Stanford researchers have developed a new material that can stretch to 100 times its original length by exposing it to an electric field, and even repair itself if punctured, making it potentially useful as an artificial muscle.
Artificial muscles currently have applications in some consumer technology and robotics, but small holes or defects in the materials currently used make them less resilient, and they can’t self-repair if punctured or scratched,… read more
University of Tokyo researchers have developed technology to enable creation of electronic skin (e-skin) displays of blood oxygen level, e-skin heart rate sensors for medical, athletic uses, and other applications.
To serve as a demo, they’ve created an ultrathin, ultraflexible, protective layer and created an air-stable, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display.
For use in electronic devices integrated into the human body, wearable electronics need to… read more
In an open-access paper in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Education, Winslow Burleson, PhD, MSE, associate professor, New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, suggests that “advanced cyberlearning environments that involve VR and AI innovations are needed to solve society’s “wicked challenges*” — entrenched and seemingly intractable societal problems.
Burleson and and co-author Armanda Lewis imagine such technology in a year 2041 Holodeck,… read more
Battelle and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have developed and surgically implanted the first neural bypass for spinal cord injuries that reconnects the brain to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralyzed limb by using a patient’s thoughts — no robotic prosthetic arm required.
Ian Burkhart, a 24-year-old quadriplegic injured in a diving accident, is the first person to experience… read more
Imagine using your hand as an interactive touch-screen display. Sounds like science fiction, but Nokia Research Centre and the European Research Council have funded a study, led by the University of Sussex, to develop such a device, which could be used as a display for the next generation of smartwatches and other smart devices.
Called SkinHaptics, the device (still in the lab) sends ultrasonic pulses… read more
Scientists at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA have developed a new technique for identifying cancer cells in blood samples faster and more accurately than the current standard methods.
In one common approach to testing for cancer, doctors add biochemicals to blood samples. Those biochemicals attach biological “labels” to the cancer cells, and those labels enable instruments to detect and identify them. However, the biochemicals can damage… read more
Ohio State University researchers have taken a key step in the design of “functional textiles” — clothes that gather, store, or transmit digital information. They’ve developed a breakthrough method of weaving electronic components into fabric with 0.1mm precision — small enough to integrate components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing.
Imagine shirts that act as antennas for your smart phone or tablet, workout clothes that monitor… read more
Chinese researchers have genetically modified a human embryo using CRISPR/Cas9, the gene editing technique, using embryos that carried an extra set of chromosomes (so they were not viable) — hoping to learn more about the possibility of producing human babies that would be immune to HIV.
The Chinese team reports in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics that they obtained 213 fertilized eggs from a fertility clinic, which had been deemed… read more
Internet investor and science philanthropist Yuri Milner and physicist Stephen Hawking announced Tuesday a $100 million research and engineering program, Breakthrough Starshot, aiming to demonstrate proof of concept for light-propelled “nanocrafts” that could travel to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system.
The nanocrafts would fly at 20 percent of light speed and capture images of possible planets and other scientific data, arriving in just over 20 years after their launch.
“Earth is a wonderful… read more
Autonomous vehicles would have to be driven hundreds of millions of miles or even hundreds of billions of miles over tens and even hundreds of years (under some scenarios) to create enough data to statistically demonstrate their safety, when compared to the rate at which injuries and fatalities* occur in human-controlled cars and trucks, according to a new open-access RAND report.**
Although the total number of crashes,… read more
University of Pennsylvania engineers have developed a simplified new approach for making transistors by sequentially depositing their components in the form of liquid nanocrystal “inks.” The new process open the door for transistors and other electronic components to be built into flexible or wearable applications. It also avoids the highly complex current process for creating transistors, which requires high-temperature, high-vacuum equipment. Also, the new lower-temperature process is compatible with a… read more
Elizabeth Loboa, dean of the Missouri University College of Engineering, and her team have tested new tissue- engineering methods (based on textile manufacturing) to find ones that are most cost-effective and can be produced in larger quantities.
Tissue engineering is a process that uses novel biomaterials seeded with stem cells to grow and replace missing tissues. When certain types of materials are used, the “scaffolds” that… read more
An international research team working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has captured the first high-resolution 3D images of double-helix DNA segments attached at either end to gold nanoparticles — which could act as building blocks for molecular computer memory and electronic devices (see World’s smallest electronic diode made from single DNA molecule), nanoscale drug-delivery systems, and as markers for biological research and for imaging… read more
Ever want to just push a button and print out a hydraulically-powered robot that can immediately get to work for you?
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers have designed a system that does just that: 3D-prints moving robots with solid and liquid materials in a single step and on a commercially available 3D printer. No assembly required.
“All you have to do is stick… read more
A stem cell therapy system capable of regenerating any human tissue damaged by injury, disease, or aging could be available within a few years, say University of New South Wales (UNSW Australia) researchers.
Their new repair system*, similar to the method used by salamanders to regenerate limbs, could be used to repair everything from spinal discs to bone fractures, and could transform current treatment approaches to regenerative medicine.
The… read more