Restoration of damaged organs with the help of "shape memory implants"

Scientists at the National Research University of Technology have created biodegradable polymer implants with a shape memory effect that can be tailored to the desired shape during preparation for surgery.

Polina Kovalyova, an engineer at the university's Scientific Educational Center for Biomedical Engineering, indicated in an interview with the newspaper "Izvestia" that the shape can be miniaturized and then inserted into the body through tiny holes. After the desired position is taken, the new material will straighten on its own and take the programmed shape.

She says: “This effect is due to the structure of the modified material, which under normal conditions, its molecular chains contain identical soft and hard glassy parts. After heating, the soft parts become viscous and fluid, which allows them to be given the desired shape and cooled. When reheated, the soft parts release the stored energy and recover Its original appearance.

According to her, compared to similar metallic materials, shape memory polymers are softer and easier to control. In addition, these polymers are biodegradable when no longer needed.

It should be noted that the basis of the new materials is polyactide, from which the threads used in suturing wounds are made, and it has proven its good compatibility with living tissue.

Russia : Innovating a method to produce analogues of living tissue

Personal archive of Dmitry Ivanov

Scientists at Moscow University have devised a way to produce materials similar in properties to the tissues of a living organism, allowing the creation of implants for any organ of the body according to the indications of each person and the manufacture of human robots.

Professor Dmitry Ivanov, who supervises the study and head of the Engineering Materials Science Laboratory, said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper: “Living tissues have unique properties. However, they change their properties unevenly. Therefore, it is difficult to replicate the mechanical properties of living organs with high accuracy in artificial materials.” .

He goes on to explain, but thanks to the innovative method it is possible to produce materials with specific mechanical properties, which can exactly replicate the response of living organs under the influence of various loads and deformations.

He says: “We have now, in cooperation with an international team of scientists, created a database of polymers that have properties similar to those of living tissue, and we have invented methods for producing these polymers.”

According to him, in the future it will be possible to use a microscopic sample taken from a person to measure tissue properties and manufacture the polymer needed to create an individual implant. Once this technology is mastered, it will be possible to apply it in any hospital.

For his part, expert Maxim Nikitin, head of the Department of Nanobiomedicine at Sirius University, points out that the proposed technologies will be needed in other fields, as it will be possible to use them to make mechanical hands similar to human hands, which can grip objects of different shapes and fragility.

Scientists explain why the Doomsday Clock will never reach midnight

At the beginning of last January, the Doomsday Clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight, achieving the closest time to midnight since its inception in 1947.

Despite this imminent approach to midnight, the leading group of nuclear scientists responsible for setting the clock in view of the catastrophes threatening human existence says that we may never see the clock reach midnight.

This may seem like good news, but unfortunately, in reality, we may never see the clock reach midnight for a very grim reason: it will be the end of the world, humans will become extinct, and it will be too late for anyone to notice.

The clock was set at 100 seconds until midnight in the year 2022, and it had been so for the three years prior to this date, except that at the beginning of 2023, the official Doomsday Clock was advanced by 10 seconds to “ninety minutes until midnight,” which portends a danger. Increasingly affecting humanity.

The clock is a visual representation of how close Earth is to total destruction. The watch is overseen by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who state that every time the disk moves, it is a call for greater effort and a warning of the dangers the world currently faces, not a hard and fast timetable for our future.

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The bulletin said in its statement in January this year: “The clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight, which is the closest thing to a global catastrophe ever.”

Now, the group talked about what would actually happen if midnight came. Because it would lead to the end of humanity, there would simply be no one to see it.

Rachel Bronson, CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issued a statement saying: “When it's midnight, it means there has been some kind of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that has wiped out humanity. We never want to get there, and we won't know it when.” "We do this. So, this is a terrifying existential fear that everyone has to think about."