INSIDER

Researchers from the University of Arizona have produced a robotic set of legs that is believed to be the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner. The biological accuracy of the robot could someday help researchers understand how to help spinal-cord-injury patients recover...

Laparoscopic surgery is minimally invasive, but it is also visually constraining. In contrast to open surgery, surgeons who work on different tasks are all limited to the same view. In a small in vitro trial conducted at Brown University, surgeons with their own views performed faster...

A technique developed by engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) enables researchers to focus light efficiently inside biological tissue. While the previous limit for how deep light could be focused was only about one millimeter, the Caltech team is now able to reach 2.5 millimeters. With...

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, affects millions of Americans. Implantable sensor technology and custom-designed cartilage scaffolding systems could greatly improve quality of life for these patients. Researchers at the University of Arizona and three other universities around the world are...

Mammograms involve placing one breast at a time between two plates that compress and spread breast tissue, causing discomfort for many women. A newly developed robotic device has been designed to mimic manual breast palpations, enabling doctors to record accurate data about the underlying tissue....

By incorporating the right sensors and software, robots can be given the ability to identify different materials by touch. A specially designed robot even outperformed humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials according to their textures, in a recent study by research from the USC...

A team of Rice University students has designed a mousetrap-inspired device that could make IV-fluid delivery a "snap" in developing areas of the world. Treating dehydration among children is currently a challenge in these regions — children may be connected to adult-IV bags, and a tool like this device...

A powerful color-based imaging technique is making the jump from remote sensing to the operating room, with the efforts of scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A technique called hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has frequently been used in satellites...

Ear infections are the most common conditions that pediatricians treat. Studies have found that patients who suffer from chronic ear infections may have a film of bacteria or other microorganisms that builds up behind the eardrum; finding and monitoring these so-called biofilms are...

The development of body-powered prosthetic hands has stagnated over the past 20 years, concludes a recent study from the Netherlands. Researchers at TU Delft and the University of Groningen conducted a test comparing the results of contemporary body-powered prosthetic hands to earlier measurements...

Image-generating ability is not limited to people with working eyesight. With this phenomenon in mind, neuroscientists at the Texas Medical Center are researching a way to use the brain's image-generating ability to help some of the estimated 39 million people worldwide who are blind. The...

Cloud computing presents an array of potential uses in many engineering domains, including medical. Technology makes it possible to deliver disease screening to remote areas of the globe where conventional medical tools are unavailable — and now, that technology is taking advantage of the cloud, as...

Could the demise of the scalpel be close at hand? Researchers in Europe are developing innovative micro-robotics technology could make surgeries less complicated, invasive, and costly — benefiting surgeons and patients alike.

Migraine pain sits at the upper end of the typical pain scale – an angry-red section often labeled “severe.” At this intensity, pain is debilitating. Yet many sufferers do not get relief from – or cannot tolerate – over-the-counter and commonly prescribed pain medications. Recently, a team...

A team of Rice University students has developed a transcutaneous energy-transfer (TET) unit to power a minimally invasive ventricular assist device (VAD) being created by a Houston compay. The VAD is a tiny pump inserted into the aorta via a catheter that helps increase blood flow and...

Access to patient-specific information is key to delivering more personalized treatment. A team of biomedical engineers and hematologists at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted large-scale, patient-specific simulations of blood function under the flow conditions found in blood vessels,...

A simple, unobtrusive wrist sensor could gauge the severity of epileptic seizures as accurately as electroencephalograms (EEGs) do — but without the ungainly scalp electrodes and electrical leads. The device could make it possible to collect clinically useful data from epilepsy patients as...

Tabletop femtosecond lasers are already used in eye surgery, but researchers believe that they may be the future of microsurgery, offering benefits in applications inside the body, ranging from repairing the vocal cords to removing small tumors in the spinal cord or other tissues. Scientists at the University of Texas...

In a conventional cochlear implant, there are three main parts that are worn externally on the head behind the ear: a microphone to pick up sound, a speech processor and a radio transmitter coil. These external components may be undesirable because they raise reliability issues, prevent patients from swimming, and...

University of Illinois researchers have developed a technique to computationally correct for aberrations in optical tomography, which could provide faster, less expensive, higher-resolution tissue imaging to a broader population of users. Real-time, 3D microscopic tissue imaging may be useful for medical...

Technology from NASA has benefited various commercial healthcare applications on earth, ranging from reducing chemotherapy's side effects to improving diagnostic imaging. In the latest achievement to join the list, it may also enhance an up-and-coming area of cancer treatment called...

When the brain is injured by blunt force, explosion, or other trauma, the cells at the impact site are irreversibly damaged and die. In the area surrounding the sound, injured cells release toxic substances that cause the brain to swell and restrict blood flow and oxygen...

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new configuration for neutron generators by turning from conventional cylindrical tubes to flat geometry of computer chips. The most practical and near-term application would be a tiny medical neutron source implanted close to...

Oral cancer is the most common cancer in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and other parts of South Asia — and it accounts for more than 40 percent of cancer-related deaths in India. Detecting oral lesions at an earlier time increases survival rates for oral cancer. But with fewer than one dentist per...

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 231,000 total hip replacements are performed each year in the United States. However, in about 17 percent of patients who receive a total join replacement, the implant eventually loosens and needs to be replaced. As people are living...

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have surpassed the fundamental limits of a conventional Field-Effect-Transistor (FET) by designing a Tunnel-FET (T-FET) sensor that is faster and four orders of magnitude more sensitive, opening doors to a new generation of ultra-sensitive biosensors that...

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new method for the fabrication of artificial bone scaffolds that can assess important pore design factors such as porosity and their role in new bone formation. Their method's capablities for in vivo control of different scale...

Cervical collars were first developed during the Vietnam War to stabilize the heads and necks of accident victims, but research has shown that this device may be overdue for an update. Students at Rice University tested a currently used cervical collar and found that when a patient's neck is...

Neurofeedback — a type of biofeedback in which a person becomes aware of the physiological state of their body, and can manipulate and control this at will — has been proven to be an effective form of therapy for a variety of conditions, such as migraine, epileptic seizures, and ADHD. For...