INSIDER

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, have created a new polymer film that can generate electricity by drawing on water vapor. The new material changes its shape after absorbing tiny amounts of evaporated water, allowing it to repeatedly curl up and down. Harnessing this continuous...

Researchers at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, have embedded needle-like carbon nanofibers into an elastic silicone membrane, creating a flexible “bed of nails” that may open the door to the development of new drug-delivery systems, they say.

Northwestern University's Center for Device Development (CD2), Chicago, IL, is offering one-year paid fellowships to clinicians and engineers to team up and develop their medical device idea at Northwestern in a supportive environment with entrepreneurial and innovative mentors.

It may have taken more than 10 years for this nanotechnology breakthrough, but when it came, it was still a shock say researchers at Rice University, Houston, TX. A team of scientists from Rice, the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid, the U.S. Air Force, and Israel's Technion Institute unveiled a new...

Surgeons may soon be able to use a system in the operating room that recognizes hand gestures as commands to a computer to browse and display medical images of the patient during a surgery. Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, are creating a system that uses depth-sensing cameras and...

Scientists at The University of Manchester in the UK developed a camera that can take powerful three-dimensional color X-ray images, in near real-time, without the need for a synchrotron X-ray source. Its ability to identify the composition of the scanned object could radically improve medical imaging, as well as...

The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, has been instrumental in growing the medical device industry in Minnesota. Still, translation of device innovations from university labs to the marketplace has been challenging in today’s economic environment. Since the technologies developed at the university...

Breathing sensors built into onesie infant bodysuits could help prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), where a sleeping infant suddenly stops breathing. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin used an integrated sensor system made from a...

It is common knowledge among astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, that they grow up to 3 percent taller while living in microgravity. Then, when they return to Earth, they return to their normal height. Studying the impact of this change on the spine and advancing...

Using two successive pairs of specialized CT scans, a team of Dutch radiologists working with researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, has produced real-time images of liver tumors dying after direct injection of anticancer drugs into the tumors and their surrounding...

Using an MRI can effectively and non-invasively screen patients for Alzheimer's disease, to determine the root cause of a person's dementia, according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Using an MRI-based algorithm effectively...

A new device about the size of a business card, developed by scientists at the Methodist Hospital Research Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, could let healthcare providers perform up to 50 tests for insulin and other blood proteins, cholesterol, and even viral or bacterial infection all from one...

Using a focused beam of sound as a scalpel? That's not as far off as it sounds, according to a group of University of Michigan at Ann Arbor engineering researchers, whose research shows that a carbon-nanotube-coated lens that they developed converts light to sound and can focus high-pressure sound waves to finer...

A new device about the size of a business card, developed by scientists at the Methodist Hospital Research Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, could let health care providers perform up to 50 tests for insulin and other blood proteins, cholesterol, and even viral or bacterial infection all from one...

Digital devices can provide games, e-books, and learning apps to everyone who can operate them. But what if you can't work even the easiest of controls? Engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, are working with children who have limited mobility that makes it difficult for them to perform...

A team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh (UP) School of Medicine and UPMC (Medical Center) are working with a woman with longstanding quadriplegia to accomplish "ordinary" tasks that once seemed impossible. Together, they have demonstrated, for the first time, that a person with...

A team of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, say that they have created the world’s first implantable robotic arm controlled by thoughts. Prosthetic leg technology has advanced rapidly in the past decade, but prosthetic arm advances have been much slower. Since...

Recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, surgically implanted a pacemaker-like device into the brain of a patient in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, the first such operation in the United States. The device, which provides deep brain stimulation and has been used in...

Once a porcupine’s quill penetrates your skin, it’s very difficult to remove. That’s the inspiration behind research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, to develop new types of adhesives, needles, and other medical devices. In a new study, researchers...

Measles vaccines given using nearly painless microneedle patches can immunize against measles just as well as with conventional hypodermic needles, according to research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the study,...

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Boston, MA, have created more than 100 3D nanostructures using DNA building blocks that function like Lego® bricks. This method is the next step toward using DNA nanotechnologies for sophisticated...

As reported to the American Chemical Society (ACS), University of Minnesota researchers have discovered a previously unrecognized way that degradation can occur in silicone-urethane plastics often used in medical devices. Their study, published in ACS' journal Macromolecules, could have implications...

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, announced a four-year joint project to develop a below-knee prosthesis capable of actively powering the ankle joint powered by a gas- or liquid-based...

Electrical engineers at Oregon State University, Corvallis, have developed new technology to monitor medical vital signs, with sensors so tiny and inexpensive they could fit onto a bandage, be manufactured in high volumes, and cost less than a quarter. One potential application is heart monitoring,...

A medical sensor that adheres to the skin like a temporary tattoo could help doctors to detect metabolic problems in patients. Shaped like a smiley face, the entire sensor is a thin, flexible unit designed to conceal the electrodes. Designed by researchers at the Department of Physical & Environmental...

Combining medical imaging technologies, says Ge Wang, director of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's Center for Biomedical Imaging, Blacksburg, VA, could provide improved early disease screening, cancer staging, therapeutic assessment, and other aspects of personalized...

Bioengineers at Tufts University School of Engineering, Medford, MA, have demonstrated that silk-based implantable optics can enhance tissue imaging, administer heat, deliver and monitor drugs. In addition, the devices are biodegradable and biocompatible, harmlessly dissolving at predetermined rates and...

A new study shows that many implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), which are designed to detect and correct dangerous heart rhythms, are programmed to too low a setting, delivering painful shocks for heart rhythms that aren’t dangerous. Making a simple change in the way physicians set...

Engineers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, tested an energy-harvesting device that uses piezoelectricity — an electrical charge generated from motion — to convert energy from a beating heart to provide enough electricity to power a pacemaker. As reported in a study presented at the American Heart...