home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Time - Man of the Year
/
Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
/
moy
/
090792
/
09079917.000
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-04-08
|
1KB
|
36 lines
THE WEEK, Page 22HEALTH & SCIENCECan Chaos Save Lives?
An abstract theory could have some very practical consequences
According to the emerging science of chaos theory, many
natural systems that appear utterly random -- tumbling
waterfalls, roiling weather patterns, clusters of earthquakes --
are really governed by underlying mathematical patterns. Now an
experiment reported in Science has shown that understanding chaos
could one day save lives.
The problem in question is cardiac arrhythmia, an
irregular beating of the heart that can be deadly. Some cardiac
arrhythmias bear the telltale signs of chaos. By delivering a
series of precisely timed electrical pulses, four scientists at
UCLA, the College of Wooster in Ohio and the Naval Surface
Warfare Center in Maryland theorized that they might be able to
tame unruly hearts.
It works in the test tube. The four got a piece of
rabbit-heart tissue to beat chaotically and monitored the chaos
with a computer. The computer, programmed with an understanding
of chaotic math, then delivered anti-chaotic pulses. And the
heart tissue's beats became nearly regular. Whether the drug
would work the same way in living humans is another question,
but the researchers predict that "smart pacemakers" might one
day correct cardiac problems that are now largely intractable.