R&D

A team of hearing and communication experts led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC successfully implanted an auditory brainstem implant (ABI) device in four children who previously could not hear.

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a low-cost smartphone accessory that performs a point-of-care test. In fifteen minutes, the device simultaneously detects three infectious disease markers from a finger prick of blood.

A University of Chicago research team has created a new solder for semiconductors. After being heated to several hundred degrees Celsius, the compounds of cadmium, lead, and bismuth can be applied as a liquid or paste to join two pieces of a semiconductor.

Researchers from The Ohio State University are working to turn germanium into a potential replacement for silicon.

Scientists in field laboratories who diagnose and deal with Ebola infections often work under challenging conditions. Researchers at the German Primate Center have developed Diagnostics-in-a-Suitcase, which contains all reagents and equipment to detect the Ebola virus within 15 minutes at...

While the Japanese art of origami has been “a rich source of inspiration” for scientists working to construct such 3D forms, the limitation to simple shapes has held up development of new applications in areas such as biomimetic systems, soft robotics and mechanical meta-materials, especially...

Scientists have developed the first ultra-thin, flexible device that sticks to skin like a rub-on tattoo and can detect a person’s glucose levels. The sensor, reported in a proof-of-concept study in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry, has the potential to eliminate finger-pricking for many people with...

A new type of bacteria-repelling nanoscale surface holds promise for medical applications.

Surgeons at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles say that three-dimensional printing technology can make surgery safer for children with congenital heart disease, and reduce the duration and number of invasive procedures required. Richard Kim, MD, a cardiac surgeon recently used a 3D printed...

An international team of physicists and chemists based at the University of California at Berkeley has, for the first time, recorded the action of silicon electrons becoming freed from their atomic shells using attosecond pulses of soft X-ray light lasting only a few billionths of a billionth of a second.These...

A team of chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), La Jolla, CA, say that they have invented a new method to join complex organic molecules that is extraordinarily robust and can be used to make plastics, pharmaceuticals, fabrics, dyes, and other materials previously inaccessible to chemists.

An interdisciplinary team of engineers at Princeton University has embedded tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into a standard contact lens, allowing the device to project beams of colored light. While the lens is not designed for actual use, especially since it requires an external power...

A team of engineers at Penn State, University Park, PA, is using squid to create an eco-friendly thermoplastic that can be used in 3D printing. Most plastics are made from fossil fuel sources or from synthetic oils. Thermoplastics can melt, be formed, and then solidify without degrading materials properties....

Materials scientists from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, and Qatar University have developed a new high-entropy metal alloy that, they say, has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than any other existing metal material. High-entropy alloys consist of five or more metals in roughly equal amounts....

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison are working to commercialize a new technology that could yield less invasive radiation therapies for cancer patients using ablation.

While powered lower limb prosthetics can greatly improve the mobility of amputees, errors in the technology can also cause users to stumble or fall, say researchers at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They are examining what happens when these...

Testing for ovarian cancer or a chemical presence may become much simpler thanks to a new microscopic acoustic device that has been dramatically improved by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL. The device, known as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor, detects...

At Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, a biology professor researching echolocation in bats teamed up with an associate professor of computer science and an interdisciplinary team of students to develop a device that can help the visually impaired navigate better. Their research focused on...

Scientists at Brown University, Providence, RI, say that a new wireless brain-sensing system will allow them to acquire high-fidelity neural data to advance neuroscience that cannot be accomplished with current sensors that tie subjects to cabled computer connections for analysis. Their results show that...