Endometriosis often takes years to diagnose. This ultrasound simulation innovation could help change that
Updated
March 17, 2026 1:01 AM
A group of women facing backwards. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Endometriosis affects roughly one in ten women worldwide, yet diagnosing the condition often takes years. In many cases, patients experience symptoms for nearly a decade before receiving a confirmed diagnosis. One reason is that detecting endometriosis through ultrasound requires specialized training and clinicians do not always encounter enough real cases to build that expertise.
To address this gap, medical simulation company Surgical Science has introduced a new ultrasound training module designed specifically for identifying endometriosis. The system allows clinicians to practice scanning techniques in a virtual environment, helping them recognize signs of the disease without relying solely on real-patient cases.
A key feature of the simulator is training on the “sliding sign,” an ultrasound indicator used to detect deep endometriosis. Because the condition can appear differently from patient to patient, mastering this assessment in real clinical settings can be difficult. The simulator allows clinicians to repeat the process across multiple scenarios, improving their ability to identify the condition during routine examinations.
The module also incorporates the International Deep Endometriosis Analysis (IDEA) protocol, which provides a structured method for performing a complete pelvic ultrasound assessment. Additional training cases, region-based scenarios and certification options are included to support standardized learning.
Early training results suggest strong improvements in clinician confidence, including higher skill levels in transvaginal ultrasound and better recognition of deep endometriosis. By expanding access to structured ultrasound training, simulation tools like this could help reduce diagnostic delays and improve care for millions of women living with the condition.
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Can SPhotonix’s optical memory technology protect data better than today’s storage?
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:32 PM
SPhotonix's 5D Memory Crystals™. PHOTO: SPHOTONIX
SPhotonix, a young deep-tech startup, is working on something unexpected for the data storage world: tiny, glass-like crystals that can hold enormous amounts of information for extremely long periods of time. The company works where light and data meet, using photonics—the science of shaping and guiding light—to build optical components and explore a new form of memory called “5D optical storage”.
It’s based on research that began more than twenty years ago, when Professor Peter Kazansky showed that a small crystal could preserve data—from the human genome to the entire Wikipedia—essentially forever.
Their new US$4.5 million pre-seed round, led by Creator Fund and XTX Ventures, is meant to turn that science into real products. And the timing aligns with a growing problem: the world is generating far more digital data than current storage systems can handle. Most of it isn’t needed every day, but it can’t be thrown away either. This long-term, rarely accessed cold data is piling up faster than existing storage infrastructure can manage and maintaining giant warehouses of servers just to keep it all alive is becoming expensive and environmentally unsustainable.
This is the problem SPhotonix is stepping in to solve. They want to store huge amounts of information in a stable format that doesn’t degrade, doesn’t need electricity to preserve data and doesn’t require constant swapping of hardware. Instead of racks of spinning drives, the idea is a durable optical crystal storage system that could last for generations.
The company’s underlying technology—called FemtoEtch™—uses ultrafast lasers to engrave microscopic patterns inside fused silica. These precisely etched structures can function as high-performance optical components for fields like aerospace, microscopy and semiconductor manufacturing. But the same ultra-controlled process can also encode information in five dimensions within the crystal, transforming the material into a compact, long-lasting archive capable of holding massive amounts of information in a very small footprint.
The new funding allows SPhotonix to expand its engineering team, grow its R&D facility in Switzerland and prepare the technology for real-world deployment. Investors say the opportunity is significant: global data generation has more than doubled in recent years and traditional storage systems—drives, disks, tapes—weren’t designed for the scale or longevity modern data demands.
While the company has been gaining attention in research circles (and even made an appearance in the latest Mission Impossible film), its next step is all about practical adoption. If the technology reaches commercial viability, it could offer an alternative to the energy-hungry, short-lived storage hardware that underpins much of today’s digital infrastructure.
As digital information continues to multiply, preserving it safely and sustainably is becoming one of the biggest challenges in modern computing. SPhotonix’s work points toward a future where long-lasting, low-maintenance optical data storage becomes a practical alternative to today’s fragile systems. It offers a more resilient way to preserve knowledge for the decades ahead.