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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...

Scientists at the University of Delaware, Newark, say that they have confirmed the presence of a magnetic field generated by electrons, which scientists had theorized existed, but had never been proven until now. This finding, they say, could help to lay the groundwork for electronics of the future....

A handheld diagnostic device that researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, first developed to diagnose cancer has been adapted to rapidly diagnose tuberculosis (TB) and other important infectious bacteria. The portable device combines microfluidic technology with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)...

The Moffitt Cancer Center and the University of South Florida, both in Tampa, have collaborated with researchers in China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany to develop a new computational method to assess lung cancer tumors using CT, PET, or MRI diagnostic technologies. The method, called...

Scientists at Princeton University in New Jersey used silk strands and tiny gold wires bundled with graphene to create a removable tattoo that adheres to dental enamel and could eventually be used to monitor a patient’s health with unprecedented sensitivity.

There are two parts to a blast created by an improvised explosive device: a shock wave traveling at supersonic speed, and compressed air, which travels in front of the shock wave. Both can cause considerable damage to the human body, but the exact effects are unclear. To prevent injuries to...

Once implanted, coronary artery stents to prop open blood vessels usually remain in place for the rest of the patient’s life. The longer a stent is in place, the greater the risk of late-stage side effects. That's why researchers are trying to develop a bioabsorbable stent, one that will gradually and...

Polymer scientists at Rice University, Houston, TX, discovered that the liquid crystal phase of silicone, which is partway between a solid and a liquid, becomes up to 90 percent stiffer when repeatedly compressed. Their research could lead to new strategies for self-healing materials or...

A new 3-D motion detection system could help identify baseball pitchers who are at risk for shoulder injuries, according to a new study by scientists at the Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL. The laptop computer-based system can be used right on the field.

Researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK are using the feet of tree frogs as the inspiration for a tiny robot designed to crawl inside patients’ bodies during laparoscopic surgery. The tiny device is designed to move across the internal abdominal wall of a patient, allowing surgeons to see what they...

Surgical robots could make some types of surgery safer and more effective, but proving that the software controlling these machines works as intended is problematic. So say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,...

MedWatcher is a mobile app available from the iTunes Store or Google Play Store that allows individuals to submit voluntary reports of serious medical device problems to the FDA using a smart phone or tablet. The app makes it easier and faster for healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers to send...

Using hundreds of untethered grippers, each as small as a dust mote, engineers and physicians at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, say they have devised a method to perform biopsies that could provide a more effective way to access narrow conduits in the body as well as find early signs of cancer or...

Material scientists from ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich), who say that they were inspired by plant components like pine cones that respond to external stimuli, have developed a new means of producing composite materials from a variety of materials that adopt a pre-programmed...

A tiny, paper-thin skin patch to collect vital information, called the Bio-patch sensor, has been developed by researchers at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology. It is inexpensive, versatile, and comfortable to wear.

At the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, in New Orleans, scientists from the University of California, San Diego, described their advances in micromotor technology that, they say, could open the door to broad new medical uses.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Cambridge, MA, have developed an inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic hands that is sensitive enough to enable a machine to handle objects with sensitivity and dexterity. Designed by researchers in the Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory,...

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, are developing edible electronic devices that can be implanted in the body, and say that the device could be programmed and deployed in the gastrointestinal tract or the small intestine and once the battery packaging is in place,...