NASA has patented a new technology called the Vision Chip, an implantable device that has the potential to restore or supplement visual function in a diseased or damaged retina. This technology could benefit millions of people in the US and globally who suffer from degenerative diseases of the eye’s...

Prostate cancer is the most common noncutaneous cancer among males, making proper diagnosis extremely important. Distinguishing between biopsied benign and malignant prostate tissue can be difficult. A new prototype device developed by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies und...

Chemists at Stanford University have developed a non-invasive technique using lasers and carbon nanotubes that visualizes blood flow in the brain, which could help provide powerful insights into strokes and possibly Alzheimer's disease. Current non-invasive technologies like CT scans or MRI visualize...

A team of engineers at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin have designed an optical device that, they say, may offer a fast, comprehensive, noninvasive, and lower-cost solution to detect melanoma and other skin cancer lesions, thereby reducing unnecessary biopsies. Their device is a probe that uses light in...

A droplet of clear liquid can bend light, acting as a lens. Now, by exploiting this well-known phenomenon, Australian researchers have developed a new process to create inexpensive high quality lenses that will cost less than a penny apiece.

A team of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, has developed two inexpensive adapters that enable a smartphone to capture high-quality images of the front and back of the eye. The adapters can allow anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely...

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee first discovered a new way to propagate multiple beams of light through a single strand of optical fiber. Now, they say that their unique fiber architecture can transmit images of comparable or better quality than commercial endoscopy imaging...

A team of physics researchers at the University of Adelaide, Australia, say that they have developed a new type of laser that will enable advances in areas as diverse as breath analysis for disease diagnosis and remote sensing of critical greenhouse gases.

A team of graduate students along with a chemistry professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, say that they have invented a new scientific instrument—the world’s first fully automated dual-frequency, two-dimensional infrared spectrometer.

A new optical device about the size of a hand-held video camera, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, can scan a patient’s entire retina in seconds and could aid primary care physicians in early detection of many retinal diseases, including diabetic retinopathy,...

The aim of this work is to conduct preliminary evaluations of new rehabilitation strategies and new functional assessment methods for homonymous hemianopia (HH) and spatial neglect (SN), two disabling visual and cognitive perception conditions that...

Scientists and engineers funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NABIB) are teaming up with neurosurgeons to develop technologies that enable less invasive, image-guided removal of hard-to-reach brain tumors. Novel imaging techniques allows...