Virtual Medicine

Virtual Medicine
Photograph by Cary Wolinsky


This virtual rat imaged on a screen began with a CT scan of the real animal. The scan was fed into a computer, which generated imagery of the animal complete with organs and blood vessels. The image, created at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is three-dimensional when viewed through the proper glasses and can be rotated, enlarged, reduced, and even dissected so a viewer can get a cross-sectional view of the heart or a kidney. Astronauts preparing to study rats on the space station will practice on the virtual rat, taking virtual blood and doing virtual biopsies. En route to Mars someday, astronauts could have their virtual bodies stored in a computer. In the event of an emergency such as appendicitis, the victim’s imagery would be projected while a computer coaches an astronaut through a virtual appendectomy. Then everyone would hold their breath for the real thing.