3D printing used by pediatric surgeons

3D-printing has come a long way.

With new technology and software being introduced everyday the printers are going from printing iPhone cases to human organs.

A recent KPBS article, details the story of how a pediatric surgeon is using 3D-printing in order to practice surgeries.

At Rady Children’s Hospital, the doctor 3D-printed a replica of a 7 year-old patients heart to practice the complicated procedure before the actual surgery.

According to KPBS, Rady Children’s Hospital opens a 3D Innovations Lab in October. right now the lab is being used to create practice simulations for doctors and is printing skulls, hearts and spines.

The 3D printed replicas of organs even include little tiny blood vessels so that surgeons can see all the critical parts of the surgery.

The hospital is also using these models to show the families the procedure that they are going to complete and take them through the process and the plan of the surgery.

Right now the technology has been limited at just printing models of organs, but it doesn’t seem far away for hospitals to start printing living organs for transplants.

Source: Murphy, Susan. “Pediatric surgeons use 3D printing to help with complex operations.” KPBS, 13 Mar 2019. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/mar/13/rady-childrens-hospital-doctors-use-3d-printing-he/.

 

Microsoft and Facebook set new undersea cable record

Microsoft and Facebook have unveiled a new undersea cable that is producing speeds that people didn’t think were possible.

In a recent experiment, there was transfer speeds of 26.2 Terabits per second according to The Verge. The cable is 4,000 miles long. The average speed currently is 9.5 Tbps.

According to The Verge, the cable is 20 percent faster than what the companies originally thought was possible.

The cable is owned by Telxius and runs between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Bilbao, Spain,

The company is predicting that the new approach that is used when laying this cable could allow for other undersea cables to be upgraded without spendings millions of dollars on laying new cables.

The world is continuously becoming more interconnected and these undersea cables are the next step in allowing high speed data transfers from across the world and non surprising Facebook and Microsoft are at the forefront of this technology.

Source:

Porter, Jon. “Microsoft and Facebook’s record-setting undersea cable sets another record.” The Verge. 28 Feb. 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/28/18244357/microsoft-facebook-marea-cable-16qam-20-percent-speed-boost.

The rise of mobile phones in the developing world

Mobile phones have taken over our society, and now their popularity is rising all over the developing world.

In fact, more people have mobile phones than access to clean water or electricity according to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC). The growth of mobile phone usage and availability has grown rapidly since 2000, when only four percent of people in low and middle income countries had access to these devices. In 2015, 94 percent of people had access to mobile phones.

The rapid rise of these devices has quickly changed communication in the country and has even led to economic growth. In India, every 10 percent increase in mobile phone usage there has been a 1.2 percent increase in the national GDP according to the USGLC.

In Kenya, these mobile phones have taken over society and more specifically one mobile banking platform, M-Pesa.

This service allows people to transfer money, pay for goods, take out loans and send money to family in remote locations. According to the USGLC, 43 percent of Kenya’s GDP went through the app in 2013 and there is one user of the app in 96 percent of Kenyan households.

M-Pesa isn’t the only app that is used as other companies like USAID’s MISTOWA and Esoko have also launched apps hoping to increase economic production in low income countries. There has also been research done to implement 911 services in areas using these apps.

The rise of mobile phones in the developing world has already helped some people out of poverty and as the technology only gets better, the sky is the limit for what future of mobile phones will be in these areas.

Pramanik, Abhik K. “The Technology That’s Making a Difference in the Developing World.” U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, 24 Feb. 2017, https://www.usglc.org/blog/the-technology-thats-making-a-difference-in-the-developing-world/.