INSIDER

Materials science engineers at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, have created a transparent audio speaker consisting of a thin sheet of rubber sandwiched between two layers of a saltwater gel that can carry a high-voltage signal across the surfaces and through the layers forcing the...

Women differ from men in many ways, including anatomy, physiology, risk factors, and disease symptoms. They are also likely to use more medical devices over the course of their lives than men do, says the FDA. That’s why the FDA is actively trying to learn more about how medical devices uniquely...

In the US, there are millions of sports-related concussions yearly, and a large percentage go unreported or undiagnosed because many high school, college, and professional athletes do not report them. Balance tests are the primary method to detect concussion. However, the current means of...

A team of researchers at The Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) and Materials Science Department, University Park, have seen the Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) minimally invasive heart pump they developed between 2005 and 2011 transitioned to its first...

Every year, millions of people get a tuberculosis (TB) skin test to determine if they have the bacterial infection, which usually attacks the lungs. But the standard diagnostic test is difficult to give, because a hypodermic needle must be inserted at a precise angle and depth in the arm to...

New research conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, reported online in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, suggests that people who undergo minimally invasive placement of stents to open clogged leg arteries are significantly less likely than those who have...

Until now, surgeons had to memorize the precise location of important blood vessels in organs and where tumors were likely to be found. But, a new app for tablet computers developed by Fraunhofer MEVIS research institute in Bremen, Germany, could help surgeons reduce the rate of complications during...

A team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, have discovered a way to detect early-stage malarial infection of blood cells by measuring changes in the infected cells’ electrical properties. The researchers built an experimental microfluidic device that uses a single drop of...

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, are working to develop a tiny chip that could quickly determine whether someone has been exposed to dangerous levels of ionizing radiation. The first-of-its-kind chip has an array of nanosensors that can measure the concentrations of...

In a study to evaluate the feasibility of a wearable artificial pancreas system, researchers from the University of Virginia (UVA), Charlottesville, Center for Diabetes Technology, concluded that smartphones work well enough to provide nearly continuous, closed-loop, outpatient control of...

A new image-guided surgical system is under development at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, that employs steerable needles to penetrate the brain with minimal damage and suction away the blood clot that has formed. Part of an ongoing collaboration between a team of engineers and physicians, the steerable needle...

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute, (NSBRI) is soliciting research proposals to augment the project portfolios of its Cardiovascular Alterations, Human Factors and Performance, Musculoskeletal Alterations, Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors, Sensorimotor Adaptations, and Smart...

A new transparent, bio-inspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning, and incredibly slippery. Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Boston, say that the new coating could be used...

A team of researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, and Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, says that they have developed a quantitative screening method to diagnose and track autism in children after age 3. The technology works by tracking a child’s random movements...

An interactive 3D simulation software platform gives surgical residents the unique opportunity to practice diagnostic and patient management skills, and then have their skills evaluated, according to a new study appearing in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Using an online...

Using the full computational power of the Japanese supercomputer, K Computer, researchers from the RIKEN HPCI Program for Computational Life Sciences in Kobe, the Okinawa Institute of Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany have carried...

Engineers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, discovered that bone cells grow and reproduce faster on a textured surface than on a smooth one—and grow best when they can cling to a microscopic "shag carpet" made of tiny metal oxide wires. The discovery could someday help broken bones and joint...

Mussels hang loosely from piers and rocks, attached by fine filaments known as byssus threads, which allows them to drift a bit to absorb more nutrients. So why aren't they washed away by waves? The secret is that they secrete a protein closely related to collagen, which is a combination of soft, stretchy...

The same 3D printing process used to produce an object can simultaneously generate an internal, invisible tag, say scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research. The internal tags, which the researchers have dubbed InfraStructs, can be read with an imaging system using...

A team of engineers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, found that networks of spherical nanoparticles embedded in elastic materials could make the best stretchy conductors. Flexible electronics have a wide variety of possibilities, they say, from bendable displays and batteries to medical implants that...

Researchers at Imperial College London, say that they have developed an "intelligent knife" that can alert surgeons immediately whether the tissue they are cutting is cancerous or not. The “iKnife” diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, instantly...

A team of scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, College Park, have discovered how to make nanoscale measurements of critical properties of plasmonic nanomaterials, specially engineered nanostructures that modify the interaction of light...

Researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK say that their MXL project, which uses computational modeling to define the mechanics of an artificial joint, will enable surgeons to ensure successful surgery and fit joint replacements with longer, optimized lifespans. Using a complex interaction...

A Victoria University of Wellington School of Design student, Jake Evill, in New Zealand, created a 3D printed alternative to the traditional plaster cast for fractured limbs. Called the Cortex Cast, his design is more lightweight, breathable, and hygienic than fiberglass or plaster casts currently...

Dr. Albert Chi, a 2003 graduate of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, and a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, is part of a team of engineers and surgeons developing a Modular Prosthetic Limb—a robotic arm and hand that a person can control using their thoughts....

A team of scientists from UCLA, Iowa State, and Princeton report that they have discovered a new technique of sculpting custom fluid flows by placing tiny pillars in microfluidic channels. By altering the speed of the fluid, and stacking pillars with different width, placements, and orientations,...

Harnessing the computing power of ordinary citizens around the world could have the potential to accelerate the pace of health care research of all kinds, say a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. They say that “crowdsourcing,”...

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, have created a three-piece 3D puzzle, with each piece less than 1 mm in size, which, they say, may be put together to make the smallest puzzle in the world. To create it, the researchers used a new process to manufacture the microstructures by casting...