We Heart the Metric System for Helping Heart Surgery!

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have developed a ground-breaking medical tool that could allow surgeons to repair holes in the heart and other defects while the heart continues to beat, instead of requiring open-heart surgery.

The tool is a millimeter-scale metallic suture-like device that's deployed to the heart through curved metal tube robots inserted into the blood vessels. Once deployed to the heart through the metal tubes, the suture-like device gently pierces the heart tissue on either side of the damage-causing hole. Then with the help of tiny pulleys and gears, the device compresses the tissue together to close the hole.

Read more about this amazing procedure, and fall in love with the metric system all over again!