INSIDER

A team of scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, say that using tiny gold particles and resin they have discovered how to make a new kind of flexible sensor that could some day be integrated into electronic skin (e-skin). They say that this e-skin, when attached to prosthetic...

Scientists at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, developed a 3D printing technology to create free-standing structures made out of liquid metal at room temperature. They discovered that a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium reacts to the oxygen in the air at room temperature to form a “skin”...

Researchers at the University of Bath, UK, say that a device that can train the brain to turn sounds into images could be used as an affordable and non-invasive alternative treatment for blind and partially-sighted people. The vOICe sensory substitution device uses sounds to build an image in the minds of blind people of...

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, developing a new coating technology, combined with a novel nanoparticle-manufacturing technology developed at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, say that this could offer scientists a way to quickly mass-produce nanoparticles specially...

The University of Washington, Seattle, has received nearly $10 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to continue a project to build a prototype of their paper-based device that can test for infectious diseases on-demand in areas where diagnostic capabilities are limited. They say that the device...

Scientists at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, have developed a new algorithm that, they say, can accurately measure the heart rates of people shown in ordinary digital video by analyzing the tiny head movements that go along...

Implants used to monitor bodily functions or to provide drugs would advance personalized medicine, but there is an inherent problem—the human immune system recognizes the device as an invader and encapsulates it, preventing the device from working properly. To combat this problem, researchers at the...

The innumerable divisions of the bronchi in the lungs can baffle researchers in search of tumors, but soon, lung specialists may be able to navigate accurately inside the airways using GPS-type technology say researchers with SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia. A...

In a first-of-its-kind operation in the US, a team of doctors at Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC, helped create a bioengineered blood vessel and transplanted it into the arm of a patient with end-stage kidney disease. The procedure was the first US clinical trial to test the safety and...

Researchers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, say that their technology is closing in on creating low-cost electronic devices that work in contact with inside the body, and that their first planned use of the technology is a sensor that will detect the very early stages of organ transplant...

BigBrain, the first 3D microstructural model of the entire human brain, created at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital—The Neuro, McGill University, in collaboration with researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, is free and has been made publicly available to researchers...

A new study, published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, states a significant number of children with complex medical conditions suffer from complications caused by medical devices necessary for their survival. Study authors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center say their research...

Move over, “Fantastic Voyage”. Scientists at the University at Buffalo (UB), Buffalo, NY, are developing miniaturized sonar technology to be used inside the human body to treat diseases like diabetes and heart failure in real time, without shrinking scientists to enter a patient’s...

Doctors at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, are creating new hearts to help cardiac surgeons. Not actual hearts, but three-dimensional synthetic models using a 3D printer. The only one of its kind at a Washington area hospital, the printer uses scans from individual patients to replicate...

In the past 13 years, more than 2,000 service members have suffered amputated limbs. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) research with advanced prosthetic limbs controlled by brain interfaces is well documented, but such research is currently limited to quadriplegics....

Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, a new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses. A rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, was one of several shapes created by a team of Japanese...

The University of Chicago has launched the first secure cloud-based computing system that enables researchers to access and analyze human genomic cancer information without the costly and cumbersome infrastructure normally needed to download and store massive amounts of data. The Bionimbus...

Chemical engineers at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, have discovered that they could combine layers of flexible electronics and pressure sensors to create a wearable heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill and no wider than a postage stamp. The flexible skin-like monitor, worn under an adhesive...

According to a new study conducted in controlled laboratory conditions, sensors that pick up the rhythm of a beating heart in implanted cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers are vulnerable to hacking. In experiments using simulated human models, an international team of researchers demonstrated that...

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), also known as DuPont’s Teflon®, is renowned for keeping things from sticking, and is used as a dry lubricating polymer on machine components, from kitchen tools to space and biomedical applications. Recently, research engineers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,...

Artificial skins and new sensor technologies being developed by European scientists could help make robots more sensitive to tactile stimuli and improve their ability to communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans. The EU-funded project, “Skin-based technologies and capabilities for safe, autonomous...

By modifying the underlying network of cellulose fibers, etching off surface “fluff” and applying a thin chemical coating, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, have created a new type of paper that repels a wide variety of liquids, including water and oil.

Ever since he was six weeks old, an Ohio infant with a condition called tracheobronchomalacia would stop breathing because part of his windpipe carrying air to his left lung would collapse, requiring emergency assistance. But, thanks to a team of doctors and engineers at the University of Michigan,...

When it comes to outsourcing many complex professional services, this type of work should not be viewed as a mere commodity, say researchers at Harvard Business School, reporting in the journal , Organization Science. Instead, they say, cultivating important person-to-person relationships with the vendor of outsourced...

Scientists at the University of Washington, Seattle, have created a synthetic substance that can fully resist the body’s natural attack response to foreign objects. They say that devices such as artificial heart valves, prostheses and breast implants could be coated with this polymer to prevent the body...

Creating alloys at the nanometer scale is producing materials with properties unlike anything produced before says scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, who have demonstrated that these alloys possess the ability to emit such bright light they could have potential uses in medicine.

It could happen someday, say a group of mechanical engineering students at Rice University, Houston, TX. As a project required for graduation, four seniors created PediPower shoes that extract and store energy with every step to power portable electronics and, maybe even medical devices.

Lauded for safety, ease, and patient convenience, peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) lines have become clinicians’ go-to for intravenous (IV) delivery of antibiotics, nutrition, chemotherapy, and other medications. But, compared to other central venous catheters (CVCs), PICCs more than double the...

Does glass move over time? That’s the question tackled by a team of researchers at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, who say that glass remains in solid form, unless shattered, of course. The idea for this research came from a doctoral student's qualifying exam, said Gregory McKenna, a professor of chemical...