+
Heroes

Canadian doctor's brilliant 'evil genius' hack transforms 1 ventilator into 9

Canadian doctor's brilliant 'evil genius' hack transforms 1 ventilator into 9
via Leapsmag / Twitter

One of the biggest obstacles to fighting COVID-19 in just about every country is the lack of ventilators. Patients with severe cases suffer from inflammation and a build-up of fluid in the lungs. This makes breathing and oxygenating the blood nearly impossible without a ventilator.

As COVID-19 cases rise in Canada, the medical community fears the country's largest province, Ontario, could run out of ventilators very soon.

"What our modeling is showing is that if we cannot keep these interventions in place ... we're going to run out of capacity really, really quickly — likely in the next two weeks," Beate Sander, a scientist who has been modeling the pandemic's impact on Ontario's health-care system, told the CBC.


The province is working to come up with more but it still may not be enough.

"We've procured 300 more ventilators to add to the 210 we currently have in surplus," Ontario health minister, Christine Elliott's spokesperson, told the CBC. "We continue to work on procuring additional ventilators."

If hospitals run short on ventilation equipment, they may be forced to make the dreadful decision between who dies and who is saved.

To get the most out of the ventilators at his hospital, Dr. Alain Gauthier, an anesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Ontario, rigged one of the ventilators so it could serve up to nine people.

The hack was shared online by a fellow physician, who called him an "evil genius."

According to the CBC, the rigged ventilator will only work with patients that have similar lung capacities. Multiple hoses are attached to the machine so it is running several times its normal power.

"At one point we may not have other options," Gauthier told CBC News. "'The option could be well, we let people die or we give that a chance."

via Alan Drummond

Gauthier came up with the idea after seeing a 2006 video on YouTube. He says the idea has been tried once before, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.

The hack was so impressive it even caught the attention of Elon Musk who tweeted, "Interesting thread."

Engineers in Italy earned similar attention this week for hacking scuba gear and turning it into a ventilator mask. Italy is the country second hardest-hit by the virus and is having its own troubles with equipment shortages.

In just three hours, Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli, engineers at Isinnova, created a prototype for a 3-D printed valve that successfully converts the scuba gear into a ventilator mask.

The mask tested successfully in an Italian hospital so the engineers have made the 3-D valve plans available to everyone for free.

The coronavirus has been a terrible scourge on humanity, but there will be some positives that come from the pandemic. Tragic events like this one push people to improvise and innovate new solutions that may help humanity in the future.

via Reddit

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democracy

Reporter reveals she's a school shooting survivor on air and offers advice to Covenant parents

Even while struggling through her own grief, she was able to provide guidance to parents.

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

Tennessee reporter and school shooting survivor gives advice to parents.

On March 27, the Covenant School, a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, experienced a school shooting where three 9-year-old children and three staff members lost their lives. The news of the event took over the airwaves as more details were released.

But for one reporter covering the shooting live, the event hit close to home in more than one way. Joylyn Bukovac, a local reporter for WSMV 4, was reporting live from the scene at the Covenant School when she revealed that she was a survivor of a school shooting herself. Bukovac explained that when she was in the eighth grade, someone opened fire at her school.

"About 380 school shootings have happened since Columbine, my middle school being one of them, this school being one of them," she said. "Some people have been reaching out to me saying, 'Enough's enough. When is all of this gun violence going to change?'"

Keep ReadingShow less

Delivering packages AND safety.

Amazon delivery drivers don’t have the easiest job in the world. Sitting through traffic, working in extreme temperatures, hauling boxes … not exactly a fun time. So when a driver goes out of their way to be extra considerate—people notice.

One delivery driver has gone viral for the way she delivered a little bit of safety education, along with some lighthearted advice. The TikTok video of the encounter, which now has more than 4 million views, was shared by Jessica Huseman, who had only recently moved into her new house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Germany's most famous castle isn't a real castle. It's an elaborate 'work of fan fiction.'

Though it looks medieval, it was built in the 19th century by an eccentric "fairy tale king" who spent much of his life constructing his own elaborate fantasy world.

Neuschwanstein Castle sits atop a rock ledge in the Bavarian Alps.

Even if you haven't heard of Neuschwanstein Castle, there's a good chance you've at least seen pictures of it. Set atop a tree-covered rock ledge in the Bavarian Alps, the picturesque castle looks like it was conjured straight out of a fairy tale. In fact, it served as inspiration for Disney Imagineers as they designed "Sleeping Beauty's Castle" in Disneyland, and it's regularly named the top castle to visit in Germany.

There are estimated to be around 25,000 castles in Germany, but Neuschwanstein is unique among them. Most notably, it's not a real castle and never was. While it bears the look and feel of a well-preserved medieval castle, it was actually built in the 19th century, and rather than serving as a fortress, it served as the fantasy castle of an eccentric king obsessed with Richard Wagner's operas and medieval mythology.

Ludwig II came to the Bavarian throne in 1864 at age 18 with no experience in government or politics. Two years later, Prussia conquered Austria and Bavaria, and Ludwig's powerful status as king was greatly diminished. Not that he was particularly interested in governance anyway; he was more drawn to the romantic idea of having his own kingdom.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

People share the 18 things that are a 'subtle sign' someone is really smart

"They effortlessly communicate complex concepts in a simple way."

Albert Einstein

One of the strangest things about being human is that people of lesser intelligence tend to overestimate how smart they are and people who are highly intelligent tend to underestimate how smart they are.

This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and it’s proven every time you log onto Facebook and see someone from high school who thinks they know more about vaccines than a doctor.

The interesting thing is that even though people are poor judges of their own smarts, we’ve evolved to be pretty good at judging the intelligence of others.

Keep ReadingShow less