How a hospital blocks a hurricane storm surge; give that robodoctor a hand; lions’ compliance with health care – Morning Medical Update

Does your hospital need one?

Florida continues to deal with effects from Hurricane Milton, which made landfall the evening of Oct. 10 and a day later was heading out into the Atlantic Ocean. Tampa General Hospital was in the thick of the worst weather, but had plans to prevent flooding with an AquaFence barrier erected around the building itself. ABC News has details. (By the way, cleanup continues after Hurricane Helene. Here’s a way to help: Donate to Operation Airdrop, a Texas-based nonprofit that recruits volunteer pilots to fly in supplies to areas where natural disaster makes ground access difficult.)

This illustration was part of a new study, "Toward human-like touch sense via a bioinspired soft finger with self-decoupled bending and force sensing," published in Cell Reports Physical Science in October 2024.

Can’t quite put my finger on it

Robotic fingers are not necessarily new in medicine, but they aren’t ideal either because they lack the sensitivity of human touch. That could change because scientists in China have developed a robotic finger capable of delicate tasks and they are considering how it might help medicine, ranging from early detection of lumps that indicate cancer, to serving in areas that have shortages of medical workers.

From roaring to snoring

Anesthesia is necessary to perform surgery and other medical procedures in human patients, and the same holds true for animals. What happens when the king of the jungle has an ailment? Find out how veterinarians have trained lions to comply with care, including administering knockout drugs needed for doctors to approach big cats. (Free good advice: Do not try this at your local zoo.)