Technabob » needle

Bioshock 2 Eve Hypodermic Syringe: Sterilize Before Using

Technabob — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:55:25 +0000

While most everyone I know has been heading off to get a flu shot, I’d personally rather get injected with a dose of Bioshock’s EVE serum instead of a supposedly dead H1N1 virus grown in chicken eggs.

This Bioshock 2 EVE syringe is an exact replica of the nasty looking hypodermic implement found throughout the game. Not only does it look just like the decrepit genetic serum injector, but it glows an eerie blue when the lights go down. Extra-special-creepy there. Nice touch.

You too can get your hands on the EVE hypodermic prop over at UK retailer Play.com for £13.99 (appx. $23 USD). It’s not shipping until January 2010, just in time for the February release of the much-anticipated sequel.

Hooray for Plasmid power!

[via Nerd Approved]

Bloodbot Blood Sampling Robot: the Name Isn’T Exactly Endearing is It

Lambert Varias — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:30:14 +0000

Remember how in Wall-E how the humans got so lazy that they left everything in the hands of robots? Seems some people need to watch – or re-watch – that awesome movie, because it seems that we’re just looking for excuses to build a robot. Case in point: the Bloodbot, a horribly misnamed medical robot designed by researchers at the equally creepily named Imperial College London. The idea behind Bloodbot? Automate the process of taking blood samples, an activity that takes no longer than 30 seconds. Have nurses and doctors become terrible at doing this? I don’t think accuracy is the issue here. But I’m no visionary, so I’ll just accept the possibility that we’ll have large scale blood samplings in the future and so we’ll need a roomful of Bloodbots to do it.

Some of you may not see anything wrong with the idea behind this automated stabber. Well then let’s look at how it works: the Bloodbot is able to select a suitable vein – one that is close to the surface of the skin – from which to draw blood from by pressing a probe onto a patient’s arm. Using mathemagics, the robot is able to detect the unlucky blood vessel and then inserts the needle under what the EMPIRE Imperial College London calls – I shit you not – “force control”.

Really though it’s just a fancy way of saying that the Bloodbot can sense the force that a patient’s skin is exerting on the needle. As the graph above shows – and as common sense dictates – our skin resists the needle somewhat at first, but since the Bloodbot is hellbent on stabbing you it will keep on piercing the skin. As soon as the robot’s needle pierces our skin, the force that our relatively tough skin exerts on the needle is gone, replaced by the weaker force from our blood. The robot (hopefully) detects this drop in force and stops inserting the needle so as not to run you straight through. The temptation is still there though. Now consider this: at any given moment there are millions of people who are eating and/or drinking. That’s a massive enough scale right? Do you think we need Foodbots and Drinkbots? They’ll surely save us a lot of time and energy.

[via gearfuse]

‘Wasp Knife’ Will Stab Your Victims Then Freeze Their Organs

Karen M. — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:00:45 +0000

Britain is reportedly on alert for the wasp knife, a knife that can “deliver a ball of compressed gas capable of killing its victim at the press of a button.” A needle in the tip of the knife’s blade shoots out a little frozen gas ball which instantaneously grows to “the size of a basketball” and freezes the victim’s internal organs.

The Wasp Knife was created to kill bears and sharks, which is super handy if you’re like me and you find that bears and sharks are constantly bothering you. Especially bears. Then again, I spend most weekends hiking the back-country of rural Montana while slathered from head to toe in a delicious layer of honey, so maybe it’s related to that.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Guess where the knife is made? The U.S.A., of course. Do we know how to kick ass or what? Just kidding. This is insanely scary. You can read the full article in the UK Daily Mail.