INSIDER

A technology being developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly, and people with Parkinson's and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints. This new type of awake...

Researchers say that a new type of soft material they have created by using a unique 3D printer connects thousands of water droplets, 50 microns in diameter each, encapsulated within lipid (fat) films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies. These printed “droplet networks,” they say...

A new study done at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Baltimore, MD, described online in JAMA Pediatrics, show that in children catheters inserted in a vessel in the arm or leg and not threaded into a large vein near the heart are nearly four times as likely to dislodge, cause vein inflammation, or...

Many medical implants use hard materials that connect to or pass through soft body tissue. This mechanical mismatch can lead to problems like skin breakdown at abdominal feeding tubes in stroke patients and where wires pass through the chest to power assistive heart pumps. So researchers at Case Western Reserve...

RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, one of the world’s leading research institutes, has developed a prototype catheter that can generate live, streaming 3D ultrasound images from inside the heart. The device received a Cardiovascular Innovation Award at the 2013...

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Boston, MA, were awarded a $9.25 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to further advance a blood-cleansing technology developed at the Institute with prior DARPA support, and help...

A wireless personal health monitoring system using smartphones to upload data via the Internet will revolutionize the US healthcare industry, say its creators at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. mHealth capitalizes on what Dr. Emil Jovanov, associate dean for graduate education and...

When babies are deprived of oxygen before birth, brain damage and disorders such as cerebral palsy can occur. Extended cooling can help to prevent brain injuries, but, in developing nations where advanced medical care is scarce, this treatment is not always available. To address this need,...

Around 17 million people in Germany suffer from impaired hearing. A new device being developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), Stuttgart, Germany, can, researchers say, improve patients’ hearing and can be implanted during outpatient surgery. Hearing...

A new method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could allow early identification of specific cancers, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and other maladies, say researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, and University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center. They explain that...

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, with the support of a $3.4 million National Institutes of Health grant, are working to develop an artificial lung to serve as a bridge to transplant or recovery in patients with acute and chronic lung failure. The project aims to develop a compact respiratory...

A team of scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, have developed a tiny implantable device that can analyze the concentration of up to five proteins and organic acids in the blood simultaneously, and then transmit the...

Longtime cochlear implant users are reporting dramatic improvements in their hearing, thanks to new image-guided programming methods developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Using a patent-pending nonsurgical process, audiologists can fine-tune and customize cochlear implant programming,...

Ultrasound technology could soon be improved to produce high-quality, high-resolution images, thanks to the development of a new key material by a team of researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station. The engineered material, known as a "metamaterial,"...

Research is being conducted at the Chevy Chase Clinical Research facility in Chevy Chase, MD, on a device that can measure the amount of force applied to the colonoscope during a colonoscopy, in order to make a colonoscopy safer and less uncomfortable. Dr. Louis Korman of Capital Digestive Care and Artann Laboratories...

A bedside electronic device that measures eye movements can be used to quickly determine whether the cause of severe, continuous, disabling dizziness is a stroke or something benign, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD. To distinguish stroke from a more benign condition, such as...

A physicist at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, invented a new material, a type of silicone rubber that is both rigid and fluid, called a “viscoelastic” solid, that can act like a memory foam, but with stretch and bounce. He foresees that it may have applications as a packaging tape, as a shoe insole,...

A new study by researchers at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, examined how bacteria clogs medical devices, and found that the microbes join to create slimy ribbons that form tangles, trapping other bacteria, and creating a full blockage in a very short period of time. Their findings, they say, could...

A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University, Providence, RI, has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described...

The demand for ever-smaller electronic devices has led to the miniaturization of a variety of technologies, but energy-storage units, such as batteries and capacitors, have lagged behind. Now, researchers at UCLA say that they have developed an innovative technique using a DVD burner to...

Researchers and students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, are trying to change how medical equipment is sterilized in remote clinics using sunlight, an abundant commodity. Their pilot project, conducted in Nicaragua has begun to show promising results. To care for a nation of six...

Researchers at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, have successfully coated polymer implants with a bioactive film that, they say should improve the success rate of the implants, typically used in spinal surgeries. The polymer contained in these implants, called Polyetheretherketone...

Electromagnetic devices all require an electric current to create the magnetic fields that allow them to function. But as devices become smaller, being able to efficiently deliver a current to create magnetic fields becomes more difficult. Researchers at UCLA say that they have developed a method to switch...

Remoras attach themselves to larger marine animals for transportation, protection, and food but just how they attach and detach from hosts without appearing to harm them has inspired a team of researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, to study the structure and tissue properties of...

A team of bioengineers and physicians at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, have created an artificial external ear, using 3D printing and injectable molds, that looks and acts like a natural ear. This could give new hope to children born with a congenital ear deformity, or to those who have lost all or...

Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and the University of Illinois have demonstrated a stretchable lithium-ion battery can power their innovative stretchable electronics. The stretchable electronic devices now could be used anywhere, including inside the human body, they say,...

Scientists at King's College London say they have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dried live vaccine to the skin without using a traditional needle. They also state that this technique is powerful enough to enable specialized immune cells in the skin to kick-start the immunizing...

Scientists at King's College London say they have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dried live vaccine to the skin without using a traditional needle. They also state that this technique is powerful enough to enable specialized immune cells in the skin to kick-start the immunizing...

Doctors regularly check patients’ hand-eye coordination to monitor any neuromuscular deficits, particularly as they age or when they are injured, but the tests may be subjective and qualitative. To more clearly assess changes, researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired...