$8M Grant to Create a Bionic Suit

by Alfred Poor | September 13, 2017 | General News, Health

Some people are paraplegics as the result of trauma to the spine. Their body still is capable of functioning, but the line of communications with the brain has been broken. Some researchers are trying to find ways to reconnect those broken connections. Others are...

Pillow Uses Vibrations to Enhance Sleep [video]

by Bruce Brown | September 12, 2017 | General News, Health

One out of three Americans has sleep issues, according to an oft-quoted report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We’ve written about the EverSleep wearable that monitors biometrics associated with sleep, the Ōura Ring that measures and...

Blood-Powered Devices

by Alfred Poor | September 12, 2017 | Enabling Tech, General News

Nearly all our electricity comes from mechanical energy; a flow of liquid or gas passes a propeller or similar device, which spins magnets in a coil of wire to produce an electrical current. This is the basic technology behind hydroelectric, coal, gas, nuclear, and...

Smartphone Heart Health App Replaces Ultrasound [video]

by Bruce Brown | September 11, 2017 | General News, Medical

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, which takes 30 to 60 minutes, reigns as the current gold standard for hospital heart health measurement. MRI tests are seldom used due to the cost and limited availability. The current second best test is an echocardiograph,...

New Way to Harvest Heat Energy

by Alfred Poor | September 11, 2017 | Enabling Tech, General News

The three Laws of Thermodynamics are sometimes simplified as “You Can’t Win, You Can’t Break Even, and Can’t Quit the Game.” The second Law says that energy inevitably leaks out of a system. One obvious example is a car engine; it converts fuel to...

Tablet App Detects Diabetic Foot Ulcers [video]

by Bruce Brown | September 8, 2017 | General News, Medical

Diabetes patients risk developing foot ulcers that can lead to amputation, which is a dire concern. According to a 2015 study, 6% of the 22.3 million American with diabetes develop foot ulcers each year. Overall, one in four can expect to suffer foot ulcers in their...