This just in. Bioelectric BodyMods are real and here today. Thanks @greatdismal for the tip.

From Short Sharp Science blog on New Scientist website: ”
Brain-computer implant has passed 1000-day milestone”

Author: Helen Thomson, biomedical news editor

A paralysed woman was still able to accurately control a computer cursor with her thoughts 1000 days after having a tiny electronic device implanted in her brain, say the researchers who devised the system. The achievement demonstrates the longevity of brain-machine implants.

The woman, for whom the researchers use the pseudonym S3, had a brainstem stroke in the mid-1990s that caused tetraplegia – paralysis of all four limbs and the vocal cords.

In 2005, researchers from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence VA Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston implanted a tiny silicon electrode array the size of a small aspirin into S3’s brain to help her communicate better with the outside world.

This is the tech behind the Fins and FlashWare BodyMods.

Read the full article on regenerative tissue growth from stem cell injections @ wired. Here are a couple excerpts:

Restore 1 showed that Cytori’s cells could rebuild breasts lost to cancer. The next logical step was trying it out for breast augmentation. Perhaps not surprisingly, once again this happened in Japan. The country has a strong and entrenched cultural prejudice against putting anything foreign into one’s body; organ transplants were slow to be adopted in Japan and still remain rare. But if that ick factor is the immovable object, the Western-inspired desire for bigger breasts is the irresistible force.

 

Here’s a compelling article about Bionanotech in medicine from Fast Compan.

This is really the basis for muscle and skin grafting of vat-grown, non-humanoid skin. Think of the skin like a lined coat, the outside is the pattern the inside keeps it from snagging on your clothes. For this the outside is a synthetic designer skin, then a thin layer of human cells underneath to reconnect via molecular reconstruction.  The muscle grafts work the same way.

“Materials scientists were early to the evolving universe of nanotechnology, which involves manipulating materials on an atomic scale to produce molecular structures that can’t be achieved with traditional manufacturing techniques. Nanotechnology, in turn, gave rise to molecular self-assembly, where researchers create molecules programmed with instructions that allow them to join together into complex structures.”

What if he could inject the nanomolecules into the bloodstream so they could serve as microscopic vehicles to deliver therapeutic compounds? Even better, what if he could modify the nanomolecules so that they would attract the body’s own healing compounds to an injured area, kick-starting the repair process without introducing any foreign cells at all?

One of my top priorities with The Gatecrashers is that this world is real. So I need to find real technology to extrapolate the ‘later’ technology from. (or maybe just pull it as is and integrate).

This one is in the NY Times this morning.

—

Hospital-Clean Hands, Without All the Scrubbing

By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: February 13, 2010
HOSPITAL workers often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day — and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water. But new devices could reduce the task to just four seconds, cleaning even hard-to-reach areas under fingernails.

read the rest in the NY Times.