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Bacteria-killing Pencil
kahrytan writes "Mounir Laroussi, a researcher at Old Dominion University has invented a hand-held device that is dubbed a plasma pencil. The pencil generates a "cold plasma," which can be used to kill germs that contaminate surfaces, infect wounds and rot your teeth. In the future, it might be used to destroy tumors without damaging surrounding tissue. When he turns the pencil on, it blows a high pitched whistle as a glowing, blue-violet beam about 2 inches long instantly appears at one end. Stick your finger in its path and you only feel a cool breeze, but the beam is powerful enough to blast apart bacteria that's crawling on your skin. Such a device if patented, tested and mass produced could end up doing a lot of good. Disinfecting surgery tools, keeping open wounds open in hospitals, destroying tumors in hard to operate areas like brains, and even treating that simple paper cut. The story can be read at dailypress and old dominion university."
before we see light sabers.
And bacterial cell membrane are a lot more fragile than the dead cells of your skin.
The article claims it can be used to "mop up bioterror agents". Is anyone else sick of how every new invention is measured by it's usefulness to fight terrorism?
While it's easy to focus on the positives, what would be the long term ramifications for such a device? The end of the summary mentions using this 'pencil' on a paper cut, which I find rather disturbing. Seriously, it seems as if bacteria (or, more rhetorically, GERMS) are replacing paedophiles in terms of evoking hysteria for protecting THE CHILDREN (OMG). If you watch any soap or bleach advert on TV, they tend to anthropomorphise bacteria as gruff-voiced killers that will strike your toddler in his highchair the minute your back is turned. The companies also make enthusiastic claims that they KILL ALL KNOWN GERMS DEAD. FOREVER. TO DEATH. KILLED. How 'killing something dead' is not at all redundant, I do not know.
Our immune system is like a muscle, it needs to be worked to improve its strength. And, like a muscle, it can cope fine with reasonably sized loads. This doesn't mean you should go round feasting on raw burgers, but more importantly it does mean that it's not a big deal if your child (God forbid) plays outside, scrapes their knee or rolls in the mud. Actually, by keeping them inside your sanitised bubble you put them more at risk of developing asthma and other allergies, as studies have shown. In the same way that morons can't realise we got on OK without mobile phones at the movie theatre, we also got on OK without Carex Bacteria Assassination soap. Doctors prescribing all sorts of drugs to shut up hypochondriacs just exacerbates the problem further.
Slashdotters, do your duty and eat those nose pickings!
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Who is going to spend that kind of money if the minute they get approval, some other company can sell these devices without the clinical testing costs? The company that performed the tests will need to add $25 to $200 to the price of the device (in addition to manufacturing costs), assuming they sell a million of them. And the competitor will be able to undercut the first company on price.
The math is even worse on a risk-adjusted basis because so many promising products fail during testing. Thus, the costs of developing several failed devices must be paid for by each successful device.
Until governments foot the bill for all medical R&D and clinical testing, patents are a crucial part of the medical device & pharma industry.
The point is that without a patent, nobody will pay for testing, the device will sit on a shelf, and it will do no one any good. This is why pharma and medical devices will never be like OSS -- the invention of the first instance is an extremely minor part of the cost of development. Building a better medical mousetrap is nothing. Proving it is safe and effective and gaining govt approval is everything.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
but more importantly it does mean that it's not a big deal if your child (God forbid) plays outside, scrapes their knee or rolls in the mud
I'm reminded of an aunt & uncle of mine who were beyond neat freaks, but were absolute germaholics going back to when they had their son in the late 1960s. Neither of their kids was allowed outside otherwise they'd get dirty, and everything in the house was regularly bleached, dry cleaned, vacuumed or just renewed if it had even the hint of dirt. It was a pain going to their house, both of them as OCD as you could get. Last time I was there the toilet was bleached by my aunt after I used it. If there was even a hint of illness at school, both cousins just simply weren't allowed to go until it was all-clear.
In the end one cousin did get gravel rash on the elbow running out the school gate when he was 10, and had to be hospitalised for weeks, because he near died from the resulting infection. The first flu that his sister got when she was 13 also almost killed her. Both now (in their 30s) have the most intense asthma, find difficulty putting on normal weight and have regularly come down with weeks-long illnesses needing hospital stays from things that would give a normal person the sniffles & sneezes for a couple of days.
I doubt this will sit on the shelf long. A big dumb company might spend that much money testing out something that costs far more than this does. A cheap gadget like this will quickly be tested in every conceivable way by hungry graduate students at every University in existence like TLDs were. The results should start pouring out soon unless some jackass gets a pattent and demands fees which eliminate any price advantage the device has over mercury vapor lamps. In that case, we will have to wait another seventeen years and then some.
Until governments foot the bill for all medical R&D and clinical testing, patents are a crucial part of the medical device & pharma industry.
There's enough red tape as it is. Please don't make me go Federal for everything. Let them compile, analyze and publish statistics other people generate. Laws protecting patient privacy are fine. Making every institution apply for a Federal Grant just to buy a $50 device would be really stupid.
There may indeed be some non-obvious and inventive tricks in this device that deserve a patent. If so, we can hope the inventor licenses things out at a price that will insure widespread adoption and great riches for himself. If not, we can only hope that they don't get any patent and everyone can start testing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.