Surgery is a daunting prospect. The thought of another human-being rummaging around in your insides is enough to turn anybody a bit pale with worry. Oh- and as an added bonus- the chances are, you are going to be left with a lovely scar to commemorate the event.
Well actually, that may not necessarily be true…
Pushing the boundaries of existing minimally-invasive technologies, surgeons are currently attempting the amazing feat of being able to complete certain procedures without the need for incisions. Via, shall we say, naturally existing access routes within the body.
Yes: it is what you are thinking.
The rectum, vagina, urethra and also the mouth are all channels utilized in NOTES (Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery) in order for doctors to gain access to internal areas needing to be operated on.
The basic principle of NOTES has been an established means for diagnostic tests and simple therapies for a while- for example, inserting a camera into the throat to better view of internal structures (known as endoscopy). Now however, this technology is being explored in an exciting new capacity.
The potential to be able to complete full surgical procedures through already-present orifices in the body, means that new openings do not have to be created and therefore surgeons can try to avoid putting patients through the physical trauma of being cut open. Instruments, including a camera, can be inserted into these sites, allowing for surgeries to be performed in an incredibly minimally invasive way.
When compared with conventional laparotomy (standard open surgery, requiring a substantial incision into the abdomen) and laparoscopy (minimally invasive surgery, which uses small incisions into the abdomen, followed by the insertion of instruments into the body via ports), NOTES comes with a range of potential benefits.
The major advantages can mostly be attributed to the lack of an external wound site. This key achievement of NOTES means that the patient does not have to suffer the additional pain of wound-healing; does not have the risk of developing an incisional hernia and crucially; has reduced risk of surgical site infection.
Post-operative infection is one of the most common complications of surgery and can be deadly; by taking away an external healing site it severely reduces the chances of germs getting to the surgical site and creating a nasty infection.
Added to this, there could also be a reduced requirement for anaesthesia and shorter hospital stays too. But inherently unique to this surgery, is that it is ‘scarless’. This is even to the extent that on occasions when another camera is needed to be inserted from the outside, a very small incision is made into the belly button, in such a location whereby the cut will be hidden within folds of the skin.
Research and training are currently in progress to help propel NOTES to its full potential. With this technology already proving its feasibility in human trials, mainly in the field of general surgery- from removal of the appendix to biopsies to the treatment of intestinal cancers- it may not be too long before this technique establishes itself as a significant evolutionary step in modern surgical methods.
The search for potential astronauts to help create the first Mars colony is well underway.
On Monday, Dutch company Mars One officially launched a reality-show type bid on Twitter and YouTube to recruit volunteers to be part of the pioneering space missing, and so far they have been contacted by up to 10,000 people.
The trip will leave Earth in 2022, with a view to reaching Mars in 2023. It will involve four people spending seven months in a small capsule during the journey, and the trip will be one way, with no reasonable expectation of return. But the sheer popularity of this mission upon its launch shows that there is no shortage of people willing to be the first ambassadors in the next step of space exploration.
It will be a unique test to see if humans really are capable of living and even populating outside Earth, but another key motive for sending people to live there is to determine, more accurately, is Mars is capable of sustaining other forms of life.
Executive director of Explore Mars, an organisation devoted to exploring life on Mars, said that “there is a strong, growing body of evidence that there could be subsurface life on Mars. However, we may not be able to confirm that unless we send people.” Simply, there are limits to what current robots can achieve physically compared to humans, in terms of drilling and digging, and humans could most likely undertake in a few minutes what a current make of man-made robot can do in an entire day.
However, for the advantage of sending human explorers to Mars, there is a disadvantage. People will inevitably bring with them billions of microbes and bacteria which will potentially compromise the eco-balance of Mars and any life that may be found there. This is a risk of which the Mars pioneers are well aware, and the general consensus is that every precaution will be undertaken to minimise the biological impact of the primary Mars colony.
Certainly, the mission will not be without risk to either the human colony or to existing life on Mars, but now that the limits to current robot exploration are drawing close, to send people to Mars as a next step makes sense.
Revolutionary nanotechnology set to provide solutions to inoculation issues in developing countries.
Nanotechnology? I wondered the same thing when I first heard. It’s pretty incredible really; it’s basically the study of structures at magnifications beyond what the eye can see. And using this cutting-edge science, bioengineer Mark Kendall has come up with an innovation, smaller than a human fingernail, that could replace needle delivery of vaccinations and provide the answers to some of the major problems associated with mass immunisation. Most crucially, those in developing nations.
Many of us living in the developed world now take for granted the importance of vaccines; we are lucky enough to be in a position whereby the use of inoculations on a sustained mass scale has enabled us to reach a point whereby many contagious diseases have become wiped out.
Unfortunately, these devastating and potentially fatal illnesses still ravage populations in developing countries, where there is insufficient means to vaccinate communities.
This is where the Nanopatch claims its stake in potentially becoming one of the biggest innovations in modern immunology.
The 1cm² patch takes advantage of the skin as the body’s “immune sweet spot”, according to the Australian professor responsible for this advancement. The largest organ of the human body, not only does your skin defend against pathogenic microorganisms (the little nasties that cause disease), it also homes a hotbed of immune cells beneath the surface, which the patch delivers the vaccine directly into.
The tiny silicon square is covered with around 20,000 micro-projections – imagine little spikes, so minute that they cannot be felt, nor are they visible to the human eye – which are coated with dry vaccine. When applied directly to the skin using an applicator, the spikes penetrate the outer layer and administer the antigen to the eager immune-cells waiting beneath, sparking an impressive response.
The potential of this patch is ground-breaking. Though currently in the pre-human-trial stage of development, the technology has proven extremely effectual in the mouse model. Initial results have shown the product to be 100 times as effective as its needle counter-part and can be produced at a fraction of the price. “When the device is made in sufficiently large numbers, our cost estimates are significantly less than US$1 per dose,” Kendall assures.
For 160 years now, the needle and syringe method has fronted technology of contemporary vaccination programmes and whilst it is efficient, it inevitably maintains a range of shortcomings for which this tiny innovation holds the promise of overcoming.
Of the design’s broadest achievements: no needle equals no phobias – hooray! Plus, no chance of needle injuries; no potential for disease transmission associated with needle reuse; and, no pain on vaccine delivery either. Of its most integral successes, it doesn’t require specialised staff to administer it, nor does it depend on the cold-chain to maintain it in transportation or storage – both astounding achievements in the efforts towards making vaccinations more readily available, especially in developing countries.
“Because the Nanopatch requires neither a trained practitioner to administer it nor refrigeration, it has enormous potential to cheaply deliver vaccines in developing nations,” Kendall has said. For the remoter areas of some geographic areas, the logistics of supplying a temperature-controlled product has big implications on whether communities can be provided with life-saving vaccines. In places, the presence of adequate refrigeration is limited, or non-existent and the availability of appropriately skilled staff to administer the vaccines is also restricted. Problems which the Nanopatch solve.
Not only this, but for developed countries, these epic advancements hold future possibilities of seeing vaccines becoming available from local chemists or even being mailed out to home addresses, to self-dispense.
So what’s the catch? Well, as mentioned previously, it is yet to be tested on humans. However, since initial usability tests carried out by Kendall’s team at the University of Queensland have had such remarkable results, the promise of success in human trials (set to begin later this year) is very encouraging. And even though some other patches of comparable concepts have failed to reach their potential, new company Vaxxas has claimed that it is “the applicator design (which) overcomes the inconsistency that plagues other transdermal vaccine delivery approaches.”
Professor Kendall has big aspirations for his Nanopatch. With the World Health Organization this week estimating that “around 22 million children in developing countries are still not protected from dangerous diseases with basic vaccines” the need for the success of this technology is more crucial than ever. Having won a Rolex award for his research, he has said “I have an absolute passion to deliver better vaccination to the low-resource regions of the world, without them having to wait years for it to trickle down from the developed world”.
Though it is going to take a concerted effort – pooling resources of education, funding and technology – to eradicate major vaccination issues, this tiny patch has the potential to take massive steps towards helping drastically cut the number of preventable deaths each year- all without a needle in sight.
The proposal to expand a small Kent airport into a “regional hub”, which has just been approved by the government, has caused great concern for environmental campaigners.
LyddAirport in Romney Marsh has now been granted permission to expand its runway and to build a new terminal building, and about half a million more passengers could potentially be accommodated by this new development. However, although there is a prevailing optimism about the new airport, as it would certainly give the area a higher profile, there is growing anger that the local area – where there is an abundance of wildlife – will be endangered by the encroachment of a much bigger airport. For many species, the “Garden of England” is a natural refuge.
Green Party MEP, Keith Taylor, has commented on the new development, saying that there are “huge concerns about the impact these proposals would have in terms of the increase in pollution for local residents and the threat to important wildlife.”
This development has emerged amid worldwide concerns that the progression of low-carbon energy is not happening quickly enough to offset global warming. The International Energy Agency has reported that there has only been a 25% growth in non-fossil fuel generation, compared to 45% of fossil fuel generation.
New developments that would help offset the still-excessive CO2 emissions, such as carbon capture and storage, while still being developed and built, are simply not appearing fast enough to counteract the growing worldwide damage.
While countries such as the US are pioneering ways to generate environmentally friendly energy (such as shale gas technology), the majority of Europe is still, allegedly, falling far short of targets which need to be met to see a maximum rise in global temperature of 2 degrees celsius by the end of the century.
The new airport development at Romney Marsh will certainly be an economic asset for the region, and will create much-needed jobs, however it is important that it tries to remain environmentally responsible, so that it can help the region to uphold the reputation of being an ecological haven.
When we log out for the final time, will our digital selves outlive us? European companies like SecureSafe and Planned Departure have recently begun to address the issue of data rights after death. The concept is not just theoretical: since July 2012, the parents of dead teenager Alison Atkins have been unable to access images, messages and poems that are locked away in cyberspace.
Cue Google’s arrival – with the unfortunately named ‘Inactive Account Manager’. While they are still alive, the programme allows users to decide what will ultimately happen to their digital presence. If set up, the system will activate when an account is dormant for between three and 12 months, without requiring a court order. The account manager will send a text to your phone and an email to a nominated trustee once the chosen time period has elapsed.
Information stored on Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube and Picasa could then be deleted, partially preserved, or totally ‘inherited’ by an heir. “We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife – in a way that protects your privacy and security,” wrote Google’s product manager, Andreas Tuerk, in a blog post introducing the service last Thursday.
By letting users plan for their deaths, Google has pushed ahead of its rivals. Both Twitter and Facebook give families a say on whether an account survives the deceased as a ‘memorial’ or is removed (approximately 30 million Facebook accounts are currently ‘owned’ by dead people). But Google’s system moves power into the hands of the individual user, who may want to cherry-pick what data is passed on, and to whom.
Given that we now store many of our most intimate possessions online – photos, videos, letters – we must think about what relatives, friends and even business colleagues might (and might not) be able to access. As Andreas Jacob, Head of Marketing for SecureSafe, explained, “maybe 90 per cent of your data is not relevant for your afterlife, but maybe those 10 per cent are very, very important.”
Instead of leaving our heirs to navigate the ‘cloud’, a few simple clicks might allow us to hand over the information that matters to the people that matter when the time comes.Is this a step too far – technology’s attempt to make us immortal?
Like it or not, it is increasingly important for us to consider and evaluate how our cyber-presence will be managed after we die. It goes far beyond Google, to the data we entrust to sites like PayPal and Dropbox. Worries remain as to whether online heirlooms can really be passed on securely by the multinationals themselves, or if independent firms subject to regulation would be better placed to deal with such sensitive material.
In life, our digital footprints are mammoth-sized; in death, we are only just taking our first baby-steps. For the time being, Google seems to be leading the pack. Doubts may persist, but – as so often – if there is a Will, there may well be a way.
The first thought to enter your mind when opening the Lumia box is “Wow” – the design is so different to the other smartphones on the market, yet remains identifiably Nokia. With the fabula design, Nokia has managed to set itself apart with a combination of elegance and simplicity. In comparison, Samsung’s Ativ S (pictured below) looks clunky and out-dated. On the design front, Nokia seems peerless in striving for new designs – the iPhone has had 2, the original curved plastic back of the 2g, 3g and 3gs, and the current design of the 4, 4S and 5 (adding an extra inch of vertical height does not count as a design overhaul); HTC has churned out the same rounded-edge rectangles in grey for years, until borrowing a few design cues from the Lumia range for its 8X and 8S handsets; and Samsung is profiting nicely from copying the iPhone. The Lumia 920 always got a comment when it was taken out of my pocket, and it was always positive.
Samsung Ativ S displaying a lack of design intuitionLumia 920 in Ferrari red boasting a unibody design with a curved screen
Your second thought comes after picking it up – the weight is nothing like so many reviews would have you believe. Some state the phone makes their arm ache, it’s uncomfortable to hold to their ear, it doesn’t fit in their pockets and it’s a struggle to hold. This is a device that weighs not even 200g – heavy compared to other smartphones, but by no means heavy in an objective definition. The fact is, complaints about weight are not doing much to improve the stereotype of wimpy geeks.
The 920 feels like a premium device – by no means will it make your arms ache (and if it does, a visit to the gym now and then would be recommended), but you will know you’re holding it. Compared to the iPhone 5’s feel of almost weightlessness, the 920’s feel is my preference. Holding the iPhone 5 makes me worry that holding it too tight will cause it to crumble, and the end result is most people will choose to cover it in a case that bumps the weight up to that of the 920 anyway. With the 920, the usual fear of damaging a trial device isn’t there – videos are abundant on YouTube of people going to extreme lengths to try to damage the device, with most failing to do so. No case or screen protector is necessary, and after more than a month of using it, there was not one scratch on either the screen or body.
One of the big features of the 920 is the ClearBack Display boosting readability levels when outdoors. This has been a smartphone plague since day one, and nothing caused me more frustration on my Samsung Galaxy II than trying to read an email outdoors – even minimal sunlight rendered readability to zero. By comparison, I never once had to shield the 920’s screen to make out what it was displaying; during my review period I visited Arizona, and even beneath its bright sunlight it was like looking at the screen indoors. It’s without doubt the best screen the market has to offer, and a feature Nokia should be shouting about.
Fortunately for the review, I was also able to test it in the English winter. Could it really work with gloves? Yes, it can. Reasonably thick leather ones too, with stunning accuracy. Finding a contact to call and even typing messages were no problem. When resistive screens were still reasonably popular, I was an advocate of them for the simple reason that they registered clicks from things besides flesh; the inability of capacitive screens to do so is a glaring problem and one that manufacturers have been content to ignore. Perhaps a perk of being based in Finland, a country that experiences winters California can’t even dream about, Nokia saw this weakness and overcame it – to such an extent that it even registers input from big ski mitts. If you’ve ever missed a call because you couldn’t get your glove off in time, you’ll understand the benefit of this technology.
One of the other features is Nokia’s Rich Recording, a feature only present on Nokia’s recent devices (you’ll be forgiven for having not heard of it, as Nokia has hardly mentioned it). Chances are you’ve seen a video on YouTube of a concert filmed on a mobile phone, or even recorded your own, and not had a clue what the song is supposed to sound like when you play it. If you own a non-Nokia device, you’re pretty much guaranteed that experience. If you do have a Lumia or the 808 PureView, though, then you will be able to record audio and listen to it later with such clarity it’s as though you’re still there. Want an example? The video below compares the 920 with HTC’s Windows Phone flagship the 8X.
If there’s one feature that the 920 boasts and people do know about, it’s the camera – specifically the low-light capabilities. It’s one thing when a manufacturer touts these things, but there’s never a guarantee they’ll work that way in real life conditions. Here are some sample shots I took in low-light, with no flash.
Incredible detail in a garden at night. The only source of light is from the window.Same shot as above, but with flash.Photo taken at night with the light off, no flash used.And two to demonstrate the quality of the photos in normal conditions:
A curious dragonIce on a Canadian peak, taken from 35,000ft
The camera has some interesting features besides its incredible low-light abilities, and they never ceased to amaze my iPhone-owning friends (and at least two wanted to immediately drop their Apple and get the 920 instead). Smart Shoot in particular always got stunned expressions when a person or object was simply removed from a picture, or the option to flip through multiple shots to pick the best one – ideal when someone is blinking or moving. Cinemagraph also elicited shocked responses as the picture suddenly became alive with waves, smiles and moving objects. The camera capabilities, including the aforementioned Smart Shoot and Cinemagraph, put Nokia on a plane that its competitors can only dream of matching. In fact, the camera technology Nokia has in the 808 PureView runs rings around Samsung’s dedicated Galaxy camera.
The software on the phone is excellent too. The native Nokia Maps were used frequently during my time in America – always offline and they never missed a beat. From the back hills of California to the freeways along Pacific Highway, as well as finding stores like Target, it worked first time every time. It’s easy to take for granted just how good those maps are, but a recent use of Apple’s “sat nav” really proved how capable Nokia’s offering is. The iPhone version does not display the speed limit, the travelling speed, the time until the destination or any other information. When approaching a junction, it does not say “Turn left now”, and about one-third of the screen is taken up with the roadsign image – meaning that you can only see on the screen about the next 30 yards of road, and that makes it impossible to know what your next move is, and thus which lane to be in. Although it knew where we were trying to go, and did get us there, the way it did so was frustrating and, at times, outright dangerous. On a three-hour journey in a motorhome in California, questions of “How long until we get there?” were unanswerable by those on iPhones, partly because the maps don’t give that information and partly because when there’s no signal, there’s no information. The 920 gave the information within ten seconds of it leaving my pocket. It’s the differences like these that truly demonstrate just how far ahead Nokia is with its maps – being able to immediately pick up your location, your destination and the time between, while offline, is one feature that will be sorely missed by anyone who uses it and then uses a competitor device.
Maps also has the City Lens feature of augmented reality. When visiting somewhere new this is an excellent, and fast, way of finding what you need. You can hold the phone up to your surroundings and see what’s around you, or hold it vertically for a list. Tap an item and you can see photos, read reviews, call the place, or get directions using Nokia Drive. Seamlessly integrated, and probably the quickest, easiest way of discovering new things presented by any phone.
The other main feature of the 920 is its wireless charging capability. Although it still requires contact, of being placed onto the pad, it’s quite shocking how much easier it makes things. It’s a common problem that the charging cables are too short to reach from a bedside cabinet to the bed, which means fumbling in the dark if the phone goes off, trying to unplug it, not drop the cable, and then plugging it in again when you’re done. The wireless charging ability means you pick it up and put it down like you would normally, except it carries on charging as you put it down. It’s a simple action that makes things much easier, and since the 920’s release other manufacturers have rushed the feature into removable cases for existing handsets. That being said, the irony of the 920 having it is that it’s a battery seemingly impossible to kill anyway – no matter what my usage was (games, video, music, web browsing, voice calls, text messages, WhatsApp etc), it would never die before I put it on to charge at night. That was a solid 14+ hours every day, and on days of medium usage, I wouldn’t bother charging it overnight and it would last until the following evening.
The Windows Phone 8 software has been largely discussed already and there’s not much more to add. The new Start screen is very impressive, and going back to Windows Phone 7.5 after using 8 makes you appreciate how much better the upgrade is. The 920 is extremely fast and fluid, and the operating system is obviously designed to make everything so simple to get – from Search results offering relevant apps to improved live tiles, and resizeable tiles making information so much easier to get to. Kid’s Corner is a feature that I have no use for, but see the need for other people to have. In fact, on one trip to Target, there were three women looking at a children’s iPhone dock, of which the main feature was, according to one ecstatic shopper, “it blocks the home button being pushed so the kids can’t make calls and stuff.” Kid’s Corner, for those who haven’t yet heard of it, is an area of the phone where you can decide what apps and games are available, so the children can use the phone to play Angry Birds but you don’t have to worry about them deleting emails and contacts or making expensive calls. It’s a feature that is sorely needed by millions of parents, and you don’t need a separate accessory that only does one small fraction of Kid’s Corner. For Android and Apple, there isn’t an app for that.
Windows Phone 8 also brings the much, much needed backup ability. It isn’t quite as good as other options though – from Nokia’s previous Symbian and Maemo options, and iOS and Android, all let you backup a local copy to the PC whenever you want. Microsoft has oddly chosen not to do this, and in WP8 certain things, including text messages, are stored to SkyDrive. It’s not the complete option that we expect, and Microsoft needs to address the issue immediately – who is going to store data they can’t afford to lose on a device that doesn’t allow them to back it up?
Nokia is touting the 920 as the most innovative smartphone in the world. With wireless charging, the best screen on the market bar none, outstanding maps, Rich Recording, Optical Image Stabilisation, PureView camera technology, Lenses and the near-indestructible build quality that has led to countless people trying to destroy it in videos, there’s no choice but to agree. It’s no surprise the Lumia 920 won 12 awards in 2012, and couple that with a fast, simple and refreshing operating system, Nokia has a clear winner in the Lumia 920.
