#Brainport V100 Turns Your Tongue Into an Eye If you can see with your eyes,
The camera detects objects in front of the user, sending signals to the intraoral device that has an array of electrodes on the surface.
These create a tingling sensation which can map what the camera is seeing onto the tongue,
allowing the user to get a general idea of what ahead. The technology certainly doesn come close to natural vision in being able to recognize objects,
With Brainport Vision Technology One Day The Blind May See The World With The Tongue New Device Delivers Sound Through Tongue to Let Deaf People Hear (VIDEO) roduct page:
#Optical Probe to Help Remove Only Cancerous Tissues in Brain Surgeries Neurosurgeons removing a tumor have to be obsessive about resecting just enough
so that the cancer doesn come back while the patient is not left neurologically disabled. Tumors usually look the same as the healthy tissue just around them,
which means the repeated biopsies and MRI scans can make such surgeries last for many hours.
Now researchers at Johns hopkins university are reporting on a new optical coherence tomography (OCT) probe that may provide surgeons real-time identification of cancerous tissues.
Previously the fact that tumors tend to be denser was the basis for many designed devices,
but the Hopkins team focused on brain cancer cellslack of myelin sheaths as the marker that influences how light passes through them.
Having identified how brain cancer cells uniquely scatter light, the researchers wrote a computer program that spots the relevant parameters within OCT scan data.
The results come back as a 3d color map of the tissue under the probe, red colored areas pointing to cancerous regions
while the green being healthy material to be preserved. Here an example of the probe being used on brain tissue removed in actual surgeries:
Study in Science Translational Medicine: Detection of human brain cancer infiltration ex vivo and in vivo using quantitative optical coherence tomographyource:
Johns Hopkins Medicine
#Electromagnetic field Activated Drug Loadded Nanowires Drug releasing implants can be of great benefit for conditions requiring long term treatment in a targeted area of the body.
There are existing devices on the market, but they tend to be bulky and involve electronics, mechanical valves,
and other components that create their own drawbacks. Researchers at Purdue University have come up with a new way of releasing drugs into the body in a controlled manner using tiny injectable nanowire implants.
The devices are made of polypyrrole, an organic electrically conductive polylmer. A small carpet made of these wires was grown over a gold base
and loaded with dexamethasone, a corticosteroid. Applying an electromagnetic field over the wires caused them to release the drug.
Turning off the EM field immediately stopped the drug release process. The team tested the technology on mice with compression injuries,
demonstrating that the drug reduced inflammation in the areas where the EM field was applied. This worked over a period of weeks,
pointing to this approach being applicable in long-term clinical applications. From the study abstract in Journal of Controlled Release:
Approximately 1 mm2 dexamethasone (DEX) doped Ppynws was lifted on a single drop of sterile water by surface tension,
and deposited onto a spinal cord lesion in glial fibrillary acidic protein-luc transgenic mice (GFAP-luc mice). Overexpression of GFAP is an indicator of astrogliosis/neuroinflammation in CNS injury.
The corticosteroid DEX, a powerful ameliorator of inflammation, was released from the polymer by external application of an electromagnetic field for 2 h/day for a week.
The GFAP signal, revealed by bioluminescent imaging in the living animal, was reduced significantly in treated animals a
The team used a motorized robot that was controlled via an ECG cap by the user thoughts alone.
The system was tested also with healthy people to find out whether the setup needs more work to better complement disabled folks,
The users underwent about 10 days of training before testing their skills against other users.
automatically avoiding obstacles in its way thanks to built-in sensors that detect objects in its vicinity.
This way the user can provide overall directions, and the robot figuring out the details of how to get from point A to B. Here an EPFL video showing off the technology n
#Flexible Wiring to Make Garments Into Body Sensors Wearable devices for measuring various diagnostic parameters are becoming more common by the day,
but researchers at University of Tokyo are looking forward to a time when the very clothes we wear are outfitted with interconnected sensors.
Clothes already being close to our bodies are a natural platform for wearable sensors, but connecting a bunch of electronic components embedded within a pair of pants requires very flexible wiring.
The Japanese team developed a new conductive ink that can be printed right onto clothes to create flexible and stretchable electric connections.
The ink is made out of a solution of silver flakes organic solvent, fluorine rubber, and fluorine surfactant, able to be stretched more than three times
The team demonstrated the technology by creating an electromyograophy (EMG) sensor using the printed wiring that can stay on the wrist
University of Tokyo y
#Artificial Neurons That Work Like Real Ones to Treat Neurological Conditions, Paralysis Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have created reportedly an artificial neuron that apparently works just like our own living neurons
Do it is made of organic bioelectronics and is able to convert chemical signals to electric potentials that travel along the device
The big deal for clinical applications is that this technology may allow for chemical stimulation of neurological conditions triggered by naturally occurring biochemicals.
or some even work blindly simply being activated constantly and delivering therapy consistently at all times. The current device is still quite bulky
and is incomparable in size to natural neurons, but the researchers plan to miniaturize it.
An organic electronic biomimetic neuron enables auto-regulated neuromodulationource: Karolinska Institutet u
#To Be prescribed Soon: Implantable Drug Releasing Microchips Over the past few years wee covered Microchips Biotech, an MIT spin out company that developed an implantable technology to release drugs inside the body in a controlled manner.
It been almost a decade since the technology has had initial development, but now it may finally see clinical light of day.
The implantable chip has tiny reservoirs, each containing one dose of a particular medication. The tops of these reservoirs are capped by a metal membrane
which can be moved out of the way by delivering an electric current. Each reservoir can be activated individually to open up depending on the applied current,
The company microchips have gone already through a successful clinical trial on patients with osteoporosis, delivering teriparatide directly without having to go through regular injections.
Flashbacks: Wireless Implantable Microchips Deliver Drugs When Needed Continuous Microchips Glucose Monitoring Shows Promiseompany homepage:
Microchips Biotechource: MIT h
#Scientists Turbo Charge Atomic Force Microscope to Watch Living Breast cancer Cells Changes in the physical properties of individual cells can point to how theye developing
and being influenced by varying chemical compounds and other conditions. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) allows researchers to measure the viscoelastic properties of individual cells,
Researchers at Purdue University have unveiled a new technique that can harness just about any atomic force microscope to be able to watch the changing dynamics of large groups of live cells at high spatial and temporal resolutions.
This method is used to study the spatiotemporal mechanical response of MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma cells to the inhibition of Syk protein tyrosine kinase giving insight into the signaling pathways by which Syk negatively regulates motility of highly invasive cancer cells.
#Scientists 3d Print Bone Tissue With Live Cells and Pre-Loaded Proteins Printing bone tissue sounds like a great idea,
Now a partnership between scientists at University of Nottingham in the UK and Cornell University in New york have developed a way of printing bonelike biocompatible material at room temperature
and accompanying software that lets users type by simply looking at letters on a screen,
The system includes an infrared camera that can track the movement of the pupil and software that is calibrated for the user unique needs.
It can be used to issue a general alarm call up pre-written sentences (y nose itches
It currently works with English and Hebrew, and more languages are soon to be integrated. The developers hope to be able to offer it for around $250 as opposed to similar currently available systems costing closer to $5, 000.
#New Technology for Blood-Free Glucose Sensing The University of Leeds may have solved one of the biggest holy grails in medicine,
Currently, finger pricking is the daily grind of diabetics worldwide, which also involves careful pipetting of the blood samples into the glucometer.
and is particularly difficult for young children that don understand the purpose of it All the new technology relies on a special silica glass that has ions throughout that fluoresce in infrared in response to laser light.
In a small scale clinical study at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, the technology has shown considerable promise to be able to match currently used glucometers.
The University of Leeds has partnered with Netscientific to spin off Glucosense Diagnostics, a company tasked with further developing the technology
University of Leeds L
#St jude Medical Invisible Trial System Uses ipads, ipods to Control Pain Relieving Neurostimulator St jude Medical landed FDA approval to introduce its Invisible Trial System,
a tool for evaluating the benefits that a spinal cord stimulator can provide before actually implanting one.
ruining the experience for many potential users of the technology. The Invisible Trial System instead uses an Apple ipod touch and an ipad mini as the control system, improving how both patients
and physicians program and control the temporary stimulator. Moreover, the system relies on wireless Bluetooth connectivity to talk to the neurostimulator
completely getting rid of cables that have been used in the past to connect to the device. The ipad mini is used by the physician to program the neurostimulator
and assess its effectiveness in treating pain, while the ipod touch is for the patient to control the level of therapy throughout the day.
Because there are no wires to connect and the ipod used as the patient controller, the system can remain completely discreet,
#Tiny Remote Controlled Implant Releases Drugs Into Brain The blood-brain barrier is a picky bouncer, preventing most therapeutic compounds from crossing its barricades.
To get around this challenge and to be able to treat a variety of neurological conditions,
researchers from Washington Universityin St louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a wireless implant that can be controlled remotely to release drugs right into the brain.
The device, about the width of human hair, is soft and flexible, and contains four tiny drug chambers.
It also HAS LED a tiny built-in that can deliver light to the implantation site because it was developed originally for studying optogenetics,
a technique that uses genetic modification to make some cells sensitive to light and then activating them using a light source.
The drug delivery component is particularly interesting for clinical research, since optogenetics is only practical for researchers studying biological processes.
Yet, in laboratory studies, the combination of the two factors can help identify which compounds are promising neurological drug candidates.
Moreover, because the device doesn require wires coming out of the animal being studied, it allows for more lifelike experiments
the infrared light source can be used as a simple remote control to open up the drug chambers as necessary s
#Wize Mirror to Monitor Health, Prevent Cardio-Metabolic Diseases Seasoned primary care physicians often have an uncanny ability to notice symptoms by simply looking at their patients.
and so a consortium of EU researchers has been working on mimicking this ability using a camera, sensors,
as well as harnessing the results to provide health guidance to the user. The team has developed a prototype device called a Wize Mirror,
It designed to eventually replace the mirror in your bathroom helping you keep to keep an eye on yourself day to day
and help spot signs of cardio-metabolic diseases. There is a 3d scanning camera that notices changes to the structure of the skin,
and facial recognition software identifies how stressed or calm you are. There is also a gas analyzer that will tell you
The devices were placed close to the spinal cord near the lower back of the patients who underwent weekly sessions for about four months to see how they respond to the therapy.
even though the men have complete paralysis, there are still neural connections that remain that are able to take on new functions requested by the body.
which in the past has demonstrated considerable benefits for mice with spinal cord injuries. Toward the end of the study, amazingly the patients were able to move their legs on their own without the neurostimulators doing anything at all.
not only because cheap transcutaneous neurostimulators may be used in treating paralysis due to damaged spinal cords, but more importantly because there clear evidence that such patients may one day recover their natural walking ability thanks to these devices.
#This tiny chip could end animal testing A plastic chip about the size of a thumb drive could be the end of animal testing.
is called organs-on-chips and was developed by researchers at Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
Each chip is embedded with microfluidic tubes lined with human cells, through which air, blood and bacteria can be pumped,
and the chipsclear polymer allows scientists to watch the small-scale biological processes in real time. he organs-on-chips allow us to see biological mechanisms
Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute, told The Guardian. e now have a window on the molecular-scale activities going on in human organs,
Lung-on-a-chip is the first rganto be developed, but eventually chips that emulate hearts, intestines,
kidneys and other organs could all be linked together to form full-body networks, enabling researchers to test drugs and cosmetics without using animals.
The organs-on-chips tand to significantly reduce the need for animal testing by providing a faster
the university said in a news release. More than 115 million animals worldwide are used in lab experiments annually, according to the Humane Society International,
Geraldine Hamilton, a senior staff scientist at the Wyss Institute said. Although organs-on-chips are still years away from replacing animal trials on a large scale,
the technology is already in line with public opinion. A 2014 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans find medical testing on animals to be morally wrong,
while a Humane Society poll revealed that 67 percent of Americans are opposed to cosmetic testing on animals.
Learn more about organs-on-chips in the video below s
#Scientists create engine that is powered entirely by evaporation Water makes up over 70 percent of Earth's surface,
Researchers at Columbia University are hoping to change that. They have invented a novel new type of engine that is powered entirely by evaporating water,
The device works by integrating biological spores which can expand or contract like muscles when exposed to different levels of moisture. ngineered systems rarely,
if ever, use evaporation as a source of energy, despite myriad examples of such adaptations in the biological world, wrote lead author Xi Chen
and colleagues in a paper recently published in the journal Nature Communications. The power generated by evaporation is difficult to capture because,
Because these spores store water in very small, nanometer scale spaces, they respond dramatically to pressure changes caused by evaporating moisture.
an electric generator capable of powering a pair of LED LIGHTS, and a miniature toy"car"that seemingly moves with miraculous efficiency.
You may have to see these inventions in action to get the full grasp of just how innovative they are.
Researchers hope that their work could eventually be upscaled for other larger applications. For instance, the basic principle here could be used to build power plants over bodies of water that generate electricity as the water evaporates.
And since the materials used to make the evaporation engine are relatively cheap, the technology could be particularly useful in regions that don't have access to typical electrical infrastructures.
#Why hydrogen fuel cell cars are taking off The news hasn't been great for electric vehicle and hybrid sales lately.
suddenly wee seeing a whole lot of action from hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars. This is a zero emission technology that been under the radar,
but is exploding in 2015, with available-now or soon-arriving cars from Toyota, Honda,
Mercedes-benz and Hyundai. Think of a fuel-cell car as an exhaust-free electric car with a little chemical factory producing the electrons in place of a battery.
Hydrogen is the fuel (although the industry refers to call it an nergy carrier, and range is an excellent 300 miles or better.
The other advantage over battery cars is that refueling is just like getting gas, and takes only about five minutes.
The concept has been around for centuries (the fuel cell was invented by a British barrister in the 19th century),
market car was possible. Wee there now. Hyundai was the first out of the gate with the Tucson fuel-cell car last spring.
Initially it available only in southern California because that where the stations are. The big challenge for hydrogen is the infrastructurehe stations cost $1 million or more
And Toyota is subsidizing a dozen stations in the Northeast. Connecticut recently announced that it would offer $450, 000 in subsidies for two hydrogen stations in that state,
Toyota Mirai hits dealerships in California this fall, with the East Coast also in the plans later.
Toyota just announced some stellar numbers for the car a range of 312 miles on a hydrogen fill
Toyota is preparing a big push on fuel-cell cars. ust as the Prius introduced hybrid-electric vehicles to millions of customers nearly 20 years ago,
said Jim Lenz, CEO of Toyota North america. Toyota is also working with BMW, previously mostly quiet on fuel cells though it showed an early interest in hydrogen with 7-Series cars that burned the stuff.
BMW said this week it will test a Toyota-enhanced fuel-cell car on public roads in July.
BMW showed a 5-Series ran Turismowith a fuel cell (and a range of 310 miles) at a race track in France
and plans a echnically mature, customer-ready vehicle sometime after 2020. Germany has one of the better hydrogen networks globally, with 18 stations and plans for 50.
Daimler and partners recently opened a station on the autobahn, a first for Germany. Mercedes, meanwhile, is being fairly quiet about its plans,
but one executive said the automaker would field what could turn out to be an SUV-or crossover-based car in 2017.
With the recent F-Cell and other experimental models through a long history, Daimler has been a leader in the field.
Three Japanese automakers, Toyota, Honda and Nissan (until recently a dark horse player in the field) said July 1 that they will band together to pay as much as one-third of the operating costs of Japan hydrogen network,
The government has subsidized already home and office fuel cells. Honda will be a big player in fuel cells,
and showed off the FCV Concept car at the Detroit Auto Show back in January. It plans to have the production version of that car on American roads next year.
So there a lot of news, and an invigorated sector that is finally going from the planning stages to the showroom floor
#Lamp runs on nothing but saltwater A lamp that requires just two tablespoons of salt and a glass of water in order to work could make lighting affordable for people around the world.
That's the idea behind the SALT lamp, a product that its developers also call a social movement, reports Phys. org.
The lamp works by making use of"the science behind the Galvanic cell, the basis for battery-making, changing the electrolytes to a nontoxic,
saline solution--making the entire process safe and harmless,"according to SALT Corp.,at their website. Even better
the lamp's power source can also be used to power or charge other devices too.
It even comes equipped with a USB port for charging smartphone batteries. In the event that you don't carry a bag of salt with you,
000 islands in the Philippines lack access to electricity. This technology can turn the ocean into their power source,
providing lighting without the need for an electric grid. The cost of the lamp is yet to be determined;
"We just need to give these people the chance at life through education by providing them the basic things:
a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines:
To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.
Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what known as vorticity,
an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers,
hy don we try to use this energy, not avoid it,?Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive.
The Vortex shape was developed computationally to ensure the spinning wind (vortices) occurs synchronously along the entirety of the mast. he swirls have to work together to achieve good performance,
In its current prototype, the elongated cone is made from a composite of fiberglass and carbon fiber,
This kinetic energy is converted then into electricity via an alternator that multiplies the frequency of the mast oscillation to improve the energy-gathering efficiency.
Based on field testing, the Mini ultimately captures 30 percent less than conventional wind turbines, but that shortcoming is compensated by the fact that you can put double the Vortex turbines into the same space as a propeller turbine.
The Vortex team says there are some clear advantages to their model: It less expensive to manufacture, totally silent,
Vortex Bladeless says its turbine would cost around 51 percent less than a traditional turbine whose major costs come from the blades and support system.
There enough interest, Suriol says, that he fields upward of 200 emails a day from people inquiring about the turbine.
100-watt turbine that will be used in developing countries, ready before the end of the year.
which Suriol is actually happy about. e can say anything bad about conventional wind turbines; theye great machines, he says. ee just proposing a new way, a different way. ource:
#Industrial Pump Inspired By Bird Wings Birds are unwitting masters of fluid dynamics, they manipulate airflow each time they flap their wings, pushing air in one direction and moving themselves in another.
Two New york University researchers have taken inspiration from avian locomotion strategies and created a pump that moves fluid using vibration instead of a rotor.
When a fluid is squeezed and expanded repeatedly, the asymmetric boundary forces the fluid to move in one direction.
#New Honeycomb-Inspired Design Protects Against Impacts Conventional honeycomb structures are insular panels of repeating, often hexagonal-shaped cells in a range of sizes and configurations.
The shortcoming of conventional honeycombs is that they lose their full protective properties after only one impact due to plastic buckling of the material.
NS honeycombs, on the other hand, bounce back. The researchers devised a cell geometry capable of elastic buckling, giving NS honeycomb structures the resilience to recover their energy-absorbing shape and properties after impact.
The current 3. 5-inch lab prototype, for example, has a force threshold level of 200 newtons--capable of absorbing the energy of a 100 mph fastball in 0. 03 seconds.
#Computing at the speed of light Engineers have taken a step forward in creating the next generation of computers and mobile devices capable of speeds millions of times faster than current machines.
The Utah engineers have developed an ultracompact beamsplitter the smallest on record for dividing light waves into two separate channels of information.
and shuttle data with light instead of electrons. Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Rajesh Menon and colleagues describe their invention today in the journal Nature Photonics.
Silicon photonics could significantly increase the power and speed of machines such as supercomputers data center servers and the specialized computers that direct autonomous cars and drones with collision detection.
Eventually, the technology could reach home computers and mobile devices and improve applications from gaming to video streaming. ight is the fastest thing you can use to transmit information,
says Menon. ut that information has to be converted to electrons when it comes into your laptop.
In that conversion, youe slowing things down. The vision is to do everything in light. hotons of light carry information over the Internet through fiber-optic networks.
But once a data stream reaches a home or office destination the photons of light must be converted to electrons before a router
or computer can handle the information. That bottleneck could be eliminated if the data stream remained as light within computer processors. ith all light,
computing can eventually be millions of times faster, says Menon. To help do that, the U engineers created a much smaller form of a polarization beamsplitter
(which looks somewhat like a barcode) on top of a silicon chip that can split guided incoming light into its two components.
Before, such a beamsplitter was over 100 by 100 microns. Thanks to a new algorithm for designing the splitter
Menon team has shrunk it to 2. 4 by 2. 4 microns, or one-fiftieth the width of a human hair and close to the limit of what is physically possible.
The beamsplitter would be just one of a multitude of passive devices placed on a silicon chip to direct light waves in different ways.
By shrinking them down in size, researchers will be able to cram millions of these devices on a single chip.
Potential advantages go beyond processing speed. The Utah team design would be cheap to produce
because it uses existing fabrication techniques for creating silicon chips. And because photonic chips shuttle photons instead of electrons
mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets built with this technology would consume less power, have longer battery life
and generate less heat than existing mobile devices. The first supercomputers using silicon photonics already under development at companies such as Intel
and IBM will use hybrid processors that remain partly electronic. Menon believes his beamsplitter could be used in those computers in about three years.
Data centers that require faster connections between computers also could implement the technology soon, he says.
Image: The overhead view of a new beamsplitter for silicon photonics chips that is the size of one-fiftieth the width of a human hair.
University of Utah Electrical and Computer engineering Associate professor Rajesh Menon is leading a team that has created the world smallest beamsplitter for silicon photonic chips.
The discovery will lead to computers and mobile devices that could be millions of times faster than machines today
because the information or data that is computed or shuttled is done through light instead of electrons. Photo credit:
Dan Hixson/University of Utah College of Engineering Source: http://unews. utah. edu/news releases/..
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011