OT Regrowing lost limbs

It is during wars that there is an interest in getting a technical advantage over the enemy, either in offensive ways (taking the battle to "them", eg the 'water tanks' of ww1, smart bombs of ww2, etc.), defensive means (radio intercepts, radar, body armor, und so weiter), or in preserving "human capital", e.g. soldiers. (The modern soldier is not cheap labor.) Just as Infantry 2nd Lieutenants will make more executive decisions in a week of combat than most civilian executives make their whole career, so providers of "combat medicine" will see more traumatic injuries of all natures than their civilian counterparts, aside from some rather "active" trauma centers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Drs in a MASH will still have more than enough opportunities to try something "new", and see what really works, than the civilian world. Rehab has a similar motivation; and "material". Strong healthy bodies with a drive to recover as much functionality as possible, leads to such things as amputees joining the President on his morning run.

The problems now facing medical technologist come from the fact that the most exposed portions of the human body in modern warfare is the head, especially the eyes. Deafness from not only explosions and gunfire, but working environments (flight decks for example. If you think a jet engine is loud inside the airliner, try standing outside ...) is also an occupational hazard.

-- pyotr filipivich Monotheism, someone has said, offers two simple axioms: 1) There is a God. 2) It's not you.

Dave Hinz wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

In 1959 my mother won a Door Prize at the Grand Opening of a local business: a 6-transistor Hitachi portable radio - a $35 value when Coca-Cola was going for $.05/bottle.

When I first started programming computers, they were [except for the Collins machines] all built with discrete components on circuit boards. The first one was an IBM 1620 with 40K BITS of magnetic core storage.

Now, I'm using a portable computer [laptop] with well over 200 times that machine's memory, a far more powerful, and faster, processor, and more disc storage than most mainframes had 10 years ago.

Had it not been for the electronics revolution required to develop Integrated Circuitry for the Space Program my career would not have happened and I wouldn't have my pension today.

The medical telemetry developed for NASA has been saving lives here on Earth for over 30 years.

As to the idiots - all they know how to do is to pull the "Party" lever every couple of years...

There are different kind of military expenses, some benefit society in broad ways and some do not. A $100,000 payment to a family of a dead soldier does not bring about a technological revolution. Same applies to efforts to make equipment that is lost in combat, this is simply an expense with no "side benefit". Efforts to regrow limbs are of a more beneficial variety.

Not technical, most likely, but that money is going into the economy to buy goods and services.

High-tech employment is a side benefit in my mind, Iggy, all things considered.

A more direct, obvious benefit, sure. But the money spent, either way, is going to people who will spend it hiring people like you and me, for instance. (Oh, about that - I'm back at GE Healthcare and loving it. The job I took in january was very much not as advertized among other problems).

Wes, good perspective

Or science.