Popular science named the best 12 life-saving technologies in 2015

To prevent the next epidemic vsv-ebov Ebola vaccine a new vaccine often takes 6 to 10 years to complete clinical trials, but Ebola vaccine only takes 10 months In August 2014, when people realized that its outbreak in West Africa was a global health crisis, the World Health Organization accelerated the vaccine research process The vaccine triggers an immune response to prevent Ebola by transferring its proteins to other viruses To test its effectiveness, Guinean medical workers used the ring strategy on 100 confirmed Ebola patients First, doctors vaccinated about 4000 adults who had recently been exposed to Ebola infection, none of whom developed Ebola after the injection In another group of experiments, doctors vaccinated 3500 people who had been confirmed to be infected three weeks ago, of whom only 16 were ill The core of the "ring strategy" is to vaccinate all people who have been exposed to the infection, which is equivalent to building a firewall to prevent the spread of the virus " Marie Paule Kieny, deputy director of health systems and innovation at the World Health Organization and head of research and development, said The development of the Ebola vaccine proves that scientists can quickly complete the research and development of drugs and put them into application In the future, this will prevent other diseases from threatening the world The world's smallest pacemaker, Medtronic's Micra transcatheter pacemaker, is implanted in the chest through surgery, and the pacemaker is connected to the heart through wires Now, only a tablet sized Micra pacemaker can enter the heart through a catheter, through the femoral vein Its end can be attached to the heart and directly transmit electrical pulses to it It has a battery life of more than 10 years And when the battery runs out, doctors can turn it off and install a new pacemaker nearby So far, its experiments have been 100% successful The study of June marks the publication of the first human epigenetic map: a chemical marker can tell people what DNA is going to express and when "If the genome is compared to the hardware of a computer, then the epigenome is the software." Said Joseph Ecker, director of the college's genome analysis office Such a map helps scientists figure out what makes some cells differentiate into liver cells, some into heart cells, and some into malignant tumors After understanding the principle, scientists can use bioengineering technology to recombine genes or find new disease inducing factors The "biostamp" wearable device, a health monitor that sticks to the skin, is often cumbersome But "bio stamp" is a small and convenient device: it's an electronic device that can stick on the skin for a week, just like a temporary tattoo Sensors and circuits embedded in a stamp sized sticky tape measure body temperature, movement, muscle activity, heart rate and UV exposure The device can then send the detection data to the wearer's or doctor's mobile phone via Bluetooth At present, the "biological stamp" for measuring blood pressure and sweating is still under development The fitguard helmet is no longer just a device athletes use to prevent concussion or other brain injuries The sensors in fitguard, like mouth protectors, can measure the linear acceleration and angular acceleration of the head of athletes, and send these data to the mobile phones or tablets of outside coaches When an athlete is hit hard, the LED lights up to indicate whether the athlete needs to leave Off the field, other related applications test athletes for light sensitivity and memory loss, helping doctors determine the possibility of concussion It costs $100 The most comfortable hearing aid, eargo, is a typical hard plastic hearing aid that blocks air flow in the ear and natural bass transmission And the silicone fiber like feathers of eargo hearing aids will hang the hearing aids in the ear canal, making people almost unable to feel the existence of hearing aids "Comfort is the most important thing because you have to wear hearing aids every day." Said Raphael Michel, the company's founder and chief executive The processor in this device will direct the sound to the eardrum, so you can more accurately determine the sound source And its rechargeable battery doesn't need to be replaced It costs $1980 In the past 30 years, teixobactin, the first new antibiotic, can eliminate drug-resistant strains, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the main cause of tuberculosis Unlike other antibiotics, teixobactin can bind to bacteria in two target areas, which makes it difficult for bacteria to develop resistance to it The drug is still in production and only works with a few bacteria, one of which is invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which infects 75000 Americans every year The radiotherapy course of breast cancer patients with xoft system, which can be completed in one time, needs 8 weeks, and almost every day they need to go to the hospital to receive radiotherapy Now, a method called intraoperative radiotherapy takes less than 12 minutes: in tumor resection, radiologists only need to give patients a single dose of concentrated radiation This kind of radiotherapy is to kill the residual malignant tumor cells in the operation, which helps to prevent the recurrence of cancer Two recently completed clinical trials have found that it has the same significant effect as traditional radiotherapy And this new treatment can make patients suffer less side effects and make life return to normal faster Medtronic's hybrid closed-loop system, the Savior of diabetes, has more than one million people with type I diabetes in the United States Patients must always monitor their blood sugar and inject insulin to make up for the lack of islet function Medtronic has developed a new system that automatically gives patients the right amount of insulin, day or night In this way, patients no longer need to bother to calculate the dose they need, and they don't need to worry about the medication errors caused by human factors Francine Kaufman, chief medical officer of Medtronic's diabetes department, said: "it's similar to thermostat and cruise controller, but it's more difficult to adjust in human body." Although some drugs of exvive3d have passed the animal experiments, their application in human body has failed because of the toxicity of kidney or liver Last year, Organovo, a miniature liver, was printed in 3D with human cells Now it can make kidney models The printed models contain different kinds of human cells, which can test the effect of drugs on different kinds of cells Keith Murphy, the company's founder and chief executive, said: "this way, every drug produced by pharmaceutical companies can be tested under conditions similar to liver and kidney Before the application of drugs to human body, our system is the best and final drug testing system " Aim, a muscle monitor, can only show weight, but not muscle status or body fat, which are important criteria to judge people's health Aim can do both When placed on the skin, it emits a weak current Because muscle and fat have different electrical resistances, aim can distinguish them Aim can also calculate the strength corresponding to the muscle volume, so that you can directly observe the effect of an exercise or a lazy on the muscle Medical grade aim can monitor the effects of diseases such as muscular dystrophy or ALS on muscles It costs $149 3D dynamic toothbrush kolibree toothbrush even though some electronic toothbrushes have built-in timers, people still don't brush for two minutes as recommended by dentists Kolibree toothbrush is an extremely simple "fool" toothbrush Its 3D dynamic sensor will show whether you are brushing your teeth seriously in real time It connects your mobile phone via Bluetooth to show the diseased area in your mouth and make suggestions to improve the brushing action It can also be linked to games to ensure that children brush their teeth more attentively than just swallowing their toothpaste This toothbrush costs $149 (BIOON Com)