INSIDER

Lihong Wang, the Gene K. Beare Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, has revealed for the first time a new technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living...

Most robots today work in manufacturing facilities where, for safety reasons, they are removed from being in close proximity with humans. But, Georgia Tech robotics researchers believe people and robots can accomplish much more as co-robots, which work beside, or cooperatively with, people. This symbiotic relationship...

Don't forget to vote for the Medical Design Briefs' Annual Readers' Choice Product of the Year. You’re invited to cast your vote for the one product among the 12 Products of the Month that you feel was the most significant new product introduced to the engineering community in 2014.

An engineering professor at the University of Texas at Dallas applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer’s environment and help amputees walk. The robotic leg wearers were able to walk on a moving treadmill almost as quickly as an able-bodied...

According to researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, future fitness trackers could soon add blood-oxygen levels to the list of vital signs they measure. By switching from silicon to an organic, or carbon-based, design, the researchers say that they were able to create a device that...

Touch feedback, or haptics technology, has been changing rapidly over the last few years with new uses in entertainment, rehabilitation, and even surgical training. Now, using ultrasound, scientists have developed virtual 3D shapes that can be seen and felt in mid-air. The researchers from the UK...

While touch may be subtle, the information it communicates can be understood and acted upon quickly. For the first time, scientists are reporting that they have developed a stretchable “electronic skin” that can detect not just pressure, but also which direction it’s coming from....

A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say that they know how to reverse the characteristics of a key bonding material—polyurea—to provide an inexpensive alternative for a broad number of applications, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and packaging.

Engineers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, have developed a plastic blend that, they say, can dissipate heat up to 10 times better than its conventional counterparts. While plastics are inexpensive, lightweight, and flexible, they tend to restrict the flow of heat, so their use has been...

A team of researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, are trying to help stroke patients improve arm movement by using a device called a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (TMS) to reduce activity on the healthy side of the brain, so that the stroke-injured side may...

Seeking a way to print technology, improve device portability, and lower the cost of electronics, a team of engineers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, led by Assistant Professor Anming Hu, has discovered a way to print circuits on paper.

Scientists at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have demonstrated a new technique for harvesting energy from mechanical vibrations of the environment and converting it into electricity. They explain that energy harvesters are needed, for example, in wireless self-powered sensors and medical...

Loss of eyesight is often caused by retinal degeneration as people age. But, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Centers for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, both in Israel, and Newcastle University, OK, are developing a prosthetic...

A team of researchers at researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Bremen, Germany, have developed load bearing, biodegradable implants that are completely degradable in the body. As a first step, they have used powder injection molding to manufacture...

More than 10 percent of babies worldwide are born prematurely, often requiring costly time spent in an incubator. According to the World Health Organization, 75 percent of deaths resulting from premature birth could be avoided if inexpensive treatments were more readily available across the globe....

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...

Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, are close to commercializing a new type of medical imaging technology that could diagnose cardiovascular disease by measuring ultrasound signals from molecules exposed to a fast-pulsing laser.

A team of researchers at the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, are using sensor technology placed in the helmets of their football players to help measure the force of on-field hits to better understand and prevent concussions and treat them before they cause lasting damage.

Electrical engineers at the Novel Devices Lab at theUniversity of Cincinnati have created a lightweight, wearable device that can analyze sweat using a smartphone, which, they say, can gather vital medical information in almost real time, and provide more accurate health diagnostics in a way...

Each year, nearly 4,000 children go to emergency rooms after swallowing button batteries, which can cause burns that damage the esophagus, tears in the digestive tract, and in some cases, even death. To help prevent such injuries, researchers at MIT, Cambridge, MA, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Massachusetts...

Individuals in industrial associations, educational institutions, and government organizations who are interested in composite materials made from constituent materials with different physical or chemical properties now have free, 24/7 access to simulation tools through an online community with...

A team of engineers at the University of California, San Diego, working with cardiologists in Madrid, Spain, say that they have developed a novel ultrasound technology that makes cardiac screening cheaper and much easier, making it possible to reach a larger number of people of all ages. They used...

Researchers from the University of Miami reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology that they have developed a fast and inexpensive way to make facial prostheses for eye cancer patients using facial scanning software and 3D printing. Their process can create...

Engineers at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, say that a new medical imaging method they are developing may help physicians detect cancer and other diseases earlier than before, speeding treatment, and reducing the need for invasive, time-consuming biopsies. Their technique uses...

A team of engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is developing see-through implantable medical sensor arrays, in order to help neural researchers study the brain. The technology, they say, has potential applications in neuroscience, cardiac care, and even contact lenses.

Treating those most severely affected by epilepsy traditionally meant drilling through the skull intothe hippocampus area of the brain where the seizures originate, which is invasive, dangerous, and requires a long recovery. A team of engineers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, wanted to find a...

A team of scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, along with collaborators at the University of Cincinnati, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, are developing implantable medical devices made from biodegradable metals that can dissolve within a fixed time period,...

A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, has demonstrated a laser-based imaging system that creates high-definition 3D maps of surfaces from as far away as 10.5 meters. They say that this method may be useful in diverse fields, including...