Decelerator helmet: viewing the world in slow motion

The Decelerator helmet delivers the user a perception of the planet in slow motion.

Lorenz Potthast was a first-12 months arts pupil when he created the Decelerator helmet – a hefty piece of headwear that enables the wearer to expertise a slowed-down globe. “I didn’t just want to design yet another app to make grocery shopping less difficult,” he says. “I wanted to do some thing experimental that could give a genuine expertise.”

The helmet is basically a shiny metal dome that records the see from a front camera and processes it by means of a modest computer to a display in front of the wearer’s eyes. The slow-motion is managed by a handheld remote. “The initial 3 minutes are just perplexing, but then you get a truly feel for it and you turn into the director of your personal perception,” he says. “It’s alienating, due to the fact you happen to be encountering time at a distinct pace to your own surroundings so you can not truly interact, but it is also somehow fascinating. Individuals usually never want to consider it off yet again.”

In spite of the attraction, Potthast, 23, has no ambition to market the helmet commercially. “It was never meant as a solution,” he says, and however finds himself more and more in demand from conferences, exhibitions and entrepreneurs throughout the world. The most latest was in March, from a bodily rehabilitation clinic in Italy, Villa Beretta. The director, Dr Franco Molteni, had heard of the helmet and recognised its potential as a therapeutic support for his disabled sufferers.

“I hoped there could be a true use for it,” says Potthast, “so the phone from Villa Beretta was the nicest issue that’s took place to me so far.” Soon after numerous scientific studies with volunteer patients at the clinic, Potthast and the Italian physicians eventually identified an intriguing achievable use for the helmet. A single patient, who had suffered a stroke and could no longer completely open his hands, was motivated to overcome this physical barrier following wearing the helmet in the course of his workout routines and seeing his fingers unfold in slow motion. “It is a bit like tricking the brain,” Potthast says, “but they’re contemplating building it into a real investigation subject.” For Potthast and his slow-movement helmet, it appears accomplishment has been very rapid indeed.

Decelerator helmet: viewing the world in slow motion

Longitude Prize 2014: Technology can restore motion to the paralysed

Lately I additional heart rate monitoring, speed and distance as I track my progress. All of this is developed to improve the system and recognize the influence that walking has on the body and mind. I can report that I truly feel greater each time I stroll and that the psychological lift alone that comes from returning to my upright, strolling self is sufficient to inspire me to do these sessions. But also walking in the robot has a clear influence on me physically. Right after each and every session I truly feel stretched, my toe and ankle joints straighten out, the modest involuntary spasms in my legs disappear and the pain in my back eases.

More than the last 18 months I have taken more than 300,000 actions in my exoskeleton. I have also examined a range of electrical stimulation units, including giving my robot and my body for experiment to a team led by UCLA’s Dr Reggie Edgerton. And we have currently learnt so significantly at this intersection exactly where guy and machine meet. As Reggie stated – perhaps is not about mechanising people, but rather about humanising the machines.

I think that these technologies are a catalyst for collaboration among physiologists, technologists and scientists to build therapies that heal the many wounds of paralysis that are left unspoken.

These wounds are hidden behind the apparent lack of movement and mobility. Paralysis also benefits in a remarkable reduction of overall health, independence and dignity. Most do not know that, as effectively as loss of motion, people with spinal cord injuries usually can not truly feel, usually lose sexual perform and the capability to have a family without IVF. Our life expectancy is lowered. We get rid of standard bladder and bowel perform and have to attempt to live and work with the continuous management of this on our minds.

We drop connections to the brain, which interferes with people factors that keep us alive. Neuropathic discomfort and uncontrollable spasms are frequent. Day in and day out these are the factors that exhaust even the most established.

The Longitude Prize supplies the opportunity to secure some extended awaited victories in excess of paralysis for the hundreds of thousands of paralysed people worldwide. I hope that it will encourage collaboration to fast track scientists’ hunches into trials and from trials on to the checklist of options open to those who, like me, are suffering the results of paralysis. It is a human crisis requiring collaboration across geographical, organisational and intellectual boundaries. With a substantial mixed energy absolutely we have to be in a position to assist the human physique to recover it desires to work, it is smart, it just demands some aid to do it. So, I reside in hope for the paralysis local community, that we will get to a level in which technological innovation is element of a variety of therapies, component of a remedy which combines physical exercise, robotics, technologies, pharmacology and biological interventions. And, much more particularly I hope that we can rapidly turn hope of a cure into reality.

LONGITUDE PRIZE 2014

The Longitude Prize provides a £10 million prize for an innovation that will solve one of the main troubles of our time. And we can all support to determine which of six themes the prize ought to concentrate on. The 6 difficulties are:

• To assist men and women with dementia reside independently for longer

• To help prevent the rise of resistance to antibiotics

• To help us to be ready to fly with out damaging the environment

• To support make certain absolutely everyone has nutritious, sustainable foods

• To help restore motion to individuals with paralysis

• To aid ensure every person can have access to protected and clean water

You can vote for the challenge you believe the Longitude Prize need to pursue at bbc.co.united kingdom/horizon. Voting closes at 7.10pm on June 25 2014. The winning challenge will be announced on June 25 and will become the concentrate of the £10 million prize fund. The Longitude Committee will then finalise the criteria for how to win the prize, and from September ideas can be submitted. The Longitude Prize will run for five years, or right up until the prize is won.

Longitude Prize 2014: Technology can restore motion to the paralysed

Big Information Crushes Anti-Vaccination Motion

For years it is been relatively effortless to ignite healthcare controversy with emotional (but frequently anecdotal) proof. Television is a well-liked format for performing just that. It is rapid, colorful and dramatic (and increasingly in higher-def and huge-display). Add a nicely known celebrity (or two) and the effects can be powerful, lengthy phrase and hard to refute.

Much of that energy, nonetheless, is modifying and will continue to alter with massive datasets that are freely accessible on the internet – or soon will be. When we talk about the science of “Big Data” as a new discipline, it is often the datasets that we’re referencing – and the visualization of people datasets can be equally powerful and dramatic. As a single illustration, I wrote about the release of 1 such dataset on hospital pricing released last 12 months by the Government (right here).

On Monday, Aaron Carroll (in excess of at the Incidental Economist here) highlighted one more chart that was based on a dataset lately published by the Council On Foreign Relations. The chart shows ”vaccine preventable outbreaks” close to the world from 2006 to existing day.

The unique chart is online here and is interactive by yr, outbreak type, location and quantity of people. The information covers outbreaks for Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, “other” – and is also obtainable as a downloadable CSV file (for use with most spreadsheet applications – here). The CSV information also contains source citation, nation, longitude/latitude, number of situations and fatalities by outbreak sort.

The graphic and the data it represents is a compelling argument towards individuals who believe that the vaccinations themselves are unsafe and should be averted. The Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic has a excellent Q&ampA section which flatly states:

“Vaccines do not lead to autism. Regardless of a lot controversy on the subject, researchers haven’t located a connection among autism and childhood vaccines. In fact, the unique review that ignited the debate years ago has been retracted.” Mayo Clinic – Childhood Vaccines: Difficult queries, straight answers (here)

Of program this isn’t the very best instance of the electrical power of “big information,” but it’s a very good one for a debate that continues to cycle and achieve new followers. Sadly, we do not typically see the full result until a new generation of little ones show up at colleges across the country with no their vaccinations. Final summer the L.A. Occasions reported this locating:

Despite the fact that some 90% of the state’s kindergartners are up to date on their immunizations, it is not uncommon for personal public elementary colleges to report that more than a single-third of their kindergartners are not. And if you are thinking this have to be a issue exclusive to colleges in lower-revenue neighborhoods, believe yet again. 1 of Malibu’s three elementary schools reported that just 58% of its kindergartners had been up to date on their vaccinations, and some other affluent areas during the state have colleges with similar compliance costs. Alexandra Le Tellier – Vaccine Debate: The Conspiracy Theorists vs. Actuality – L.A. Instances, August 2013 (right here)

The chart that Aaron referenced on Monday was really a follow up to a piece he did on Sunday that showcased some of the history to the debate. Sunday’s piece – Healthcare Triage: Vaccines and Autism (here) offered this excellent video history (and links to supporting paperwork).

Aaron’s ultimate suggestion on Monday was obviously aimed at the true source of the debate – all of us as mother and father.

“Vaccinate your kids. Please.” Aaron Carroll – The Incidental Economist

Big Information Crushes Anti-Vaccination Motion