If you ever find yourself in Moscow then the Memorial Museum of Astronautics (also known as the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics) is definitely worth paying a visit. A ticket to get in is 200 roubles, plus another 200 if you want to take photographs, which of course you will! The museum is located in the base of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space, and is dedicated to space exploration, with a huge variety of space-related exhibits. You can even find the two dogs Belka and Strelka, who were the first living creatures to go into space for a day and return alive, in August 1960 – stuffed and preserved for all time!
 Here in Russia at last!
Home country of two of my most admired personalities from the history of space: Yuri Gagarin - 1st Man in Space (1961) Valentina Tereshkova -1st Woman in Space (1963) Proud to be representing Brazil this week for the Space Life Science aspect of the ISO TC20/SC14 - WG6 Space Systems and Operations - Materials and Processes and Human Space Flight. A hugely interesting country and continues to play an important role in the future of space conquest.  You would have thought that listening to a heartbeat should be a relatively easy thing these days, requiring a simple binaural stethoscope, such as has been around since the 1850s. However, this is not so easy when you are in the noisy environment of the International Space Station.
Space itself is quiet – no air equals no sound – but inside the ISS you have a 24-hour lit environment of ambient noise, such as computers running, buzzing fans and the general drone of hubbub that means constant noise to interfere with faint heart sounds. Cue some engineering students from John Hopkins University who have developed a “space stethoscope” that employs both electronic and mechanical approaches to help the internal microphone of the stethoscope pick up clear sounds, even on a noisy spacecraft and even when the device is positioned incorrectly on the astronaut’s body, as may happen when placed by a non-medically trained person. Like so many of the technologies developed for use in outer space though, the team from Hopkins hopes that it will also have use in developing countries where medical care conditions can be primitive, recording heart and lungs sounds of children and automatically identifying the typical wheezing and crackling breath sounds related to common diseases. Read more: http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/05/20/new-out-of-this-world-space-stethoscope-valuable-here-on-earth-too/ Some other medical spin-offs from space – just some of many: Programmable pacemaker, Digital imaging breast biopsy system, Laser angioplasty, Ultrasound skin damage assessment, Human tissue stimulator, Ocular screening, Voice-controlled wheelchair and many, many more! |
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Space DoctorScientist, researcher and author - but above all just a human being with a natural interest in and curiosity about life!  Archives
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