New Body Parts
TED: Oded Shoseyov reveals the state of the arts in bionics – artificial body parts
What do you get when you combine the strongest materials from the plant world with the most elastic ones from the insect kingdom? Super-performing materials that might transform … everything – including body parts. Nanobiotechnologist Oded Shoseyov showed us examples of amazing materials found throughout nature, in everything from cat fleas to sequoia trees, and shows the creative ways his team is harnessing them in everything from sports shoes to medical implants.
Shoseyov is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert in nanobiotechnology; he has authored or co-authored more than 160 scientific publications and is the inventor or co-inventor of 45 patents. He received the Kaye Innovation Award from the Hebrew University in 2010, and an honorable mention from the Israeli Prime Minister for his contributions in entrepreneurship and innovation in 2012. He has founded ten companies, several of which are focused on engineering new materials for use in human tissue, jet fuel and food packaging.
Cheiko Asakawa
TED: New Tech For the Blind
The quiet yet dynamic, unassuming but persuasive, fully-accomplished TED fellow has accomplished more in her life despite blindness than most sighted people do in their lifetime.
Generating braille texts from books, a braille reader, an audio reader, a braille text editor – all her accomplishments. She and her associates develop oftware and products which help the blind become more educated and independent.
With ease, she describes ‘next generation’ products for the smart phone making its speaker and gps give her detailed directions around a building and its video read bar codes and wrappers to describe articles. The camera even notices the approach of a person, analyzes him to be a friend and tells her that ‘he looks happy.’
Finally, she announces that all this technology has been made OPEN SOURCE so that the world could join in its continued development. The average person doesn’t usually have a clue how significant that decision is! Imagine a world with an alternate Steve Jobs who announced that the iPhone was just made Open Source so everyone in the world could eventually be able to use one freely!
I think I’ve said something like this before but today’s number 45 of the top 50 physicians making a lasting impact on the field of medicine is known by EVERY pediatrician in the world, and most other physicians too. But that’s the definition of “lasting impact” isn’t it.
In 1949 Dr. Virginia Apgar was the first female full professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and in 1953 went on to create what became known as the “Apgar score.”
Read more →
I have to tell you I’m still pretty ticked-off finding out about this huge conflict of interest: Big Soda acting like Big Tobacco and the health-care industry falling for it! I’m not sure where I’ve been to not hear about this until now; but, thankfully, the American Academy of Pediatrics and a few others have already come clean and done the right thing!
Read more →
