Materials & Manufacturing

A new transparent, bio-inspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning, and incredibly slippery. Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Boston, say that the new coating could be used...

Engineers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, discovered that bone cells grow and reproduce faster on a textured surface than on a smooth one—and grow best when they can cling to a microscopic "shag carpet" made of tiny metal oxide wires. The discovery could someday help broken bones and joint...

Implants used to monitor bodily functions or to provide drugs would advance personalized medicine, but there is an inherent problem—the human immune system recognizes the device as an invader and encapsulates it, preventing the device from working properly. To combat this problem, researchers at the...

Researchers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, say that their technology is closing in on creating low-cost electronic devices that work in contact with inside the body, and that their first planned use of the technology is a sensor that will detect the very early stages of organ transplant...

Doctors at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, are creating new hearts to help cardiac surgeons. Not actual hearts, but three-dimensional synthetic models using a 3D printer. The only one of its kind at a Washington area hospital, the printer uses scans from individual patients to replicate...

Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, a new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses. A rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, was one of several shapes created by a team of Japanese...