Tag: IMPLANT

Joe Wooller hates clutter. He's also apparently, incredibly lazy. The 28-year-old Australian father of two decided he was done with hauling his keys around, and underwent a minor surgery in June to implant an RFID chip in his hand. The chip is used to open doors to his home, unlock his car and fire up his motorcycle. Wooller still needs his keys to open the gas tank on the motorcycle and has to ...

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a new retinal prosthetic that allows blind mice to clearly see an image of a baby's face. According to Science News, Sheila Nirenberg and Chethan Pandarinath used the prosthetic to mimic the actions of the retina's photoreceptor cells, which serve as key links between the eye and the brain. In a healthy eye, these cells convert every image viewed ...

Thanks to new research, diabetics could one day have a long-term solution to glucose monitoring. According to Technology Review, researchers implanted glucose sensors in pigs, and have concluded that they worked successfully for two years. Now, David Gough, the bioengineer who founded the company behind the pig experiment, GlySens, is petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve ...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a miniature eye implant that promises to drastically improve vision in the elderly by replicating and enhancing the eye's natural lens. According to CBC News, VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies got the go-ahead from the FDA to continue implanting a miniature telescope into the eyes of elderly people who are suffering from end-stage ...

Wired reports that scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have created an ultrathin brain implant made from silk that could revolutionize brain-computer interface (BCI) design. BCI implants are used to record paralyzed patients' brain signals, which can be translated into computer or robotic movements. By printing electrodes onto a thin and flexible silk film, doctors could monitor parts of ...

Biology and technology are increasingly crossing paths these days, so it comes as no surprise that researchers have found a way to literally fuse the two, creating implantable technology for the 21st century. Researchers have developed a new type of super-thin silicon transistor, which can be embedded on a dissolvable silk-based film (pictured). Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and ...

With the imminent release of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' everyone is getting a little super-hero envy (especially the guy in the video above). And who can blame them. There are certainly days when we wish we could heal our wounds and sprout indestructible metal claws from our hands, especially when some jackass with a Hummer parks across two spaces in the super market parking lot. Sadly, we're ...

There are quite a few eerie similarities between Rob Spence and Tanya Vlach. For starters, they're both artists, and secondly, they both currently have one prosthetic eye. The real kicker? Each of 'em wants a camera stuck in there instead. In what we can only hope is (or isn't?) a freakishly growing trend, Mr. Spence has reportedly sought consultation from the University of Toronto's Steve ...

As news of violent kidnappings in Mexico continue to proliferate, the Mexican elite are now using technology to fight back. Reuters reports that wealthy Mexicans are spending big money to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can track them wherever they are (i.e., the trunk of a car). The crystal-encased chips are apparently "the size and shape of a grain of rice" (their ...

We've already some efforts to tailor Bluetooth for use with medical devices, but it looks like a team of researchers from Queen's University Belfast have now come up with another method of keeping devices connected, which they say is more efficient and better suited for implants. Their solution is effectively a "skin-tenna," which makes use of a puck-like device worn on the outside of the body ...

As Randy Newman once crooned, "Short people got no reason to live." Far be it from us at Switched to dismiss those who don't measure up to certain height standards, but a doctor out of Madrid, Spain, may have a solution for the vertically challenged, or at least a way to change the general perception of height (if not a person's ability to reach items on the top shelves of kitchen cabinets). ...

Every step you take could soon be the power source for your mobile phone, MP3 player or portable GPS device. A group of university researchers from the United States and Canada have developed a prototype knee brace that captures energy in a way that's similar to how some hybrid cars charge their batteries by converting energy while they brake. "There is power to be harvested from various places ...

We knew it was only a matter of time before the government started trying to track us by implanting computer chips in our bodies. And where do you start highly suspicious, Big Brother-esque projects like this? The Pentagon and our Armed forces, of course. Scarily enough, we're not talking about some conspiracy theory, or some black ops experiment -- this is for real, and the Pentagon has already ...