Scottish Hospital To Use Robotic Workers

The new £300m Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Stirlingshire will open in August with a small army of robots wandering dedicated hallways and looking after many of the non medical duties involved in running a hospital. According to hospital chairman Ian Mullen "Members of staff will use a hand-held PDA to call up the robot to move meal trays, or linen, or whatever. The robot will come up in the service lift by itself, pick up the item and go back into the lift." The robots will be able to detect obstructions and send signals to doors to open or close them once they've passed through the threshold.

"Traditionally clean and dirty tasks are carried out by the same person," infection control nurse Lesley Shepherd told the BBC. "Here, you'll have the robots that do dirty tasks, so they may take dirty linen or clinical waste away, and you'll have robots that do clean tasks, such as bringing meals and clean linen to patients. They have separate lifts so there's no way they can cross, which is great." 

More detail including video at BBC News.

A Wired Look At Fitbit - Getting Healthy By The Numbers

Today Wired takes a look at Fitbit, a $99 pedometer on steroids that will not only help track your activity and sleep efficiency but along with it's website stores your data, over time, and allows you to input other information such as meals eaten during the day for comparison with calories burned by activity.

"WIRED A true boon for data-loving geeks who want to track their workout progress. Nicely designed, minimalist hardware. Doesn't just focus on exercise: Diet and sleep are also tracked. Easily clips to just about anything. Nerd-tastic amounts of data can be had for a single C-note.

TIRED More prone to loss than the Detroit Lions. May be a bit hard for non-native speakers of the tech language to immediately master. Other running trackers work a tad more accurately. Come on Fitbit, spill your guts about the flower."

Living By The Numbers

For those who have become health conscious, Wired has an interesting article called "Know Thyself: Tracking Every Facet of Life, from Sleep to Mood to Pain, 24/7/365" which discusses our obsession with numbers. Heart rate, calories, alcohol consumption, number of steps taken, hours of sleep, etc.. We are slowly becoming consumed by these numbers and I for one have become a recent victim. The article's author, Gary Wolf, says "The immediate cause of this trend was obvious: New tools had made self-tracking easier. In the past, the methods of quantitative assessment were laborious and arcane. You had to take measurements manually and record them in a log; you had to enter data into spreadsheets and perform operations using unfriendly software; you had to build graphs to tease understanding out of the numbers. Now much of the data-gathering can be automated, and the record-keeping and analysis can be delegated to a host of simple Web apps."

I'll have to confess, my new HTC Dream (android phone) has fueled my obsession...

Apple Boss Had Liver Transplant

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant two months ago in Tennessee. An Apple spokesperson told the Journal that Jobs "continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there's nothing further to say." In January Jobs announced he was taking a 6 month medical leave of absence and according to CNet Jobs moved from California to Tennessee earlier this year, apparently because the State has a shorter waiting list for patients seeking organs.

Source: CNet

Man Delivers Baby With Aid Of YouTube

Marc Stephens and his wife Jo had planned to have their forth child at home with the aid of a midwife but when Jo woke with contractions and the midwife was too busy to attend the Stephens' were told to call an ambulance. While waiting for the paramedics Marc, an engineer, decided to turn to turn to YouTube for assistance just in case. As it turned out the baby arrived before help and Marc used his newly acquired skills to deliver the couples first son, Gabriel.

"The videos gave me peace of mind. I think I would have coped, but watching videos made things much easier." said Mr Stephens. "This is our fourth child now and while for our first I spent most of the time at my wife's head, now I'm not afraid to go down to the business end."

BBC news (video)

Keeping An Eye On Swine Flu

Swine Flu, the mysterious outbreak that has killed in Mexico and is spreading globally is top of mind for a lot of people and is definitely all over the media. If you're looking for a graphical representation of the outbreaks check out The New York Times "Tracking Swine Flu Cases Worldwide" and Google Flu Trends. I expected to see a lot more activity on Flu Trends but perhaps it takes some time to affect change on the site, we'll see.

Steve Jobs Issues Letter To Apple Community Regarding His Health

In an attempt to quell the rumors regarding his health, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has issued a letter to the Apple community via the company's web site. In it Jobs explains that "...after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis."
He also goes on to assure everyone that he will remain at the helm. Great news!

Source: Apple.com

UK Company Creates Injectable Bone To Speed Healing

RegenTec, a UK company, hopes to speed up the healing process for broken bones with the injection of a white powder designed to seal bones together in minutes. "You won't be able to just walk out of a hospital with a broken leg," said Robin Quirk, a professor at the University of Nottingham who, along with Kevin Shakesheff in the United States, originally developed the technology. "What we are trying to do in the short term is have something that fills the void left by a break that acts like normal spongy bone and encourages natural regeneration." At room temperature the material is in a power form but once injected into the body the materials fuse together in a hard, spongy mass much like living bone.

Jennifer Elisseef, a professor at Johns Hopkins University says "There is a lot of interest in bone filler materials from clinicians and from the military,"

Personally, I think the big market would be in professional sports!

Source: Discovery Channel

Compound Found In Red Wine Improves Metabolism Fights Aging

In yet another study of the benefits of red wine, Harvard Medical School researchers have reported that increasing the levels of sirtuin genes protects against aging by similar mechanisms in both very simple organisms like yeast, and in mammals. “This is the first potentially fundamental, root cause of aging that we’ve found,” said professor of pathology David Sinclair in a Harvard press release. “There may very well be others, but our finding that aging in a simple yeast cell is directly relevant to aging in mammals comes as a surprise.” When stimulated by the red wine chemical resveratrol, or by caloric restriction, sirtuins seem to have positive effects on aging and health, according to Sinclair’s research. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is working with these results to create a pill that targets Diabetis and other diseases related to aging, as discussed in the following ScienCentral clip.

Philips Creates "intelligent pill"

Dutch group Philips has created what it's calling an "iPill" capable of measuring acidity with a sensor to determine its location in the body. The capsule contains a microprocessor, battery, wireless radio, pump and a drug reservoir to release medication in a specific area in the body. The benefit is in being able to treat digestive tract disorders such as Crohn's disease by releasing its payload directly to the location of the disease thereby lowering the required doses and reducing side effects.

Globe and Mail story.