In Space, Nobody Can hear You Suture
September 27th 2006 16:00
Category: No Category
Finally, from Paris, France, the news we have been waiting for for years: a team of surgeons is going to perform the world's first zero-gravity surgery.
Yes! The wait is over! At last, the human race can break free from the shackles of earthbound medical procedures and embrace the true destiny of humanity: to float about in mid-air with our intestines dangling over the sides.
How often have you thought, sure, a quarduple heart bypass is good for a giggle, but what would really make the whole thing go with a swing would be if I was bobbing up and down three feet off the floor of an aeroplane performing constant "arcs and dives out of weightlessness" while well-trained doctors flailed at me with a scalpel every time they drifted past?
How many? I should say so!
The article states that the surgery "will be performed aboard a modified Airbus A300 designed to perform roller coaster-like maneuvers that simulate weightlessness. It will make about 30 such parabolas during the flight."
Great! I know every time I'M on a rollercoaster, I simply cannot help thinking what a suitably stable venue for surgery it is. Sometimes I can hardly restrain myself from leaping over the back of my seat and performing a tracheotomy on the startled girl behind me, right there on the Bush Beast.
Apparently the experience could help in the development of robots to perform surgeries in space. And surely tere is no more worthwhile cause than that. Goodbye overcrowded hospitals and lengthy waiting lists. No beds available for your kidney transplant? No problem! We'll just whiz you a couple of hundred miles straight up and get Doctor 3PO on the case!
Frankly, and in all seriousness, it IS an important piece of research. In this age of energy shortages, every patient's nightmare must be that in the middle of major surgery, there will be a blackout and the hospital will lose its gravity. Now, doctors can keep working THROUGH that sort of setback! It's all simply a wonderful tribute to the pioneering spirit of Francis Bacon, who in 1605 dissected a chicken whilst bouncing on a trampoline, with fatal results.
Heard of more cloud-bursting news? objieb@people.net.au">Email me!
Yes! The wait is over! At last, the human race can break free from the shackles of earthbound medical procedures and embrace the true destiny of humanity: to float about in mid-air with our intestines dangling over the sides.
How often have you thought, sure, a quarduple heart bypass is good for a giggle, but what would really make the whole thing go with a swing would be if I was bobbing up and down three feet off the floor of an aeroplane performing constant "arcs and dives out of weightlessness" while well-trained doctors flailed at me with a scalpel every time they drifted past?
How many? I should say so!
The article states that the surgery "will be performed aboard a modified Airbus A300 designed to perform roller coaster-like maneuvers that simulate weightlessness. It will make about 30 such parabolas during the flight."
Great! I know every time I'M on a rollercoaster, I simply cannot help thinking what a suitably stable venue for surgery it is. Sometimes I can hardly restrain myself from leaping over the back of my seat and performing a tracheotomy on the startled girl behind me, right there on the Bush Beast.
Apparently the experience could help in the development of robots to perform surgeries in space. And surely tere is no more worthwhile cause than that. Goodbye overcrowded hospitals and lengthy waiting lists. No beds available for your kidney transplant? No problem! We'll just whiz you a couple of hundred miles straight up and get Doctor 3PO on the case!
Frankly, and in all seriousness, it IS an important piece of research. In this age of energy shortages, every patient's nightmare must be that in the middle of major surgery, there will be a blackout and the hospital will lose its gravity. Now, doctors can keep working THROUGH that sort of setback! It's all simply a wonderful tribute to the pioneering spirit of Francis Bacon, who in 1605 dissected a chicken whilst bouncing on a trampoline, with fatal results.
Heard of more cloud-bursting news? objieb@people.net.au">Email me!
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Comment by AllieWonder
There must be research centres for things that are cool and would make good news stories, but aren't actually useful right now.