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During five days of operations, controllers from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will use the space station's remotely operated Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre, robot to simulate robotic refueling in space. The team also will demonstrate tools, technologies and techniques that could one...

Two robots equipped with instruments designed to “listen” for the calls of baleen whales detected nine endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine last month. The robots reported the detections to shore-based researchers within hours of hearing the whales (i.e., in real time),...

Two University of Texas at Arlington researchers want to bridge the gap between what is known about exploding stars and the remnants left behind thousands of years later. So they’re trying something new – using SNSPH, a complex computer code developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Future sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could be substantially larger than estimated, according to new research from the University of Bristol. The study is the first of its kind on ice sheet melting to use structured expert elicitation (EE)...

Hitoshi Goto, associate professor in Toyohashi Tech’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has helped develop and his lab is using original software-based tools to better understand a variety of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena at the molecular level.

This week's Question comes from INSIDER reader Ed Xavier Gonzalez: Should NASA Consider Capturing a Small Asteroid or Comet for Mining Purposes?

Ever since the Wright brothers, engineers have been working to develop bigger and better flying machines that maximize lift while minimizing drag. There has always been a need to efficiently carry more people and more cargo. And so the science and engineering of getting large aircraft off the...

America's next heavy-lift rocket needs a strong and reliable engine to launch humans beyond low Earth orbit. That's why engineers with NASA's Space Launch System program, managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, will use the proven RS-25, the space shuttle's main...

Harnessing laser light’s ability to gently push and pull microscopic particles, researchers have created the fiber-optic equivalent of the world’s smallest wrench. This virtual tool can precisely twist and turn the tiniest of particles, from living cells and DNA, to microscopic motors and...

It may have taken more than 10 years for this nanotechnology breakthrough, but when it came, it was still a shock say researchers at Rice University, Houston, TX. A team of scientists from Rice, the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid, the U.S. Air Force, and Israel's Technion Institute unveiled a new...

Happy New Year! Here is the latest batch of news from the medical products community. Please click the link for more.

Surgeons may soon be able to use a system in the operating room that recognizes hand gestures as commands to a computer to browse and display medical images of the patient during a surgery. Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, are creating a system that uses depth-sensing cameras and...

Scientists at The University of Manchester in the UK developed a camera that can take powerful three-dimensional color X-ray images, in near real-time, without the need for a synchrotron X-ray source. Its ability to identify the composition of the scanned object could radically improve medical imaging, as well as...

The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, has been instrumental in growing the medical device industry in Minnesota. Still, translation of device innovations from university labs to the marketplace has been challenging in today’s economic environment. Since the technologies developed at the university...

A new way to study permafrost soil will lead to a better understanding of the Arctic ecosystem’s impact on the planet's climate. The new approach combines several remote-sensing tools to study the Arctic landscape—above and below ground—in high resolution and over large spatial scales.

Breathing sensors built into onesie infant bodysuits could help prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), where a sleeping infant suddenly stops breathing. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin used an integrated sensor system made from a...

It is common knowledge among astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, that they grow up to 3 percent taller while living in microgravity. Then, when they return to Earth, they return to their normal height. Studying the impact of this change on the spine and advancing...

Some of the most innovative products realized in 2012 included an explosion of mobile healthcare apps, rapid advances in additive manufacturing, implantable robotics, bionic eyes, and more. What do you think was the most important medical product advance in 2012?

A team of researchers has analyzed data on the impact of prolonged operational confinement on sleep, performance, and mood in astronauts from a groundbreaking international effort to simulate a 520-day space mission to Mars. The findings revealed alterations of life-sustaining sleep patterns and...

Stanford researchers, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have designed a robotic platform that could take space exploration to new heights. The mission proposed for the platform involves a mother spacecraft deploying...