SUPERSONIC BUSINESS JET GETS A NEW ENGINE
On Monday, GE unveiled Affinity, a new family of engines for civilian supersonic jets. The first plane getting them will be the Aerion AS2, a supersonic business jet that’s being developed by the aerospace company Aerion Supersonic in partnership with Lockheed Martin, GE Aviation and Honeywell.
Up to speed: The AS2 is designed to cut transatlantic flights by three hours and trans-Pacific flights by five hours. The plane’s engines will come with next-generation digital diagnostics and controls, which, in combination with the plane’s design, will enable efficient subsonic flight over land and supersonic flight over water. Aerion aims to fly the AS2 in 2023 and complete the certification process in 2025.
Read more about the supersonic jet here.
SAFE SURGERY 2020 PARTNERSHIP COMES TO SOUTHEAST ASIA
Safe Surgery 2020 is a partnership between nonprofits, educational institutions and local governments focused on making essential and emergency surgical care available across the world. The organization, funded in part by the GE Foundation, has trained more than 1,200 surgical workers across Tanzania and Ethiopia to perform safer operations and save lives in the process. Now, Safe Surgery 2020 is going to Southeast Asia, starting in Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
Lifesaving lessons: The program’s core idea is to “train trainers,” who can pass on better surgical practices to other medical professionals throughout the region. Training is a crucial way to avoid medical mistakes that can lead to injury or even death. Solutions can be as straightforward as training clinical staff to record the number of surgical instruments before and after an operation. In Cambodia, Safe Surgery 2020 will benefit from the GE Foundation’s existing decade-long presence in the country. The foundation has already provided $13 million in medical equipment and training for more than 40 hospitals.
Read more about Safe Surgery 2020 here.
MAN AND MACHINE WORK TO DIAGNOSE DISEASE
Artificial intelligence can review thousands of medical images — and the billions of pixels within them — to find patterns no human could spot. The patterns could point to the presence of a disease or how the disease might respond to a treatment. The goal of this technology isn’t to replace doctors, but to extend their expertise, make them more efficient and help them handle complicated cases.
Doctor data: AI has the potential to inform medical decisions, especially when it comes to designing treatment plans for individual patients. But physicians will resist the technology if its decisions can’t be explained by existing science. For example, researchers at Case Western Reserve University created software that looks at the shape of blood vessels to help medical practitioners treat lung tumors. Doctors might be more open to adopting this software because previous studies have shown that the level of complexity and intricacy of the vessels that feed the tumor can negatively affect drug delivery.
Read more about collaborations between AI and clinicians here.
— VIDEO OF THE WEEK —
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“[Monday’s] announcement by GE is a huge step forward in realizing this airplane. For us to design a clean-sheet airplane at Skunk Works, we always start with an engine. Without an engine, you don’t have an airplane. It is the enabler really for this whole enterprise.”
— David Richardson, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ director of air vehicle design
Quote: GE Reports. Images: Aerion.
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