National University of Singapore scientists have taken inspiration from underwater invertebrates like jellyfish to create an electronic skin with similar functionality. Just like a jellyfish, the electronic skin is transparent, stretchable, touch-sensitive, and self-healing in aquatic environments. It can be used in everything from water-resistant touchscreens to aquatic soft robots. The team, led by NUS…
Hidden Leukemic Stem Cells Isolated by Genetically Encoded Sensor
All stem cells can multiply, proliferate and differentiate. Because of these qualities, leukemic stem cells are the most malignant of all leukemic cells. Understanding how leukemic stem cells are regulated has become an important area of cancer research. A team of Tel Aviv University researchers have now devised a novel biosensor that can isolate and…
Space Radiation Detector Investigates Fake Masterpieces
Technology originally developed for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and then flown in space by ESA is now being used to analyze historic artworks, helping to detect forgeries. “The art market is a jungle—some say that around 50 percent of art pieces and paintings are either fakes or are incorrectly attributed,” explains Josef Uher, chief technology…
Mini Magnetic Sensors Could Operate Without Power Supply
Scientists of the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany, detected the magnetic states of atoms on a surface using only heat. The respective study is published in a recent volume of Science. A magnetic needle heated by a laser beam was placed in close proximity to a magnetic surface with a gap…
Revolutionary Wireless Sensors Gently Monitor NICU Babies
An interdisciplinary Northwestern University team has developed a pair of soft, flexible wireless body sensors that replace the tangle of wire-based sensors that currently monitor babies in hospitals’ neonatal intensive care units (NICU) and pose a barrier to parent-baby cuddling and physical bonding. The team recently completed a collection of first human studies on premature…
Diamond Tips Advance Nanoscale Sensing
Commercially-available diamond tips used in atomic force microscopy (AFM) could help make quantum nanoscale sensing cost-effective and practical, A*STAR researchers have found. The idea of using ‘color centers’, optically-active atomic defects in diamond, as a probe for taking highly sensitive nanoscale measurements of quantities such as elecromagnetic field, temperature, or strain is well known. In…
Sensors Offers Real-Time Diagnosis of Reproductive Health Issues
Researchers have developed new robotic sensor technology that has the capability to diagnose women’s reproductive health problems in real-time. The technology, developed by researchers at Imperial College London and The University of Hong Kong, can be used to measure hormones that affect fertility, sexual development and menstruation more quickly and cheaply than current methods. The…
Study Finds Wearable Devices Not Effective for Forecasting Stress Fractures
Whether you are a professional athlete or an amateur runner, there may be no more debilitating and frustrating injury than a stress fracture. Stress fractures generally begin with persistent and irritating pain in the foot or lower leg that gets more intense and possibly swollen as the athlete continues to train. These injuries— microcracks in…
Lasers, Graphene Form Tailor-Made Marine Sensors
A flexible, lightweight and robust salinity sensor that can be attached to aquatic animals for long-term monitoring of their habitat has been developed by a multidisciplinary team at KAUST. The team created a sensor that accurately records salinity even after long-term submersion. The sensor can form the basis of a marine animal monitoring device that…
Stretchable Fiber Used for Energy Harvesting and Strain Sensing
Fiber-based electronics are expected to play a vital role in next-generation wearable electronics. Woven into textiles, they can provide higher durability, comfort, and integrated multi-functionality. A KAIST team has developed a stretchable multi-functional fiber (SMF) that can harvest energy and detect strain, which can be applied to future wearable electronics. With wearable electronics, health and…
Optical Fiber Sensors Protected by ‘Jacket’ Coating
Optical fibers enable the Internet, and they are practically everywhere: underground and beneath the oceans. Fibers can do more than just carry information: they are also fantastic sensors. Hair-thin optical fibers support measurements over hundreds of km, may be embedded in almost any structure, operate in hazardous environments and withstand electro-magnetic interference. Recently a major…
Ingestible Monitoring Pill Swells to Size of Ping Pong Ball
MIT engineers have designed an ingestible, Jell-O-like pill that, upon reaching the stomach, quickly swells to the size of a soft, squishy ping-pong ball big enough to stay in the stomach for an extended period of time. The inflatable pill is embedded with a sensor that continuously tracks the stomach’s temperature for up to 30…
Graphene Sensors Can Hear the Brain Whisper
A newly developed graphene-based implant can record electrical activity in the brain at extremely low frequencies and over large areas, unlocking the wealth of information found below 0.1 Hz. This technology, which will be showcased in the Graphene Pavilionat Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, was developed by Graphene Flagship partners at the Barcelona Microelectronics Institute…
Haptic Sensors Enable Physical Feedback in Robotic Surgery
UCLA engineers have developed a novel sensor that could add a sense of “touch” to robotic surgery. Robert Candler, an associate professor of electrical engineering, helped develop a haptic feedback sensor that, when placed on the tips of surgical instruments, would provide feedback on the various forces exerted on body tissues to better guide surgery.…
Artificial Skin Could Provide Superhuman Perception
A new type of sensor could lead to artificial skin that someday helps burn victims “feel” and safeguards the rest of us, University of Connecticut researchers suggest in a paper published on January 21 in Advanced Materials. Our skin’s ability to perceive pressure, heat, cold and vibration is a critical safety function that most people…
Mass-Producing Detectors for Next-Gen Cosmic Experiments
Chasing clues about the infant universe in relic light known as the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, scientists are devising more elaborate and ultrasensitive detector arrays to measure the properties of this light with increasing precision. To meet the high demand for these detectors that will drive next-generation CMB experiments, and for similar detectors to…
Wearable Sensor Detects Anxiety, Depression in Young Children
Anxiety and depression are surprisingly common among young children – as many as one in five kids suffer from one of them, starting as early as the preschool years. But it can be hard to detect these conditions, known as “internalizing disorders,” because the symptoms are so inward-facing that parents, teachers and doctors often fail…
Scientists Pinpoint How Plants Sense Temperature
When it gets hot outside, humans and animals have the luxury of seeking shelter in the shade or cool, air-conditioned buildings. But plants are stuck. While not immune to changing climate, plants respond to the rising mercury in different ways. Temperature affects the distribution of plants around the planet. It also affects the flowering time,…
Algae’s ‘Third Eye’ Functions as Light Sensor
Just like land plants, algae use sunlight as an energy source. Many green algae actively move in the water; they can approach the light or move away from it. For this they use special sensors (photoreceptors) with which they perceive light. The decades-long search for these light sensors led to a first success in 2002:…
Wireless, Battery-Free, Biodegradable Blood Flow Sensor Developed
A new device developed by Stanford University researchers could make it easier for doctors to monitor the success of blood vessel surgery. The sensor, detailed in a paper published Jan. 8 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, monitors the flow of blood through an artery. It is biodegradable, battery-free and wireless, so it is compact and doesn’t…
Sensor Unlocks Avenue for Early Cancer Diagnosis
Monash University engineers have unlocked the door to earlier detection of cancer with a world-first study identifying a potential new testing method that could save millions of lives. Researchers found that a sensor using new, more sensitive materials to look for key markers of disease in the body increased detection by up to 10,000 times.…
Delicate Sensor Monitors Heart Cells with Minimal Disruption
For the first time, engineers have demonstrated an electronic device to closely monitor beating heart cells without affecting their behavior. A collaboration between the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Women’s Medical University and RIKEN in Japan produced a functional sample of heart cells with a soft nanomesh sensor in direct contact with the tissue. This device…
MEMS Sensor Chip Containing High-quality Diamond Cantilevers Developed
A NIMS-led research group succeeded in developing a high-quality diamond cantilever with among the highest quality (Q) factor values at room temperature ever achieved. The group also succeeded for the first time in the world in developing a single crystal diamond microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor chip that can be actuated and sensed by electrical signals.…
Discovery Opens the Door to Better Magnetic Field Sensors
Magnetic field sensors can enhance applications that require efficient electric energy management. Improving magnetic field sensors below the picoTesla range could enable a technique to measure brain activity at room temperature with millisecond resolution — called magnetic encephalography — without superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) technology, which requires cryogenic temperatures to work. A group of…
A New Look at Cell Membranes
Working with a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist, a team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University has gained the clearest view yet of a patch of cell membrane and its components, revealing unexpected structures and opening up new possibilities for pharmaceutical research. Cell membranes are formed largely of a bimolecular sheet, a fraction of the thickness of…