15-Year-Old Boy Fitted With Robotic Heart

An anonymous reader writes "What do you do when a 15-year-old boy is close to death and ineligible for a heart transplant? If you're Dr. Antonio Amodeo you turn to an artificial solution and transplant a robotic heart, giving the boy another 20-25 years of life. The Italian boy in question suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which rapidly degenerates the muscles and eventually leads to death. Having such a disease renders the boy ineligible for a heart transplant, meaning almost certain death without an alternative solution. Dr. Amodeo found such an alternative in the form of a 90-gram, fully-robotic heart that took 10 hours to fit inside the boy's left ventricle. It is a permanent solution offering as much as 25 years of life and is powered by a battery worn as a belt."

Battery on a Belt

[Bicx]

I'd freak out if my heart were powered by something strapped around my waist. The only option would be to build a bullet-proof metal suit with a built-in nuclear power supply. If I had enough energy left over, jet-powered hands and feet along with a dry-witted AI partner in my helmet would be a plus.

Re:Why only 25 years

[bjoast]

You can't take for granted that they will find another robot donor!

Re:Battery on a Belt

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Dude... I'm counting my heartbeats now. ...

I think the gap between the last two was a little slower.

...

... That one was a little faster.

...

I hate you.

Re:25 years is permanent?

[zimboptoo]

Cardboard and duct-tape are a 'temporary' solution to a damaged car window. Fixing the window and replacing the glass is a 'permanent' solution in that you're not normally going to be replacing the window again until you get side-swiped by a garbage truck again. FTFY

Re:Robotic pencil sharpener, robotic can opener, e

[Anonymous Coward]

Light bulbs, you accept them without knowing exactly how they work. What you think is that the current flows through two metal contacts, and reacts with a gas to emit light. Of course this is not true, well the emitting light part. What's really happening is the current does go through the metal contacts, but it doesn't emit light. In fact what it's really doing is sucking up all the dark in the room. This is the total opposite of how you thought the light bulb worked. Once the light bulb is turned on, there is no more dark, but once turned off the dark returns. What happens is that there are two layers of atmosphere one dark, the other light. The dark is a layer so powerful that it completely blocks out the light layer. Once the light bulb is turned on, it sucks in all the dark that is around it revealing the light layer. After the light bulb is turned off the dark layer will quickly fill in the area that had been sucked in by the light bulb. A great example of this is the sun, essentially it's a big dark sucker, it sucks in all the dark around it and reveals the light layer. Once the star becomes too old, it will start a Super Nova, this is similar to putting to much current through a light bulb and having it explode. The star will explode, destroying everything in it's path and then cease to suck the dark. In some cases it would become a black hole and start sucking in light that has managed to escape from the help of nearby dark suckers. There are many different layers of lights, all coming in a different colour. A dark sucker reacting with a different gas will suck in a different degree of dark and reveal a different layer of light. Most of the time these dark suckers are less effective compared to the more common dark sucker. Some examples of different dark suckers would be mercury lights. This has the same basis of a regular dark sucker, but reacts with mercury to create a different amount of dark being sucked in, thus this will allow a coloured light to be visible. In this case, purple. The guy who invented the light bulb, Thomas something or other, thought he was right in that it emits light. But this being a long time ago when people were dumb and such, didn't know any better. Only a few people know of how a light bulb really works. The reasons why you have been lied to is due to a government conspiracy. The whole truth in why the government(s) have covered this up is unclear. People have speculated that it has something to do with aliens, but they are all full of crap. The most probable reason is due to the Nazi's, how they purposely tried to make the earth permanently dark. Their experiment didn't work according to plan. To this day, no one knows exactly why the government(s) are encouraging this "light bulbs emit light" theory. It does give you a bit to think about now doesn't it? Exactly what else are they not telling us?

Re:I guess I'm not surprised

[tehcyder]

The #1 thing that all living things fear is death.

The #1 thing that all conscious things fear is death.

Don't anthropomorphise trees and fish. It upsets them.