{"id":4916,"date":"2012-12-06T19:36:24","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T01:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4916"},"modified":"2012-12-06T19:36:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T01:36:24","slug":"the-dream-of-the-medical-tricorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4916","title":{"rendered":"The dream of the medical tricorder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/technology-quarterly\/21567208-medical-technology-hand-held-diagnostic-devices-seen-star-trek-are-inspiring\"\">The Economist<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>WHEN aliens seize and torture Dr McCoy in \u201cThe Empath\u201d, an episode of the science-fiction series \u201cStar Trek\u201d, Captain Kirk and Mr Spock rush to his aid. They are able to assess his condition in seconds with the help of a medical tricorder\u2014a hand-held computer with a detachable sensor that is normally used by Dr McCoy himself to diagnose others. A quick scan with the tricorder indicates that he suffers from \u201csevere heart damage; signs of congestion in both lungs; evidence of massive circulatory collapse\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Along with teleportation, speech-driven computers and hand-held wireless communicators that flip open, the medical tricorder was one of many imaginary future technologies featured in \u201cStar Trek\u201d. Ever since, researchers have dreamed of developing a hand-held medical scanner that can take readings from a patient and then diagnose various conditions. Now, nearly five decades after \u201cStar Trek\u201d made its debut in 1966, the dream is finally edging closer to reality.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Economist: WHEN aliens seize and torture Dr McCoy in \u201cThe Empath\u201d, an episode of the science-fiction series \u201cStar Trek\u201d, Captain Kirk and Mr Spock rush to his aid. They are able to assess his condition in seconds with the help of a medical tricorder\u2014a hand-held computer with a detachable sensor that is normally used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}