SCIENCE AND MEDICINE | health & wellness || 29
Electronic cigarettes are dangerous!
Advertisements claiming that electronic cigarettes are safe for the health of smokers and their surroundings have impelled many to switch from ordinary cigarettes to these modern analogs. However, recent studies have led to the conclusion that these new products, while they deliver lower levels of the carcinogens found in tobacco, are still plenty dangerous, producing particulates and toxic elements of their own not found in real cigarettes. In August 2016, American physiologists presented reports on the subject at the conference of the American Physiological Society in Westminster, Colorado, and in another study, FDA staffers tested nineteen cartridges from different producers. E-cigarette vapor contains highly toxic substances— formaldehydes, acrolein( propenal), diethylene glycol, nicotine, and others that provoke cancer, leukemia,
ovarian dysfunction, blindness, dermatitis, and other health problems. These toxins are delivered to the body in the form of a finely dispersed aerosol that rapidly penetrates into the bloodstream and affects the brain negatively. It shouldn’ t be forgotten, either, that diverse aromatic compounds that achieve pleasant taste sensations for the smoker are also carcinogens. E-cigarettes may be less dangerous than traditional cigarettes, but no matter how you slice it, you need to quit smoking!
A bionic man has been created
The Shadow Robot company presented the first ever bionic man at the famous New York Comic Con festival.“ Artificial parts of the body and organs were presented to our team of robot technicians by seventeen producers from the most varied of countries in the world. Our work-up demonstrates vividly that modern technologies are capable of providing people who have lost certain of the parts of their bodies with beautiful and practical prostheses,” noted Richard Walker, company director and leader of the innovative project. The 185-centimeter( six feet) tall robot performs 60-70 % of the functions of the human body and can stand, sit, and walk thanks to the Rex walking mechanism that people with serious spinal injuries are able to use. The bionic man has a heart that pumps artificial blood and provides oxygen transport with the help of an electronic pump. The dialysis function is performed by kidney implants. However, for the time being he lacks a digestive system, liver, skin, and brain. Incidentally, the cost of the robot proved less than the scientific fantasists had estimated: one million dollars.
A microrobot for the fight against brain tumors
After a TV show in which plastic surgeons used sterile maggots to remove damaged tissue, neurosurgeon Marc Simard, a professor at the University of Maryland, decided to create a robot maggot. He worked four years on creating a micro-instrument capable of removing a tumor. At the front end of the robot is an electrocoagulation tool for heating and destroying tumors. Simultaneously with its work, a special suction tube swallows the waste products that form. An MRI scanner that monitors the operation process will continuously let doctors establish the location of hard-to-get-to tumors and determine their boundaries. The robot will move with the help of an alloy that changes its shape depending on temperature fluctuations. Professor Simard says that the old method used objects fastened to the skull, but tissues move around during tumor removal and it’ s hard to figure out what is tumor tissue and what is healthy tissue, which is there the“ maggot” comes in. The microrobot is already being tested on animals.
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