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Laser Surgery Goes Online

Ignat writes "Scientists in Australia successfully performed a laser surgery in a Southern California laboratory via the Internet. RoboLase, the new technology used showed that realtime surgeries can be performed from distant locations. Scientists from UC Irvine, UC San Diego and the University of Queensland used RoboLase to produce surgical holes in a distinct pattern of less than one micron in diameter (1/1000th of a millimeter) in single cells."

29 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Geez, what happens if the computer crashes? by The+I+Shing · · Score: 3, Funny

    Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase blue screen of death, doesn't it? Ba dum bum! Thank you very much, I'll be here all week! Remember to tip your bartender!

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    1. Re:Geez, what happens if the computer crashes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I support our troops more than you do.

      Sir, I doubt that. I've got five balanced on my shoulders (in a nice pyramid) as I type this.

  2. i cant wait by penguinix · · Score: 5, Funny

    i can't wait for my doctor to be outsourced to India.

    1. Re:i cant wait by Sethus · · Score: 3, Informative

      I actually asked a good friend of the family about this (a radiologist), why can't they outsource doctors? At the least radiologists, since all they have to do is read xray films! To an extent, some places already do, for instance, in the past doctors had to be on call all night long, ready to read films, sleep very badly, and generally screw up their sleep scheduals. Now they just send the pictures to Australia past 11pm.

      But when I asked him about outsourcing, he gave me two good reasons why it'd never happen. THe first is many people prefer to see and know their doctor. To be able to talk with them, I mean, the doctor is probably going to care about you more if he's actually interacting with you! Secondly, is the fact that if hospitals tried this, the doctors would go on strike in an instant. Generally, doctor's don't work "for" a hospital, they are given permission to set up shop inside the hopital in the space provided. What this means, is a group of radiologists do work out of a hospital (in this case, Elyria Hospital near Cleveland) in exchange for the hospital providing them patients. In return, they provide excellent an radiology department :)

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    2. Re:i cant wait by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      i can't wait for my doctor to be outsourced to India.
      Sarcasm or no, I happen to agree. You hardly ever see the doctor anyways. Analyzing lab results and scans is something that can easily be done remotely.

      Cutting and sewing will probably be the last things outsourced, but you know what? Medical care is currently so expensive that many people in some parts of the world simply go without. Better to take your chances than die for sure.

  3. Bandwidth or Latency by matt21811 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "This was a particularly noteworthy accomplishment, because it demonstrated the amount of computer bandwidth (1 gigabyte/second) needed by the Australia and California research groups to observe and grab a fast-moving sperm with virtually no detectible delay in image transmission between the two laboratories."

    It seems even the people who did this have no idea of the difference between bandwidth and latency. The above quote is from the original press release.

    When I first read the title I thought someone had their lasik done this way, mostly because my wife had her lasik surgery done in Australia (we live there). She wrote about the experience http://www.sharonslasiksurgery.com/ if you want a laypersons point of view.

    Doing it remotely is not something I would volunteer for and I suppose that is exactly where this technology is heading.

  4. This Should Lower Every MD's Handicap by Quirk · · Score: 2, Funny
    "RoboLase, the new technology used showed that realtime surgeries can be performed from distant locations."

    So we can expect to see RoboLase terminals on golf courses real soon.

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen
  5. Linksys Router by Mean_Nishka · · Score: 4, Funny

    Will this work with my Linksys router?

  6. Great... by MrFlannel · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now we're going to need tin foil sunglasses to protect us from "free trials" of LASIK from spam?

    The first eye's free!

    --
    Clones are people two.
  7. Mini me... by Stormwatch · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...stop humping the "laser". Maybe you and the "laser" should go get a freakin room.

  8. laser surgery via internet and the Snow Crash... by wherrera · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, this means it won't be long before a computer worm can really, directly kill someone ;-/

  9. Stupid Receptionist! by GuitarNeophyte · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm sorry, Mr Smith. The receptionist clogged up our bandwidth with illegal P2P downloading while we were making the incision. So, uh, it's just a tad off. Sorry.

    Luke
    ----
    Have friends and family that don't understand computers? Don't want to explain them? Send them to ChristianNerds.com, the Easy-to-Understand Computer Encyclopedia.

  10. RIAA.....er....AMA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    What happens if hackers sniff the packets, save the procedure to a file, create a torrent, and distribute the surgery all over the internet?

    The artist...er..doctors won't get paid for their work.

  11. Dropped Packets? by alfrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would imagine if some packets were lost, or lag? It is inevitable, would you really want to risk it with that?

  12. Re:Yeah, but.. by John+Courtland · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Ze goggles! Dey do NOTHING!"

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    Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
  13. Future post at bash.org by grolschie · · Score: 4, Funny

    And now I make my first incision
    <nurse> Nice work there Doctor.
    <doctor>.
    <doctor>.
    <doctor> DIE DIE DIE!!!!
    * stab stab stab *
    <nurse> What the hell are you doing!!!!???!!
    <nurse> You've made a freakin' mess. There's bloody all over the theatre!
    <nurse> Somebody help!!!!!!!!
    <doctor> .
    <doctor> Sorry was AFK and my little brother was messing with my pc

  14. Re:Hidden racism by penguinix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dude i'm not a racist, have a sense of humor man. Also outsourcing is a very real problem and is really screwing up our economy.

  15. contain your astonishment... by moviepig.com · · Score: 2, Funny
    "...our colleagues in Australia ... have been able to identify and trap a targeted sperm under the laser microscope in the California laboratory."

    Though this achievement doubtless strikes fear into the hearts of fugitive sperm everywhere... it's hard to see it as a breakthrough. In other words... it's unlikely that there was ever much doubt about the success of this "demonstration", since any glitch would likely have been met by a mere retry. And, in still other words... do you feel even microscopically better about the prospect of, say, your next airline flight's pilot relaxing at a cable-modem in his condo?

    --
    Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
  16. obligatory... by voixderaison · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.

    --
    Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler. -- Albert Einstein
  17. Re:Hidden racism by ciroknight · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or, perhaps, he's just pissed that his job, his American-based job, is being sent to India.

    No offense to the Indians, but if they are just as capable as we are at doing our jobs, let them do their jobs in their country. Last I recall, their country isn't in the best of state...

    Meanwhile unemployement here suffers due to us being out jobs, and well, there's really no solution for us. Companies just want to lower their bottom lines, and the best way to do that is fire employees and either pay a machine to do the work, or pay someone way, way less for it.

    I'm not racist; I have many good friends who are Indian, Chinese, Slovic, and other races, and I have no problem with them being here in America working. My problem comes when the jobs here are being moved out of our country. We've almost reversed our position from the industrial revolution, when people would migrate here just to work. And we're losing our tech crown because nobody's willing to innovate because it costs too much. These are the things that piss us off, and it's not about racism. If you want to talk about hidden racism, go talk to one of the news *coughFOXcough* networks talking about the Middle East situtation.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  18. Re:Hidden racism by Cerdic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tell me - would any other country, rich or poor, welcome foreign citizens to take over a large portion of its jobs? I think there's a common attitude across the planet to secure jobs for the "tribe."

    --
    Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
  19. Re:OK... by LordHatrus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not you... you must have had bad lag to the server! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

  20. Nice in principle, lousy in practice by davidwr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I see "remote surgery" and even AI-assisted remote surgery as the future for battlefields, outer space, and other conditions where surgery must be done quickly but the doctor cannot get to the operating room.

    However, latency and quality-of-service issues will need to be addressed before this is anything more than experimental.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  21. Re:Hidden racism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The fact is, Indian doctors can be just as capable as doctors from the US, or other Western nations. The same goes for the IT industry.

    OK, I can't speak to medical practitioners from India, but I can talk about their IT workers. On two seperate occasions I've worked for companies with significant offshoring in Bombay and Hyderabad. I know that my sample size is far too small for me to make any sweeping judgements about all Indian computer workers but from what I've seen -- they suck.

    At my current position it shows up in our project management tool quite consistently. Yellow is the color for a deliverable which is late but not yet blocking another portion of the project. All of the Indian developers have significant amount of yellow next to their names.

    What ends up happening is that each person in the stateside operations ends up needing to spend half their day doing babysitting and cleanup on their group of Indian developers. One of my favorite examples is when one of my cow-workers was tasked with writing a simple script. He handed it in two months late and it was a monstrosity -- More than 200 lines of spaghetti code. 22 if() clauses, 11 with else clauses, 17 exit points to the same function, 20 places which attempted to close the same filehandle -- and best of all it didn't work.

    And this shit happens all the time. EVERY developer in my office is spending huge amounts of time fixing loads of late garbage delivered from India. Interns in our offices are doing much better work than experienced graduates in India.

    Cultural superiority? Dunno. But the cultural differences are huge. One of the biggest ones is that it's impossible to fire someone in India. Seriously, because of their unemployment rate they'd rather keep a freeloader on the payroll than give him an invitation to the world. No matter what he's done. In the states we tend to have a "we can tackle that problem" attitude. In India they have an attitude they call "chalta hai" which is the opposite.

  22. Re:Hidden racism by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The US invented the internet and promotes free trade/globalization. What do you expect to happen?

    --
    Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
  23. it's not "surgery" by cahiha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They poked tiny holes into cells with a laser. Calling that "cell surgery" doesn't make it surgery; it's just operating a scientific instrument remotely over the Internet. People have been doing that for years.

  24. Re:Is there any redundancy? by Bobzibub · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes. Two eyes.

  25. Re:Hidden racism by uncqual · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'd rather compete with an Indian making $150K in the U.S. than with the same engineer making $50K in India. In a shortsighted attempt to "reduce unemployment" the U.S. Congress limits the number of work visas available each year and requires the "we can't find a resident to do this job" dance. This is just stupid - kinda like a airline mechanic's union going on strike against a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. This helps save jobs in the short term (1-2 years), but it reduces the chances in the long term of the U.S. continuing to be a (perhaps "the") major player in the world.

    I'd let anyone into the U.S. on two conditions. First, they are not an evil person (criminal, terrorist etc). Second, they have no rights to any free societal financial assistance (i.e. welfare, free treatment in the E.R., medicare, education etc.) for a substantial period of time (perhaps 10-15 years).

    Sure, this would result in lower salaries in the U.S., but at least the U.S. would remain relevant by having a base of intellectual capital on a par with the "best of the best" among other countries. It also may wake up our public education system in this country before it's too late (although, I fear, it's already too late because by the time it is repaired, the game will be over).

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  26. Love the internet for laser eye surgery... by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 4, Funny

    So the doctor begins adjusting the power of the beam and turns on the laser just as a lag spike hits. The computer continually increaes the laser power... then the delayed UDP message to "fire" the laser arrives...

    The doctor stares bewildered at his monitor as the word HEADSHOT! is returned...

    (Then a remote nurse claims he has an aimbot...)

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