Precision agriculture and unmanned tractors.

Cory Anstey always wanted to be a farmer. It was the joy of riding in the tractor, "the smell of the dirt in the spring" that drew him to the fields. Anstey, 44, is also a bit of a techie. Luckily for him, modern agriculture lets him embrace both of his passions. Anstey started using GPS technology in his machinery about 15 years ago and now even lets his tractor steer itself across his fields. "It's very addictive, once you've had it," he tells me while taking a break at the 21st Century Cooperative, a mechanic shop/gas station/grain elevator in Cumberland, Iowa. Known simply as "the Co-op," the dusty office with grimy floors is the most popular hangout in this town of 250 people. It's here where farmers, many clad in overalls and boots, gather to drink pop (soda, for those not in the Midwest), snack on popcorn and gossip -- which includes chatter about the latest machines. As farmers work more acres with the same -- or even less -- manpower and bigger, more unwieldy machines, they're increasingly turning to technology for help. But it's not the usual tech suspects like Google or Apple inventing a better pitchfork; instead, traditional agriculture machinery manufacturers like John Deere and New Holland keep stepping up their innovation. Self-driving tractors are commonplace (the farmer still sits behind the wheel). Sensors can detect everything from what the machine's doing to what the crop conditions are. Farmers can monitor the progress of planting and harvesting from their iPads, and tractors serve as their own mobile hotspots. It's a skewed reflection of our own increasingly connected world, except farmers have used many of those technologies, like auto-steering and GPS mapping, since the '90s. It used to take years for farmers to figure out the condition of their land. Today, a farmer doesn't need much institutional knowledge about the field he's working -- his tractor knows all, thanks to GPS mapping. Location tech manages three quarters of the acres farmed in Iowa, Darr said. Mapping technology talks to sensors in the machines, letting farmers track what's going on at each location, like yield and moisture level. You can see the info on a display built into the tractor, like a big GPS display. The data gets saved in the cloud and can be accessed on computers and tablets. Many farmers even mount iPads in their tractors as second monitors. The saying about real estate is location, location, location," said Ron Zink, John Deere's director of onboard applications. "It's the same with precision ag. You need to know exactly where you are." Planters have auto-shutoff technology that uses GPS to make sure a farmer doesn't accidentally plant an area twice, saving seeds, fuel and time. They can be nearly perfect in spacing seeds apart from each other, compared with only about 60 percent accuracy with planters from 10 years ago, according to Darr. Farmers can follow their yield in real time as they harvest their fields or go back to the data later. And the machines themselves collect information like the temperature of the engine, the amount of fuel used and the location of that machine, letting farmers repair and maintain equipment. contribution by cnet.com

German Patient Walks Again with Patient-Specific 3D-Printed Hip Implant.

German patient Inge W. had been afflicted with a hip malformation since her birth. Due to an extensive number of intense surgeries and revisions throughout her life, there was very little bone left in her pelvic region, leaving a large hole in the bone and making it very difficult to attach a standard hip implant. As her condition grew worse, it seemed that Inge had no other choice but to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Fortunately, she was able to walk again with the help of a patient-specific 3D-printed hip implant. She approached the Helios ENDO-Klinik in Hamburg, Germany, Europe’s leading hospital in hip and knee surgery, to see if they could offer an alternative. After visiting with Dr. Thorsten Gehrke, the Medical Director of the clinic, it was clear that there was only one solution: a patient-specific hip implant, made-to-measure so it could fit the remaining bone perfectly. Dr. Gehrke turned to the 3D Printing expertise of Materialise for help with the case. First of all, a 3D model of Inge’s pelvis was digitally reconstructed, and then printed out. It helped to make the surgical procedure clear to Inge, and calm her fears – fears which were understandable, given that this was the tenth operation she would undergo on her hip! The 3D-printed model of her hip also played an even more important role in helping the surgeons at Helios ENDO-Klinik to plan the surgery and visualize the steps they needed to take to introduce the implant as accurately as possible. And finally, the implant itself was also constructed with 3D Printing using the Materialise aMace Integrated System; 3D-printed in titanium, the implant is completely adapted to the patient’s anatomy, ensuring a perfect fit and a much smaller risk of dislocation and impingement. During the operation, the surgeons were also able to place the aMace acetabular revision system and insert the screws as accurately as possible due to the implant trial and bone model we provided along with the 3D-printed hip implant. Furthermore, the 3D-printed drill guides enabled them to drill exactly where the screws needed to fix the implant in place. Therefore, it assured optimal mechanical stability and prevented the accelerated wear and early failure of the implant. Five months after Inge’s pelvic reconstruction, she is making a great recovery and can now walk completely unaided. We hope she continues to enjoy the use of her hip for many years! Contributed by medical 3Dprinting by materialise

Epidemic viruses often contaminate mobile phones used by healthcare workers.

Thirty-nine percent of mobile phones held by health care workers at a French hospital were contaminated with epidemic viruses, according to recent findings published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection. “Nowadays, mobile phones are frequently used by health care workers [HCWs] during care,” Elisabeth Botelho-Nevers, MD, PhD, in the department of infectious diseases at the University of Lyon in France, told Infectious Disease News. “We demonstrated for the first time that RNA of epidemic viruses are present on mobile phones used by HCWs.” In previous studies, up to 25% of mobile phones were found to be contaminated with bacteria, the researchers wrote. In addition, more than 50% of HCWs admitted to using mobile phones in their clinical environment during contact with patients. At the University Hospital of Saint-Étienne, Botelho-Nevers and colleagues examined common mobile phone practices and assessed the presence of viral RNA on the devices from metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, rotavirus and norovirus. They surveyed 114 HCWs working in either an adult (n = 58) or pediatric (n = 56) department. Surveyed HCWs included senior physicians (n = 25), residents (n = 30), nurses (n = 32) and nurses’ assistants (n = 27). Both personal and work phones were sampled, and viral RNA was extracted using real-time quantitative PCR. The researchers found that senior physicians and residents more frequently used their personal mobile phones compared with nurses and nurses’ assistants (33/55 vs. 10/59; P < .001). Mobile phones were more often used in adult wards than in pediatric wards (46/58 vs. 27/56; P < .001), and cordless hospital phones were disinfected less frequently in pediatric wards. Viral RNA was found on 38.5% of mobile phones, with rotavirus detected on 39 of 109 devices, respiratory syncytial virus on three and metapneumovirus on one. No viral RNA from norovirus or influenza was detected. These results indicate that mobile phones must be disinfected in clinical settings, the researchers noted. “This work does not support the ban of the use of mobile phones in hospitals,” Botelho-Nevers said. “We just want to make HCWs aware that mobile phones, which are part of our daily practice, can be contaminated by pathogens and notably viruses. “The use of disinfection wipes to clean phones and adherence to hand hygiene are crucial to prevent cross-transmission of pathogens. Contributed by healio.com

UK Defense Firm BAE Systems Wants to “Grow” Drones in Vats with Chemical 3D Printing.

As UK defense and aerospace company BAE Systems prepares themselves for the upcoming Farnborough International Airshow, some of their scientists and engineers were asked to outline their current ides for the future of designing and manufacturing military aircraft. They envision the 3D printers of the future to be a lot more efficient, and a lot different than what we have available to us today. The BAE scientists believe that within this century they will be capable of growing Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) using advanced chemistry and large chemical baths. The process would be capable of creating functional, near fully assembled drones for specific military operations within a matter of weeks. The ideas and concepts or these lab-grown aircraft were developed as part of their collaborative approach to sharing technology and scientific ideas with other established companies, new tech startups and researchers in academia. The process would require a cutting-edge chemical 3D printer and computer called a “Chemputer” that would grow the customized aircraft and some of their electronic systems at the molecular level. The drones would take shape by introducing raw materials into the chemical baths and apply centrifugal force. This would encourage the aircraft to form into their final shapes, and the process could even be used for larger aircraft components that could later be assembled. “This is a very exciting time in the development of chemistry. We have been developing routes to digitize synthetic and materials chemistry and at some point in the future hope to assemble complex objects in a machine from the bottom up, or with minimal human assistance. Creating small aircraft would be very challenging but I’m confident that creative thinking and convergent digital technologies will eventually lead to the digital programming of complex chemical and material systems,” explained Regius Professor at the University of Glasgow Lee Cronin, who is also the Founding Scientific Director at Cronin Group PLC, the company that is helping to develop the Chemputer. While BAE Systems and their corporate partners seem to be focused on the potential military and aerospace applications, the same process could also revolutionize civilian industry and technology. Similar chemical 3D printers could be used to manufacture anything from cars and other vehicles, personal electronics and even furnishings. Welcome to a world of possibilities!!! 3D PRINTING WORLD Contributed by 3dprint.com

Gamifying the veterinary practice..

What we’ve got in many practices is a whole group of people who came from all different kinds of backgrounds, upbringings, education, etc. and we’re dumping them into this building and telling them to work together. If not handled properly that can cause quite a clash of differing viewpoints and personalities resulting in dysfunctionality within the practice, almost like a dysfunctional family! This is Dr Joel Parker's method of putting FUN into your practice; Putting More "Fun" into DysFUNctional .Enjoy,and adopt. Many thanks Veterinary -practice- solutions

Study shows early neutering poses health risks for German shepherds.

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), has found that spaying or neutering German shepherds before the age of 1 triples the risk of one or more joint disorders, particularly for cranial cruciate ligament tears, according to a university release. "Debilitating joint disorders of hip dysplasia, CCL and elbow dysplasia can shorten a dog's useful working life and impact its role as a family member," says lead investigator Benjamin Hart, DVM, PhD, DACVB, a distinguished professor emeritus in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, in the release. "Simply delaying the spay/neuter until the dog is a year old can markedly reduce the chance of a joint disorder." In the UC Davis study, researchers looked at veterinary hospital records for a 14.5-year period for 1,170 intact and neutered (including spayed) German shepherds for joint disorders and cancers previously associated with neutering. The diseases were followed through 8 years of age, with the exception of mammary cancer in females, which was followed through 11 years of age. Dogs were classified as intact, neutered before 6 months, neutered between 6 and 11 months, or neutered between 12 and 23 months. Joint disorders and cancers were of particular interest to the researchers because neutering removes male and female sex hormones that play key roles in processes such as closure of bone growth plates, the release states. The findings show that 7% of intact males were diagnosed with one or more joint disorders, as contrasted with 21% of males that were neutered prior to 1 year of age. Five percent of intact females were diagnosed with one or more joint disorders, while in females neutered before the age of 1 the percentage diagnosed rose to 16%. Mammary cancer was diagnosed in 4% of intact females, as compared to less than 1% of females neutered before 1 year. In intact females, urinary incontinence was not diagnosed at all; however, in females neutered before 1 year of age, it was diagnosed in 7% of cases. contributed by dvm360.

Silk screws and bone repairs.

Samuel Lin from Harvard Medical School and David Kaplan at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts have invented silk screws for bone repair. They made several researches over silk and molded the material into screw shapes. The silk screws are stronger than it seems and they can fix fractures and bone problems. When the silk is stretched it becomes as strong as steel ,this property makes the screws cut through bones. They are the best alternative to all previous suturing methods. The metal can corrode, and they need a second intervention. The other biodegradable alternatives can cause severe inflammation while the polymers are too soft and need drilling the bone.(coolweird.com) The silk screws are the only bone screws that are strong enough, naturally biodegradable and while they biodegrade don’t cause inflammation. Ideally, they could be used in place of metal plates and fasteners in many circumstances. That would mean no more setting off detectors or experiencing pain when cold temperatures set in. This could also be of great benefit to overall healing, as using metal in the body has been observed to slow wound healing and assist the rapid development of infection. In cases where permanence isn't needed, silk is being touted as an ideal alternative to traditional materials especially since, over time, it dissolves in the body.