R&D

Creating a Cookbook of Alloys for Bone Implants

Researchers at The Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, and their partners are building a database of new titanium alloys that, they say, will be used to reduce the stress that pins, plates, and...

Metamaterial May Improve Depression

A new headpiece for brain stimulation technique, designed by engineers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, may considerably improve treatment of tough cases of depression. Computer simulations have...

Biosensor Could Help Detect Brain Injuries During Heart Surgery

A team of engineers and cardiology experts at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Children’s Center have teamed up to develop a fingernail-sized biosensor that could alert...

Robotics Technology Advances Artificial Legs

Recent advances in robotics technology enables prosthetics that can dramatically improve the mobility of lower-limb amputees, allowing them to negotiate stairs and slopes and uneven ground, and...

R&D Roundup: January 2014

Biosensor Could Help Detect Brain Injuries During Heart Surgery A team of engineers and cardiology experts at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Children’s Center have teamed up to develop a biosensor that could...

Accelerator on a Chip Could Lead to Improved Lasers, X-Rays

Cutting-edge research being conducted by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University could dramatically shrink...

Providing Surgical Robots with New Intelligence

Providing surgical robots with a new type of machine intelligence to make them easier and more intuitive for surgeons to operate is the goal of a major new five-year grant from the National...

R&D Roundup: December 2013

Accelerator on a Chip Could Lead to Improved Lasers, X-Rays Cutting-edge research being conducted by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University could...

Using Light to Restart Hearts

When heartbeats slip into an irregular, life-threatening rhythm, a pacemaker or defibrillator can jolt the heart back into rhythm. But because electricity can cause pain, tissue damage, and other side-effects, a...

Teleconcussion Robot to Be Tested at College Football Games

The Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, will be working with Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, to test the feasibility of using a telemedicine robot to assess athletes with suspected...

Jetprinting Nanostructures with Self-Assembling Material

A team of engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Hanyang University in Korea has developed a new approach to fabricating...

Bendable Ceramics with Shape Memory

Ceramics are brittle and tend to crack under stress. But, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, along with colleagues in Singapore, say that they have found a way around that...

Novel Transparent Skull Implant Allows Peek at Brain

A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, College of Engineering and School of Medicine have developed a novel transparent skull implant that could eventually lead...

First Thought-Controlled Bionic Leg Revealed

A team of researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) has revealed clinical applications for the world’s first thought-controlled bionic leg—a significant milestone for lower...

R&D Roundup: November 2013

First Thought-Controlled Bionic Leg Revealed A team of researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago has revealed clinical applications for the world’s first thought-controlled bionic vleg—a...

Micro-Machines for Bionic Body Parts and Medical Devices

A team of electrical and mechanical engineers at Israel’s Tel Aviv University (TAU) has developed a way to print biocompatible components for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS),...

Creating New Device Coatings from Cocoa Compounds

Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, discovered that natural products, like green tea leaves, red wine, dark chocolate, and cacao beans could inspire excellent antibacterial...

Break Up to Make Up Stronger Materials

Scientists at Duke University, Durham, NC, report that microscopic stresses and tears in a new kind of man-made material could help the substance bulk up like an athlete building stronger muscles. They...

Adding Color to 3D Medical Imaging

A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) announced that they have developed the first technique to...

Silver Printed Fabric for Wearable Electronics

Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory, Middlesex, UK, Electronics Interconnection group has developed a new method to produce conductive textiles. This new technique could make...

Speeding Medical Imaging with Auto Lubricant

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have built an experimental device that, they say, could speed up medical imaging using amorphous silicon and a surprising simple inexpensive...

R&D Roundup: October 2013

Silver Circuits Create Conductive Fabric Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory, Middlesex, UK, Electronics Interconnection group has developed a new method to produce conductive textiles, which could make...

Guiding Nanowire Growth for Self-Integrated Circuits

Those scientists working with tiny components in nanoelectronics say that the nano-components are so small that arranging them with external tools is impossible. Their only solution is to...

Glass Scaffolds for Bone Implants

Engineers at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, have developed a glass-based scaffold that could one day be used as an implant to repair injured bones in the arms, legs, and other...

Careful Monitoring Eases Prosthetic Leg Pain

When a person experiences a leg amputation, the residual limb will shrink after the surgery. Putting weight onto a prosthetic leg may cause discomfort in the socket, the connection point of the limb...

Ultrasound Patch Heals Venous Ulcers

In a small clinical study, researchers at Drexel University, Philadelphia, administered a new method to treat chronic wounds using a novel ultrasound applicator that can be worn like a bandage. The...

Creating a ‘Bioartificial’ Kidney

Nephrologist William Fissell IV, MD, associate professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, is intent on creating and mass-producing an implantable bioartificial...

R&D Roundup: September 2013

Glass Scaffolds for Bone Implants Engineers at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, have developed a glass-based scaffold that could one day be used as an implant to repair injured weight-bearing...

Telescopic Contact Lens Could Help Patients with AMD

While normal contact lenses correct many people’s eyesight, they can’t improve the blurry vision of people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), because correcting the eye’s...