The device to the left that looks kind of like something from your sink is actually a cardiac implant engineered by Tal Golesworthy, in the running for manliest man of the year and an Old Spice contract because he not only designed the thing, he actually had it put inside him.
Golesworthy suffers from Marfan’s syndrome, which attacks connective tissue and can really screw up your cardiovascular system. Golesworthy, however, decided that he was going to punch Marfan’s right in the nuts. Golesworthy did it by combining three technologies: MRIs to figure out the size of the implant, which was fed into a CAD system, and then used a rapid-prototyping system (you know, the printers that print objects, not letter) to crank out rough designs of the implants. Then the London College of Medicine helped him refine and improve the design.
Then he was all like “Hell yeah, cut me open and stick that sucker right in my heart”, right before he made love to three nurses, drank a gallon of whiskey, and beat up a bunch of skinheads. At least that’s what should have happened.
[ via the ninjas at MedDevice ]