Taking a blood pressure reading from a gorilla and surviving!
 Photo credit: Zoo Atlanta
Ape-rtensive?
Students of biotechnology from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University apparently thought it would be a good idea to try to measure a gorilla's blood pressure - while it was conscious. Somehow their supervisor signed off on the idea and the project was on.
Collaborating with Zoo Atlanta, Ozzie the gorilla's landlords, they devised a system to take the measurement without the keeper having risk life and limb by strapping a cuff on the elderly ape.
They also had to spend quite a bit of time getting Ozzie to accept that sticking his arm into a machine that would squeeze his biceps was quite a normal way to operate a banana dispenser.
 Photo credit: Zoo Atlanta
For what we assume to be reasons of patient confidentiality, Zoo Atlanta have not disclosed his result or whether he is now being prescribed APE inhibitors.
As for the intrepid students, well, we can recommend that for their PhD, they move on to the logical next step and develop a way to measure a gorilla's blood pressure in the wild.
For the full story click here. - Sorry, article no longer available.
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