Tech Briefs

Sonic Cyber Attack Shows Security Holes in Ubiquitous Sensors

Sound waves could be used to hack into critical sensors in a broad array of technologies including medical devices, smart-phones, automobiles, and the Internet of Things, University...

Industry 4.0: Virtual Twin Controls Production

Efficient production control is a key industrial technology. The notion of building up two parallel factories instead of one may sound like nothing but doubling of effort. But what if one of the...

Living Polymerization Enables Adaptable 3D Printing

Three-dimensional printing technology makes it possible to rapidly manufacture objects by depositing layer upon layer of polymers in a precisely determined pattern. Once these objects are...

Soft Robot Offers New Treatment Option for Heart Failure

Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital researchers have developed a customizable soft robot that fits around a heart and helps it beat, potentially opening new treatment...

Researchers Use Nature's Weaving Formula to Engineer Advanced Functional Materials

For the first time, biomedical engineers have woven a “smart” fabric that mimics the sophisticated and complex properties of one of nature's ingenious...

Sound Waves Create Whirlpools to Round Up Tiny Signs of Disease

Mechanical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a tiny whirlpool that can concentrate nanoparticles using nothing but sound. The innovation could gather proteins and...

Blood-Repellent Materials: A New Approach to Medical Implants

Medical implants like stents, catheters and tubing introduce risk for blood clotting and infection — a perpetual problem for many patients.

Wearable ‘Watches’ to Monitor Your Blood Pressure

What if there were a wearable fitness device that could monitor your blood pressure continuously, 24 hours a day? Unfortunately, blood pressure measurements currently require the use of a...

New Graphene-Based System Could Help ‘See’ Electrical Signaling in Heart and Nerve Cells

Scientists have enlisted the exotic properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, to function like the film of an incredibly sensitive...

‘Liquid Biopsy’ Chip Detects Metastatic Cancer Cells in a Drop of Blood

A chip developed by mechanical engineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, MA, can trap and identify metastatic cancer cells in a small amount of...

Advanced Mobility Aid Addresses Failings of Current Devices

Researchers from the Medical Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (ARMC), Sheffield, UK, are developing an advanced mobility aid that could change the lives of millions of disabled...

Hydrogel Dressing Could Eliminate Traditional Bandages for Burns

For patients with second-degree burns, it’s not always the initial injury that hurts most. The daily, sometimes hours-long bandage changes can be the most excruciating ordeal.

Bionic Wheelchair Breaks New Barriers

People confined to a wheelchair are still confronted with insurmountable obstacles in everyday life — even in today’s more wheelchair-accessible society. There are often no elevators in a building —...

Biomedical Skin-Like Bandage Is Stretchy, Durable, and Long Lasting

A skin-like biomedical technology that uses a mesh of conducting nanowires and a thin layer of elastic polymer might bring new electronic bandages that monitor biosignals for...

Glass Fibers with Potential Far Beyond Transmitting Light

Glass fibers do everything from connecting us to the Internet to enabling keyhole surgery by delivering light through an endoscope. But as versatile as today’s fiber optics are,...

New ‘Bottlebrush’ Electroactive Polymers Make Dielectric Elastomers Increasingly Viable for Use in Devices

Material can change shape and size when exposed to a relatively small electric field. A multi-institutional research team has...

Fluorescent Sensor Provides Low-Cost Diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis

New device provides a cheaper, easier way to detect levels of chloride in sweat. Scientists have developed a new diagnostic test for cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder currently...

Energy-Efficient Biomedical Sensor Hub for Wearable Health Applications

A new sensor hub integrated as a system-on-chip (SoC) has been designed for use in a broad range of wearable health devices and applications. The SoC was developed by imec,...

Creating a Slippery Slope on the Surface of Medical Implants

Implanted medical devices such as left ventricular-assist devices for patients with heart failure or other support systems for patients with respiratory, liver, or other end organ...

Motion Capture Technology Brings a New Age of Mobility to Veteran Amputees

For veterans who have lost a limb, a prosthesis is a lifeline. An artificial device not only provides mobility and enables routine activity, it can be life giving —...

The Helping Hand Project: Changing Lives One Hand at a Time

Swing a baseball bat, eat with a fork and knife, steer a bike with both handles — without two hands, a child can’t do any of these ordinary activities that most children take for...

Promising Biomaterial to Build Better Bones with 3D Printing

A Northwestern University research team has developed a 3D printable ink that produces a synthetic bone implant that rapidly induces bone regeneration and growth. This hyperelastic...

Toward Visible-Light-Based Imaging for Medical Devices

MIT researchers have developed a technique for recovering visual information from light that has scattered because of interactions with the environment — such as passing through human...

DARPA Helps Paralyzed Man Feel Again Using a Brain-Controlled Robotic Arm

A DARPA-funded research team has demonstrated for the first time in a human a technology that allows an individual to experience the sensation of touch directly in the...

3D Graphene Shows Promise for Bone Implants

Flakes of graphene welded together into solid materials may be suitable for bone implants, according to a study led by Rice University scientists. The Rice lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan...

Complex Nanomachines Could Carry Pharmaceuticals, Detect Disease

UCLA nanoscience researchers have determined that a fluid that behaves similarly to water in our day-to-day lives becomes as heavy as honey when trapped in a nanocage of a porous...

Killing Cancer Cells May Be Possible With “Hairy” Nanorods

Materials scientists from Georgia Tech have developed a new strategy for crafting one-dimensional nanorods from a wide range of precursor materials. Based on a cellulose backbone,...

Edible Battery Could Power Ingestible Medical Devices

Nontoxic, edible batteries could one day power ingestible devices for diagnosing and treating disease. One team reports new progress toward that goal with their batteries made with melanin...

New Device Could Improve Diagnosis of Ear Infections

A new device developed by researchers at MIT and a physician at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center could greatly improve doctors’ ability to accurately diagnose ear infections. That...