Redesigned Cooler Reinvents Tuberculosis Treatment 22
First time accepted submitter sarfralogy writes with this news about a cooler redesigned by MIT that is saving lives. "It started with a basic soft drink cooler, a need for easier management of tuberculosis and $150,000 in innovation support. A big challenge in managing tuberculosis is keeping the medicine cool, in addition to tracking and monitoring dose administration. These challenges can be life-threatening, especially in less-developed countries, where refrigerators and fancy cooling devices are rare; ice must be trucked in on a daily basis to keep medicines at controlled temperatures. A redesigned cooler with the ability to keep the medicine cool and record when medicine is dispensed is aiming to solve both these problems. The design of the cooler is simple and practical — common characteristics of a scientifically sound experiment or innovation. It's nothing more than a standard soft drink cooler but the team from MIT's Little Devices Lab equipped the cooler with the ability to sound an alert when the temperature inside the cooler becomes too high and transmit data wirelessly using a cellphone transmitter whenever the cooler is opened."
Re:Reinventing the Wheel (Score:3, Insightful)
Mmmm... no. Just because you have electricity doesn't mean you have *steady* electricity. Some places in the world have electricity only for certain hours of the day. Other places have frequent electricity shutdowns at random intervals.
When the power goes out and the temperature rises in your little dorm fridge, your medicine goes bad and people die. This is why this medicine fridge needs an alarm as well as the sms message system to say when the fridge is opened to dispense medicine.