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Equipment designed by a small Melbourne company will be
used by NASA to help monitor the physiological functions of astronauts aboard
the US$4 billion International Space Station which is due to be launched
in March 1999. The company, Compumedics, specialises in equipment to diagnose
sleep problems (see AustralAsian, 29 March).
It will modify this equipment so
that it can be used to monitor sleep patterns of astronauts as well as their
neurological, cardiac, muscular and gastro functions. Data will be collected,
formatted, stored and transmitted back to Earth for analysis.