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Snot Spots!Immediate reagent tests for antibiotic resistance in any infection, required to be used on site, at prescription. Ever had a real sinus infection and gone through five rounds of antibiotics to clear it? The common practice is to prescribe the most common (least effective) drug first, and work up in Russian roulette style trial and error. The development of a simple swipe pad that looked for resistance markers would greatly reduce the use of the WRONG drugs, while lowering the spread of disease by treating effectively the First Time. Fewer sick days, fewer broad spectrum exposures, better cures! by: Lissa Probus | Aug 9, 2010
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Emotional & Economic Freedom for Women in Africa.Women in developing countries often use banana leaves instead of sanitary pads. In Kenya, 300,000 girls miss up to 5 days of school a month because they are too embarrassed or uncomfortable to attend. Western brands are too expensive and an environmental disaster as they are not biodegradable. Makapads, invented by Professor Moses Musaazi of Makerere Univesity Uganda, are made from locally sourced sustainable papyrus and recycled paper by communities of women they serve. They are biodegradable and cost 70% less than western brands. Makapads provided emotional and economic freedom for the women and support environmental sustainability. by: Clive Pinder | Aug 18, 2010
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Sense your bodyDevelop a pill that boosts the sensitivity of the part of the brain that feels the body, to become hypersensitive to bodily sensations. This would naturally push people to eat better and exercise more but without excess. As a side effect, if enough people take it, it would change the mix of foods in shops toward more healthy choices for other people. It would also make people more aware of the impact the body has on the mind... fostering a more mindful attitude and improved behavior in other areas of life. by: Nicolas de cordes | Jul 26, 2010
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Indoor Community GardensTransform one foreclosed or repossessed home per neighborhood into a sustainable, eco-friendly garden that's capable of producing enough healthy fruits and vegetables for 50+ households; hydroponics technology would enable year-round growth. Facilities would be powered by a combination of renewable energy sources (eg, geothermal, thin-film solar, piezoelectric) and designed to leverage passive techniques (eg, rainwater harvesting) to minimize maintenance costs and needs, with neighborhoods providing minimal upkeep. Diets from these gardens could curb childhood obesity and avoid cognitive deficits caused by low-cost foods. (The gardens would also help clean the air.) Image via Creative Commons. by: Steven Edwards | Jul 18, 2010
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Piezo-powered (and tasty!) Dental CareImprove oral hygiene (particularly in children) by developing nanoscale, digestible piezoelectric motors. Combined in gum (and other candy) with digestible, AI-driven nanoscale devices that autonomously seek out and degrade plaque, the simple and enjoyable act of chewing candy would paradoxically provide protection from cavities and gum disease. Designs would be released through Creative Commons. (Image per Creative Commons.) by: Steven Edwards | Aug 7, 2010
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Home Sweet Home - Food replicator conceptThere are a million of people hungry right now when you are reading this, so think about: if we could help them without material costs? I believe that will be possible to help more and more people everyday. This is the idea of the Home Sweet Home concept, which scans molecules present in a specific food, reproducing it on your plate at home using elements existing in the air, such as molecules of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. TAKE A LOOK, I BELIEVE THAT IT WILL IMPRESS YOU! by: Bruno Oro | Jul 20, 2010
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 The Recovery ProjectThe Recovery Project would organize people's personal narratives of recovery so that they can be best learned from by others. By letting patients see what others have done and by creating high-level meta-narratives, patients can see the decision trees that others have used, saving time in creating their own from scratch. Sharing and reading similar narratives provides an affective component to possibilities for personal health -- critical when conditions require changes of habit. And experts and practitioners will be able to contribute their stories of helping patients recover, integrating various medical professions' perspectives, instead of creating a divide. by: Michael Nagle | Aug 1, 2010
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Pandemic BusterConsider a mobile app that knows your location at any given time using the built-in GPS. When you encounter someone with flu-like symptoms, you just tap the appropriate symptom button. This submits a 72-hour geomarker for that observation to a central database. With widespread usage, such an app could warn you away from contagious people or potentially contaminated areas, help diagnose a new illness based on your symptoms and tracked exposures, generate an unprecedented volume of epidemiological data, greatly improve influenza tracking, and predict and avert pandemics. Widespread adoption is incentivized by the preventive benefits to participants. by: Pietro Michelucci | Aug 22, 2010
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Neighborhood Level Grey Water RecyclingStrategic placement of simple grey water collectors - along existing sanitary sewer junctions - to manage waste water and return a safe, non-potable water source for irrigation. This could be a pond with sand filters or a filter tank. Where usage and contribution is unequal - a digital meter system could provide credits. Solid waste would be returned as sludge to waste treatment or used for biogas generators for street lights. This would shorten the water cycle, limit demand on community water treatment facilities, and reduce demand for drinking quality water. Additional collectors could be placed to include storm water runoff. by: Lissa Probus | Jul 31, 2010
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The Cure is (Already) Out ThereThe problem isn't finding a cure, it's bringing it to market. Drugs like "DCA" and "GcMAF", can already cure HIV and put common cancers into remission. These claims are supported by peer-reviewed medical research. Why, then, are these treatments not evaluated by the FDA and made available to the public? Answer: these substances are already in the public domain, so pharmaceuticals can't profit from them. The solution is to fix the public policy that motivates this behavior by allowing companies to compete for time-limited, exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the public domain treatments. Win-win. by: Pietro Michelucci | Aug 24, 2010
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