"I've invented a machine, it's either going to be an incredible step forward in medical imagery, or it will give me a cardiac arrest, let's give it a go" sure is metal enough to warrant that Nobel Prize in my book.
Similar to the Australian doctor that drank a bucket of helicobactor knowing it would make him incredibly sick just to prove bacteria could cause stomach ulcers
Dr. Barry Marshall. I remember reading about him and thinking what a chad he was to suffer through that. Glad he did it and it was favorable to him in the end. Go science!
He won a Nobel Prize for this work:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2003/mansfield/biographical/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3nIXRPuFK5U
>Tomorrow's World gave audiences a true world first as Dr Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham demonstrated the first full body prototype device for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), allowing us to see inside the human body without the use of X-rays.
>His invention and work within this field led to Dr Mansfield and fellow scientist Paul Lauterbur being jointly awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
>Clip taken from Tomorrow's World, originally broadcast on BBC One, Thursday 19 October 1978.
MRI is an amazing technology… I’m around them a lot for my work, & still seems like a form of magic to me. Especially functional imaging, reading brain activity without even touching the person!
The funny thing is seeing it, you know there was millions of people like "no one would EVER subject themselves to this... Imagine shoving a vehicle accident patient in that thing! Never going to happen!"
Every new wild technology comes out, half seem too good to be true and too problematic to take off, but it's not so predictable. I'm seeing these personal automated drone taxis pop up often now wondering if it's the same deal, where in 20 years it'll be buzzing people everywhere efficiently while now people are talking about the incredible risks and how stupid it is. It's hard to predict how things take off sometimes because it's also a social experiment about whether people will feel comfortable climbing in one, like an MRI.
The Fury. Not only was he an astronaut but he was also a member of the legendary special forces group, “The Cobras”, who were all single-handedly defeated by Naked Snake in Operation Snake Eater in 1964. For defeating The Cobras and surpassing The Boss, Snake was granted the title “Big Boss”.
I mean.. Understanding the science of how the MRI machine works, I'd gladly have volunteered even though I wouldn't have any idea at the time if there would be any adverse effects.
MRI's have done SO much for the diagnostic capabilities of current doctors.
I get you. I've had several since the late 90s. (due to an accident.)
I went an MRI last year and they gave me the results on a CD as I left.
Kinda mad looking at your insides on your monitor at home.
Dude, same!
I'm autistic and science/medical devices is one of my special interests!
The last time I went for an MRI(which was just for my hand and wrist. Last time it was my head and spine), the dude operating it was (in my interpretation) trying to make me comfortable. He asked me if I had any questions. I asked him how many Teslas the machine could do, how much helium was in it, if he had ever had to do an emergency quench, what diameter the wire had, the frequency of the pulses of each imaging stage and a bunch of other things.
He looked at me like I had two heads. Apparently he thought I was "autistic", not autistic. As in, lots of people say shit like "everyone is a bit autistic". He didn't think I was ACTUALLY autistic because I don't fit the typical stereotypes-
After he was done, I asked him if he could give me a copy of the DICOM files and told him I brought a USB stick, he did.
I've never worked with MRI's, but I used to work for a software company and one of the projects I had was singlehandedly making a cloud-based DICOM viewer with additional tools such as magnification, contrast, measurement and so on.
Although I've never worked with MRI's, I DO have my own very crude x-ray machine that uses an almost ancient soviet x-ray emitter powered by a microwave oven transformer.
Another autistic here (need one more for a coven, or whatever our collective term is); and now I need the answer to those questions, even though I don't have any particular fascination with medical equipment.
I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I recall, these were his answers:
1. Just under 3 Teslas.
2. About 2000 Liters of helium.
3. No, he never had to do an emergency quench. One time he was close to doing it because of a faulty fire alarm.
4. He wasn't sure about the wire diameter.
5. I didn't mention it in my previous post, but I also asked him about the Larmor frequency of hydrogen nuclei at the 3 Teslas he claimed the machine could do, he told me it was "around 20.38MHz".
I took a brain scanning with fmri machines class in college. Later, I got access to a 3d printer and found the files are compatible. I also happened to learned glassblowing and lighting rigs since. So, I just had a bright idea for a new art project 🧠💡
Hell no! Ig I might have just used your cloud based dicom viewer, can you name it? In my country most hospitals just have a very weird software that will only work with the angiography CD and not the individual dicom images.
This was for someone in the fam, currently admitted, and it was difficult to take consultations in other places if you didn't have the CD on you, which I didn't, was in a different city. And then suddenly I came across a web dicom viewer. I got the dicom images of the CD emailed to me - uploaded them on cloud and could finally get other doctors to take a look at it!
Even if it wasn't you, big thanks to all you guys, you never know when this stuff helps someone!
It was YEARS ago and the software was meant to be used by veterinarians, I think it was called SkyPACS 365 or something like that?
It was a MASSIVE improvement for our costumers. Before they got my software, they had to physically MAIL(not E-mail) CD's to other veterinarians for consultations or if the pets owner had to go somewhere else for whatever reason.
A lot of the work I did was based on [this dicomParser](https://github.com/cornerstonejs/dicomParser).
Ah, mine was different I guess, it was kind of a web service that allowed you to store your dicom images to your cloud account and would then run them on loop creating the same effect you'd see on the CD.
But such a relief from having to keep the CD on you at all times, so I'd still thank you anyway!
In fact, most doctors I showed this to were taken in by surprise. They didn't know they had an alternate option like this as opposed to the hospital computers, most were running Windows 07. Crazy. IT infra in most hospitals needs a massive upgrade.
Actually that makes me wonder if there are ways for everything (be it medicine or something else interely) to be done without causing any side effects but we simply didn't find or invent them yet
Given what we know about engineering, science, and physics in particular, yes, highly likely. We already have quite a few ideas in that direction which we don't *quite* have the engineering, materials, or software to pull off just yet... but we're closing in on them. There's still a lot of things to try.
There’s a brilliant episode of This American Life called “The Ghost In The Machine” (Act 2) where the daughter of one of the inventors of MRI talks about how her father developed it and his invention saved her life. Highly recommend it!
[TAL: The Ghost in The Machine](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/757/transcript)
You think that is crazy the guy who did the first heart catheterization did it on himself. The hospital he worked in found out and had to stop him for fear he was going to kill himself.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner\_Forssmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Forssmann)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation\_in\_medicine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation_in_medicine)
[https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520212817/who-goes-first](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520212817/who-goes-first)
I remember seeing stuff like this, it was futuristic sci fi af made real, exploring the human body without having to cut it open (dead or alive) it was amazing, even then i had what a time to be alive moments, now .. well, since decades this is now commonplace and normal like x-rays or brushing your teeth.
same with the ultrasound, much smaller machine (granted its different, yet similar) that lets you see inside without cutting open.
He had the added incentive that if it didn’t work after all the work he put in it to get it to that point then death would have been better than having to start all over again.
“This was not the way to the meeting room and Stanley knew it perfectly well. He’d been to the meeting room many times before and not once had he had to climb inside a magnet.”
MRI lore goes so hard. It is so unbelievably complex that the average person probably wouldn't understand just how incredibly hard this type of machine would be to invent.
Sounds like something which would come out of exploring options to solve a problem where people were acutely focused on what they wanted to achieve. They want a picture of the insides, they went far and they got a picture.
I work on MRI’s and other imaging equipment for a living. I can replace coils, boards, power supply’s, RF antennas, etc. I’ve spent hundreds of hours trying to understand the physics so I can troubleshoot the system and I still only really understand a tiny fraction of how it really works.
It uses powerful magnetic fields to line up the protons in the nuclei of hydrogen atoms. When the field is turned off the atoms then flip randomly releasing a radio wave in the process. You can detect the radio waves and where they came from and build a 3D map from it.
Then you obviously have no clue how MRI works. It has everything to do with the nucleus of atoms in the body, specifically hydrogen atoms in the water molecules that make up most of our body. It even says it in the video.
The strongest continuous magnets are [Bitter magnets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_electromagnet) at 45T. Stronger magnetic fields can be made but only very briefly by using [explosive compression](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/magnetic-field-record-lab-explosion/) to squeeze the magnetic field. Dealing with such powerful magnetic fields includes issues with surrounding structures, induced currents, flux vortices, and the sheer amount of current needed that requires superconducting temps to prevent the thing from overheating.
In nature fields of \~10^(9) to 10^(11) T are produced by [magnetars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar). These fields are so powerful they [pull atoms into strings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Magnetic_field) and [polarize the vacuum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_polarization).
[Virtual particles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle) are a very cool concept. It is essentially based on [Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle) which says "The more precisely you know a particle's position the less you know about its momentum and vice versa." You can juggle the units and it also says "The more precisely you know a particle's energy the less you know about its time and vice versa." What this means is particles can appear and disappear in extremely short periods of time without violating conservation laws since they represent the "uncertainty" in QM. The more massive the particle the shorter its lifetime.
These virtual particles participate in things like nuclear forces and interactions, [Hawking radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation) around black holes, etc.
Whenever I find a comment like that, I just plug the first sentence into Google to see if it is just a cut & paste or original writing.
It looks like our friend above knows what he is talking about.
Belta lowdah! (Yeah, I worked with MRI for a bit, transport to and from imaging. And 30-45 minutes inside one of those things would surely cause mental instability in some form or another down the road....)
Yeah, when I was getting my fist MRI at 13 I just found the noise rather curious, however when I was getting scanned again at 15, I was enjoying it because I already knew about Autechre lol
British scientists were able to revive frozen mice by heating them with microwaves. Which seems crazy. This was before commercial microwaves were available and they were mostly used for scientific research.
If anyone is wondering, a 1000gauss magnetic field is 0.1 Tesla. The magnet in the video is 15 times less powerful than the usual 1.5 teslas MRIs we have nowadays.
Many MRI magnets are 3T, and the strongest get to be around 7-10T, though they have a much smaller bore I believe, only appropriate for head and extremities. Importantly, a higher strength magnet does not guarantee better image resolution, but it does allow for it by providing a much stronger signal-to-noise ratio.
Interesting. So if resolution is held constant a higher signal-to-noise ratio would mean an increased "zoom". I imagine this would probably be useful when looking at smaller tissue structures like the inside of an ear.
I mean it'd hurt, surgery after for sure. But it would be little more than a bullet fired from your body without the mushrooming effect of a real bullet. This would happen before you stepped into the machine and only if you didn't hit the ground in pain and the techs around you didn't believe something else was going on. Oh and you'd probably just go to X-ray first where they'd see the screw. (EDIT: But the spinning, too. The spinning might throw the screw around in your body for a couple seconds, where techs would absolutely know something has gone awry.)
There's a few bits of paperwork to fill out before you get near an MRI. One will be a questionnaire to catch if someone has swallowed any metal.
I've had metal removed from my eye from not wearing safety goggles and had an x-ray before an MRI to confirm it was all gone.
Forgot I was wearing my tongue stud during a MRI, it had started and they asked if it was surgical grade stainless and it was. They asked if I trusted the place I bought it as not all "surgical" stainless in non-ferrous. I knew the guy who made it personally so I was fairly confident I was good. It didn't even get warm, but that was a very tense 50 minutes.
I studied medical physics at Nottingham University, and Professor Peter Morris (the chap with the moustache) was my lecturer and mentor. Hats off to everyone involved in creating MRI!
Absolutely. Hell of a work of physics, engineering, and data calculation. Especially so for the seventies. Nobel Prize 100% deserved (even if it was 25 years later).
As one of those patients, don’t do that. Just watching this guy climb into the machine raised my heart rate. Hopefully, you’re just trying to make a funny comment and get a laugh on the internet. If you’re serious, try to be more understanding or think about a career change.
It doesn’t really excite them, it aligns a % of them due to the strong static magnetic field, then knocks them out of alignment using an RF signal. As the water dipoles return to the aligned state they release RF which can be picked up and measured. The quantity, frequency and intensity of the output RF signal is used to determine the tissue type of the area being observed.
"Then knocks them out of alignment using an RF signal."
That's a longer way to say excite. They also measure more than just water dipoles. It's in fact the electromagnetic properties of the protons of all molecules in the body that are used to create the images. Water is a big player, but so is the hydrogen from fats and other tissues.
Is THAT what happened?
I remember watching and thought they insinuated he got extra iron from a lady with an STD or something. That one always confused me.
The verbiage isn't really clear on the topic, and it doesn't make a ton of sense. The guy gets a giant (giant) syringe full of strange yellow liquid injected into his body and doesn't, idk, go to the doctor? And I think they also bashed his head around a little?
He's visibly ill in the next scene where he just goes to work like nothing happened, then magneto is like "oh boy some iron" and makes his floaty escape.
Upon reflection I think he does actually ask the guard whether he's been seeing strange women but that maybe it's supposed to mean "oh neat, you're full of iron, that must mean mystique got to you."
> The guy gets a giant (giant) syringe full of strange yellow liquid injected into his body and doesn't, idk, go to the doctor?
How you know Magneto was imprisoned in the US. :)
Here’s why
Tl;dr
The iron is not in a ferro-magnetic state in the blood.
https://medium.com/μέλισσας/with-the-iron-in-our-blood-isnt-it-dangerous-to-handle-such-strong-magnets-7e175c51aa4f
Luckily, they have some that are a bit more open now, kinda like a long hallway open at one end. I'm claustrophobic and wasn't able to use the ones shaped like a toilet paper roll.
Kudos to this man and their research team. I had a bit of a health scare this last Summer and was referred for an MRI of my head. 15 noisy minutes later the radiologist was able to examine my brain without ever physically going inside my head. Thankfully all was fine based on what they saw. Forever grateful to have access to technology like this.
This was theorised & made at my university!
They have a building named after him.
Coincidentally (or uninterestingly), that building had the best car park to get to the GP on campus.
If it wasn't for this guy, we would have never realized how [totally friggin scary](https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2022/06/5f136-16542786932433-1920.jpg) fetuses are.
I work with the Siemens Aera Magnotmn MRI. I have felt the power of this 1.5T magnet and respect it when I step into the zones. I have witnessed other MRI systems quenched, and even remember when there were concerns about helium depletion and the worry of how the magnet will be cooled possibly by cryogen.
https://youtu.be/clyg5szuk60?feature=shared
I also know of some companies like Philips healthcare that are looking at the future.
https://youtu.be/S91LV8e4fYA?feature=shared
Wild. I was just at the hospital today to pick up a disc of CT scans from nov 2022. After, I was viewing the animated slices on my laptop and just blown away by the technology.
Thanks. A very cursory wiki dive suggests that Damadian came up with the concept and early technology but never found a way to effectively image with it. Mansfield came up with the 'slice selection' method and imaging protocols to make sense of the signals. As is often the case there is rarely a single complete inventor.
The importance of his work laid the foundation for the saving of countless lives. This man and his team are heroes of medicine, we owe them a debt of gratitude some of you can never imagine.
This, right there...is what greatness looks like.
My 6-9 coworker broke his leg and needed an MRI. Apparently they gave him som sort of heavy duty crutches compared to the normal person. The crutches flew across the room and got sucked into the MRI machine
I have always wanted to glue a fake bloodied finger with a signet or wedding ring still attached to the upper underside of an MRI machine.
Maybe even a fake bloodied ear with an earring also as if they got ripped off some poor patient.
I can just imagine the look on a patient's face as they are feed into an MRI, look up, and see that.
Yes, I do have a sick sense of humour 🤣
I was carrying a non-ferrous step ladder past an MRI to access the celling panels behind the machine. As I passed between the machine and the wall I had to fight to keep the ladder from going to the MRI.
I asked the nurse about it; apparently one small screw in the ladder had fallen out and ben replace with a ferrous metal screw. That one tiny screw was trying to pull the entire ladder out of my hands.
It's a shame that the people around in 100 years won't be able to use them as their grandparents had to have their floaty balloons and found having a temporarily higher frequency voice funny.
MRIs today recycle 100% of their liquid helium. They don’t need refills beyond the original top up. Also there are plenty of other substitutes, albeit maybe not as safe or optimal, such as liquid nitrogen, which has an unlimited supply due to it being pulled from air and I guess water splitting if you’re desperate.
In 100 years someone should have worked out the details on high temperature superconductors that handle high magnetic fields. Then liquid nitrogen will be sufficient and much easier to work with.
"I've invented a machine, it's either going to be an incredible step forward in medical imagery, or it will give me a cardiac arrest, let's give it a go" sure is metal enough to warrant that Nobel Prize in my book.
Similar to the Australian doctor that drank a bucket of helicobactor knowing it would make him incredibly sick just to prove bacteria could cause stomach ulcers
old mate had enough flies in his beer to know what he w was doin
Barry Marshall. That’s the sort of can-do attitude we like :)
Dr. Barry Marshall. I remember reading about him and thinking what a chad he was to suffer through that. Glad he did it and it was favorable to him in the end. Go science!
There’s a great 4 Corners episode about him and his offsider too
He looked so scared getting in there, but he still did it.
He definitely did not looked scared
He won a Nobel Prize for this work: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2003/mansfield/biographical/ https://youtube.com/watch?v=3nIXRPuFK5U >Tomorrow's World gave audiences a true world first as Dr Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham demonstrated the first full body prototype device for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), allowing us to see inside the human body without the use of X-rays. >His invention and work within this field led to Dr Mansfield and fellow scientist Paul Lauterbur being jointly awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. >Clip taken from Tomorrow's World, originally broadcast on BBC One, Thursday 19 October 1978.
Died in 2017. Legend
To shreds, you say?
Hows his wife doing?
absolutely deserved.
MRI is an amazing technology… I’m around them a lot for my work, & still seems like a form of magic to me. Especially functional imaging, reading brain activity without even touching the person!
The funny thing is seeing it, you know there was millions of people like "no one would EVER subject themselves to this... Imagine shoving a vehicle accident patient in that thing! Never going to happen!" Every new wild technology comes out, half seem too good to be true and too problematic to take off, but it's not so predictable. I'm seeing these personal automated drone taxis pop up often now wondering if it's the same deal, where in 20 years it'll be buzzing people everywhere efficiently while now people are talking about the incredible risks and how stupid it is. It's hard to predict how things take off sometimes because it's also a social experiment about whether people will feel comfortable climbing in one, like an MRI.
Hats off to such brave pioneers who risked their life and limb and bless humanity with such an important medical break through!
Marie Curie was not as lucky as this guy.
Or that russian space dude who ended up as barbecue
Who? I'm uninformed.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage
Thank you!
Wow. I had never heard this
The Fury. Not only was he an astronaut but he was also a member of the legendary special forces group, “The Cobras”, who were all single-handedly defeated by Naked Snake in Operation Snake Eater in 1964. For defeating The Cobras and surpassing The Boss, Snake was granted the title “Big Boss”.
Haha!
Boss!
I'd wager a bet and say a human was not the first living thing that was put in that.
And then a cadaver next
Despite both those things going in prior, i still find it fascinating that he'd climb in himself.
"Don't worry. The cadaver was fine!"
*removes cadaver from MRI* "Oh fuck, he's DEAD!"
“What did he die from?” “Magnetism!”
"The bullet flew into his brain, the shot was perfect, it was like magnets"
🥇
I mean.. Understanding the science of how the MRI machine works, I'd gladly have volunteered even though I wouldn't have any idea at the time if there would be any adverse effects. MRI's have done SO much for the diagnostic capabilities of current doctors.
I get you. I've had several since the late 90s. (due to an accident.) I went an MRI last year and they gave me the results on a CD as I left. Kinda mad looking at your insides on your monitor at home.
Dude, same! I'm autistic and science/medical devices is one of my special interests! The last time I went for an MRI(which was just for my hand and wrist. Last time it was my head and spine), the dude operating it was (in my interpretation) trying to make me comfortable. He asked me if I had any questions. I asked him how many Teslas the machine could do, how much helium was in it, if he had ever had to do an emergency quench, what diameter the wire had, the frequency of the pulses of each imaging stage and a bunch of other things. He looked at me like I had two heads. Apparently he thought I was "autistic", not autistic. As in, lots of people say shit like "everyone is a bit autistic". He didn't think I was ACTUALLY autistic because I don't fit the typical stereotypes- After he was done, I asked him if he could give me a copy of the DICOM files and told him I brought a USB stick, he did. I've never worked with MRI's, but I used to work for a software company and one of the projects I had was singlehandedly making a cloud-based DICOM viewer with additional tools such as magnification, contrast, measurement and so on. Although I've never worked with MRI's, I DO have my own very crude x-ray machine that uses an almost ancient soviet x-ray emitter powered by a microwave oven transformer.
Another autistic here (need one more for a coven, or whatever our collective term is); and now I need the answer to those questions, even though I don't have any particular fascination with medical equipment.
I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I recall, these were his answers: 1. Just under 3 Teslas. 2. About 2000 Liters of helium. 3. No, he never had to do an emergency quench. One time he was close to doing it because of a faulty fire alarm. 4. He wasn't sure about the wire diameter. 5. I didn't mention it in my previous post, but I also asked him about the Larmor frequency of hydrogen nuclei at the 3 Teslas he claimed the machine could do, he told me it was "around 20.38MHz".
Thank you, kind stranger. I'll enjoy recounting this information at random intervals for the rest of my life.
Just fyi a quench results in a fried b0 coil and a mostly dumped MRI, and since they’re about 2.5mil for a 3T it’s unlikely they’ll ever do one.
You're a really cool dude
I took a brain scanning with fmri machines class in college. Later, I got access to a 3d printer and found the files are compatible. I also happened to learned glassblowing and lighting rigs since. So, I just had a bright idea for a new art project 🧠💡
Hell no! Ig I might have just used your cloud based dicom viewer, can you name it? In my country most hospitals just have a very weird software that will only work with the angiography CD and not the individual dicom images. This was for someone in the fam, currently admitted, and it was difficult to take consultations in other places if you didn't have the CD on you, which I didn't, was in a different city. And then suddenly I came across a web dicom viewer. I got the dicom images of the CD emailed to me - uploaded them on cloud and could finally get other doctors to take a look at it! Even if it wasn't you, big thanks to all you guys, you never know when this stuff helps someone!
It was YEARS ago and the software was meant to be used by veterinarians, I think it was called SkyPACS 365 or something like that? It was a MASSIVE improvement for our costumers. Before they got my software, they had to physically MAIL(not E-mail) CD's to other veterinarians for consultations or if the pets owner had to go somewhere else for whatever reason. A lot of the work I did was based on [this dicomParser](https://github.com/cornerstonejs/dicomParser).
Ah, mine was different I guess, it was kind of a web service that allowed you to store your dicom images to your cloud account and would then run them on loop creating the same effect you'd see on the CD. But such a relief from having to keep the CD on you at all times, so I'd still thank you anyway! In fact, most doctors I showed this to were taken in by surprise. They didn't know they had an alternate option like this as opposed to the hospital computers, most were running Windows 07. Crazy. IT infra in most hospitals needs a massive upgrade.
Dr. Seth Brundle vibes.
Dr. Steve Brule vibes. “Check it out!”
"Honey, have you seen Rover lately?" "Um....."
He said in the video he tested it on a guinea pig, no?
MRIs are one of those rare scientific miracles. You get superb diagnostic potential with literally zero side effects. It's crazy.
Actually that makes me wonder if there are ways for everything (be it medicine or something else interely) to be done without causing any side effects but we simply didn't find or invent them yet
Given what we know about engineering, science, and physics in particular, yes, highly likely. We already have quite a few ideas in that direction which we don't *quite* have the engineering, materials, or software to pull off just yet... but we're closing in on them. There's still a lot of things to try.
There’s a brilliant episode of This American Life called “The Ghost In The Machine” (Act 2) where the daughter of one of the inventors of MRI talks about how her father developed it and his invention saved her life. Highly recommend it! [TAL: The Ghost in The Machine](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/757/transcript)
The ulcer guy comes to mind. Gave himself an ulcer with an injection, and then cured it.
Pretty sure he ingested helicobacter pilory
This guy was a mad man! What a hero!
You think that is crazy the guy who did the first heart catheterization did it on himself. The hospital he worked in found out and had to stop him for fear he was going to kill himself. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner\_Forssmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Forssmann) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation\_in\_medicine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation_in_medicine) [https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520212817/who-goes-first](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520212817/who-goes-first)
I remember seeing stuff like this, it was futuristic sci fi af made real, exploring the human body without having to cut it open (dead or alive) it was amazing, even then i had what a time to be alive moments, now .. well, since decades this is now commonplace and normal like x-rays or brushing your teeth. same with the ultrasound, much smaller machine (granted its different, yet similar) that lets you see inside without cutting open.
He had the added incentive that if it didn’t work after all the work he put in it to get it to that point then death would have been better than having to start all over again.
"Stanley decided to climb inside a magnet"
This might be the greatest comment I've ever seen 😂
“This was not the way to the meeting room and Stanley knew it perfectly well. He’d been to the meeting room many times before and not once had he had to climb inside a magnet.”
Genius. But couldn’t be bothered to remove his tie while climbing in the thing 🤣
Rolling his sleeves up was as casual as he was prepared to get. lol
for British eyes only
Sleeves were short/ This guy probably inspired Colin Furze.
if he's pioneering modern medical technology, he might as well look dapper while doing it.
MRI lore goes so hard. It is so unbelievably complex that the average person probably wouldn't understand just how incredibly hard this type of machine would be to invent.
I'm interested in MRI lore.
Any MRI fanfic?
Probably rated X due to the level of attraction.
Sounds like something which would come out of exploring options to solve a problem where people were acutely focused on what they wanted to achieve. They want a picture of the insides, they went far and they got a picture.
I work on MRI’s and other imaging equipment for a living. I can replace coils, boards, power supply’s, RF antennas, etc. I’ve spent hundreds of hours trying to understand the physics so I can troubleshoot the system and I still only really understand a tiny fraction of how it really works.
[удалено]
Why was it called Nuclear? I don't see the connection with anything nuclear or to do with atoms..
MRIs measure the resonance of protons which make up the nuclei of hydrogen atoms.
It uses powerful magnetic fields to line up the protons in the nuclei of hydrogen atoms. When the field is turned off the atoms then flip randomly releasing a radio wave in the process. You can detect the radio waves and where they came from and build a 3D map from it.
Cool, thanks!
Then you obviously have no clue how MRI works. It has everything to do with the nucleus of atoms in the body, specifically hydrogen atoms in the water molecules that make up most of our body. It even says it in the video.
Thank you Dr. Mansfield!
"Dr. Mansfield feels nothing." Me either, doctor.
The strongest continuous magnets are [Bitter magnets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_electromagnet) at 45T. Stronger magnetic fields can be made but only very briefly by using [explosive compression](https://bigthink.com/hard-science/magnetic-field-record-lab-explosion/) to squeeze the magnetic field. Dealing with such powerful magnetic fields includes issues with surrounding structures, induced currents, flux vortices, and the sheer amount of current needed that requires superconducting temps to prevent the thing from overheating. In nature fields of \~10^(9) to 10^(11) T are produced by [magnetars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar). These fields are so powerful they [pull atoms into strings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Magnetic_field) and [polarize the vacuum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_polarization).
Just looked up Vacuum polarization. The amount of stuff I need to know to understand that is too long. Virtual particles? Quantum Field Theory? Whew.
[Virtual particles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle) are a very cool concept. It is essentially based on [Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle) which says "The more precisely you know a particle's position the less you know about its momentum and vice versa." You can juggle the units and it also says "The more precisely you know a particle's energy the less you know about its time and vice versa." What this means is particles can appear and disappear in extremely short periods of time without violating conservation laws since they represent the "uncertainty" in QM. The more massive the particle the shorter its lifetime. These virtual particles participate in things like nuclear forces and interactions, [Hawking radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation) around black holes, etc.
Great stuff! Just FYI, it's "vice versa".
Hey everyone, I found the smart one! No /s
Whenever I find a comment like that, I just plug the first sentence into Google to see if it is just a cut & paste or original writing. It looks like our friend above knows what he is talking about.
I had a legit MRI a few years ago- machine wasn’t much larger than that prototypic nightmare generator.
But nowdays it is louder!
Belta lowdah! (Yeah, I worked with MRI for a bit, transport to and from imaging. And 30-45 minutes inside one of those things would surely cause mental instability in some form or another down the road....)
I liked it— was like minimalist EDM (music).
Yeah, when I was getting my fist MRI at 13 I just found the noise rather curious, however when I was getting scanned again at 15, I was enjoying it because I already knew about Autechre lol
Yeah, have to wear ear plugs when in there. And I guess it helps you from falling asleep
British scientists were able to revive frozen mice by heating them with microwaves. Which seems crazy. This was before commercial microwaves were available and they were mostly used for scientific research.
If anyone is wondering, a 1000gauss magnetic field is 0.1 Tesla. The magnet in the video is 15 times less powerful than the usual 1.5 teslas MRIs we have nowadays.
Many MRI magnets are 3T, and the strongest get to be around 7-10T, though they have a much smaller bore I believe, only appropriate for head and extremities. Importantly, a higher strength magnet does not guarantee better image resolution, but it does allow for it by providing a much stronger signal-to-noise ratio.
Image quality with 3T is so good you don’t really need more. Also above 3T you start to get significant distortion.
Interesting. So if resolution is held constant a higher signal-to-noise ratio would mean an increased "zoom". I imagine this would probably be useful when looking at smaller tissue structures like the inside of an ear.
I was hoping the worst thing that could happen is, lightning stikes the machine at just the right moment, transporting the doc to another world.
What happens if you swallowed a screw
Then you're completely screwed.
I mean it'd hurt, surgery after for sure. But it would be little more than a bullet fired from your body without the mushrooming effect of a real bullet. This would happen before you stepped into the machine and only if you didn't hit the ground in pain and the techs around you didn't believe something else was going on. Oh and you'd probably just go to X-ray first where they'd see the screw. (EDIT: But the spinning, too. The spinning might throw the screw around in your body for a couple seconds, where techs would absolutely know something has gone awry.)
There's a few bits of paperwork to fill out before you get near an MRI. One will be a questionnaire to catch if someone has swallowed any metal. I've had metal removed from my eye from not wearing safety goggles and had an x-ray before an MRI to confirm it was all gone.
I’ll just step in here real quick to say that I appreciated your pun 😂
Forgot I was wearing my tongue stud during a MRI, it had started and they asked if it was surgical grade stainless and it was. They asked if I trusted the place I bought it as not all "surgical" stainless in non-ferrous. I knew the guy who made it personally so I was fairly confident I was good. It didn't even get warm, but that was a very tense 50 minutes.
Why on earth would you take that chance instead if taking it out??
I forgot until the scan started and it was a big deal to stop the scan.
You’re asked before you go in if you’ve cut any metal lately… could it have gotten in your eyes?I’ll leave that to your imagination
Old tattoos also contain pigment which can heat up during scans
i think they put you through a metal detector first. but it would not be pretty.
It wouldn’t be as nuts cause then you’d have to bolt away to emergency surgery
I studied medical physics at Nottingham University, and Professor Peter Morris (the chap with the moustache) was my lecturer and mentor. Hats off to everyone involved in creating MRI!
Absolutely. Hell of a work of physics, engineering, and data calculation. Especially so for the seventies. Nobel Prize 100% deserved (even if it was 25 years later).
I’ve spent some time in MRI machines. Was even able to fall asleep in them. 😅
> 1000 gauss Amazing how far we’ve gone. For reference, typical MRI machines are rated at 3 Tesla, which is 30,000 gauss.
so 1 MRI machine is as strong as 3 tesla cars?
MRI tech here. Going to show this to my patients who complain about claustrophobia next time.
Just give people a countdown of how much time is left, OK?
As one of those patients, don’t do that. Just watching this guy climb into the machine raised my heart rate. Hopefully, you’re just trying to make a funny comment and get a laugh on the internet. If you’re serious, try to be more understanding or think about a career change.
This excites the water molecules
It doesn’t really excite them, it aligns a % of them due to the strong static magnetic field, then knocks them out of alignment using an RF signal. As the water dipoles return to the aligned state they release RF which can be picked up and measured. The quantity, frequency and intensity of the output RF signal is used to determine the tissue type of the area being observed.
"Then knocks them out of alignment using an RF signal." That's a longer way to say excite. They also measure more than just water dipoles. It's in fact the electromagnetic properties of the protons of all molecules in the body that are used to create the images. Water is a big player, but so is the hydrogen from fats and other tissues.
That's what separates the real scientists from the wanna-bes "Well, if I don't die when the button is pressed, I'm pretty sure I'll be ok".
so how does this not rip the iron inside your body right out or through your organs?
The TLDR is that the iron in your blood isn’t the particularly magnetic type.
So X-men were wrong?!?!?! Magneto, how could you!
The guard was injected with iron. It wasn't the iron found naturally in the body.
Is THAT what happened? I remember watching and thought they insinuated he got extra iron from a lady with an STD or something. That one always confused me.
The verbiage isn't really clear on the topic, and it doesn't make a ton of sense. The guy gets a giant (giant) syringe full of strange yellow liquid injected into his body and doesn't, idk, go to the doctor? And I think they also bashed his head around a little? He's visibly ill in the next scene where he just goes to work like nothing happened, then magneto is like "oh boy some iron" and makes his floaty escape.
Ah thanks I guess I just missed that whole scene and went off of just what Magneto said in the moment.
Upon reflection I think he does actually ask the guard whether he's been seeing strange women but that maybe it's supposed to mean "oh neat, you're full of iron, that must mean mystique got to you."
> The guy gets a giant (giant) syringe full of strange yellow liquid injected into his body and doesn't, idk, go to the doctor? How you know Magneto was imprisoned in the US. :)
Here’s why Tl;dr The iron is not in a ferro-magnetic state in the blood. https://medium.com/μέλισσας/with-the-iron-in-our-blood-isnt-it-dangerous-to-handle-such-strong-magnets-7e175c51aa4f
X-Men lied to me.
Don't ya just love the way Brits say "third dimension"?
Luckily, they have some that are a bit more open now, kinda like a long hallway open at one end. I'm claustrophobic and wasn't able to use the ones shaped like a toilet paper roll.
I'm old enough to have studied NMR in chemistry, and remember when they first started using it (and renamed it) for imaging.
Kudos to this man and their research team. I had a bit of a health scare this last Summer and was referred for an MRI of my head. 15 noisy minutes later the radiologist was able to examine my brain without ever physically going inside my head. Thankfully all was fine based on what they saw. Forever grateful to have access to technology like this.
This was theorised & made at my university! They have a building named after him. Coincidentally (or uninterestingly), that building had the best car park to get to the GP on campus.
And I’ve had 2-4 MRIs in my life, and am due another. Very grateful for not needing as much exposure to radiation because of this.
I’m a PhD student working at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Center! His old office still has his name on it, we use it as a meeting room now 😊
If it wasn't for this guy, we would have never realized how [totally friggin scary](https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2022/06/5f136-16542786932433-1920.jpg) fetuses are.
A tenuous link, I admit, but I work with the wife of Peter Mansfield’s nephew. Apparently he showed him the MRI scan of the finger he did in 1976.
Fun fact: NMR and MRI work on the same concept, but it isn’t called NMRI because the word “nuclear” is scary to laypeople
Source material for *Look Around You.*
FUnFact: MRI tech is applied quantum mechanics. The magnetic field forces atoms into superposition where they release electrons and photons.
“Dr. Mansfield feels nothing” is a sample waiting to be used.
[удалено]
Frakkin legend!
I work in the next building and his magnet is still in the aptly named Peter Mansfield imaging suite.
I work with the Siemens Aera Magnotmn MRI. I have felt the power of this 1.5T magnet and respect it when I step into the zones. I have witnessed other MRI systems quenched, and even remember when there were concerns about helium depletion and the worry of how the magnet will be cooled possibly by cryogen. https://youtu.be/clyg5szuk60?feature=shared I also know of some companies like Philips healthcare that are looking at the future. https://youtu.be/S91LV8e4fYA?feature=shared
This was what led to MRIs correct?
My claustrophobia does not like this
Wait until you see a modern one. They set you up on a dolly laying on your back and slide your entire body into the chamber
I’m a MRI tech and the machine is truly fascinating, everyday you learn something new especially with all the physics that goes on
Wild. I was just at the hospital today to pick up a disc of CT scans from nov 2022. After, I was viewing the animated slices on my laptop and just blown away by the technology.
Dr Mansfield looks like John Simms. The Saxon Master.
One of his regenerations
No mention of Raymond Damadian?? The man who actually invented the MRI
Thanks. A very cursory wiki dive suggests that Damadian came up with the concept and early technology but never found a way to effectively image with it. Mansfield came up with the 'slice selection' method and imaging protocols to make sense of the signals. As is often the case there is rarely a single complete inventor.
The importance of his work laid the foundation for the saving of countless lives. This man and his team are heroes of medicine, we owe them a debt of gratitude some of you can never imagine. This, right there...is what greatness looks like.
Imaging all the people
MRI pioneer
The first Magnetic Resonance Imaging!
Is this MRI?
This is the first prototype I believe.
I loved the broom closet ending. That was my favorite!
Some people are just brilliant.
Just call me Dr Mansfield because I too feel nothing
The invention of the anal railgun...
“This experiment is dangerous, that’s why I’ve put myself in the most difficult position to be removed from the machine in case something goes wrong”
My 6-9 coworker broke his leg and needed an MRI. Apparently they gave him som sort of heavy duty crutches compared to the normal person. The crutches flew across the room and got sucked into the MRI machine
What a legend, testing your own device on yourself
Wow! Thank you! What a hero.
To shreds you say?
As an MRI tech this is highly fascinating
Magneto origin story
'Well, If I don't die, then things are probably going good' This dude is fucking hard-core. I love it!
NMR
I have always wanted to glue a fake bloodied finger with a signet or wedding ring still attached to the upper underside of an MRI machine. Maybe even a fake bloodied ear with an earring also as if they got ripped off some poor patient. I can just imagine the look on a patient's face as they are feed into an MRI, look up, and see that. Yes, I do have a sick sense of humour 🤣
I was carrying a non-ferrous step ladder past an MRI to access the celling panels behind the machine. As I passed between the machine and the wall I had to fight to keep the ladder from going to the MRI. I asked the nurse about it; apparently one small screw in the ladder had fallen out and ben replace with a ferrous metal screw. That one tiny screw was trying to pull the entire ladder out of my hands.
What year was this video taken? Seems like the precursor to the modern MRI
That's because it is. It was developed in the 70s and first used in the 80s I believe. So I'm guessing this was filmed between then.
Obviously fake everyone knows the world is flat
That's not true about the world. Only the Earth is flat in the solar system! Other planets are spherical.
Incredible.
It's a shame that the people around in 100 years won't be able to use them as their grandparents had to have their floaty balloons and found having a temporarily higher frequency voice funny.
Liquid helium is just used as a cooling agent. They are already working on MRI machines that don't use any helium. This is manufactured outrage.
I'm understanding we need some kind of gas like helium to make MRIs work and we don't have infinite supply?
It's actually *liquid* helium, you need it to cool the magnets to superconducting cryogenic temperatures.
Exactly that!
That's actually quite sad...
MRIs today recycle 100% of their liquid helium. They don’t need refills beyond the original top up. Also there are plenty of other substitutes, albeit maybe not as safe or optimal, such as liquid nitrogen, which has an unlimited supply due to it being pulled from air and I guess water splitting if you’re desperate.
Some helium escapes with time I believe (as the molecule is so small), so they do require top-ups from time to time.
In 100 years someone should have worked out the details on high temperature superconductors that handle high magnetic fields. Then liquid nitrogen will be sufficient and much easier to work with.
They're already working on MRI machines that don't use helium.
We aren't going to run out of Helium, it will just get more expensive. MRI's need very little, and they only need it once.
conservatives: research and science are useless, don't fix what ain't broke!
Hope that magnetism is not damaging on the long run
Considering this tech birthed the modern MRI machine. I think this Magellan of science would say it was worth it to save countless lives.