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Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

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Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#221

Post by rvba »

hwillis wrote: post #33
mysterydip wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> allowing for doctors to check in on their patients and replace either the batteries or the pacemakers themselves I cynically read this as "we needed to get more money out of these patients"

You really should not. 60 beats per minute means that in ten years the leads of a pacemaker will be bent *315 million* times. That's an order of magnitude higher than we typically test fatigue resistance, and even if we were that confident about being able to produce flawless materials, there are millions of different enzymes and acids and temperature fluctuations in the body. Any one of those could impact the fatigu…

But didnt the poster above wrtite that the older designs can survive those 315 millions of beats?

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#222

Post by noisy_boy »

samstave wrote: post #129
sgtnoodle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you have quite a bit of knowledge on the subject. I had to get a pacemaker a couple years ago, and am an embedded engineer. I hope to live another 50 years at least, so this is an interesting subject for me. Maybe my cardiologist is just trying to make me feel good, but he says my leads will likely last 30-50 years. Intuitively that seems unlikely, but we'll see. It's got to be one of the most engineer…

Quoted post unavailable.

Yeah this knee jerk downvoting sucks. Have an upvote.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#223

Post by elihu »

drraj32 wrote: post #5

Just got me thinking: What would it take for us to get to a point where there are small, safe nuclear powered "batteries", that can supply enough electricity for a building.

You could have something like that supplies heat to a building by nuclear decay, but generating useful amounts of electricity from relatively small temperature differences is hard. You could theoretically have a steam-generating nuclear reactor in a building, similar to what you'd find in a nuclear-powered submarine, but it wouldn't be small or safe or simple, and it would require large amounts of cold water.

Small research reactors exist, but they tend to generate in the neighborhood of tens of watts.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#225

Post by mensetmanusman »

zaroth wrote: post #157
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is still relevant to his concern, but from the other end. They might be making the labor artificially scarce to increase pay. This is very much true. I find that a lot of people in tech seem to put healthcare on a pedestal and believe that the professionalisation and gatekeeping of the industry create a better outcome than other engineering fields. This is very much untrue, the healthcare field is in need of m…

I live near Boston which is known for its medical centers, so this might skew things somewhat, but it seems like every graduate I know is going into medicine of some form (surgery, anesthesia, nursing, surgical tech, hospice, etc. etc.) I heard consistently that residency slots are extremely competitive and a lot of qualified candidates get passed over. The more I learn about the process the more insane it seems. Fro…

We turn away beyond capable people, it’s just that we have decided to drastically reduce the number of doctors per capita by artificially limiting the number of medical schools.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#227

Post by Filligree »

callalex wrote: post #217
kierkegaard_s wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

boiling it down, what would you say is the link between most common HNers?

Taking the question literally? People who believe democracy makes correct choices.

The description I usually go with is "The worst form of government, except for all the others".

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#229

Post by phyzome »

lucakiebel wrote: post #174
elliekelly wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious whether it was standard practice for you to check for a pacemaker prior to cremation or whether the process relied on a family member informing you?

The doctors that sign off the cremation have to provide info on pacemakers/artificial joints and so on to the crematorium

I feel like an x-ray machine might be a reasonable investment. It's not gonna hurt the body.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#230

Post by Teever »

landofredwater wrote: post #184
lucakiebel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doctors that sign off the cremation have to provide info on pacemakers/artificial joints and so on to the crematorium

> artificial joints Would you have to remove the joints as well then? How are you meant to properly dispose of something like a knee or a hip?

My friend burned bodies in a crematorium, he said that afterwards he would sift through the ashes for things like hips and pins and screws.
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