Category: New products

  • Robotic Device Provides Extra Fingers to Enhance Human Grip

    18 July 2014. Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a glove-like robotic device that adds two more fingers and coordinates with a person’s hand to help with manual activities. Mechanical engineering professor Harry Asada and graduate student Faye Wu discussed the device earlier this week at the Robotics Science and Systems conference in Berkeley,…

  • Foam/Wax Material Adapted for Shape-Changing Robotics

    14 July 2014. Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a process for combining foam and wax materials into components that allow robot devices to become pliable for changing their shape, yet return to a rigid state when needed to do their tasks. The team from the lab of mechanical engineering professor Anette Hosoi, with…

  • Chip Device Developed to Quickly Test for Type 1 Diabetes

    14 July 2014. Medical researchers at Stanford University in California invented a small, handheld microchip that more quickly and easily tests for type 1 diabetes than current methods. The team led by Stanford pediatric endocrinologist Brian Feldman published its results online yesterday in the journal Nature Medicine (paid subscription required). They are also starting a…

  • DARPA Funding Development of Brain Implants to Boost Memory

    9 July 2014. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Defense, is awarding grants to two universities and a national lab to develop devices for implanting in the brain that can sense and restore memory loss. Research agreements totaling $40 million were designated for University of California in Los Angeles,…

  • Virtual Reality System Developed to Track Crowd Moves

    8 July 2014. A psychology research group at Brown University in Providence is using virtual reality to detect and document patterns of autonomous individuals taking part in crowds. The system developed by Brown’s Virtual Environment Navigation lab was described last week by its director William Warren in a keynote address at a meeting of the…

  • Nanotech Technique Devised for Real-Time Intestinal Images

    7 July 2014. Biomedical engineers from University at Buffalo in New York developed a non-invasive technique making it possible to capture live images to diagnose and care for diseases of the small intestine. The team led by Buffalo professor Jonathan Lovell — with colleagues from Buffalo and universities in Wisconsin, Canada, and Korea — published…

  • Big Data Quickly Identify Foodborne Illness Sources

    3 July 2014. Data analysts and public health experts at the IBM research center in San Jose, California developed techniques for faster identification of sources of foodborne diseases from available public health and retail sales data. The team led by IBM’s James Kaufman, the company’s public health research manager, published its findings today online in…

  • University Offers Tuberculosis Drug Technology for Licensing

    2 July 2014. A new process for developing drugs for tuberculosis designed at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is offered for licensing by the university to companies for commercialization. The technology that aims to overcome resistance to many current tuberculosis drugs is the result of research from the lab of Zurich pharmaceutical…

  • Solar Process Converts CO2 to Source of Power, Chemicals

    2 July 2014. Chemists from Princeton University and spin-off company Liquid Light Inc. in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey created a process to use sunlight for converting carbon dioxide into formic acid, a source for electric power and industrial chemicals. Princeton chemistry professor Andrew Bocarsly, also a founder of Liquid Light, and colleagues published their findings…

  • Big Data Analytics ID People Risking Metabolic Syndrome

    27 June 2014. Researchers from the insurance provider Aetna Inc. and GNS Healthcare, a data analytics company in the health care industry, developed statistical models that can identify population groups and individuals at risk for metabolic syndrome, a collection of conditions pointing to future heart disorders and diabetes. The team from Aetna’s Innovation Labs in…