Category: New products
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Natural Lightweight Material Exhibits Strength, Toughness
Researchers at Harvard University have developed a new biodegradable material with the strength and toughness of an aluminum alloy, but only half the weight. Postdoctoral bioengineering fellow, Javier Fernandez and professor Donald Ingber in Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering describe their discovery in the advance online issue of the journal Advanced Materials (paid…
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Treatment Developed for Immune Systems of Chemo Patients
Researchers from University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have devised a treatment to repair the immune systems of leukemia patients undergoing chemotherapy using the patients’ own infection-fighting cells. The findings from the team that included participants from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston were presented yesterday at the annual meeting of…
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Combating Flu Epidemics Likely to Take More Than Vaccines
Researchers at MIT urge public health policy makers to rely on more than just vaccines to control future flu epidemics. Richard Larson and Stan Finkelstein of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division make their recommendations in this month’s issue of the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (paid subscription required). Larson and Finkelstein (who is also…
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University Builds Virtual-Reality Factory Simulation
Iowa State University in Ames has built a simulated factory lab based on virtual reality technology. The lab, called Multimodal Experience Testbed and Laboratory or METaL, seeks to create natural interactions in virtual reality for industrial purposes, such as to design new parts, explore design functionality, or develop better assembly methods. METaL consists of two…
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New Radiation Therapy Directly Attacks Cancer Cells
Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have developed a new method of tumor removal that improves the likelihood of permanently destroying the tumor, and reduce the odds of it returning. The ablation process devised by Tel Aviv medical researcher Yona Keisari and physicist Itzhak Kelson is described in the journal Translational Research (paid subscription…
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Video Game Players Add to Genetic Disease Understanding
Users of a Web-based video game developed by McGill University computer scientists in Montreal, have helped advance an understanding of the genetic basis of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer over the past year. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the McGill School of Computer Science and collaborator Mathieu Blanchette released results today of the solutions collected…
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Prototype Molybdenite Microchip Developed
Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed the first microchip on a molybdenite platform. The chip, with capabilities that exceed the limits of silicon, is described in a recent online issue of the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). Physicist Andras Kis and colleagues from EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and…
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UC San Francisco, GE to Partner on Cord Blood Research
University of California at San Francisco and and GE Healthcare are collaborating on an R&D project to help overcome the lack of blood-forming stem cells available to patients suffering from several life-threatening diseases. The three-year, $841,000 project aims to make better use of umbilical cord blood gathered at the birth of a baby, which is…
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Report: Electrical Grid Needs Technology, Regulatory Changes
The electrical power grid in the U.S. faces significant changes in technology over the next two decades, says a new report from the MIT Energy Initiative, but the grid also needs regulatory, economic, and security upgrades to meet these changes. The authors — 13 MIT faculty members plus one author from Harvard — discussed the…
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PhRMA: 88 HIV/AIDS Meds in Development at U.S. Companies
A report by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) says U.S. biopharmaceutical companies are testing 88 medicines and vaccines to treat or prevent HIV/AIDS and related conditions. The report, issued on World AIDS Day (1 December 2011), also lists 36 currently approved medications for HIV infection and AIDS. According to PhRMA’s report, more than…