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The safe use of silver ions in antibacterial textiles has been a matter of debate worldwide, with consumers increasingly seeking a proven alternative. Sweden’s national agency for chemical inspection has ruled silver a health risk, citing possible damage to human genetic material,...

Engineers at Oregon State University, Corvallis, have developed an implantable device using a simple pulley mechanism to improve hand function after surgery. They say that this is one of the first instruments ever created that could improve the transmission of mechanical forces and movement while implanted...

A team of scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, invented a Wearable Artificial Kidney device, designed to untether patients from large dialysis machines. The device can give patients with end-stage renal failure a degree of mobility and freedom for such routine activities as...

By creating easy to snap together components, a team of scientists at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, Los Angeles, say that it is now possible to build a 3D microfluidic system quickly and cheaply. Microfluidic systems are used to precisely manipulate small volumes of...

When a patient has sepsis, in which bacteria or fungi multiply too swiftly in a patient's blood for antibiotics to help, the result is often deadly. However, a new device inspired by the human spleen and developed by a team at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Boston, MA,...

A new device that fits around the head like a halo, developed by a physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and a researcher at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, delivers therapy to quickly bust blood clots that could cause stroke. When ultrasound is typically used in...

A team of engineers at Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, has developed an innovative method of using off-the-shelf 3D printers and materials to fabricate custom medical implants that can contain antibacterial and chemotherapeutic compounds for targeted drug delivery.

Defects in the head, face, or jaw, whether from disease, injury, or birth defect, can dramatically impact a person’s appearance. A team of researchers at Texas A&M University, College Station, report that they have developed a specialized material that can expand with warm salt water to...

A team of engineers at MIT, Cambridge, MA, have fabricated a new elastic material covered with microscopic, hair-like structures that tilt in response to a magnetic field. Depending on the field’s orientation, they say, the microhairs uniformly tilt to form a path through which fluid can flow. They...

A team of engineers at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a tiny, low-power device that mimics a fly’s hearing mechanism, which could be used to build the next generation of hypersensitive hearing aids with intelligent microphones that could adaptively focus only on those...

The strength of barnacle cement is unbeaten when compared to anything man-made, say researchers at Newcastle University, UK. It can stick to any surface, under any conditions. But exactly how it works has been a mystery. The international team of scientists have shown for the first time that barnacle...

Robonaut, a human-like robot designed by NASA and General Motors, which was developed to serve astronauts in space, has been on the International Space Station since February 2011. Researchers have tested the robot’s ability to perform dull or dangerous tasks that free up human crew time...

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently received $5.6 million from the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an implantable neural interface that can record and stimulate neurons within the brain to treat neuropsychiatric...

Recognizing that the need for effective cybersecurity to ensure medical device functionality has become more important with the increasing use of wireless, Internet- and network-connected devices, and the frequent electronic exchange of medical device-related health information, the FDA has issued a draft...

A team of researchers from Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital report their study results in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that reveals that the latest version of a bionic pancreas device was successfully tested in type 1...

Researchers at Stanford University say that they used electrical stimulation of retinal cells to produce the same patterns of activity that occur when the retina sees a moving object. They say that this is a step toward restoring natural, high-fidelity vision to blind people.

Using precarious particles called polaritons that straddle the worlds of light and matter, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, researchers have demonstrated a new, practical and potentially more efficient way to make a coherent laser-like beam. They say that their first-time polariton laser is fueled by...

The natural mechanical properties of natural joints are considered unrivalled. Cartilage is coated with a special layer of lubrication that allows joints to move virtually friction-free, even under high pressure. Using simulations on supercomputers, scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany...

Inspired by earthworms, which use peristaltic locomotion to wriggle, an engineering student at the University of Cincinnati's College of Engineering and Applied Science used a worm’s contracting and expanding motion to provide a way for gels to freely swim in liquids.