Technology Tuesday: July 5
Welcome to Technology Tuesday! Every week The Job Shop Blog will bring you our 5 top science and technology news stories from around the web.
This week: Lab grown bones, a 3D printed jaw for a cancer survivor, crossing the blood-brain barrier, the ozone hole closing up, and a solar system wide internet.
Lab-Grown Living Bone Grown For Custom Implants
For the first time, pieces of living bone have been grown from the cells of patients — in this case, miniature pigs — and sculpted to replace missing anatomical structures.
The custom-engineered bone was used to successfully repair a pig’s lower jaw, one of the strongest and most complex jaws in the face, paving the way for bone repairs that could be carried out elsewhere in the body, the researchers said.
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Cancer Survivor Gets a 3D Printed Jaw Prosthetic
A novel process developed at Indiana University uses 3D modeling and printing to produce remarkably lifelike facial prosthetics faster than traditional methods. The showcase patient for the process is Shirley Anderson, who was first diagnosed with cancer on his tongue in 1998.
Radiation treatments destroyed Anderson’s Adam’s apple and jaw, and multiple attempts at reconstructive surgery failed. For years, Anderson wore a surgical mask in public to conceal his badly scarred face.
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Scientists Develop Aspirin That Can Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier
One of the biggest challenges in treating brain cancer has been getting drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier and attack tumors where they’re needed.
But scientists say they’ve now developed a truly soluble liquid aspirin that can make its way into the brain, and, in the lab at least, kill cancerous glioblastoma cells without harming healthy brain tissue.
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The Ozone Hole is Finally Closing
Scientists have found evidence that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is finally beginning to heal. If progress continues, it should be closed permanently by 2050.
The news comes almost 30 years since the world worked together to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals, so we’re allowed to give ourselves a little pat on the back. “We can now be confident that the things we’ve done have put the planet on a path to heal,” said lead researcher Susan Solomon from MIT.
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New System Installed on ISS for Solar System Wide “Internet”
As we explore further and further into the Solar System, reliable lines of communication are essential – otherwise there’s no way that probes and spacecraft can report their findings or tweet about their experiences.
New technology recently installed on board the International Space Station (ISS) is designed to form the basis of an internet-style network spanning our cosmic neighborhood. It’s called DTN, or Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking.
Know any interesting stories we missed? Let us know in the comments!