Glowing testicle imager invented

Dragan Golijanin of the University of Rochester Medical Center may want your testicles to glow.

This will help it help you maintain a healthy pair. Let's have the patent filing—"PRE- AND INTRA- OPERATIVE IMAGING OF TESTICULAR TORSION"—speak for itself:

"The invention provides methods for visualizing perfusion or lack thereof in the spermatic cord and testicle, as well as for detecting testicular trauma. A surgical forceps adapted to facilitate such visualization is also provided."

The problem: spotting a tangled sack using traditional imaging methods. The solution: fill it with luminescent dye, to see how the blood supply is occluded within.

For gents, it is all extraordinarily painful reading: "If this loss of blood supply is not corrected within 6 to 12 hours, it results in the death of the testicle," write the authors, discussing the consequences of poor blood flow. Other key phrases include "sudden scrotal pain" and "the jaws permit a firm grip to be maintained on the scrotum." And on and on it goes.

Patent Filing [WIPO via New Scientist]