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Believe me, even when you’re 83 years old, you can still have a solid jaw as that of your granddaughter’s. Quite impressively, doctors from the University of Hasselt, Belgium have managed to have an 83-year-old woman’s entire lower jaw replaced with a 3D printed replica, which turns out easy to use while resulting no problems now. Compared with common methods to replace a lower jaw, the 3D printed jaw requires fewer materials and costs less time, usually taking merely several hours to produce a jaw. To make it compatible with bodily tissue, the jaw is coated with ceramic too. Besides, it weighs 3.7oz, just 1oz heavier than a real lower jaw, and hence the users won’t feel uncomfortable or painful when using it.

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Stroke is one disease that ranks top on the list of “most dangerous threats to human health”, but pity that there was no completely useful ways to cure or monitor the stroke, until these days when scientists from Mayo Clinic in Florida have developed the wearable head patch. The device is known as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and it will be attached to a patient’s forehead like a sticker to monitor the potential advent of another stroke through the simple act of shining light through the brow skin. It will measure blood oxygen levels in the brain, based on which a doctor can determine whether or not there’s a possibility of another stroke. Compared with other products that are usually big and heavy, the device is really smart for everyday use.

How to effectively treat burns with fewer efforts? It seems that scientists from all over the world are offering us with different solutions, and the Biomask is rightly the one put forward by the USA military. The mask is built with sensors, actuators and a regenerative elixir inside, which would help your face regain mussing facial tissue within several months. The biomask for facial faces is expected to hit the market in 2017.

Researchers from the Purdue University have created a Bass-powered medical implant that can utilize sound waves as an energy source. This new pressure sensitive microelectromechanical system has a vibrating cantilever that’s receptive to sound within the 200Hz to 500Hz frequency spectrum. By applying such smart technology into producing medical implants, you can then get some better appliances that can convert the low-frequency vibrations into energy, so as to power themselves automatically.

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There’s an exponentially increasing demand for a newer and better way to deliver drugs inside the stomach, and the urgent need now resulted in the development of this hydrogen-powered microrockets that powered by microbubbles and steered by micromagnets. The rocket is very tiny, just micrometers long while consists of polymer tubes packed with zinc. When the zinc comes in contact with an acid inside your stomach, it soon reacts to release hydrogen, which will then push the rocket forward at a top speed of up to 100 body-lengths per second. To get a good control of the fast-moving rockets, researchers have coated them with a layer of magnetic material on the outside, so that these rockets can be started, stopped or steered via an external magnet. Currently the level of the control is announced fine enough to enable the microrockets to pick up and drop off little cargo modules that will eventually contain drugs, so quite possibly we’ll soon see them widely used in hospital to cure our diseases more efficiently.

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The next generation of capsule camera is already here: a little cam developed by scientists from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which can work by receiving magnetic instructions from the MRI that steers a rudder like motor. As the device is wirelessly guided, it will then eliminate the need for an invasive tether guidance system and also reduce the discomfort of patients. It hasn’t been tested yet in the human body, but it has been tested in water, so we believe the human trials shouldn’t be far behind, and the day to use it will come soon.

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Coming from Hannes Harms, the “Sono” is a concept of a mobile and wireless sonography system. It enables both an uncommitted handling of the probe and an unlimited connectivity to almost all already-installed screens in hospitable wirelessly, making it quite ideal as a portable and versatile diagnosis device for doctors.

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After a whole day spending with the computers, our eyes usually get dry and tired, but fortunately that problem can be solved by the Dry Eye Relief Goggle. To use it, you firstly need to warm the gel packs in a microwave and then place them inside the goggle, which would stimulate tear production after you’ve worn the goggles for 15 to 20 minutes. Additionally, the goggle can form an impervious, 360° seal to prevent air, dirt or pollen, and thus it could be quite useful to people suffering from lagophthalmos too.

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Electronic diabetic contact lens is a development collaborated by scientist from University of Washington and Microsoft Research, which is announce to ensure a wireless monitoring of the wearer’s blood sugar levels. The contact lens utilizes an enzyme-based electrochemical process sensitive to glucose, as the enzyme interacts with the tear fluid, certain measurements are then made and reported to the users.

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“Medical Tricorder” is a medical diagnostic scanner invented by Tech startup Scanadu, which not only allows people to measure blood pressure, pulmonary function and temperature at any time they need,  but sends information like diagnostic results and medical suggestions to their smartphones.

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Recently, an intelligent smart bandage is developed by researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that can promote angiogenesis and guide exactly where the vessels should go. It is built of layers of a hydrogel made of polyethylene glycol and methacrylic alginate. The bandage is porous and allows small molecules to leak through while directing the flow of larger molecules. Several experiments are conducted on the surface of a chicken embryo, revealing that the network of new blood vessels mirrors the patterns of the channels of the bandage.  There are several potential applications for this intelligent bandage including directing the growth of blood vessels around a blocked artery and normalizing blood vessels that feed a tumor to improve the delivery of anticancer drugs and so on.

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The Plasma Toothbrush invented by scientists at the University of Missouri is a new type that disinfects and cleans out cavities, kills bacteria and forms a better bond for the fillings without resulting in any feeling of pain. It features a high efficiency too, accomplishing the dental filling within less than 30 seconds while still ensures the fillings 60 percent stronger than common ones. The Plasma Toothbrush is expected to be arriving in 2013.

America-based Advanced Bionics has recently launched Neptune, “the world’s first and only swimmable, waterproof sound processor” that will offer deaf people with new alternative of cochlear implants. The device is completely waterproof, thus allows people to wear it underwater; besides, it’s also easy to operate so that both young and old people can manage it without pain. Currently the Neptune has received certification for the US and Canada, and will soon be released to the market.

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Kinesiology tape is announced to be especially designed and produced for athletes to help stabilize joints, prevent injuries or to do something else. For quite a long time, the kinesiology tapes need to be applied by a trained person, which as a result has made it difficult for everyone to get an easy control of the kinesiology tapes. But now the situation is changed, coz these spider-style kinesiology tapes are precut and therefore ensure a simple usage for ordinary people. To use it, you should just follow the instructional videos and then you can apply the tapes to injured parts.

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Wanna to get a better control of your physical condition? Jawbone’s UP wrist is the ever best capable assistant you can find. Built with something called MotionX technology, the UP is announced to have the ability of monitoring your daily activities such as sleeping, eating, working and so on. Based on the data it has collected via your activity, the smart wrist can even provide dinner, fitness or sleep suggestions to help you build a better life. So thoughtful…Available in seven colors with a price of almost 100 dollars.

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