Lifeboat Foundation Begins Blog

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I was excited to see the announcement that the Lifeboat Foundation has started a blog which can be found here. There frst posts incude some excellent commentary on nanotechnology.

For those unfamiliar with them, their mission statements sums it up:

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

We believe that, in some situations, it might be feasible to relinquish technological capacity in the public interest (for example, we are against the U.S. government posting the recipe for the 1918 flu virus on the internet). We have some of the best minds on the planet working on programs to enable our survival.

They have an impressive Scientific Advisory Board including a large helping of professors and Nobel Laureats (and me). You can read more about them here.

ElectriPlast: Conductive Plastic from CES 2007

Posted on January 8, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

The first innovation from CES 2007 that caught my eye is ElectriPlast from Integral Technologies. There is not too much information about this available. In short, it is an electrically conductive plastic resin. Today most electric conductive tools (eg electrosurgical instruments) are made of metal with an insulating covering. They have a limited lifespan and inevitably the insulator starts to break down risking electrical patient injuries. In addition, we are fairly limited in the physical characteristics, shapes, and durability of the metal core of the tool.

ElectriPlast provides (according to the manufacturer)

• Dramatic performance improvement.
• Design flexibility – molded resin, ability to miniaturize.
• Raw materials and manufacturing capacity readily available.
• Broad functionality and applicability.

Since this is a resin based material it can be cast or estruded and entire new shapes and configuration of tools could be produced.

Electriplast is a highly conductive recipe that can be molded into virtually any shape or dimension associated with the range of plastics, rubbers and polymers CES chose this technology with a 2007 Innovation honoree for enabling technologies. Now it’s just a matter of convincing manufacturers to look at the small medical tool market and not focus on its current #1 use- next generation cell-phone antenna.

Plus how many new products have their own blog?

Sniffing Out Disease-”Smellcheck”

Posted on January 5, 2007 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Defensetech reports on DARPA’s new “smell-out the terrorist program“. Ok stop laughing and read on:

Cutting edge military R&D from DARPA has developed a way to smell out bad guys- literally. Move over fingerprints and biometrics- this is what I call “smellcheck”.

Darpa’s “Unique Signature Detection Project (formerly known as the Odortype Detection program)” aims to sniff out genetic markers in “human emanations (urine, sweat, etc.)” that “can be used to identify and distinguish specific high-level-of-interest individuals within groups of enemy troops.”

Sniffing out Organ Donors: There is real science behind this. National Geographic reported on some of the basic science mouse research behind this. Michael Leon, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine studied mice and found that specific molecules excreted in urine were related to MHC molecules. The MHC (major histocompatibility complex) antigens are molecules on the surface of cells that the body uses to recognize self vs non-self. The MHC genes are the genes that code for these molecules. Whena person is “matched” for an organ or bone marrow transplant these are the factors that are being matched.

Read more very technical article about the details of tissue typing for transplants with HLA and MHC typing here

Read about the standard methods of matching and volunteer to be a bone marrow donor at the national marrow donation program here

Therefore– this new military technology being used to sniff out terrorists in a group could be used to rapidly and noninvasively screen large groups of people for potential transplant matches.

This medical concept has already been tested. An article in Nature Genetics from UC Illinois reported that:

The smell signature also applies to health. Beauchamp’s team at Monell discovered that mice, for example, can distinguish older and younger genetically identical mice. They also use odor to identify animals infected with the Mammary Tumor Virus before any signs of disease are present. In Cambridge, England, dogs are being tested for their ability to sniff out traces of human prostate cancer in urine samples. Beauchamp anticipates that many diseases may have chemical signatures that may provide early diagnoses.

DT reports- Darpa’s smell detector is part of a larger, $15 million-per-year effort to develop “novel sensors” for U.S. troop operating in “urban settings.” The goal of the Urban Vision program is “to enable the warfighter to ‘see’ movers within a building using a variety of fused multi-spectral techniques.” The “Enemy Dismount Intrusion Detection program,” on the other hand, “will develop a chemical sensor that is capable of providing an advanced warning of the presence of enemy troops or combatants by detecting the chemical emissions… that are common to all humans.”

Update: docinthemachine nominated for best medical technology blog of 2006 – please vote for us here

Risky Business:Why DARPA Does What Medical Industry Won’t

Posted on December 21, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

I previously wrote about the government cutting the soldier of the future LandWarrior program. The point of my post was the myriad next-generation medical developments destined to come from the program that would be lost in the military cutbacks. The post was picked up widely including slashdot and grandrounds. Many commenters were angry at the concept of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on military development to get medical byproducts rather than spending less money more efficiently directly on medical development. The point of that post and this one is not to say war is great because it leads to medical advances. Here I will review why and how breakthroughts come from the military and not from other avenues which is suprising (and upsetting) to many.

This military effect applies to all science and not just medicine. A summary of this concept is here. As they write:

The sheer scale of military funding for science since World War II has instigated a large body of historical literature analyzing the effects of that funding, especially for American science. Since Paul Forman’s 1987 article “Behind quantum electronics: National security as a basis for physical research in the United State, 1940-1960,” there has been an ongoing historical debate over precisely how and to what extent military funding affected the course of scientific research and discovery. Forman and others have argued that military funding fundamentally redirected science—particularly physics—toward applied research, and that military technologies predominantly formed the basis for subsequent research even in areas of basic science; ultimately the very culture and ideals of science were colored by extensive collaboration between scientists and military planners. A more traditional view (consistent with that of many of the involved scientists themselves) has been defended by Daniel Kevles, that while military funding provided many new opportunities for scientists and dramatically expanded the scope of physical research, scientists by-and-large retained their intellectual autonomy.

What are some examples of military medical offshoots?: microwave therapies for tumors, ultrasound diagnostics, active prostetics, head mounted endoscopic displays, surgical robots.

Why does military research lead to these bold new medical developments rather than medical research directly? To put it simply, because they can and have to. I have spoken to quite a few venture capitalists while reviewing devices for development and commercialization. Universally they tell me of the enormous costs of development and the fixed time frame to commercialize. Products looking too far in the future or with too high development costs are often simply too much risky business to bet on.

The military is different for better or for worse. First a budget overrun of 500% can be absorbed by the military while it can spell death for a medical start-up. In times of war, there is often no limit to the resources that can be expended to achieve an important goal. A review of the history of medical breakthroughts resulting from wars can be found here. Medicaladvances achieved during the civil war are reviewed here WWI here In addition, the military has a R&D arm that focuses on very long term high risk huge payoff projects– DARPA.

Defense Technology International has a lead article about DARPA and Risky Business Research that no one else will do. As they write about DARPA:

The mission of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is “to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.” Its traditional strength has been its ability as a small, technology seed money agency with an expert technical staff and minimum bureaucratic red tape to respond to emerging military needs and technological opportunities and to independently pursue revolutionary solutions. In fact, to maintain its entrepreneurial atmosphere and flow of high-risk technical ideas, Darpa rotates program managers in and out of the agency, with most of them serving only 4-6 years.

Dr. Anthony J. (“Tony”) Tether, Darpa’s director since 2001 says of the agency:

Darpa’s job is to show that something is technically feasible. It doesn’t mean that people are automatically going to use it, because there are funding and other issues involved. But they can’t say that it can’t be done.

While we’re on the subect- here are some more things coming down the pike from the military courtesy of defensetech.org

Remore control neural activation covered here

Details of this emerged in a heavily-censored document released to Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project under the Freedom if Information Act. Called “Sensory consequence of electromagnetic pulsed emitted by laser induced plasmas,” it described research on activating the nerve cells responsible for sensing unpleasant stimuli: heat, damage, pressure, cold. By selectively stimulating a particular nociceptor, a finely tuned PEP might sensations of say, being burned, frozen or dipped in acid — all without doing the slightest actual harm

While using this to remotely trigger pain or disable an attacker sounds ominous, the same technology could lead to revolutionary pain blocking or anesthetic techniques.

New trauma surgery development is here and remote vehicles as prototypes of implantable rovers here.

Kurzweil: Computers Will Enable People To Live Forever (if the machines let us…)

Posted on December 19, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

graph of exponential rise of human progress over time- and the future?

The inventor, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that in 15 to 30 years, nanobots will roam our blood streams fixing diseased or aging organs, computers will back up our human memories, and conference calls will be replaced by meetings in virtual resorts. Information week reports on Kurzweil’s lecture and conducts a fascinating interview.

Kurzweil told a keynote audience at last week’s SCO6 supercomputing conference his predictions of life after the technological singularity. For those of you not familiar with his work, Ray is not a science fiction writer nor a crazy man–Bill Gates, a robotics director at Carnegie Mellon University, an MIT professor, and a physicist have all endorsed his book. He has received the National Medal of Technology and the Lemelson-MIT prize and is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame

What is the concept of the technological singularity?:

Kurzweil says within a quarter of a century, non-biological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. He predicts that it will then soar past human ability because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge.

Key points of his lecture and the article:

1) people and computers will intermix with nanobots, blood cell-sized robots, that will be integrated into everything from our clothing to our bodies and brains.

2) Think of replacing everyone’s “human body version 1.0″ with nanotech that will repair or replace ailing or aging tissue, he says. Parts will become easily replaceable.

3) “A $1,000 worth of computation in the 2020s will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain,” says Kurzweil, adding that in 25 years we’ll have multiplied our computational power by a billion.

At midnight last night as I lie in bed thinking of this — all I could think of was this was how Cyberdyne and the Matrix machines started.

4) “Fifteen years from now, we’ll have cured cancer and heart disease, or at least rendered them to manageable chronic conditions that aren’t life threatening.

5) We’ll get to the point where we can stop the aging process and stave off death.” (ok I don’t buy that one yet…)

Does mankind’s Progress Follow Moore’s Law: Moore’s Law essentially says that computing power doubles approximately every 18 months. Actuallly human progress follows an exponential curve (each year has 10 times the progess of the past- there is a fantastic discussion of this here)- Kurzweil says he’s simply looking back and measuring the computational progress the human race has made over the last century and then projecting that same line of progress forward into the near future.

You can read more about Kurzweil’s work on trying to make sure we don’t make ourselves extinct or enslaved to the machines in this post about the Lifeboat Foundation where he and I serve on the Scientific Advisory Board..

Brain Control Robot- It’s Alive!

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

The concept of “thought control”- using a brain neural interface to control a robot (or other device) takes another step forward with this research from U Washington.

Rajesh Rao, associate professor of computer science and engineering, and his students have demonstrated that an individual can “order” a robot to move to specific locations and pick up specific objects merely by generating the proper brain waves that reflect the individual’s instructions. The results were presented last week at the Current Trends in Brain-Computer Interfacing meeting in Whistler, B.C.

“This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration,” Rao says. “It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person’s home.”

The controlling individual – in this case a graduate student in Rao’s lab – wears a cap dotted with 32 electrodes. The electrodes pick up brain signals from the scalp based on a technique called electroencephalography. The person watches the robot’s movements on a computer screen via two cameras, one mounted on the robot and another above it.

Right now, the “thought commands” are limited to a few basic instructions. A person can instruct the robot to move forward, choose one of two available objects, pick it up, and bring it to one of two locations. Preliminary results show 94 percent accuracy in choosing the correct object.

I previously wrote about DARPA’s work on Braingate- the implanted neural interface and monkeys controlling robot arms. Both of these projects are precursors to thought controlled prosthetic arms or overcoming neurodegenerative disease(or Doc Oct for those of you focusing on the scarier military side).

This project differs in that it’s a removable cap that uses a “dirty brain signal”- opening up the potential for everyday use including games, industrial uses, and control of surgical tools.

One of the important things about this demonstration is that we’re using a ‘noisy’ brain signal to control the robot,” Rao says. “The technique for picking up brain signals is non-invasive, but that means we can only obtain brain signals indirectly from sensors on the surface of the head, and not where they are generated deep in the brain. As a result, the user can only generate high-level commands such as indicating which object to pick up or which location to go to, and the robot needs to be autonomous enough to be able to execute such commands.”

A link to the original report at psyorg is here including a video of the brain control robot.

Further progress is of course being made also by the gamers as reported here. Several PhD’s I spoke with in the VR development field told me that significant progress is being made in their field now by gamers as much as the basic science researchers. Does not surprise me.

Urban Robot Race

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

“Never underestimate the power of people willing to take on a challenge.”
- Ron Kurjanowicz, Grand Challenge Program Manager,

Urban Challenge Participants Conference, Reston, VA, May 20, 2006

DARPA has granted prize money of $3.5 million for its milestone urban robotics race next November.

The urban road race is an unbelievable challenge.

First a bit of History of the Challenge:

The first Grand Challenge took place in 2004 on a desert course stretching from Barstow, California to Primm, Nevada, but did not produce a finisher. At the second DARPA Grand Challenge, held in 2005, the Stanford Racing Team completed the 212.4 km (132-mile) course in just under 7 hours to win a US$2M prize. The participants raced in the first long distance competition for robot cars in the world

Both the first and second DARPA Grand Challenge competitions advanced the technologies needed to create the first fully autonomous ground vehicles capable of completing a substantial off-road course within a limited time.

The 2007 Urban Challenge: This one will be tough

On May 1, 2006, DARPA announced that there would be a third Grand Challenge race. It will occur on November 3, 2007 at an “undisclosed location in the western U.S.” It will consist of a 60 mile course on primarily paved roads, but this time, the vehicles will have to drive in traffic. They will have to stop at stop signs, look for other vehicles, obey the rules of precedence at intersections, obey traffic laws (don’t cross double yellow center lines), pass other stationary and slow moving cars, back up, park, make a U-turn and plan a new course when the main road is blocked, and take evasive action if a collision with another vehicle is imminent. Sort of makes a 132 mile drive on a closed course in the desert seem like a walk in the park.

Medical Tie- In. For some time I have been speaking about the coming radical transformation of medicine. I have written before about the “fantastic voyage” surgical idea. In this 1966 movie, a submarine and its scientis/doctor team are shrunk down and inected into the body to diagnose and treat a blood clot (they use a laser of course. You can see past posts about rmars rover technology in medicine here, an implantable cardiac robot here and a self-propelled swimming robot here. My podcast that reviews the coming surgical revolution including self-contained miniature robots here.

Makiing a little med rover in the body does not seem so hard compared to the urban challenge or hte mars rover.

Geckos Grabing Gizmos in the OR

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

Living gecko foot photo I took while working on med uses for their sticky pads! Click to see larger

CNN reported today about the invention of synthetic-gecko. DITM- is this just a rubber lizard or an imitation car insurance company? No! You may not be aware, the gecko has a bit of nanotechnology in its tiny little feet.

Geckos are so strange as animals you would think they must come from Australia where all the freaky animals are. For starters, they have no eyelids and lick their eyes clean. Some species are even parthenogenic, the females capable of reproducing without copulating with a male.

Why make a synthetic gecko?: The toes of the gecko are little amazing creations that I have been researching. (this is one of my wonderful invention ideas that someone completed before I got really going with it). You see, their little feet can stick to just about anything – even glass.

How do their foot stickers work?: Each gecko foot has millions of microscopic hairs (called setae) each with a microscopic mushroom shaped cap on the end, less than one-thousandth of a millimeter across called a spatula . This ensures that the gecko’s foot is in very close contact with the surface beneath. The cumulative attractive force, called van der Waals force between hair, mushroom, and surface sticks the little guy down. There are almost 500,000 Setae on each foot, and each of these tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae. If a gecko stuck every single little sticker to a surface at one time it could hold up a 250 lb man.

A at BAE Systems Advanced Technology Center in the UK has finally made a synthetic gecko sticker pad.

Their “Synthetic Gecko” material mimics the microscopic hairs on a gecko’s foot. Its potential as a reusable super-strong adhesive material could be applied across a number of areas. ”As well as the engineering potential of our product we realize there is a huge scope for its commercial and even medical application,” Dr. Jeffery Sargent said.

It’s not the first time that material has been produced that has tried to copy geckos’ climbing feats. Scientists at the University of California discovered the secrets of the lizard’s seemingly gravity-defying ability in 2000 which they syntesized in tiny amounts in 2002.

How it can be used: The first use are superstrong patches. It would be like a velcro patch that could stick to anything with the strength of cement but by pulling ayt an angle could peel off! It would be strong enough to patch a vehicle fusilage (or a heating heart, or the spinal dura, or a vessel, or …..)

“Materials that can change their properties electrically are being developed, that will be used to in the medical world to create things such as synthetic muscles,” Ian Pearson, resident futurist for BT, told CNN. “Creating smart membranes that could regulate the flow of drugs to a patient is another application,” said Pearson. “Synthetic Gecko” could have medical applications as well, for use in skin graft operations, for example.

Not to mention the scores of devices I am thinking of…

Awesome Army Videos-Terminator 2025 Battlefield Surgery Built NOW!

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

If you thought my post on military technology in the operating room was cool you will not believe the next generation videos here. James Bond may have Q but the US military has DARPA. On of their future battlefield medical projects is TraumaPod. These videos from my friend Richard Satava, MD (Professor of Surgery and Program Manager of Advanced Biomedical Technology at the DARPA show the creation of terminator-style future battlefield surgery made real today. Part 1 shows the concept video of how the system will work. Part 2 shows engineering protoype video used to build the system. Part 3 shows the real-live thing working today.

What is Trauma Pod? As Rick wrote of its Heinlein Science Fiction Origins:

Like many revolutionary ideas, science fiction imagines what might be possible and it takes decades for hard science to catch up. Such is the case for Trauma Pod, a new capability and a new challenging research project for pre-hospital or far forward battlefield casualty care. Concepts of Trauma Pod can be traced back to the 1957 science fiction book “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein, in which a self contained casualty “cocoon” was sent automatically from the spaceship directly to the wounded soldier on the battlefield. The casualty was placed inside this cocoon or pod, which was imagined to be a combination intensive care unit (ICU) and operating room (OR), capable of completely rescuing and, if necessary, operating upon a wounded soldier while being returned safely to the spaceship. As fantastic as that might have seemed, we are well over half way there, with systems that are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan (and in clinical trials in select U.S. civilian trauma centers) and future systems to ultimately realize the full potential as so clearly articulated by Heinlein

Part 1 shows the concept video of how the system will work

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Part 2 shows engineering protoype video used to build the system

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Part 3 shows the real-live thing working today

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If you want to read all the details of the Land Warrior System and its potential medical uses read here

Army Axing High-Tech Soldier of Tomorrow- MedTech Losses Predicted

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Steven F. Palter, MD

DefenceTech reports today that the US Army has decided to axe it’s $500 Million (so far) Land Warrior Soldier of the Future program. If this goes through the fallout loss of future medical technology under development will be enormous. many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that trickles down from the military (such as the swallowable gut-cams in a pill) and the first functional robot surgical system.

Here’s the report and the facts:

According to Inside Defense, service financiers have decided to kill off Land Warrior in its 2008 budget. It’s one of a number of high-tech programs slated for big cuts by the Army.

The service got $17 billion less than what it wanted for its 2008 budget from the Pentagon and the White House. “Earlier in October… Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said if the service got less than what it needed in FY-08 it would be forced to slow the modernization of the force,” Inside Defense’s Dan Dupont notes. “In submitting its budget plan to Pentagon leaders last week, the Army contended that budget constraints have forced the service to take what it believes are imprudent risks in the readiness of today’s forces, as well as in its future plans.”

What is the Land Warrior Program? A nice review of the components of Land Warrior can be found here.

Land Warrior integrates small arms with high-tech equipment enabling ground forces to deploy, fight and win on the battlefields of the 21st century. Land Warrior came about in 1991 when an Army study group recommended the service look at the soldier as a complete weapon system. The first priority in Land Warrior is lethality. The second is survivability and the third, command and control. The program will cost $2 billion when 45,000 sets of the equipment are fielded between 2001-2014. The Marine Corps, Air Force and many foreign countries are interested in the system.

Based on recent advances in communications, sensors, and materials, the Land Warrior System integrates commercial, off-the-shelf technologies into a complete soldier system. For the first time, the soldier’s equipment is being designed as if he is an individual, complete weapons platform. Each subsystem and component is designed to and for the soldier. The result: the first integrated soldier fighting system for the dismounted infantryman.

The Components of Land Warrior & The Medical Uses of Each: Land Warrior has several subsystems: the weapon, integrated helmet assembly, protective clothing and individual equipment, computer/radio, and software. Each has enormous medical potentials.

Weapons Subsystem is built around an M-16 but includes electronic opticals (video camera, and the laser rangefinder/digital compass, GPS, nightvision). Medical use: Alternative visualization (the use of non-white light) is a huge area in medical endoscopic surgery development. Read here about the concept of future surgical vision and here and here about using this same exact infrared vision in surgery. The technology to integrate tiny sensors for infrared (ie night vision) into the rifle is the same to integrate it into a surgical telescope. Direct immediate medical application.

Integrated Helmet uses advanced lightweight protection with future materials but also couples the soldier to the digital battlefield. There is an advanced next-generation helmet mounted display (HMD) providing views of computer-generated graphical data, digital maps, intelligence information, troop locations, and the ability to view and control weapons around a corner. By looking with a thermal sight, the soldier will be able to see an area’s characteristics and can see through obscurants. The thermal images will appear on the HMD as can night vision images integrated with the soldier’s sight. Medical Applications: The concept of future vision in surgery and augmented visual system is discussed the paragraph above. An equally important off-shoot of the helmet is a next generation HMD display. HMD’s put tiny screens in your line of sight and add augmented information (beyond what the eye can see) or accessory info. These are being used today in surgery for endoscopy. The system I have used is a direct off-shoot of military HMD’s – except it’s military technology from the 80′s and 90′s. The state of the art surgical system is made by Viking Systems and uses the Kaiser Electro-Optical Military HMD. Today’s sytems suffer from lower resolution, no active head tracking, and weight. The Land Warrior addresses all of these and could go directly into the OR. The ability to overlay additional information such as CT scans,tumor image guidance, vital signs, etc directly uses the same military technology – and several surgical companies I know of are already trying to make this work. Direct immediate medical application.

Protective Clothing – a revolutionary backpack design based on state-of-the-art automotive racing technology which bends with the soldier’s natural body movements. Integrates with new smart body armor. Medical Uses: Again huge potential. Intellegent garments can be used to monitor health conditions (heart patient wears a shirt with built in telemetry) of many body systems. Light weight armor can be used as bmaterials for strong small surgical robots and for next generation prosthetics. All of these are in development today. Direct immediate medical application.

Computer/Radio Control is over a portable radio with miniature flat screen. Allows soldiers to exchange information and videos in real time. Menus are controlled with a remote input device attached to the soldier and activated with a finger touch. Medical Applications: information exchange for alternate visualization and new surgical gesture controls.

Is it a bluff? Haninah commented at defense tech on the Washington Monument Drill

there’s at least a chance that this is what some folks call a Washington Monument Drill. Say the National Parks Service is told they need to cut their budget. They huddle, and come out and announce with a straight face that in light of the cuts, they’ll have to shut down the Washington Monument. The Hill panics, and restores full funding. That’s what the Pentagon did all of a year ago, when they announced that any budget cuts would have to come out of National Guard budget, and sure ’nuff, Congress backed right down. Now, it could be that Land Warrior is the Army’s Washington Monument. Any time there’s an announcement that budget cuts are going to be absorbed by the part of the budget that makes the least sense to cut

On the Flip Side- Does Anyone Know How Much This Thing Costs?: Unfortunately, land Warrior is part of the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) Initiative. This is the roadmap for an unprecedented hi-tech modernization of the Army. What’s new? How about an air force of completely unmanned remote controlled fighters– it’s in the budget! Unfortunately, the entire project is so far over budget it becomes a target for cuts. Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost (yes that’s billion with a b) and some are calling it the biggest military boondoggle ever. Here is a link to the Army’s PR rich review of what the billions will get us complete with photos and videos of what it will look like in action.

Video Update: Here is a link to one of the medtechs coming from FCS- “traumapod”

Update 2: Many comments saying military funding is just wrong or wasteful for medical development. Read here about why the military does what the medical industry won’t