Using general anesthesia, the surgeon threaded a catheter up her nose, expanded a tiny balloon and cleared a permanent space for her sinuses to drain.

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This, however, has a tiny balloon at its business end.

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The next step was to thread a tiny surgical balloon and a thin stainless-steel stent into the artery to forcibly widen the passage.

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Earlier this week, a sch-amazing video of a dude in an orange jacket hacking video screens in Times Square with a balloon, a smartphone, and a tiny transmitter was being circulated on Twitter and posted on blogs with virtual jaws dropped at the incredibility of the stunt.

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The modern device era exploded in 1977 with the invention of angioplasty, when German cardiologist Andreas Gruentzig made a tiny slice near the hip of a patient and inserted a catheter tipped with a balloon into an artery.

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