New Heart

[tommy.irene]

3D-printed 'electronic glove' could help keep your heart beating for ever

Custom-fitted membrane expands and contracts with the heart, and could one day deliver electric shocks in response to a heart attack

JAMES VINCENT 

  

Monday 03 March 2014

Scientists have created a revolutionary new electronic membrane that could replace pacemakers, fitting over a heart to keep it beating regularly over an indefinite period of time.

The device uses a “spider-web-like network of sensors and electrodes” to continuously monitor the heart’s electrical activity and could, in the future, deliver electrical shocks maintain a healthy heart-rate.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis used computer modelling technology and a 3D-printer to create a prototype membrane and fit it to a rabbit’s heart, keeping the organ operating perfectl “outside of the body in a nutrient and oxygen-rich solution”.

[tommy.irene]

http://ind.pn/1jM8Uui 

[captainbovine]

blimey!!!!

[rose2008-2008]

OMG WONDERED WHAT IT WAS. THOUGHT THEY WOULD INVENT SOMETHING LIKE THIS AT SOME POINT...BUT SURELY THE HEART ITSELF INSIDE THAT GLOVE IS STILL GETTING WITHERED AND OLD??.

OHHHH IT GIVES ME THE EEBIY JEEBIES A BIT. HEARTS FREAK ME OUT. I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW THEY KEEP WORKING FULL STOP AND HOW THEY ARE CREATED IS FASCINATING??. WELL HOW ANOTHER HUMAN BODY IS CREATED IS FASCINATING. ITS MADE IN A SACK IN A WOMANS BODY AND THEN EXPELLED OUT AFTER NINE MONTHS. OOOHHHHHHHHHH MY.