Engineering students at Johns Hopkins University have come up with a special design for a stethoscope for NASA that can be utilized to work efficiently in outer space, as well as here on Earth. The motivation behind this project was that astronauts on long-term missions in outer space do not usually have professional medical training and thus require the best of equipment to handle medical situations. The machinery and instruments inside spaceships collectively create quite a din; this noisy environment doesn’t help when it comes to trying to listen to a fellow astronaut’s heartbeat using a conventional stethoscope. That’s where the space stethoscope comes in – instead of just picking up the acoustic vibrations from a person, this device uses both electronic and mechanical techniques to gather sounds that are clear and distinguishable from background noise such as humming of engines and fans.
The device is built so that it functions well even when not placed accurately on the astronaut’s body. There are other efficient features to this device such as low power consumption, a rechargeable battery pack, mechanical exclusion of ambient noise and a suction cup that allows it to sticks to a person’s chest. In addition to being used on space missions, the stethoscope can also be used on Earth in situations where ambient noise is abundant, such as on battlefields or in mines and other industrial settings. Its efficient performance could make it useful in developing countries where good medical equipment is hard to come by.
James West, who is guiding the group of students on this project, has plans to use the stethoscope to determine wheezing and crackling breath patterns associated with typical heart or lung diseases in infants which would help develop a device that could detect the presence of these diseases and be used as a diagnostic tool. Such advancements in the field of medical equipment would truly make a positive impact on the world.
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