VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has begun development of a rapid test for the coronavirus together with MeVac, the joint vaccine research center of the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) and the University of Helsinki. The new testing method is based on detecting the viral antigens of the COVID-19 virus. Once completed,…

Digital Science, a technology company serving emergent needs across the research sector, is pleased to announce a partnership with Beijing-based technology company Zhipu.AI to conduct data challenges and collaborate in building a COVID-19 information portal. Zhipu.AI, a spin-out from Tsinghua University, aims to build an advanced artificial intelligence engine that can support and empower the…

By Catherine Graham In response to a pressing need for more ventilators to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients, a team led by Johns Hopkins University engineers is developing and prototyping a 3D-printed splitter that will allow a single ventilator to treat multiple patients. Though medical professionals have expressed concerns about the safety and effectiveness of…

Murata Manufacturing announces the launch of its Open Innovation website to create collaborative relationships with start-up organizations developing solutions in the mobility, energy, healthcare, and wireless markets. With its specific focus on start-up companies and universities, the site provides them the opportunity to explore go-to-market plans leveraging Murata’s extensive R&D capabilities, manufacturing support capabilities, and…

By Mary Beth Gallagher | Department of Mechanical Engineering The shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) available to health care professionals has become increasingly problematic as Covid-19 cases continue to surge. The sheer volume of PPE needed to keep doctors, nurses, and their patients safe in this crisis is daunting — for example, tens of…

For years physicists have been trying to decipher the electronic details of high-temperature superconductors. These materials could revolutionize energy transmission and electronics because of their ability to carry electric current with no energy loss when cooled below a certain temperature. Details of “high-Tc” superconductors’ microscopic electronic structure could reveal how different phases (states of matter)…

Facing a critical shortage of N95 face masks that block the coronavirus, Duke Health research and clinical teams have confirmed a way to use existing vaporized hydrogen peroxide methods to decontaminate the masks so they can be reused. The process uses specialized equipment to vaporize hydrogen peroxide, which permeates the layers of the mask to…

For 2020, U.S. academic researchers will have at their disposal about $90.1 billion-worth of research funds or about 14.8% of the total U.S. R&D expendature. Individual U.S. academic institutions will invest about $23.2 billion (or about 3.8% of the total U.S. R&D investment) of their own resources to support this R&D. Of the R&D that…

It took less than a week for the director of the University Kansas Center for Design Research and some of his former students and colleagues to crank out an open-source design for a plastic face shield to help protect health care workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic. In just a few days, it has been freely…

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across the U.S. and the world, Purdue University scientists are working to move solutions to diagnose and treat the virus to the marketplace as soon as possible. The Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization is working with innovators from across the university to patent and license technologies that focus…

Hardly anyone’s workplace has been spared all the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis. People are working remotely, staggering their hours in laboratories to avoid too many coworkers, and relying heavily on conference calls and video meetings. We spoke to a few industry people to see how they’re coping and innovating. Mark Jones, Executive External Strategy…

Fiber optic cables, it turns out, can be incredibly useful scientific sensors. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have studied them for use in carbon sequestration, groundwater mapping, earthquake detection, and monitoring of Arctic permafrost thaw. Now they have been awarded new grants to develop fiber optics for two novel uses: monitoring offshore…

Librestream, global provider of remote collaboration and communication solutions, today announced a free program for enterprises facing business continuity and worker safety challenges related to COVID-19. Librestream’s Onsight platform is deployed by hundreds of leading aviation, defense, manufacturing, energy and inspection companies around the world, enabling greater operational efficiency, reductions in carbon footprint and improved…

Legit, a virtual collaboration platform ​for the life sciences, launched a free version of their product to help life sciences and biotech companies collaborate virtually during uncertain times. The platform allows individuals to identify experts in the field and connect with them within 24 hours. During times like these, where COVID-19 forms a barrier to…

Scientists no longer need to limit routine trace element analysis workflow productivity with the launch of a new series of inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) instruments for food and beverage, consumer safety, industrial, environmental and pharmaceutical laboratories. The Thermo Scientific iCAP PRO Series ICP-OES platform is designed to provide a fast, sensitive range…

By Mike Williams   Rice University and Canadian global health design firm Metric Technologies have developed an automated bag valve mask ventilation unit that can be built for less than $300 worth of parts and help patients in treatment for COVID-19. The collaboration expects to share the plans for the ventilator by making them freely…

By David L. Chandler | MIT News Office When searching through theoretical lists of possible new materials for particular applications, such as batteries or other energy-related devices, there are often millions of potential materials that could be considered, and multiple criteria that need to be met and optimized at once. Now, researchers at MIT have…

Owlstone Medical, maker of Breath Biopsy for applications in early disease detection and precision medicine today announces the appointment of Neil Tween as its new Chief Financial Officer. Owlstone Medical is in the unique position of establishing a new diagnostic modality in breath that has substantial advantages over blood as a core sample type for…

Battelle announced today that it has begun rapid manufacturing of a system to decontaminate N95 respirator masks and other medical protective equipment. Each Battelle CCDS Critical Care Decontamination System is capable of decontaminating up to 80,000 masks per day at full capacity. Because it is scalable, the system is capable of processing even more pieces…

By Ville Leppälä Virtual reality and eye tracking have been used in research for decades but until recently, the research community hasn’t been able to fully benefit from merging the two technologies. As a result of continued improvements in VR hardware and the underlying technologies that deliver a positive user experience, researchers are now able…

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office The White House has announced the launch of the Covid-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a collaboration among various industry, government, and academic institutions which will aim to make their supercomputing resources available to the wider research community, in an effort to speed up the search for solutions to the…

Scientists have designed a catalyst composed of very low concentrations of platinum (single atoms and clusters smaller than billionths of a meter) on the surface of titanium dioxide. They demonstrated how this catalyst significantly enhances the rate of breaking a particular carbon-oxygen bond for the conversion of a plant derivative (furfuryl alcohol) into a potential…

Access the Springer Nature virtual issue Over the years the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medicine has become increasingly important. A growing number of disciplines and branches of medicine are using AI in some capacity or other, they include radiology, genomics, oncology and cardiology, to name a few. AI assists researchers to solve complex…

Frontiers is dedicating part of its open science platform infrastructure to collect and disseminate information relevant to the research communities battling the COVID-19 pandemic using its Coronavirus Knowledge Hub. As part of this effort, Frontiers has launched the Coronavirus Funding Monitor, a centralized portal of current funding opportunities for the research community. It offers a…

Feature Story Glenn Roberts Jr. It’s one thing to design, assemble, and install a next-generation telescope instrument. It’s another to bring it to life. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), installed on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, contains more than half a million parts in one of its central…