there are no ants to be seen, and b) the sunligth is not strong enough.

      You've obviously never lived in my area of Texas.

      Summers (with the exception of this one) usually have 30+ consecutive days over 100 degrees F. I'm not sure how many days we've had in the 100s this year. Three years ago we hit 117F.

      We've had 'winters' where temps were in the 80s and not a single cloud in the sky.

      We can literally wear shorts outdoors on Christmas.

      Sure, the ants would usually be dormant, but not when that warm.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    4. Re:Cloudy days. by TheLink · · Score: 1

      AFAIK, winter = cold season.

      If it's not cold enough, it's not winter.

      Maybe you have a different idea of winter. But Winter does not mean Christmas time. Winter does not mean Dec-Feb. See the southern hemisphere for examples.

      That said, you should be able to still fry ants with sunlight during winter in places where you have sunlight (not places where it's dark all the time) - the trick is to collect enough sunlight.

      --
    5. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 3, Informative

      AFAIK, winter = cold season.

      Wrong. Winter is defined as (from dictionary.com)

      "The usually coldest season of the year, occurring between autumn and spring, extending in the Northern Hemisphere from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox, and popularly considered to be constituted by December, January, and February. "

      Generally, its understood that winter (in the northern hemisphere at least) is the time when the earth tilts on its axis and the northern hemisphere is furtherst from the sun.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    6. Re:Cloudy days. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [quote]
      Maybe you have a different idea of winter. But Winter does not mean Christmas time. Winter does not mean Dec-Feb. See the southern hemisphere for examples.
      [/quote]

      Hmm. Guess you don't know that Texas is in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, eh? Therefore, Winter *would* be around Christmas time.

    7. Re:Cloudy days. by TripleA · · Score: 1

      Umm, during winter time, the northern hemisphere is closest to the sun, the whole earth is. Relative to the southern hemisphere, the northern is more far away though.

    8. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nope.

      From http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/980221a.html:

      "
      I have heard two conflicting reasons explaining why winter is cooler.

      (1) Because of the slight pivot of Earth's on its axis, the sun is farther away during winter because part of the planet is pointing away from the sun, hence, less energy reaches that surface.

      (2) The sun is actually CLOSER to the surface during winter but light hits the planet at an obtuse angle which "skims" the surface. Direct rays are not hitting the surface which brings about cooler temperatures.

      Which explanation is correct?

      The Answer
      The second. Winter is colder because the earth's axis is tilted. Winter occurs for the hemisphere which is tilted away from the sun (the northern hemisphere in January, the southern in July). This has two main effects on the winter hemisphere. First, the sun is above the horizon for fewer hours each day, so that hemisphere receives less heat from the sun. Also, sunlight strikes the ground at a shallower angle so that less energy per unit area is intercepted by the winter hemisphere. It is true that the earth is closest to the sun in January. However, the distance from the earth to the sun varies by only about 2% over a year. This causes a change of only 4% in the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth so this effect is not significant compared to the other two.
      "

      Emphasis mine.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    9. Re:Cloudy days. by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      You said the exact same thing the previous poster did; there was the assumption that winter == northern hemisphere winter, in which case, the Earth is closer to the sun than it is during the northern hempispheres Summer.

      Which is exactly what you said. Thanks for the excellent write up! +1 Informative for you.

      -Chris

    10. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 1

      Re-read that last post...

      "....Winter is colder because the earth's axis is tilted. Winter occurs for the hemisphere which is tilted away from the sun (the northern hemisphere in January, the southern in July). "

      While the earth as a whole is closer to the sun, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun.

      Moron.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    11. Re:Cloudy days. by shamino0 · · Score: 1
      Winter is colder because the earth's axis is tilted. Winter occurs for the hemisphere which is tilted away from the sun (the northern hemisphere in January, the southern in July.

      Given this fact, are southern-hemisphere winters colder than northern? And are the southern hemisphere summers hotter?

      I would assume so, since the temperature contribution from the Earth-Sun distance would add to the axial-tilt contribution, instead of subtract from it.

    12. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 1

      Dunno. Ask Nasa. See the link in my original quote.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    13. Re:Cloudy days. by Cyno01 · · Score: 1
      We can literally wear shorts outdoors on Christmas.
      Thats good, because we wouldn't want you to figuratively wear shorts outdoors on Christmas.
      --
      "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
    14. Re:Cloudy days. by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      Original poster:
      Umm, during winter time, the northern hemisphere is closest to the sun, the whole earth is. Relative to the southern hemisphere, the northern is more far away though.

      Fact:
      Earth at closest approach to the sun (during northern hemisphere winter time, is 91.odd million miles.
      Earth at farthest approach to the sun (during northern hemisphere summer time, is 94.5 million miles.

      Nothing OP said is factually incorrect, although it is nowhere near as clear as your excellently constructed answer. Happy, you got your ego boost.

      So you, asshole, can take your ball, and go the fuck home. :-) Have a nice day.

      -Chris

    15. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 1

      STFU and sit back down, troll.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    16. Re:Cloudy days. by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      Awww, poor baby doesn't like being told he's got poor comprehension skills. Grow up. You are after all, the one who turned a civil conversation into a personal attack.

    17. Re:Cloudy days. by MImeKillEr · · Score: 1

      No, I didn't turn it into a personal attack, I was simply replying to your trollish response.

      So, go fuck yourself.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
  3. It could work the other way.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... in 'third world' countries where blackouts to hostipals are common, this could actually help during that 'critical moment'!

  4. Old news by Prince_Ali · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This was posted on the front page over a year ago.

    --
    Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
  5. "Oops" by rylin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now that everyone's used to the BOFH, let me introduce the BSFH (Bastard Surgeon From Hell)..

    Blaming someone's critical conditions on sunflares, anyone? ;)

  6. Weather permitting... by joeslugg · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Perhaps re-think scheduling that surgery on a cloudy day... or at night.

    1. Re:Weather permitting... by Winterblink · · Score: 1

      Somehow I don't think this is going to completely replace lasers in the operating rooms. :) However it might help to alleviate some of the costs of operating a laser system all the time.

      --
      "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
      -Hoban Washburn
    2. Re:Weather permitting... by tsa · · Score: 3, Funny

      To prevent the influence of the clouds you can build a tower that is higher than the clouds. But then you can only operate during the day. So you also need some mirrors in orbit to reflect the sunlight from the other side of the earth into the tower. Because of the earth's rotation you will need to be able to move the mirrors so that they keep reflecting the light towards the tower. Then you have a system that is cooler than lasers, so nerds will flock to your hospital making you rich like Donald Duck's uncle! Hehehe!

      --

      -- Cheers!

    3. Re:Weather permitting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      does the laser really cost that much to operate?

      Do lasers degrade over time and require maintenance?

      Or are lasers expensive to use because they cost a lot initially so they charge you a butt-load to use them to recoup that cost, but never lower the cost after it's been recouped?

  7. Just wait for rain... by Ratface · · Score: 1

    .. and the system will convert into a high-pressure water scalpel!

    --

    A little planning goes a long way...
  8. Are the lasers a significant cost? by TheLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just curious - are the lasers a significant cost or are they outweighed by the costs of the people controling and maintaining the laser, and the systems involved in assisting the control (intensity, focus, width etc). Would a consistent light beam be necessary for surgery and if it is, would maintaining the consistency of a sunlight beam be cheaper?

    Personally I believe this is just a "party trick".

    If you don't have access to a laser, are there compelling reasons to pick the sunlight system over a scalpel system?

    --
    1. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I would have thought that a reader of slashdot would realise what this is good for: Home Surgery! Home metalwork!

      No longer do you need to buy a large laser or even the parts for one, leading to you being lists on $EVIL_GOVT_AGENCY databases, you can just make a concentrator mirror and fibre doohickey, and slice through things you're not supposed to slice through to your heart's content!

    2. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by Indomitus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Wired article listed the laser machines at $10,000 and the sunlight machine at $1,000. The sunlight machines are new and so I'd imagine the prices will drop as more of them are sold so the price difference will only get more in favor of the sunlight machine.

      I'm not a doctor but I believe there are many surgeries that are difficult/impossible to do with scalpel instead of a laser (many cancer removals for example). For poor areas (many of which happen to be in sunlight rich areas) this is a good way to get those surgeries done without having to buy the laser system.

    3. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by ProtonMotiveForce · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's just a party trick - I agree.

      One-time costs of the machines is such a small factor, and lasers are well established and reliable.

    4. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is nuts!! You have to remember that a laser is putting out a specific wavelegnth of light. Different tissues react differently to different wavelegnths. I'll stick to having surgery done with a machine that is calibrated for both power and wavelegnth, thanks.

    5. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Medical lasers aren't terribly reliable,
      and require a constant flow of cooling water
      (usually tap -> laser -> sewer, though chillers
      are available).

      Should a laser go down a cheap backup could
      be really helpful.

    6. Re:Are the lasers a significant cost? by anubi · · Score: 1
      Sunlight is a combination of all frequencies, at quite a high power level.

      Just use a prism or diffraction grating to pick whatever frequency you want. A little movement around the focal point for pickup can easily control how much power enters the fiber pickups.

      As far as I am concerned, I think its a helluva clever plan. A good-sized collector can easily give you several orders of magnitude more energy than you need, so control of the energy to assure a highly stable amount actually in the fiber should not be a problem.

      Why does something have to be expensive, hard to maintain, complicated, or use exquisite technology to be considered useful? Some of the handiest things I have are also the simplest.

      Things like this is what makes technical development "worth it" for me. Anybody can design something that has lots and lots of bloat in the design, but one who truely understands the problem and the physics of the resources at hand will design an elegant solution. Remember that really clever little beer-mug-needs-filling chip design discussed a few days ago here on /. ? That is the essence of good design. I think this is too.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

  9. Slashdot! by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where else can you start a conversation on advances in surgery and end up arguing over the definition of winter?

    1. Re:Slashdot! by Deflagro · · Score: 1

      Granted, but that was a damn good burn ;)

      I love it when people pull out dictionary.com.

      --
      Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
  10. That was my idea! by Gyl · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Of course I wasn't going to do surgery with it. I was thinking take the Keck telescope (10 m diameter), aim it at the sun, attach fiber optic cable at the focus, cut down a forest (being a gentle example of what to do :)

    A quick google search reveals high power lasers of 100 W another quick search shows: ~250 W/m^2 as solar power reaching earth's surface. A circle of diameter 10 m, 78.5 m^2. Giving almost 20,000 watts. hehehe. Assume you loose half of that in mechanics, it's still 10,000 watts!

    1. Re:That was my idea! by GodsMadClown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ... Giving almost 20,000 watts. hehehe. Assume you loose half of that in mechanics, it's still 10,000 watts!...

      Assuyming you lose half of that in mechanics, you'll melt whatever it is that's absorbing all that heat energy.

    2. Re:That was my idea! by thebigmacd · · Score: 1

      ya, and that would be sodium used to cool the aiming prisms

  11. and if it's cloudy? by confused+one · · Score: 2, Insightful

    'nuf said...

  12. Danger Wil Robinson! by Urox · · Score: 1

    We use sunblock to protect us against UVA and UVB. Many people with hyper skin production (such as psoriasis) get PUVA and PUVB treatments to kill the skin.... yet there is always the chance of skin cancer...

    Is this sounding like a good way to get skin cancer to anyone else? Nothing like the sun focused several times over to get our yearly dosage in one location.

    --
    "Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
    1. Re:Danger Wil Robinson! by reverseengineer · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Is this sounding like a good way to get skin cancer to anyone else?

      No, because the idea is to aim the beam at tissues that you want to destroy, such as tumor cells. Ideally, the targeted cells will be vaporized, so whether or not UV light induces mutations in them is a moot point.

      I do personally love the ironic possibility of using a beam of focused sunlight to destroy a melanoma caused by too much exposure to sunlight, though.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  13. great! by TwistedSpring · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does this mean I can fix my ghastly vision by staring at the sun instead of going in for all that expensive laser surgery?

    1. Re:great! by Melchior_of_wg · · Score: 1

      Well, at least you won't have much trouble with seeing. At all.

  14. Several watts? by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Granted the article is light on details (no pun intended) but why does the power source need to be the Sun? Why not use the same combining/collimating /focus method but draw the power from one or more conventional incandescent lamps?
    Yes, I realize that Sun == free, and electicity != free. Howsabout the Solar version for subsaharan Africa where reliable power is rare but sunlight is not, and we'll take the 1/10th-the-price-of-a-laser incandescent one here in North America where the opposite is true.

    --

    1. Re:Several watts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is also the fact that the need the lights in the operating theater to be on... unless they are doing the ops outside, which seems kindof unhygenic.

      So your idea does make sense... to me, a person who knows nothing about lasers, anyway.

    2. Re:Several watts? by hplasm · · Score: 1

      Hey! Why not reduce the size & power requirements of the incandescent lamps by replacing them with a LASER! Oh, wait....

      --
      ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
    3. Re:Several watts? by bigkooldan · · Score: 1

      The sun has LOTS of energy not just in the visible spectrum. Presumably this would aid the destruction of tumor cells. If a normal Lightbulb could do that, why would we have lasers?

  15. Natural office lighting by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    For those that work in cubicals, using fiber optics to redirect sunlight over my desk would really help with stress (along with ionized air). I mean, being cooped up all day in a building sucks ass.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  16. suitable for all laser applications? by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Funny

    But can we have sharks with frickin' sunlight concentrating devices attached to their heads?

  17. "Watts" of energy? by GameGod0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    How did this make it past the Slashdot editors, especially in the science section of Slashdot? Watts are units of power. Joules are units of energy. The phrase "several watts of energy" does not make any sense.

    1. Re:"Watts" of energy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Energy is used in the general, or "lay" sense. That is, energy = heat = electricity = effort = power = amount of movement observed in a child. You see, nobody in the universe has domain-specific knowledge over all the scientific and technical jargon employed in atricles posted slashdot. So you get your little gold star for happening to know physics jargon, but if this is the best comment you can make about the ineptitude of slashdot editors, I suggest you search for more egregious errors first. Asking them to actuall know and use the jargon properly is like complaining about the fact that your leaking life boat doesn't have a full-service bar.

  18. They recovered? by scorp1us · · Score: 1

    I'd figure that if you burn out a liver, then it's only a matter of time before your blood turns toxic and kills you. In theory, this should have killed the rats...

    --
    Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
    1. Re:They recovered? by baglamist · · Score: 1

      Nah. The livers were exposed for "only a few minutes." Laser surgery is a very slow way to treat large volumes of tissue, so probably a small fraction of the mouses' livers were cooked. You can lose a lot of liver tissue (like a whole lobe) and live indefinitely, assuming that your liver is functioning normally and that you didn't lose much blood when the liver tissue was removed.

    2. Re:They recovered? by bigkooldan · · Score: 1

      If scientists can cure cancer in rats and fix paralysis in rats then they can probably help them recover from that. Besides, they were going to kill the rats to examine their bodies anyway.

  19. Distance is Key (was Re:Several watts?) by paulthomas · · Score: 1

    Consider for a moment that any regular light source radiates in all directions. This means that none of the rays are exactly parallel to each other. But the farther you travel from the source, the closer they get.

    The major difference between a light source on the earth, and the sun is that the sun is very far away, so the rays of the sun as they arrive here on earth are virtually parallel, very similar in nature to a laser beam. This is why you can focus the light of the sun with a magnifying glass and kill ants... all of the beams converge at the focal point. Try doing this with an LED or a lightbulb, and it won't work because you won't get a good focal point.

    -Paul