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Category: engineering

A groundbreaking advancement in the field of vision restoration has recently emerged from the intersection of nanotechnology and biomedical engineering. Researchers have developed a novel retinal prosthesis constructed from tellurium nanowires, which has demonstrated remarkable efficacy in restoring vision to blind animal models. This innovative approach not only aims to restore basic visual function but also enhances the eye’s capability to detect near-infrared light, a development that holds promising implications for future ocular therapies.

The retina, a thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye, plays a crucial role in converting light into the electrical signals sent to the brain. In degenerative conditions affecting the retina, such as retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration, this process is severely disrupted, ultimately leading to blindness. Traditional treatments have struggled with limitations such as electrical interference and insufficient long-term impacts. However, the introduction of a retinal prosthesis made from tellurium offers a fresh perspective on restoring vision.

Tellurium is a unique element known for its semiconductor properties, making it an excellent choice for developing nanostructured devices. The researchers carefully engineered tellurium nanowires and then integrated them into a three-dimensional lattice framework. This novel architecture facilitates easy implantation into the retina while enabling efficient conversion of both visible and near-infrared light into electrical impulses. By adopting this approach, the researchers ensured that the prosthesis would function effectively in various lighting conditions, a significant consideration for practical application in real-world scenarios.

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Turning crude oil into everyday fuels like gasoline, diesel, and heating oil demands a huge amount of energy. In fact, this process is responsible for about 6 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Most of that energy is spent heating the oil to separate its components based on their boiling points.

Now, in an exciting breakthrough, engineers at MIT have created a new kind of membrane that could change the game. Instead of using heat, this innovative membrane separates crude oil by filtering its components based on their molecular size.

“This is a whole new way of envisioning a separation process. Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size? The key innovation is that the filters we developed can separate very small molecules at an atomistic length scale,” says Zachary P. Smith, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and the senior author of the new study.

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Imagine getting a tattoo… that can track your health, location, or identity — and you don’t even need a device. Sounds like sci-fi? It’s real. Scientists have developed futuristic electronic tattoos that use special ink to monitor your body in real-time — from heart rate to hydration — and even transmit data without chips or batteries. But here’s the catch… could this breakthrough be the future of medicine? Or is it a step too close to surveillance under your skin?

Let’s explore how these tattoos work, what they can really do, and the wild implications they might have for your health — and your privacy.

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Nuri Jeong remembers the feeling of surprise she felt during a trip back to South Korea, while visiting her grandmother, who’d been grappling with Alzheimer’s disease.

“I hadn’t seen her in six years, but she recognized me,” said Jeong, a former graduate researcher in the lab of Annabelle Singer in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“I didn’t expect that. Even though my grandmother struggled to remember other family members that she saw all the time, she somehow remembered me,” Jeong added. “It made me wonder how the brain distinguishes between familiar and new experiences.”

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Researchers from the University of Waterloo have achieved a feat previously thought to be impossible—getting a sphere to roll down a totally vertical surface without applying any external force.

The spontaneous rolling motion, captured by high-speed cameras, was an unexpected observation after months of trial, error, and theoretical calculations by two Waterloo research teams.

“When we first saw it happening, we were frankly in disbelief,” said Dr. Sushanta Mitra, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering and executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology.

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Blood vessels are like big-city highways; full of curves, branches, merges, and congestion. Yet for years, lab models replicated vessels like straight, simple roads.

To better capture the complex architecture of real human , researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University have developed a customizable vessel-chip method, enabling more accurate vascular disease research and a drug discovery platform.

Vessel-chips are engineered microfluidic devices that mimic human vasculature on a microscopic scale. These chips can be patient-specific and provide a non-animal method for pharmaceutical testing and studying . Jennifer Lee, a biomedical engineering master’s student, joined Dr. Abhishek Jain’s lab and designed an advanced vessel-chip that could replicate real variations in vascular structure.

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Muons are elementary particles that resemble electrons, but they are heavier and decay very rapidly (i.e., in just a few microseconds). Studying muons can help to test and refine the standard of particle physics, while also potentially unveiling new phenomena or effects.

So far, the generation of muons in experimental settings has been primarily achieved using proton accelerators, which are large and expensive instruments. Muons can also originate from , rays of high-energy particles originating from outer space that can collide with atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere, producing muons and other secondary particles.

Researchers at the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), Guangdong Laboratory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and other institutes recently introduced a new method to produce muons in experimental settings, using an ultra-short high-intensity laser.

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A new device that monitors the waste-removal system of the brain may help to prevent Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases, according to a study published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

In the study, participants were asleep when they wore the device: a head cap embedded with electrodes that measures shifts in fluid within , the from sleep to wakefulness and changes in the brain’s blood vessels.

By measuring these three features, the researchers found they could monitor the brain’s glymphatic system, which acts as a waste-removal and nutrient-delivery system.

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A research team has discovered ferroelectric phenomena occurring at a subatomic scale in the natural mineral brownmillerite.

The team was led by Prof. Si-Young Choi from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Semiconductor Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), in collaboration with Prof. Jae-Kwang Lee’s team from Pusan National University, as well as Prof. Woo-Seok Choi’s team from Sungkyunkwan University. The work appears in Nature Materials.

Electronic devices store data in memory units called domains, whose minimum size limits the density of stored information. However, ferroelectric-based memory has been facing challenges in minimizing domain size due to the collective nature of atomic vibrations.

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