Page 28 - aruba-today-20190425

A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 25 april 2019

Robotic device winds its own way through beating pig heart

BY SETH BORENSTEIN and technology,” Dupont said.
LAURAN NEERGAARD “The hardest parts are the
Associated Press politics, the regulatory” ap-
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bor- proval and legal efforts.
rowing from the way cock- Dupont’s team tested the
roaches skitter along walls, robotic catheter in 83 pro-
scientists have created a cedures in live pigs in a lab.
robotic device that safely The device found its target,
guides itself through the on average taking sec-
delicate chambers of a onds longer than a doctor
pig’s heart as it’s beating. threading a catheter into
It is one of the first times re- place. But Dupont said the
searchers have shown that robotic catheter will learn,
a truly autonomous surgical just like humans, and get
robot can navigate inside better and faster with more
the heart, not controlled practice.
by a doctor with a joystick, Russ Taylor, a medical ro-
according to a study in botics specialist at Johns
Wednesday’s journal Sci- Hopkins University, called
ence Robotics . the technology clever
Heart surgeons routinely and the study “a signifi-
push a thin tube called a cant achievement, but I
catheter through twisting wouldn’t flag it as a break-
and turning blood vessels through.”
to make repairs in the heart Robots with different levels
without open surgery. But This undated photo provided by Margherita Mencattelli in April 2019 shows the tip of a robotic of autonomy have been
how does a robotic version catheter equipped with a small camera and lighting encased in silicone, in Boston. used in surgery for radiation
find its own way through Associated Press therapy and orthopedics,
moving heart tissue and catheter maps its path along the wall of the heart isn’t designed to replace said Taylor, who wasn’t part
with blood swishing in the through the heart, tapping until it gets to the valve,” Dr. a surgeon, Dupont said. In- of the research. And Pitts-
way? periodically against the Uma Duvvuri of the Univer- stead, he said it might free burgh’s Duvvuri pointed to
Researchers at Boston Chil- heart’s valve and wall ever sity of Pittsburgh Medical up a surgeon’s time to fo- studies with a robot that
dren’s Hospital turned the so lightly — with about the Center, who heads a robot- cus on harder tasks, com- can stitch tissues together
catheter’s camera tip into force of a stick of butter sit- ic innovation lab but wasn’t paring it to a plane’s auto- without human help.
essentially an “optical whis- ting in your hand, Dupont part of Wednesday’s study. pilot — and also reduce the Still, true autonomy, “in
ker,” said cardiac bioengi- said. The technology com- “That’s a pretty exciting time patients and medical my humble opinion, it’s
neering chief Pierre Dupont, bines the camera’s images development but this is still staff are exposed to X-rays still a hammer looking for
the lead researcher. Just with machine learning to very, very preliminary.” that currently are needed a nail,” said Duvvuri, who
as cockroaches navigate interpret what tissue it’s The demonstration technol- for navigation. couldn’t think of an area
along walls and rats reach touching and how hard. ogy is still years away from “The easiest part of au- where it would improve a
out with their whiskers, the “This robot is trying to walk any operating room, and tonomy in surgery is the procedure.q
Mars lander picks up what’s

likely 1st detected marsquake

By MARCIA DUNN and, like our moon, lacks as well as three other even
AP Aerospace Writer tectonic plates. “We’ve fainter seismic signals de-
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. been waiting months for a tected since mid-March.
(AP) — NASA’s InSight land- signal like this,” Lognonne By analyzing marsquakes,
er has picked up a gentle said in a statement. scientists hope to learn
rumble at Mars, believed InSight’s lead scientist, more about how rocky
to be the first marsquake Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s planets formed. The French
ever detected. InSight’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory seismometer was placed
This photo made available by NASA on Tuesday, April 23, 2019 quake monitor recorded in Pasadena, California, directly on the Martian sur-
shows the InSight lander’s domed wind and thermal shield
which covers a seismometer on the 110th Martian day, or sol, and measured the faint said this carries out the sci- face in December, a few
of the mission. signal April 6, and scien- entific work begun by the weeks after the spacecraft
Associated Press tists announced the finding Apollo moonwalkers nearly landed. InSight’s other main
Tuesday. While the rumble a half-century ago. The experiment isn’t going as
sounds like soft wind, scien- astronauts left behind seis- well. The German-built drill-
tists believe it came from mometers that measured ing instrument — dubbed
within the red planet. The thousands of moonquakes. the mole — has managed
Paris Institute of Earth Phys- As for Mars, “we’ve been to penetrate only a foot or
ics’ Philippe Lognonne, collecting background two (50 centimeters) into
who’s in charge of the ex- noise up until now, but this Mars, far short of its goal to
periment, said it’s exciting first event officially kicks off measure the planet’s inter-
to finally have proof that a new field: Martian seis- nal temperature. Engineers
Mars is still seismically ac- mology!” ‘’Banerdt said in are still trying to figure out
tive. Mars is not nearly as a statement. Researchers why and how the device
geologically active as Earth are still analyzing the data, got stuck.q