Robotics & Automation

While touch may be subtle, the information it communicates can be understood and acted upon quickly. For the first time, scientists are reporting that they have developed a stretchable “electronic skin” that can detect not just pressure, but also which direction it’s coming from....

The FDA has signed a five-year collaborative research agreement with Dassault Systèmes Vélizy-Villacoublay, France, a world leader in 3D design software, for the development of testing paradigms for insertion, placement, and performance of pacemaker leads and other cardiovascular devices...

Treating those most severely affected by epilepsy traditionally meant drilling through the skull intothe hippocampus area of the brain where the seizures originate, which is invasive, dangerous, and requires a long recovery. A team of engineers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, wanted to find a...

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.

Following surgery, a physician generally listens to the abdomen of a patient for signs of digestion before allowing that patient to be fed, in order to avoid a condition called post-operative ileus, a malfunction of the intestines. Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine at the David...

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 new phase-changing material built from wax and foam that’s capable of switching between hard and soft states could allow surgical robots to shape-shift and move through the body to reach a particular point without damaging any of the organs or vessels along the way, say engineers...

A study conducted by Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, successfully used a new tool to help brain surgeons test and more precisely remove cancerous tissue during surgery.

A collaborative team of UK scientists from the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, along with Microsoft Research, Guy's Hospital, St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, and King's College London has done pioneering research in touchless technology for vascular surgery.

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...

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...

The NIH’s Bionic Man site helps viewers visually explore some of the latest bioengineering creations from research funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. From prosthetics to artificial kidneys, these technologies are changing lives now and in the future.

Augmented reality is quickly becoming more integrated into everyday usage, such as smartphone apps that can identify landmarks, constellations, and more. Head-worn goggles, like Google Glass can superimpose computer-generated images onto your direct view of the physical world. But, moving your eyes back...

A robot developed by researchers at the at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) can react on the spot, grasping flying objects thrown at it with complex shapes and trajectories in less than five hundredths of a second.