Thread: Physics in medicine

I'm working on topic: Physics in medicine and I would like you to help me a bit. As always I am looking for something more than Wikipedia.

My plan:
1. The effect of pressure on the body
2. Shockwave therapy
3. Doppler effect
4. New technologies (all associated with physics in medicine)
5. How does endoscopes work?

If you have any good articles related to those topics, please give me the link. I would also like to know your ideas about other topics in this project. What should I talk about? I'll present this in school.

There was this thread that got necro'd the other day.

Does a punctured heart really cause a fast death?

You could talk about some of the scanning technologies (CAT, PET, MRI, fMRI, etc) ... perhaps a history from X-Rays to fMRI?

Originally Posted by Hymenophyllum

The effect of pressure on the body

As a scuba diver I can tell you that increased pressure can have strange to deadly consequences for the person experiencing it. Just look up Nitrogen Narcosis and Oxygen toxicity.

Here's something for your project on physics in medicine.

Why Physicists Make Poor Midwives

http://www.google.com/patents/US3216423

Originally Posted by Strange

You could talk about some of the scanning technologies (CAT, PET, MRI, fMRI, etc) ... perhaps a history from X-Rays to fMRI?

I am not sure if it's not boring.

Thank you for your ideas. Have you got others?

Originally Posted by Hymenophyllum

Originally Posted by Strange

You could talk about some of the scanning technologies (CAT, PET, MRI, fMRI, etc) ... perhaps a history from X-Rays to fMRI?

I am not sure if it's not boring.

Boring? Boring!? How can imaging the function of the living brain and seeing which bits "light up" depending on what you think or do, be boring !!?

Roentgen would never have imagined such a thing. But if he did, we now know what part of the brain he would have used. (There you go, I have written your closing sentence for you!)

Have you got others?

That was my best shot.

Thomas Young and Pierre LaPlace independently worked out the physics of surface tension in the early nineteenth century, but it wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s that its role in the breathing difficulties of premature babies was understood. There is an excellent article about it here.
Bubbles, Babies and Biology: The Story of Surfactant

Thomas Young was a physician by profession, and also a great physicist. He discovered how the lens of the eye works to focus light, and the cause of astigmatism.
Thomas Young's contribution to visual optics: The Bakerian lecture

[QUOTE=Strange;553945]

Originally Posted by Hymenophyllum

Have you got others?

That was my best shot.

There's probably enough here to fill a dozen books. Pretty much everything is physics is you keep breaking it down far enough. The question is, what are you interested in?

Roentgen would never have imagined such a thing. But if he did, we now know what part of the brain he would have used. (There you go, I have written your closing sentence for you!)

That's the good one

Thank you Harold very good ideas.

I'd like to focus more on new technologies.

Originally Posted by DianeG

Pretty much everything is physics is you keep breaking it down far enough.

Originally Posted by Strange

Roentgen would never have imagined such a thing. But if he did, we now know what part of the brain he would have used. (There you go, I have written your closing sentence for you!)

That's a great line. If he doesn't want it, can I steal it?

Originally Posted by DianeG

That's a great line. If he doesn't want it, can I steal it?

Of course!

I'm sorry, but I was gifted so I will take it.

Could someone explain as simple as possible: mechanism of lungs' ventilation as the pressure difference. That's the other thing I'd like to put to the project, but I need explanation which is easy to understand (for my recipients obviously).