Brain Heatsinks
Browsing Slashdot this morning at the lab came up with this nifty piece of news:
Japanese scientists use brain heat sink to reduce effects of epilepsy
The idea is that if you install a heat sink into your skull, it can reduce the effects of epileptic seizures - similar to the idea of putting extra coolers in an overclocked machine. Another way to link our brain to the computer analogy, another way to turn humans into cyborgs for health reasons. All around cool.
Of course, the news is very coarse regarding details. I tried to look for the research page of this Takashi Saito (a very common name), in yamaguchi university, and didn’t find it. Won’t this heat sink make it easier to bring infections into the brain? Are there any side effects in changing the temperature of the skull?
Other than that, the mandatory wikipedia surfing after reading the article brought me some new insights regarding epilepsy. For instance, did you know that dogs can be trained to accompany epileptics and warn them when a seizure is about to happen? That dogs can sense this, and warn their owners, is extremely cool.
Well, that was some “productive” procrastination - but it is time to work.