Carnal Reason

Coolest. Robot. Ever.

A device that sounds like a 21st-century version of a medicinal leech may soon be set loose inside the chests of heart patients. Resembling a robotic caterpillar, it will crawl across the surface of their beating heart, delivering treatment without the need for major surgery.

The device, called HeartLander, can be inserted using minimally invasive keyhole surgery. Once in place, it will attach itself to the heart and begin inching its way across the outside of the organ, injecting drugs or attaching medical devices. In tests on live pigs, the HeartLander has fitted pacemaker leads and injected dye into the heart. This video shows the latest prototype creeping over the surface of a beating model heart (2.1MB, mpg format).

That thing is amazing. It is simple, elegant, and vaguely creepy. And it will make life better for a lot of people.

The creation of a device like the HeartLander requires technology. Some say technology is a threat to nature, and want to shackle it to save the earth. That is not going to happen. There is no going back to a rustic paradise that never existed. The genie will not go back in the bottle. Energy consumption will continue to increase. Ask India or China.

There is a way out of the impasse. We need to move industrial activity into space. In space there is no atmosphere and no night, so solar energy is abundant and constant. There is plenty of hard vacuum, very little gravity, and a near infinite heat sink. And there is nothing to pollute. All of these are useful.

We need a rational space policy, one with a single goal: to create a profitable (self-sustaining) space industry. An industry capable of funding its own growth by creating wealth instead of taking it from taxpayers.

In the long run, this planet is too small for us. The only way out is up.

Posted on April 24th, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: General