Bioengineering

Attempting to test the behavior of soft robotic systems beyond boundaries, a group of aerospace and mechanical engineering researchers led by Rob Shepherd have created electroluminescent “skin”. This, by replicating the model of cephalopods who possess natural skin stretchability and color changing organs for their protection as in camouflage, visual display and communication.

Crepitus is the noise your joints make when they move. Loud pops from your knees and knuckles are not the sounds of bones breaking. The pop is caused by cavitation; the rapid change in pressure of the synovial fluid that allows carbon dioxide to escape. A small cavity in the joint is formed and the bubble pops, giving the familiar cracking noise. In most cases, the sound is nothing to be concerned about. If the sound is accompanied by pain, that is a different situation.

Doctor visits are one of those things no one looks forward to. Taking time off work to get poked and prodded is never a fun experience. So what if you could take a pill that monitors all of your vital signs? Even better, what if all that data was transmitted to your doctor? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School are trying to develop self-powered capsules that can monitor your internal health.

In March 2014, West Africa suffered the largest outbreak of the Ebola virus in history. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported over 28,000 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone with 11,000 deaths. Since March 2016, the infection had been contained enough to warrant a downgrade in its status.

Facebook has finished running F8, their annual conference where they explore the potential technologies of the future. Many of us have been waiting for some pretty exciting revelations as to where they see the company heading in the future and as usual, they did not disappoint.

During my graduate studies, I once played a game with my lab mates called “hey, smell this”. I inevitably lost, as the acrid sulfur scent of thioanisole wafted up my nostrils. Though we’re trained as chemists not to inhale chemicals, there’s always that nagging curiosity to take a quick sniff. Most organic chemists can identify common solvents by scent, which is useful for avoiding incorrect reagents expensive reactions.

No matter how many times it’s asserted, our brains are not computers. It’s not uncommon to compare the brain to the currently favored technology. Our brains have been compared to many different inventions throughout history, from clockworks to telephone switchboards. Our understanding of the brain has grown, and there are parallels between a brain and a computer. Both can learn and adapt, have short term and long term storage, and can be modified (known as neuroplasticity in the brain).

Diagnostic tests, although vastly improved in the recent years, seldom identify abnormalities in the body early enough (usually beneficial only in later phases) in order to employ appropriate treatment options and care. Apart from this major issue, challenges such as slow processing, false-negatives, high costs and side effects, pose an incredible danger to patients with life-threatening conditions, who require quick turnover periods.

3D printing has been around a lot longer than most people realize. Presently, 3D printing is celebrating nearly 30 years of manufacturing technology. In the early 1980s, the technology’s roots were set with stereolithography. Fabrication of models was done using photosensitive acrylics or resins that upon treating with UV radiation would solidify.

A team from Stanford University has been hard at work developing a new brain-to computer hook-up which allows people suffering from paralysis to type via direct brain control. There are millions of sufferers of paralysis across the US, and the goal of this research is to restore function to people with paralysis, thus providing a vital communication link.

The world is slowly becoming more and more digital; cassette tapes have given way to MP3 players and analog TV antennas have been replaced with streaming video. This is great for preserving media and distributing over the internet, but digitalization still stumbles when it comes to simulating whole organs or biological systems.

New, state of the art equipment for monitoring neural response is being developed by scientists and engineers from the University of California, San Diego. The researchers at the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Institute for Neural Computation are developing a brain monitoring system that monitors 64-channels and is wearable. The team is headed by Tim Mullen and Mike Yu Chi.