Expandable Sponges Could Treat Gunshot Wounds
The company RevMedx envisages medics treating future gun shot wounds in the same way that we repair a flat tyre. The Xstat dressing, is a new technology that is currently in development and was inspired by the foam that is used to repair a flat tyre.
RevMedx’s co-founder, John Steinbaugh told Popular Science: “That’s what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops. But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out.”
To combat this problem, Xstat contains tiny, expandable medical sponges. The sponges are compressed and coated in a hemoststic agent called chitosan, just like regular medical sponges. Once placed in the wound, they expand within 15 seconds, helping to clot the blood and stop blood flow. The sponges are detectable on an X-ray and medics can remove them.
The company tested these new sponges on pigs and found that they resulted in a “significant improvement” in survival one hour following the injury. Currently a 30 millimeter and 12 millimeter version are being developed so that medics can treat small and larger wounds.
Although Xstat is still in development, the company has received $5 million from the American military to actually produce the product. At the moment treatment of injuries sustained on the battlefield involve packing the wound with gauze. This new device could potentially provide a significant improvement in the treatment of gun shot wounds.
RevMedx are also looking at developing a biodegradeable version.
[Image via RevMedx]
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Microsoft Takes Fight Against Cybercrime To New Level With Its Cybercrime Center
Cybercrime is no joke, with security specialist McAfee estimating the cost of illegal cyber activity to be around $300 billion worldwide in 2013. That is more than enough money to feed the world’s poor! While the average person may not be all that concerned with cybercrime, Microsoft is taking on an aggressive stance against it. And why not? The company is probably one of the most “victimized”.
Just how serious is Microsoft about fighting cybercrime? As serious as unveiling a new, state-of-the-art Cybercrime Center.
If you think this is taking things too far, take a look at some statistics.
- 50% of online adults were cybercrime victims in the past year
- 20% of businesses – small and medium – have been targeted by cybercriminals
So yes, Microsoft’s new Cybercrime Center is very much real and is based in the Redmond campus. From an article Microsoft itself released about its high tech facility, it seems that the Center is something right out of the movies – smart people trying to outsmart hackers while the hackers make countermoves to outsmart the “good guys”…and it goes round and round; except the guys at the Cybercrime Center have all the power, technology, and money that Microsoft can spare for this endeavor.
Who are the people who work at the Cybercrime Center?
This snippet from Microsoft’s feature tends to be PR-ish, but it does get one’s attention, and makes you think of switching careers.
The center is home to a team of hand-selected experts who were, in their pre-Microsoft lives, federal prosecutors, police officers, technical analysts, bankers, engineers and physicists. They now work to make the Internet a safer place.
Crime + Internet = cybercrime, and this team has investigated (and is investigating) a broad array of digital villainy. Their investigations have brought them to the doorstep of the Russian mafia and a brutally violent Mexican narcotics cartel, as well as all manner of drug dealers, thieves, counterfeiters, pirates and child exploiters from all over the world. It’s easy to draw parallels with TV shows such as CSI but the similarities with Hollywood come to an end very quickly.
It may all seem glammed up, but we can’t NOT give kudos to Microsoft for taking this initiative – even though they probably have some agenda of their own.
[Images via Microsoft]
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Google Told To Move its Mystery Barge
The state agency, San Francisco Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), has ordered Google to move its mystery barge.
Reports claim that Google did not have the authorization to even start the construction. It could result in the Treasure Island Development Authority (TIDA) being fined or even facing “enforcement proceedings” for allowing the project to begin, said Larry Goldzband, executive director of the BCDC.
Google has said that it is reviewing the letter it received from San Francisco’s BCDC.
There was much speculation as to what the mystery barge would be used for before it was finally revealed to be a fancy show room for everything Google.
The barge will now have to have the correct permits or move location if the project is to go ahead.
[Image via New England Boating]
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