THE SLINKIEST SURGICAL TOOL

摘要

Birthplace: Cardiorobotics and Carnegie Mellon UniversityrnOccupation: Surgical assistant: conducts minimally invasive heart surgery Why we need it: Heart surgery means slicing the chest, breaking the sternum, and splaying the ribs; recovery can take months. How it works: Carnegie Mellon University engineer Howie Choset's snake-shaped surgeon is only a centimeter long and weighs less than three ounces, yet it's packed with motors and joints that give it 102 degrees of freedom, letting it deftly wrap itself around organs and worm through intestines, bronchial tubes andrnother pathwaysrnused during endoscopic surgery.