Robotic Surgery Oversold on Hospital Websites, Study Contends

Many hospitals tout the benefits of robotic surgery on their websites without solid scientific evidence to back up those claims, Johns Hopkins researchers report.
In fact, four out of 10 hospitals in the study only used manufacturers' claims that robotic surgery is better than conventional surgery, an assertion that the researchers said is unproven and misleading.
The findings are especially troubling since consumers depend on hospital websites for reliable, trustworthy information, the study authors said.

"Hospital websites are a trusted source of medical information for the public," said lead researcher Dr. Marty Makary, an associate professor of surgery at Hopkins.
"This is the first time we've seen industry create content, with disclosures, and put it on the official hospital website to educate patients about treatment options," he said. "To me, that's a very scary trend."
Robotic surgery has grown more than 400 percent over the past four years, Makary pointed out. "It's one of the great modern crazes," he said. "And the public is driven by the idea that more technology means better care."

Robotic Truck Keeps Bin Cleaning a Safe Operation

FRESHBINS won a 2010 WorkSafe Award for its robotic bin cleaning trucks.

The company won the category for Best OHS Solution in Manufacturing, Logistics and Agriculture for its use of robotics to increase the safety of its workers who operate bin cleaning services.

The bin cleaning industry is relatively new and largely unregulated. Currently, many operations involve high-pressure washing, manual lifting, potential ingestion of vapours and liquids, traffic hazards, and exposure to UV.

Testing has found domestic bins are covered with high levels of disease-carrying bacteria, and garbage industry operators, landfill operators, councils and their workers risk breathing in these toxic vapors.

Mumbai University May Bring In Robotics In Engineering Courses

The University of Mumbai (MU) is functioning on an determined project to set up robotics as a subject in engineering courses. The project, called ‘E Yantra’, is being urbanized with the help of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay.

University Administration convened a conference of directors of the top 15 School of Engineering and the Faculty of Department of Information Processing May 13 to discuss how the project can be implemented in schools. IIT experts also present.

The MU project aims to create a robotic revolution in the educational domain by conducting workshops, hosting competitions, deploying homegrown low-cost educational robotic platform hardware at colleges with the aim of creating quality content for teaching robotics. The idea of the project is to reach the faculty at engineering colleges through a series of workshops.

Robotics Teams Ready to Share the Knowledge

Robots took a immerse in the pool Saturday at Coronado High School in western Colorado Springs.

About the dimension of a shoebox, with plastic pipe frames, the machines used dip noodle foam to keep afloat.

No, they weren’t looking for unsuspecting victims as part of an alien plot. These robots churned through the water, passing through submerged rings as part of an obstacle course to test the savvy of five area high school robotics teams.

About 70 students from five school district worked in teams of three to build the submersible robots Saturday. They will eventually share their knowledge with younger kids.

Each team was given a robot kit, containing the half-inch pipe, foam, three small motors, a battery and several other technical gizmos. The scattered tools and debris in the school’s cafeteria showed they worked hard all morning.