/ News
Implant Monitors Blood in Real Time
A simple blood test is one of the best ways to gauge someone's health, but the process is by no means perfect. In addition to requiring a trip to a lab, blood tests are sometimes painful and require time and effort to parse the data.
This system generally works for people in good health, but can be arduous for people with chronic conditions, such as diabetics or cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. As an alternative, researchers from a variety of European institutes have developed an implant that goes below the skin. Doctors can place the device, which has no commercial name yet, into a patient's chest, where it monitors substance levels in blood in real time.
The device is about 14 millimeters long (half an inch) and has five sensors, a transmitter and a power-delivery system. A patient must also wear a small battery, which attaches to a patient's skin and powers the device through a wire.
The implant records substances in a patient's blood, including various sugars, enzymes and other organic molecules. Using its transmitter, the device sends data to a patient's smartphone via Bluetooth. This data then routes through an app to a doctor's computer, allowing the doctor to monitor a patient's substance levels almost as soon as the device records them.
The implant detects substance levels using a pool of enzymes, which run dry after about a month and a half. Researchers assert that removing and refilling the device is no more strenuous than the blood tests it replaces.
The implant will be most useful to diabetics and chemotherapy patients, at least at the outset. Giovanni de Micheli, one of the researchers who created the device, describes a hypothetical elderly diabetic patient: "He/she goes daily to a doctor or punctures his/her finger and — in case of abnormal [blood sugar] levels — he/she must see an MD." The implant, he says, obviates the need for these processes, since checking blood sugar levels involves only checking a computer screen. [See also: 9 Cyborg Enhancements Available Right Now]
De Micheli posits a second scenario, in which "a patient undergoing chemotherapy may receive an inappropriate dose [of medication] under the usual practice. With this device, the chemo dose is optimized to have the right concentration in the bloodstream." This is especially important in treating cancer patients, as chemotherapy drugs tend to be toxic to regular cells as well as cancerous ones.
In the future, de Micheli hopes that the implant technology evolves to the point where it could be mass-produced and available cheaply. Even healthy individuals may benefit from them. "For example," he says, "implants will be used by sportspeople to get optimal effort and to tune nutrition."
Initial tests of the device have shown promise, and its developers hope to put it on sale within the next four years. Chronic-disease patients will have to hold tight until then, but their sore fingers or arms might just catch a break within the next half-decade.
Source: http://www.technewsdaily.com/17400-implant-monitors-blood-real-time.html
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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