INSIDER

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...

The key to creative design isn't necessarily coming up with something entirely new, but rather, being aware of what problems exist, and conceiving of solutions to those problems. And, according to technology design and development firm Cambridge Consultants, a focus on "Px" development — the art and science of designing...

Biology, the study of life, can (and often does) breathe new life into engineering. In one recent example of the potential benefits of this sort of interdisciplinary collaboration, an international team of scientists is working toward the development of the "Cyberplasm," a tiny robot that is...

The first gateway to the detection of potentially cancerous tumors or lesions often occurs during the physical exam at the doctor's office, which is performed through touch. As one might imagine, conclusions made from such a test could be very subjective, depending on the physician's experience...

A marriage between the endoscope and a new field of medical imaging — Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging (CLI) — may allow surgeons to more completely remove cancerous tumors. The technique, called Cerenkov Luminescence Endoscopy (CLE), offers advantages over both traditional endoscopic and imaging...

An integrated microfluidics-waveguide sensor developed at Stanford University School of Medicine has the potential to simplify the diagnosis of diseases ranging from life-threatening immune deficiencies to the common cold. The device sorts and counts cells in small samples of...

Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a 3D paper sensor that may be able to test for diseases such as malaria and HIV for less than 10 cents a pop. One-dimensional paper sensors, such as those used in pregnancy tests,...

Simulated surgeries are a great tool for training surgical residents — but does a tool exist to determine precisely when a surgical resident is ready to move on to operate on a human patient? With this question in mind, an interdisciplinary team of University of Houston computer scientists and...

Following an orthopedic procedure, surgeons usually rely on X-rays or MRIs to monitor the progress of their patients' recovery. A new implantable sensor developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could provide surgeons with detailed, real-time information from the actual...

Although often curable if detected early, melanoma causes the deaths of nearly 9,000 Americans each year. The incidence of melanoma is increasing at a rate faster than that of any of the seven most common cancers. A new medical diagnostic device invented by John A. Viator, Ph.D, an...

Each year, upwards of 1.5 million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) occur in the United States. Conventional imaging methods don't always provide physicians with as much detail as they would like when it comes to determining how the injury damaged the patient's brain tissue, predicting how the...

On an episode of "Shark Tank" (a reality TV show in which people present their business ideas to a panel of potential investors, or "sharks"), a man proposed the idea of a surgically implanted Bluetooth set. The "sharks" laughed him right out of the tank, reasoning that nobody would want to undergo a...

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are using off-the-shelf equipment to improve amputees' control over prosthetics with direct help from their own nervous systems. The goal is improved prosthetics with flexible nerve-to-nerve or nerve-to-muscle interfaces through which transected nerves...

A team of physicists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Harvard University has developed a theory describing how to both detect weak electrical signals and cool electrical circuits using light and something similar to a nanosized loudspeaker. The ability...

No one ever gets anywhere by setting the bar low — so it's exciting to see that researchers are dreaming big when it comes to the next class of medical devices. Actually, they're tackling two challenges at once: devices that are not only tiny, but also self-powered. Just as Hollywood challenges its stars to...

When it comes to medical technology, what's good for the astronaut is good for the rest of us, too. Thinking a little out of this world has inspired and driven the development of a host of medical technologies that have advanced the ways in which patients are diagnosed and treated, whether in space or on Earth. Earlier...

Purdue University researchers have developed a miniature medical sensor that could be powered by music with a strong bass rhythm, such as rap. Acoustic waves from rap music were found to effectively recharge the pressure sensor. Such a device could ultimately help treat people with aneurysms or...

Mobile health apps are taking off in a big way. Juniper Research recently estimated that 44 million mobile health apps were downloaded in 2011. Smartphones already offer two top-notch qualities that designers often seek to achieve in any medical device: affordability and portability. One of...