Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Solar Camel-Back Clinic From Mpala Project
The solar-powered camel-back clinic is the result of a joint effort between the Kenyan Mpala Community Trust and the undergraduate engineering department of Princeton University. The centerpiece of the project is an ingenious solar-powered refrigeration system for medications, carried by camels.
(Camel back clinic, with solar powered saddle)
The project serves the health needs of people in two of the poorest and most remote districts in Kenya (laikipia and Samburu). Many of the people who live there are nomadic, making it difficult to provide health care; Samburu has no paved roads at all.
How does integrated mobility work?Vehicles transport supplies to camels, and camels transport supplies to remote areas, where local health staff travel by bicycle and foot between camel camps and communities, providing "door-to-door service." Traditional camel transport is efficient and cost-effective on these trips, which typically last two to three weeks. Other organizations have attempted to deliver services to remote communities in Kenya, but none have succeeded. Vehicles have also been used to deliver health services, but because they have not been integrated with camels and bicycles, these efforts have failed to undertake the final leg of the journey to remote communities.
What does the mobile health clinic technology consist of?
The system Art Center has developed uses a lightweight (4.5kg) 70-watt unisolar multi-junction panel to create the energy needed to cool medicine carried by camels in a 12-volt dc-powered refrigeration unit, with excess power going to a 50-amp-hour sealed lead battery. The multi-junction solar panel is unique and practical for the camel clinic system: it is flexible, lightweight, unbreakable and made of a foldable canvas material.
It is hoped that this system will work in other isolated parts of the world. The backpacks designed for camels could easily be adopted for use by donkeys or horses.
Ha! Just when I despaired of finding an sfnal reference for this cool story, I remembered the giant lizards carrying shield generators in Star Wars:
(Gungan animals carry giant shield generators)
See also this interesting Donkey 'Motorcycle' video if you like animal-technology hybrids.
From Integrated Mobile Health Clinics for Remote Communities in Kenya via Core77.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/6/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.' - Charles Recour, 1949.
Bone-Building Drug Evenity Approved
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...' - Edmond Hamilton, 1932.
BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.' - Alexander Belaev (1925)
Natural Gait With Prosthetic Connected To Nervous System
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...' - Charles Recour, 1949.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
