The Quirky Peripherals In Medical PC Setups

December 18, 2025 by Lewin Day 16 Comments

Modern hospitals use a lot of computers. Architecturally speaking, they’re pretty typical machines—running the same CPUs and operating systems as any other PCs out there. However, they do tend to have some quirks when it comes to accessories and peripherals, as [tzukima] explores in a recent video.

The video starts by looking at typical power cables used with hospital computers and related equipment. In particular, [tzukima] talks about the common NEMA 5-15P to IEC-320-C13 style cable, which less sophisticated users might refer to as a kettle cord. In hospital-grade form, these cables are often constructed with translucent plug housings, with large cylindrical grips that make them easier to grip.

Digging further through business supply catalogs lead [tzukima] to discover further products aimed at hospital and medical users. In particular, there are a wide range of keyboards and mice that are designed for use in these environments. The most typical examples are regular peripherals that have simply been encased in silicone to make them easier to wash and disinfect where hygiene is paramount. Others, like the SealShield keyboard and mouse, use more advanced internally-sealed electronics to achieve their washable nature and IP68 ratings. These are peripherals that you can just throw in a dishwasher if you’re so inclined.

It’s a great look at weird hardware that most of us would never interact with.

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The PediSedate: A Winning Combination Of Video Games And Anesthesia

December 17, 2025 by Lewin Day 19 Comments

One can understand that it would be nice to have something to focus on while trying to remain calm ahead of a medical procedure. Credit: PediSedate

Once upon a time, surgery was done on patients who were fully conscious and awake. As you might imagine, this was a nasty experience for all involved, and particularly the patients. Eventually, medical science developed the techniques of anaesthesia, which allowed patients to undergo surgery without feeling pain or even being conscious of it at all.

Adults are typically comfortable in the medical environment and tolerate anaesthesia well. For children, though, the experience can be altogether more daunting. Thus was invented the PediSedate—a device which was marketed almost like a Game Boy accessory intended to deliver anaesthetic treatment in order to safely and effectively prepare children for surgery.

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Pufferfish Venom Can Kill, Or It Can Relieve Pain

December 15, 2025 by Lewin Day 21 Comments

Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is best known as the neurotoxin of the puffer fish, though it also appears in a range of other marine species. You might remember it from an episode of The Simpsons involving a poorly prepared dish at a sushi restaurant. Indeed, it’s a potent thing, as ingesting even tiny amounts can lead to death in short order.

Given its fatal reputation, it might be the last thing you’d expect to be used in a therapeutic context. And yet, tetrodotoxin is proving potentially valuable as a treatment option for dealing with cancer-related pain. It’s a dangerous thing to play with, but it could yet hold promise where other pain relievers simply can’t deliver. Continue reading “Pufferfish Venom Can Kill, Or It Can Relieve Pain” →

Gene Therapy Aims To Slow Huntington’s Disease To A Crawl

November 11, 2025 by Lewin Day 22 Comments

Despite the best efforts of modern medicine, Huntington’s disease is a condition that still comes with a tragic prognosis. Primarily an inherited disease, its main symptoms concern degeneration of the brain, leading to issues with motor control, mood disturbance, with continued degradation eventually proving fatal.

Researchers have recently made progress in finding a potential treatment for the disease. A new study has indicated that an innovative genetic therapy could hold promise for slowing the progression of the disease, greatly improving patient outcomes.

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A Cut Above: Surgery In Space, Now And In The Future

September 30, 2025 by Dan Maloney 3 Comments

In case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a dangerous world. While our soft, fleshy selves are remarkably good at absorbing kinetic energy and healing the damage that results, there are very definite limits to what we humans can deal with, beyond which we’ll need some help. Car crashes, falls from height, or even penetrating trauma such as gunshot wounds — events such as these will often land you in a trauma center where, if things are desperate enough, you’ll be on the operating table within the so-called “Golden Hour” of maximum survivability, to patch the holes and plug the leaks.

While the Golden Hour may be less of a hard limit than the name implies, it remains true that the sooner someone with a major traumatic injury gets into surgery, the better their chances of survival. Here on planet Earth, most urban locations can support one or more Level 1 trauma centers, putting huge swathes of the population within that 60-minute goal. Even in rural areas, EMS systems with Advanced Life Support crews can stabilize the severely wounded until they can be evacuated to a trauma center by helicopter, putting even more of the population within this protective bubble.

But ironically, residents in the highest-priced neighborhood in human history enjoy no such luxury. Despite only being the equivalent of a quick helicopter ride away, the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station are pretty much on their own when it comes to any traumatic injuries or medical emergencies that might crop up in orbit. While the ISS crews are well-prepared for that eventuality, as we’ll see, there’s only so much we can do right now, and we have a long way to go before we’re ready to perform surgery in space

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A human hand in a latex glove holds a test tube filled with red liquid labeled H5N1. In the background is an out of focus image of a chicken.

Preparing For The Next Pandemic

May 2, 2025 by Navarre Bartz 69 Comments

While the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t an experience anyone wants to repeat, infections disease experts like [Dr. Pardis Sabeti] are looking at what we can do to prepare for the next one.

While the next pandemic could potentially be anything, there are a few high profile candidates, and bird flu (H5N1) is at the top of the list. With birds all over the world carrying the infection and the prevalence in poultry and now dairy agriculture operations, the possibility for cross-species infection is higher than for most other diseases out there, particularly anything with an up to 60% fatality rate. Only one of the 70 people in the US who have contracted H5N1 recently have died, and exposures have been mostly in dairy and poultry workers. Scientists have yet to determine why cases in the US have been less severe.

To prevent an H5N1 pandemic before it reaches the level of COVID and ensure its reach is limited like earlier bird and swine flu variants, contact tracing of humans and cattle as well as offering existing H5N1 vaccines to vulnerable populations like those poultry and dairy workers would be a good first line of defense. So far, it doesn’t seem transmissible human-to-human, but more and more cases increase the likelihood it could gain this mutation. Keeping current cases from increasing, improving our science outreach, and continuing to fund scientists working on this disease are our best bets to keep it from taking off like a meme stock.

Whatever the next pandemic turns out to be, smartwatches could help flatten the curve and surely hackers will rise to the occasion to fill in the gaps where traditional infrastructure fails again.

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Bone Filament, For Printing Practice Bones

January 19, 2025 by Elliot Williams 9 Comments

Of course there is bone-simulation filament on the market. What’s fun about this Reddit thread is all of the semi-macabre concerns of surgeons who are worried about its properties matching the real thing to make practice rigs for difficult surgeries. We were initially creeped out by the idea, but now that we think about it, it’s entirely reassuring that surgeons have the best tools available for them to prepare, so why not 3D prints of the actual patient’s bones?

[PectusSurgeon] says that the important characteristics were that it doesn’t melt under the bone saw and is mechanically similar, but also that it looks right under x-ray, for fluorscopic surgery training. But at $100 per spool, you would be forgiven for looking around for substitutes. [ghostofwinter88] chimes in saying that their lab used a high-wood-content PLA, but couldn’t say much more, and then got into a discussion of how different bones feel under the saw, before concluding that they eventually chose resin.

Of course, Reddit being Reddit, the best part of the thread is the bad jokes. “Plastic surgery” and “my insurance wouldn’t cover gyroid infill” and so on. We won’t spoil it all for you, so enjoy.

When we first read “printing bones”, we didn’t know if they were discussing making replacement bones, or printing using actual bones in the mix. (Of course we’ve covered both before. This is Hackaday.)

Thanks [JohnU] for the tip!