Tech Briefs

3D Breast Imaging with Less Radiation

Preliminary testing shows that a new device may enable existing breast cancer imagers to provide up to six times better contrast of breast tumors, while maintaining the same or better image quality and...

Wearable System Predicts Asthma Attacks

Researchers have developed an integrated, wearable system that monitors a user’s environment, heart rate, and other physical attributes to help predict and prevent asthma attacks. The system, called the...

Cybersecurity Standards for Medical Devices

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and UL (Underwriters Laboratories) announced a signed Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) program to create medical device cybersecurity...

Electric Mesh Helps Heart Beat

A research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Seoul National University has developed a new electric mesh device that can be wrapped around the heart to deliver...

Software Simplifies Use of Online Data

The fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT) consists of millions of sensing devices in buildings, vehicles, and elsewhere that deliver reams of data online. However, this wide-ranging resource involves so...

CMOS Technology Makes Electronic Nose Affordable

A team of engineers at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE) at UT Dallas is working to develop an affordable electronic nose that can be used in breath analysis for a wide range of...

Interface Improves Artificial Limb Control

Being able to manipulate virtual fingers, or even fingers attached to a functioning prosthetic device, is not the same as feeling like the device is part of your own body. Researchers at Arizona State...

Developing Mini Artificial Lungs

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM What if there were a way to test how lungs react to toxins without actually putting a subject at risk? That’s what scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory...

Soft Tissue Robotic Surgery Outperforms Standard Surgery

Children’s National Health System, Washington, DC Surgeons and scientists at the Children’s National Health System’s Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation have...

Creating Super Stretchy Artificial Muscles

Chemical engineers at Stanford University discovered that a new elastomer synthesized there had too much elasticity for the testing equipment the lab possessed. In fact, the clamping machine typically...

How Sensors Can Help Save Preterm Babies

“Preterm labor is related to high morbidity, high mortality, and significant cost,” said Rubin Pillay, MD, PhD, assistant dean for global health innovation at the UAB School of Medicine. “If we can...

Finding Flaws in 3D-Printed Titanium

Titanium found its initial use in aircraft because it is strong but light. Today, it’s found everywhere, from eyeglass frames and jewelry to sports gear, tools, surgical and dental implants, and...

Electroluminescent Skin for Healthcare Robots

A team of Cornell University graduate engineering students say that they envision a future where a healthcare robot could display a patient’s temperature and pulse, and then read and react to a...

Recycling Carbon-Fiber into New Material

A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado has determined that carbon-fiber composites, which are stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum, can be easily and cost-effectively recycled...

NASA Designs New Heart Pump for Children

Dr. Mark Rodefeld, a pediatric heart surgeon at Indiana University, has spent decades helping to fix children’s hearts. He found one problem particularly vexing, leading to years of his own research...

Advancing Optoelectronics with Monolayer Semiconductors

In a study led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), epitaxy, or growing crystalline film layers that are templated by a crystalline substrate, is a...

Improving Children’s Prosthetic Hands

A team of electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering students at Rice University, calling itself Carpal Diem, has developed a testing suite to validate how well 3D-printed prosthetic hands transfer...

Origami-Inspired Surgical Instruments

Mechanical Engineering professors Larry Howell and Spencer Magleby at Brigham Young University have spent the past five years applying the principles of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, to...

Open Source Laser Cutter 3D Prints from Powder

Bioengineering researchers at Rice University have modified a commercialgrade CO2 laser cutter to create OpenSLS, an open-source, selective laser sintering (SLS) platform that, they say, can print...

‘Virtual’ Guide Dog for Visually Impaired Navigation

Wearable device miniaturized for easier use. A team of computer scientists at MIT has developed a low-power chip to process 3D camera data that, they say, could aid visually impaired...

Finding Flaws in Medical Implants

Cracks in ceramic capacitors, devices that store electric charge in electronic circuits, can cause damage to such disparate objects as medical implants and spacecraft. The cracks, which are often hidden...

Freezing Graphene for 3D Printing

Researchers tame aerogel by freezing it. Graphene, which was discovered in 2004, is 1 million times thinner than a human hair, 300 times stronger than steel, and is the best known conductor of heat and...

Creating a Strong New Metal

New metal could be used for mobile electronics and biomedical devices. A research team at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created an extremely strong yet lightweight structural...

Developing a New Type of Polymer

Researchers at Northwestern University’s Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology say that they have developed a polymer that might one day be used in artificial muscles or other lifelike materials; for...

Wireless, Dissolvable Sensors to Monitor Brain

Bioabsorbable sensors negate need for removal surgery. A team of neurosurgeons and scientists at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSTL) in St. Louis and engineers at the University of...

Designing and Testing Blood-Flow Sensor for Vascular Monitoring

Frequent measurement and study of changes in blood flow could be used to improve the ability of health care providers to diagnose and treat patients with vascular conditions, such...

In-Flight Medical Diagnostic System for Space Use

Comprehensive diagnostic system could easily fit in one hand. In the future, NASA astronauts journeying into deep space may be able to give themselves a health check-up using a small hand-held...

Forming Nanobridges with Electron Beam Writing

A team of mechanical engineers at Georgia Tech say that they have demonstrated a new process to rapidly fabricate complex three-dimensional nanostructures from a variety of materials, including...

Workshops for Warriors Trains Veterans in Machining/Welding

While manufacturers bemoan a lack of skilled potential employees, and returning veterans experience frustration at being able to find employment, one organization— Workshop for...