EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Emerging Technologies

Emerging Technologies

Introduction

Technology to many people means computers, but technology is in every thing we use, it is in your clothes, your car, and even your hair. People use technology everyday and do not know that they are using it. Technology as a whole has advanced rapidly through the years. While technology already on a grand scale, is only going to advance beyond your imagination. There are people creating something new everyday, or just simply reinventing something good to make it even better; For example the wheel, first it was made of rock, then eventually made of rubber, which is more practical to use. Necessity creates most of the useful technology; a car is a good example of this, because people wanted to travel faster and further, could you imagine traveling to a relative's house in another state by walking. Universal translation is a goal of many businesses around the globe; imagine being able to talk to some in another language with out a translator. Next is a discussion on synthetic biology and nanowires. All of this then finishes off with T-rays and RNAi therapy, which are highly useful in the medical profession.

Robotics in surgery

The use of a computer console to perform operations from a distance opens up the idea of telesurgery, which would involve a doctor performing delicate surgery miles away from the patient. If the doctor doesn't have to stand over the patient to perform the surgery, and can control the robotic arms from a computer station just a few feet away from the patient, the next step would be performing surgery from locations that are even farther away. If it were possible to use the computer console to move the robotic arms in real-time, then it would be possible for a doctor in California to operate on a patient in New York. A major obstacle in telesurgery has been latency -- the time delay between the doctor moving his or her hands to the robotic arms responding to those movements. Currently, the doctor must be in the room with the patient for robotic systems to react instantly to the doctor's hand movements(Craig 2005 pp.112-119).

Having fewer personnel in the operating room and allowing doctors the ability to operate on a patient long-distance could lower the cost of health care in the long term. In addition to cost efficiency, robotic surgery has several other advantages over conventional surgery, including enhanced precision and reduced trauma to the patient. For instance, traditional heart bypass surgery requires that the patient's chest be "cracked" open by way of a 1-foot (30.48-cm) long incision. However, with the da Vinci system, it's possible to operate on the heart by making three or four small incisions in the chest, each only about 1 centimeter in length. Because the surgeon would make these smaller incisions instead of one long one down the length of the chest, the patient would experience less pain, trauma and bleeding, which means a faster ...