Tech Briefs

Low-Cost Plastic Sensors Could Monitor a Range of Health Conditions

An international team of researchers have developed a low-cost sensor made from semiconducting plastic that can be used to diagnose or monitor a wide range of health...

Low-Voltage Cap Could Improve DBS Devices

Treatment to control involuntary body movements characteristic of Parkinson's disease could someday be guided by brain signals recorded by electrodes inside a fashionable hat. That is a piece of a...

Bringing a Human Touch to Modern Prosthetics

Amputees often experience the sensation of a “phantom limb”—a feeling that a missing body part is still there. That sensory illusion is closer to becoming a reality thanks to a team of...

Promising Research Could Lead to New Strategies in NMR and MRI Using Diamonds and Lasers

Defects in the lattice of diamonds produce more than just beautiful coloration. A new approach developed by researchers at UC Berkeley's College of...

Engineers Design Color-Changing Compression Bandage

Compression therapy is a standard form of treatment for patients who suffer from venous ulcers and other conditions in which veins struggle to return blood from the lower extremities....

Improved 3D Printing for Patient-Specific Medical Diagnosis

What if you could hold a physical model of your own brain in your hands, accurate down to its every unique fold? That's just a normal part of life for Steven Keating, PhD, who had a...

Ultrathin Endoscope Captures Neurons Firing Deep in the Brain

Researchers have developed an endoscope as thin as a human hair that can image the activity of neurons in the brains of living mice. Because it is so thin, the endoscope can reach...

AI Prediction Method Developed for Epileptic Seizures

Epileptic seizures strike with little warning, and nearly one third of people living with epilepsy are resistant to treatment that controls these attacks. More than 250,000 Australians and...

Guide to FDA Requirements and Importance of Medical Device Calibration

Calibration of a device is carried out to minimize the uncertainty in measurements. It helps in reducing the errors and brings the measurement to an acceptable level. With...

Mobile Phone Detection of Atrial Fibrillation

Because atrial fibrillation (AF) often does not present symptoms, stroke is too often its first manifestation. For effective stroke prevention, timely diagnosis of AF is crucial. Mobile devices are...

Simple Method Developed for 3D Biofabrication Based on Bacterial Cellulose

Bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers are promising building blocks for the development of sustainable materials with the potential to outperform conventional synthetic...

Implantable Islet Cells Come with Their Own Oxygen Supply

Since the 1960s, researchers have been interested in the possibility of treating type 1 diabetes by transplanting islet cells — the pancreatic cells that are responsible for producing...

World's Smallest Optical Implantable Biodevice Controls Brain Patterns

Japanese researchers describe a new implantable device no bigger than the width of a coin that can be used to control brain patterns. The device, which can be read about in...

Improving Mid-Infrared Imaging and Sensing

A new way of taking images in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum, developed by researchers at MIT and elsewhere, could enable a wide variety of applications, including thermal imaging, biomedical...

Electrode Shape Improves Neurostimulation for Small Targets

A cross-like shape helps the electrodes of implantable neurostimulation devices to deliver more charge to specific areas of the nervous system, possibly prolonging device life span,...

Tiny Tooth-Mounted Sensors Track Food Intake

Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of healthcare or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new,...

Therapeutic Gel Shows Promise Against Cancerous Tumors

Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and NC State have created an injectable gel-like scaffold that can hold combination chemo-immunotherapeutic drugs and deliver them locally to tumors...

‘Candy Cane’ Polymer Weave Could Power Future Functional Fabrics and Devices

If scientists are ever going to deliver on the promise of implantable artificial organs or clothing that dries itself, they’ll first need to solve the problem of...

Researchers Develop At-Home Pap Smear Test

An at-home Pap smear test is designed to reduce anxiety associated with the procedure and give women more control over their health without interfering with their work or social life. The Domi Care,...

3D Printing Fuels the Rise of Point-of-Care Medical Manufacturing

More than 95 percent of point-of-care (POC) professionals expect to see an expansion of POC manufacturing enabled by additive manufacturing, commonly called 3D printing....

Atomic Blasting Creates New Devices to Measure Nanoparticles

Like sandblasting at the nanometer scale, focused beams of ions ablate hard materials to form intricate three-dimensional patterns. The beams can create tiny features in the lateral...

New System Explores the Future of Automated Visual Inspection

The concept for a new automated visual inspection system that uses robotics to manipulate metallic components is being tested at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced...

Makerspace: Rapid Prototyping Facility Offers Hands-On Learning

The New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Newark College of Engineering has opened a training-focused, rapid prototyping facility that is central to both the university’s...

Stretchable Electronics a ‘Game Changer’ for Stroke Recovery Treatment

A groundbreaking new wearable device designed to be worn on the throat could be a game changer in the field of stroke rehabilitation.

Malleable ‘Electronic Skin’ Self-Healable, Recyclable

CU Boulder researchers have developed a new type of malleable, self-healing and fully recyclable “electronic skin” that has applications ranging from robotics and prosthetic...

Flexible Micro LEDs Can Control Behavior of Neurons

A KAIST research team has developed flexible vertical micro LEDs (f-VLEDs) using anisotropic conductive film (ACF)-based transfer and interconnection technology. The team, led by Professor...

Repetition Key to Self-Healing, Flexible Medical Devices

Medical devices powered by synthetic proteins created from repeated sequences of proteins may be possible, according to materials science and biotechnology experts, who looked at material...

Near-Infrared Light May Identify Breast Cancer Patients Who Will Benefit Most from Chemotherapy

A new optical imaging system developed at Columbia University uses red and near-infrared light to identify breast cancer patients who will respond...

Biosensor Could Monitor Glucose Levels in Tears and Sweat

Constantly tracking a person's glucose levels through their tears or sweat could be one step closer to providing people with diabetes an improved monitoring tool. Researchers report in...