Tag Archives: Science

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Re-post from BBC: Bionic Feet for Amputee Cat

I got such a kick out of the video, I thought I’d share:

Original link here

A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet.

The new feet are custom-made implants that “peg” the ankle to the foot. They are bioengineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through the skin.

The operation – a world first – was carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Surrey.

His work is explored in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet.

The cat, named Oscar, was referred to Mr Fitzpatrick by his local vet in Jersey, following the accident last October. Oscar was struck by the combine harvester whilst dozing in the sun.

The prosthetic pegs, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were developed by a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering.

Professor Blunn and his team have worked in partnership with Mr Fitzpatrick to develop these weight-bearing implants, combining engineering mechanics with biology.

Mr Fitzpatrick explained: “The real revolution with Oscar is [that] we have put a piece of metal and a flange into which skin grows into an extremely tight bone.”

“We have managed to get the bone and skin to grow into the implant and we have developed an ‘exoprosthesis’ that allows this implant to work as a see-saw on the bottom of an animal’s limbs to give him effectively normal gait.”

Professor Blunn told BBC News the idea was initially developed for patients with amputations who have a “stump socket”.

“This means they fix their artifical limb with a sock, which fits over the stump. In a lot of cases this is sucessful, but you [often] get rubbing and pressure sores.”

The Itap technology is being tested in humans and has already been used to create a prosthetic for a woman who lost her arm in the July 2005 London bombings.

“The intriguing thing with Oscar was that he had two implants – one in each back leg, and in quite an unusual site,” Professor Blunn told BBC News.

He said that the success of this operation showed the potential of the technology.

“Noel has some brilliant ideas,” he added. “And we’re continuing to work closely with him to develop new technologies.”

The Bionic Vet is on BBC 1 at 2245 BST on Wednesday

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She Blinded Me With Art and Science

I have to extend a fist bump (my dad’s favorite form of communication) to my friends who provided me both with this post’s title and the subject.

I’ve long been intrigued by the interlacing of science and the arts. Especially because on a personal level science can often inform my sense of creativity and curiosity.

Antarctic Tidal Rhythms - Nathalie Miebach

Artist Nathalie Miebach converts very real and informative scientific data into intricate visual, physical representations of patterns associated with tides, sea and air temperatures, moon phases, wind speed, etc.

Jordan Basin Buoy - Nathalie Miebach

According to Miebach:

“My work focuses on the intersection of art and science and the visual articulation of scientific observations. Using the methodologies and processes of both disciplines, I translate scientific data related to astronomy, ecology and meteorology woven sculptures.”

Nathalie also take this fascinating idea a step further translating certain sets of data into both sculpture and music:

External Weather, Internal Storms - Nathalie Miebach

Click the musical score below to hear the performance of the piece – it is surprisingly beautiful

To learn more, visit Nathalie Miebach’s website

For more places where art and science co-comingle:

Art of Science

Seed Magazine – Science Needs to Find a Place for the Arts

NPR Special Series: Where Science Meets Art

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The Real Lands of the Lost

An-iridescent-Beetle-foun-006

It’s exciting, the regularity with which we hear of researchers discovering new and wonderful species. With all the places we’ve been and seen it is amazing to imagine there are still so many new things to be found. The majority of these findings are happening in places that may have previously been hard to reach – remote, isolated areas in rainforests; dark ocean depths.

Scientists appear to be better at finding new species (in part due to bigger and better resources?), leading to a Golden Age of Discovery. There are large scale projects, such as the Census for Marine Life, fully devoted to collaberatively finding and describing diversity, abundance, and distribution of biological life.

The driver behind many of these novel organisms seems to be the amazing ability of life to adapt to living in incredibly narrow niches and extreme environments. There are many examples of living things that exist nowhere else on earth except in an isolated swath of habitat.

The-King-Bird-of-Paradise-007

Check out these two recent examples, both of which have related photo galleries:

Mount Basavi volcanic crater, Papua New Guinea

Mount Mabu, Mozambique