Vanderbilt engineers use coffee grounds to develop novel surgical tool
June 21, 2017
Imagine plopping six cups of coffee grounds on the heads of patients just before they are wheeled into the operating room to have nose or throat surgery?
In essence, that is what a team of Vanderbilt University engineers are proposing in an effort to improve the reliability of the sophisticated "GPS" system that surgeons use for these delicate operations. They have designed a "granular jamming cap" filled with coffee grounds that does a better job of tracking patient head movements than current methods. They are disclosing the novel design and data on its effectiveness at the International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions in Barcelona on June 20.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20170621/Vanderbilt-engineers-use-coffee-grounds-to-develop-novel-surgical-tool.aspx
