Blindness is often caused by corneal diseases which are usually treated with a corneal transplant, but in many cases this is not possible and donor corneas are often hard to come by. In order to solve this problem, a group of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (Fraunhofer IAP) is developing two… »
Researchers from North Carolina State University have devised a way to create nature inspired elements out of germanium sulfide (GeS) – a non-toxic semiconductor material – that could one day be used in creation of next-generation energy storage devices and solar cells. They managed to use this method to create flower-like GeS structures that have… »
Food-safety-focused studies by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their colleagues unexpectedly led to development of more effective prescription drugs used in fight against severe fungal infections. They found that pairing conventional antifungal medicines with compounds from plants— such as thymol, edible compound extracted from the popular herb thyme—can boost the healing effects of… »
An international group of researchers led by researchers from the UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) bioengineered inexpensive medical diagnostic tests that take only a few minutes to yield results. These tests could find their use in new point-of-care devices for quick medical diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), allergies, autoimmune diseases, and a wide variety of… »
A research team led by biomedical engineers at Tufts University in collaboration with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed a technology they call transient electronics – small and fully biocompatible electronic devices that are able to dissolve harmlessly into their surroundings after functioning for a desired amount of time, thus eliminating the… »
Researchers from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Paul Scherrer Institute managed to develop a bioreactor which uses microorganisms to produce methane gas. The technology could be used in sustainable and decentralized production of biosynthetic natural gas from microalgae – thus avoiding the use of crops and lessening the need for fertile… »
A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created an extremely stretchy and tough hydrogel which is a hybrid of two weak gels that combine to create something much stronger. This new gel can stretch up to 21 times of its original… »
Checking the blood glucose levels is an everyday part in life of many diabetics. There are various less invasive solutions under development which could be used to avoid this unpleasant task, and researchers from Fraunhofer Institute recently presented their solution in a form of a biosensor developed in cooperation with researchers from a Dutch medical… »
