The Innovative Robotic Heart Sleeve – MedKit


The 3 subjects on today’s Medkit are:

  • Why humans cry their eyes out 
  • The innovative robotic heart sleeve
  • Grandma’s ear coning remedy for ear pain.

Why do humans cry?

Fun fact, humans are the only creatures on earth that cry emotional tears. Every other animal has a physical reason behind it. Now, emotional tears are produced in response to strong feelings such as sadness, anger, pleasure, and of course physical pain.

They basically signal the fact that you are currently facing a situation that is way beyond your ability to handle. Another school of thought argues that emotional tears signal submission and vulnerability, thus an adequate tool to gain attention or affection and even to ward off attacks.

Emotional tears are also chemically different from the other types, they carry more protein and even contain a natural painkiller. This particularity could be responsible for that feeling of relief that some people feel after a good crying session.


The Robotic Heart Sleeve

A team of biomedical clinicians and engineers from Harvard has designed and tested a soft robotic sleeve that compresses and twists the heart in the same way that healthy muscle tissue would.

The robotic sleeve is made exclusively from biocompatible and non-rigid materials.  The groundbreaking robotic heart sleeve coats the exterior of the heart; inflating and deflating, essentially mimicking the normal heart muscle activity and helping it pump blood throughout the body.

robotic heart sleeve

Now the robotic sleeve is powered by air. The thin robotic silicone sleeve is attached to a pump that inflates and deflates the artificial muscle. And since it coats the exterior of the heart, it has no need for anticoagulants and it also minimizes the risk for infections.


So far the team has only been able to test the heart sleeve on pigs with heart failure and cardiac arrest. Yet, the robotic heart sleeve was able to restore the heart to a whooping 97% of its original cardiac output.

The implications could be enormous for human care and longevity.


Grandma’s Remedies: Ear Coning

Ear coning is one of the most popular and wide-spread folk remedy for curing pain. It involves placing a cone-shaped device in the ear canal and supposedly creating a sort of low-level warm vacuum that will suck out wax and other debris from your ear canal using smoke.

While many people today swear by the effectiveness of ear coning, the science does not back it up. Wax is sticky. In order to force wax out of your ear you would need to create powerful negative pressure that would end up rupturing your eardrum in the process.

There is absolutely no vacuum created by smoke and smoke does not have any pain relieving properties. If people have felt relief using this method it was most likely due to a mixture of placebo and time heals all things.

Author’s Note

If you enjoyed today’s Medkit like but missed the previous one, you can find it here : Lief smart patch:Ultimate stress management – MedKit

Also, let us know of any crazy or weird folk remedies from your part of the world and we will test them out!

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  1. To be honest, I feel for the guy. I would’ve gone like “NOW YOU TELL ME ????”, after listening to your charming, sarcastic Explanation on how it does nothing at all for you.
    Enjoyed watching it though, since it -wasn’t- me.

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