Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Cool Stuff

  • Cool Football Technology

    technology review:

    Dan Garza, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine, and his team recently completed a study of the mouth guards using crash-test dummies, and  plan to publish the data soon…

    Garza believes that the mouth guards may turn out to be more accurate than helmets because they don’t shift as much during impact. They also read forces inside the skull more closely, and they’re cheaper…. The Stanford studies will collect data from the mouthpieces as well as video of plays, when available, and clinical information about players’ injuries. 

    Seriously, how cool is that. Leave it to Stanford – yes that wonderful school just up the road from where I live – to make science fun. How can you go wrong applying science to football?

    You can read more about impact sensing mouthguards at the X2IMPACT website here.

  • Cool Pharmacy Technology–RevVac Syringe

    I suppose this could really be cool tech for nursing or lab, but I thought it was worth having a deeper look.

    The ReVac Retracting Safety Syring by Revolutions Medical “use a proprietary patented technology in which a vacuum causes the needle to retract into the barrel of the syringe or device after an injection is administered or blood is drawn.”

    According to the Revolutions Medical website “[t]he RevVac™ Safety Syringe and Phlebotomy (blood drawing) Device operate the same as a standard syringe and device. No additional training, skills, or procedures are necessary. The both products work on a vacuum principle, where pressing the plunger in them creates a vacuum. When the plunger reaches the bottom, the needle is captured. A further push on the plunger breaks the seal, and the needle retracts into the plunger barrel. The vacuum is maintained, so the needle cannot be removed from the plunger.”

  • Augmented reality for chemists [video]

    Boing Boing: “In a very cool video from Chemical and Engineering News, Art Olson of the Scripps Research Institute explains how chemists in his lab can predict how well the drugs they develop will work.

    Olson’s lab prints 3D models of molecular structures, both targets—like the HIV protease enzyme in the video—and the drugs they’ve made to bond to those targets. The models are rigged up so that when Olson holds them in front of a webcam, they instantly interact with chemical analysis software his team has built. The result is a system that allows researchers to see, physically, how well the drugs fit their targets, and simultaneously test how well the two are likely to bond on a chemical level.”

    A 3D printed molecule with augmented reality! This is downright awesome. There’s no other way to say it. Drug development will never be the same. The only question I have is… where can I get one for myself?

  • Bacteria everywhere run scared as vancomycin gets new life

    vancomycinmedGadget: “Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute have successfully reengineered vancomycin. They have reported their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This research could be a solution in the treatment of patients infected with highly resistant bacteria. Vancomycin is often considered the antiobiotic of last resort, if other antibiotics have failed to do the job. But the emergence of vancomycin-resistant bacteria is becoming a major health problem. Vancomycin works by binding the D-alanyl-D-alanine terminal dipeptide of peptidoglycan precursors, used by bacteria for constructing their cell walls. By binding it, the bacteria can not use the peptidoglycan anymore and they die. But certain bacteria have altered their peptidoglycan by replacing an amide with an ester, resulting in vacomycin resistance.

    The reengineered vancomycin can bind the altered peptidoglycan and kill the bacteria once again using the same mechanism as described above. But besides binding the altered peptidoglycan, this new antibiotic can bind the original peptidoglycan as well. It took Dale L. Boger and his team some serious chemical engineering to redesign vancomycin into this new antibiotic. In the article down below you can read the report how they managed to synthesize this altered antibiotic and exchange a single atom in the vancomycin to reinstate its antimicrobial activity.”

    Vancomycin is an oldie, but a goodie. It continues to be useful despite its age. Several drugs have been developed over the years to replace it, but for one reason or another the newer agents tend to fall out of favor. With that said, vancomycin won’t last forever as bacteria are slowing finding ways to combat its mechanism of action. So instead of finding a new drug, someone decided to alter the old one. Go figure.

  • FrankenNook gets a facelift, suffers from identity crisis

    ScreenShotI’ve been using my rooted Nook Color, a.k.a. FrankenNook, for a couple of months now. Turns out that it makes a great Android tablet. There are a couple of things missing from my little lab experiment, the most glaring of which is a camera, but overall it’s given me a nice travel companion with great functionality and solid battery life.  

    The most common uses for the device to date have been:

    1. Games – hands down the activity that I use the tablet for most. Favorite games include Drag Racing, Pinball Ride and Peggle
    2. Reading – Pulse, Google Reader, etc.
    3. Interacting with social media – Google+, Twitter, Facebook
    4. Email, both work and personal
    5. Surfing the net – I don’t do this nearly as much as I thought I would. Most of my surfing is the result of following a link in Twitter or Google+

    One of the things I’ve been playing with is launchers. Throw in the fact that I’ve been recently considering converting to a Windows 7 smartphone and you can imagine my intrigue when I came across Launcher 7 for Android.

    Description from the Android Market:

      A Windows Phone 7 style launcher for Android.

      Unlike other current WP7 launchers (Windows Phone Android, Metro UI), this one allows you to properly modify your start screen. Just long press on a tile and drag tile where you want!

      I installed Launcher 7 and have been using it for about a week. I like it a lot. It does seem a little weird to be running a Windows 7 launcher on a Nook Color rooted to run Android.
      Overall I like the Windows 7 Phone experience. One thing that’s missing is widgets. Having widgets for Android is a real game changer for me. I use widgets for a lot of things; weather, Evernote, news, calendar, agenda, alarm  clock, etc. I’m not sure I want to live without them.
      Final verdict? I think I like having widgets enough to continue using Android for now. My new launcher of choice? Go Launcher EX. 

  • Pocket-sized drug detection

    gizmag: “The researchers say that real time date rape drug detection has been impossible until now because of the lack of a sensor sensitive enough to detect the drugs. Adding to the difficulty of proving the presence of such drugs is that after a few hours they become undetectable in the human bloodstream.

    The system they [Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences] developed works on simple optics principles, says Professor Fernando Patolsky. Although date rape drugs are colorless and odorless when mixed into a cocktail, they do subtly change the optical properties of the drink and it is this change that the new sensor detects. When a ray of light comes into contact with a drugged drink, a "signal change" occurs and the sensor sounds an alarm. A commercial version of the sensor could emit a beeping noise or a small flashing light for use in the dark and loud environment of a bar or club.”

    Pretty cool stuff with a practical application. Let’s hope it’s easily portable, simple to use and dirt cheap. Kind of reminds me of a technologically advanced refractometer.

  • Cool Technology for Pharmacy – PharmASSIST OPTIx

    ThomasNet News: “PharmASSIST OPTIx enables remote prescription verification by taking a high-resolution image of each prescription’s vial contents and vial label, and automatically displaying them on a designated pharmacist’s workstation. The pharmacist compares these images to the appropriate drug image from a standardized drug database, along with specific prescription details to complete the verification. The verifying pharmacist can be stationed anywhere – in the front of the pharmacy counseling patients or offsite at another pharmacy, a central processing center, or working from a home office. PharmASSIST OPTIx stores each prescription’s images as part of the patient history record, enabling pharmacies to quickly retrieve them for pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) audits and to confirm the quantity dispensed.

    Pharmacies can use PharmASSIST OPTIx in stand-alone mode or integrated with Innovation’s PharmASSIST Symphony® workflow systems, which enables end-to-end prescription tracking, problem management, and reporting. In addition to processing a pharmacy’s countable medications, PharmASSIST OPTIx handles all non-countable products (e.g., ointments/creams, liquids, syringes, inhalers, etc.) for prescription filling and remote verification. The system can also assist pharmacies with physical inventory control.”

    It reminds me of a non-cleanroom version of DoseEdge.

    Additional automation is needed for it to be a real game changer, but it’s still pretty cool technology. It would be slick if the person filling the prescription never had to touch the product and the end result could be remotely verified.

    Product website here.

    OPTIx brochure (PDF).

  • Father’s Day gift becomes FrankenNook

    I don’t consider myself a technology geek, but I do consider myself a power user. I like technology, but I’m not typically the guy who goes rooting around in the assembly of an operating system.

    Recently I’ve been thinking, out loud, about getting an Android tablet. I’ve also been bemoaning the fact that I’ve never rooted an Android device. I’ve thought about rooting my Droid, but haven’t done it. I’ve also toyed with the idea of purchasing a Barnes & Noble Nook Color just so I could root it.

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  • Cool Pharmacy Technology–Apoteca

    I have a soft spot for robotics, especially for IV preparation. I’m not quite sure that pharmacy is ready to fully embrace the idea, but we’re well on our way.

    APOTECAchemo is an IV preparation robot modeled in the image of i.v.STATION. Prior to yesterday I had not heard of APOTECA. Fortunately someone visiting my site left me a link to the U.S. website. The site contains limited information with the exception of the video below. However, a quick internet search led me to the Loccioni Humancare website where I was able to find additional information.

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  • Revisiting the idea of Shareable Ink

    EMR and HIPAA: “The interesting thing about Shareable Ink is that they provide such an interesting middle ground between a technical solution and continuation of paper. I remember about 5 years ago when I heard someone describe the perfect clinical documentation system. It was completely flexible. Required little to no training. Supported every possible documentation style. etc etc etc. Then, they acknowledged that what was being described was the paper chart. It was then that I recognized that while EMR can provide some benefits that paper charts can’t provide, paper charts also had some advantages that would be difficult to provide using an EMR.

    I think this background is why I found the Shareable Ink approach to documentation so fascinating. I really see it as an interesting way to try and capture the benefits of granular data elements and electronic capture of the data while still enjoying the benefits of paper.

    My simplified explanation of the Shareable Ink technology is as follows. You print out a form that you want to use for the patient visit. Each page that’s printed out has a unique background (although it just looks like a colored page to the naked eye). When you use the Shareable Ink pen to write on the printed out page, the pen uses a camera to record what you wrote on that page and where you wrote it. Then, once you sync the pen it recreates the document you wrote on in the system.”
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