Sandy Hawkins is an acoustical engineer, which means he spends much of his time figuring out how to make useful sounds and to reduce unwanted ones. Lately Hawkins has received acclaim for his invention of the Lung Flute, a plastic tube that, when blown into, vibrates to the same frequency as the cilia responsible for clearing out our lungs (16Hz). This forces the tiny, hairlike cell parts to move in unison, thus loosening up congestion in the lungs. Hawkins’s flute could be crucial for relieving the symptoms of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), which affect over 10 million individuals and is currently the 4th cause of death in the United States. [PopSci]

Watch Bjorn Carey from Popular Science make (not so beautiful) music:

Filed under: Biomedical, e-News

Tags: Biomedical, Music