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… »
A group of researchers from the University of Nottingham and the University of Maastricht have succeeded to employ a bacterium that is widespread in soil in order to fight cancer. They managed to modify a bacterial strain to specifically targets tumors without harming healthy tissue, and it could be used as a vehicle to deliver… »
Researchers from the Vanderbilt University developed a prosthetic with powered knee and ankle joints that operate in unison, thus allowing its wearers to walk without the leg-dragging gait characteristic of conventional artificial legs. The bionic leg is programmed to use the motion data in order to predict what the person is trying to do and… »
When a mining accident occurs, potentially deadly conditions such as poisonous gases, flooded tunnels, explosive vapors, unstable walls and roofs, and unknown obstacles between the surface and trapped workers can significantly slow the rescue efforts. Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories developed the Gemini-Scout Mine Rescue Robot in order to collects information about potential dangers and… »
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a glove with a special fingertip which employs stochastic resonance in order to improve the wearer’s sense of touch and motor performance. The technology could be used to assist individuals whose jobs require high-precision manual dexterity or those with medical conditions that reduce their sense of… »
Japan has a growing number of elderly in need of nursing care and an urgent need for new approaches used to assist care-giving personnel. Researchers at RIKEN and Tokai Rubber Industries (TRI) are developing a robot which performs one of the most exhausting tasks for such personnel – lifting a patient from a futon at… »
After the 9.0 earthquake and the devastating tsunami that struck off the coast of Honshu Island, the cooling systems of three reactor units at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant became severely damaged. Although Japan is well known for their share in robot development, there are no robots built to deal with nuclear disasters and… »
PaPeRo (Partner-type-Personal-Robot) – a personal robot from NEC Corporation – has been developed since 1997. It is being developed to interact with people and provide them with more information or entertain them. Due to increasing number of elderly people living alone, the folks from NEC conducted a research where they programmed PaPeRo to provide them… »
