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Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

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Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#141

Post by sgtnoodle »

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.

Lol. I've certainly already made the joke that embedded systems are dear to my heart. I'd consider working a few years at a place like Medtronic just to see what I can contribute, but on the other hand I hear there's roughly a 2:1 ratio between requirements and lines of code.

Going through airport security is fun just because the TSA agents overreact as if the metal detector is going to kill me.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#142

Post by masklinn »

petre wrote: post #48
qbasic_forever wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTGs have been around since the 50's and 60's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge... For example Russia used them to power lighthouses in super remote parts of their coast. Space probes, mars rovers, etc. use them too.

Yes, there's a Russian movie with a guy that is guarding a weather station in the North and playing games all day. He somehow gets into a conflict with his supervisor, dissasembles a RTG beacon and uses the Strontium 90 to poison his supervisor's dried fish supply. They both get irradiated and the military cleans up the mess. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1588875/ Only the Soviets were daft enough to build RTGs using St…

> Only the Soviets were daft enough to build RTGs using Strontium 90.

I mean, Sr90 is super cheap, and as long as it stays inside the RTG you're fine. The AEC actually tried Polonium RTGs in the late 50s.

The shorter half-life of Sr compared to Pu also means it's a bit less of an issue when you lose the source.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#143

Post by duffyjp »

spacephysics wrote: post #21
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.

I saw a video about a recent advancement in nuclear diamond batteries. Basically look like normal AA batteries but used depleted uranium and lab diamonds to make them save and long lasting

A phone I never have to charge would be rad.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#144

Post by pmoleri »

OJFord wrote: post #93
jackcarter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heat pump warms a home more efficiently than using the same amount of electricity for resistive heating. It can do this because it's not generating the heat from scratch; it's moving heat from outside to inside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Performance

I know. It's only >100% 'efficient' if you ignore the input of 'outside heat'. That is not a normal calculation, and not really called 'efficiency'. It's desirable for multiple reasons, of course, but it's not efficiency.

Unfortunately by that metric other electrical heaters tend to 0% efficiency because they are not making use of the virtually unlimited energy outside the buildings.

The 400% metric let's you compare with other heaters, the 100% is kind of useless.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#145

Post by monetus »

melq wrote: post #127
tom_ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the keyboard switch people have to produce a device that's manufacturable at scale for pennies per unit, and can be fitted in unforgiving environments by the untrained.

How is that comparable to a pacemaker in any way? They aren't made for a similar scale, price, or 'environment', and would only be installed/serviced/dealt with at all by anyone aside from highly trained specialists.

Intentions aside, I read it as a very narrow comparison of the relative durability - I'm guessing they weren't trying to devalue pacemaker engineering.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#146

Post by dghughes »

kristopolous wrote: post #72
konschubert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this as: Most patients don’t survive those 10 years anyways.

I'd rather live an extra 9 years than 0. We're all going to die and an extra 9 years is not bad.

My Dad was diagnosed with a fatal lung illness and was given three years to live. He made it to ten years the last six months were rough. But I can't imagine if he had died after the predicted three years.

I see people Dad's age or older driving and walking around and I find it amazing how older people are alive. Elderly people are amazing as people and for their knowledge.

Love every day you and your family are here and healthy!

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#147

Post by hutzlibu »

foobiekr wrote: post #52
ssizn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The kids weren't scavengers. There are so many things we could have if we actually could somehow have faith that the required (for safety, pollution mitigation, etc.) full lifecycle was actually honored. Instead, everything is dominated by lazy jerks. The other day, I noticed my neighbor's house painter digging a hole. I said hello and asked what was up, and he said "Yes, I need to dispose of the water and paint from…

"People just will not do the right thing by default if it is even remotely more work and for most people, thought is the hardest work there is. "

My theory is simply low education.

Since aeons we burried our garbage and it was never a problem. It only started quite recently, that our technology is so advanced, that it simply will not decompose. But rather contaminate.

But only a very low percentage of people actualy understands this.

So sure, that painter surely was "educated" at some point, that doing this is bad. But they simply do not believe it. "Not a big deal, you know". Same with plastic bags, same with climate change.

Maybe we should start proper science education a lot earlier?

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#148

Post by zaroth »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #124
R0b0t1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: oh, and heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the US, while heart surgery is one of the most difficult specialties to get in to. They are absolutely never short on patients, lol. This is still relevant to his concern, but from the other end. They might be making the labor artificially scarce to increase pay.

More like deliberately increasing demand for the service.

Are you positing a conspiracy between McDonalds and Cardiothoracic Surgeons?

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#149

Post by sgtnoodle »

melq wrote: post #121
guhidalg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My heart sank when you mentioned a BLE-enabled pacemaker. Has technology gone too far? /s

It sounds like the bluetooth functionality is only there for telemetry.

It's not. It's a full diagnostic interface. Someone with the right software and my serial number could reconfigure it from across the room.

BLE replaces the previous diagnostic interface, which was some form of near-field. You had to have a puck resting within a few inches, going to a several decade old toughbook. My device supports both. It's just in the last couple years that UCLA got the BLE equipment, and sometimes a doctor will whip out the old gear if they feel more confident with it.

When I had the pacemaker first implanted, there was a reliability problem they had to do a second operation to fix it. The pacemaker failed to "capture" my ventricle a few times when it should have. It turned out to be a loose lead connection, but the device's impedance diagnostics didn't make the issue immediately obvious. My overall case was weird enough that UCLA did a case study about it, so for the revision procedure they had a vendor rep in the room to help out just in case. She was holding a tablet and pushing buttons that would make my heart temporarily stop.

Now my AV nerves mostly work again, so the pacemaker can't stop my heart if it wanted to. It can only increase my heart rate, and report unusual patterns to my doctor. Also, if someone did somehow mess with it, holding a strong magnet near it will force it into safe mode.

Re: Nuclear-Powered Cardiac Pacemakers

#150

Post by [deleted] »

pixl97 wrote: post #130
nousermane wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 315 million times. That's an order of magnitude higher than we typically test fatigue resistance Nah, it's not that bad. Decent mechanical keyboard switch is specified for 100 million clicks [1, or google for "switch million actuations"]. Surely good engineering can eek out another order of magnitude. Not to mention - pacemaker leads ("wires"), the only part that bends, have way less stress on them (= larger bend r…

You're not counting failure rate over time. How many people actually click a key 100M clicks? What does the bathtub curve look like? What's the failure rates at 1,10,100,200M clicks? I'm going to assume those failure numbers are far higher than you'd want for something keeping you alive.

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