Interactions between an animal cell and its environment, a fibrous network called the extracellular matrix, play a critical role in cell function, including growth and migration. But less understood is the mechanical force that governs those interactions. A multidisciplinary team of Cornell engineers and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania have devised a method for measuring the force a cell -- in this case, a breast cancer cell -- exerts on its fibrous surroundings. Understanding ...

Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and ECLAT Textiles announced iSmartweaR, a clothing line designed to monitor vital signs. Its main feature is that it’s contactless, allowing you to move without restrictions as you track your heart rate and breathing rates. The company uses these two data points to then provide you with insight into your physical activity, sleep quality, and emotional state. iSmartweaR brings non-contact comfort for tracking vital signs iSmartweaR sma...

Northwestern University research team has developed a first-of-its-kind soft, flexible microfluidic device that easily adheres to the skin and measures the wearer’s sweat to show how his or her body is responding to exercise. A little larger than a quarter and about the same thickness, the simple, low-cost device analyzes key biomarkers to help a person decide quickly if any adjustments, such as drinking more water or replenishing electrolytes, need to be made or if something is medically awr...

The spectacular Palazzo Italia building in Milan is a smog-eating machine. This unusual Palazzo Italia building is clad with biodynamic concrete panels. The Palazzo Italia actually consumes smog and takes pollution out of the air through its incredibly engineered biodynamic skin. The cladding of the white sinuous building is both highly innovative and sustainable. The 9,000-square-meter façade was realized with 900 biodynamic concrete panels developed by Italcementi. Its TX Active technolo...

Harmful chemicals, stress and other influences can permanently alter which genes are turned on without changing any of the genes’ code. Now, it appears, some of these “epigenetic” changes are passed down to—and may cause disease in—future generations. Epigenetics studies genetic effects not encoded in the DNA sequence of an organism, hence the prefix epi- (Greek: επί- over, outside of, around).Such effects on cellular and physiological phenotypic traits may result from external or environment...

Holst Centre (set up by imec and TNO), and TNO have introduced their next-generation health patch. The small form-factor comfortable to wear health patch has been optimized for low power consumption and is the first of its kind to track physical and cardiac activity, while monitoring bioelectrical impedance. A key building block in the pursuit of improved and more accurate mobile health solutions, the patch is available for licensing by partner companies ready to initiate their own medical appli...

The Munich-based company Moticon has developed the world's first fully integrated, wireless, consumer-enabled, and cost-effective sensor insole for plantar pressure distribution measurement. This intelligent insole called "OpenGo Therapist" is equipped with sensors that measure a patient's or athlete's weight distribution and motion, providing data for gait training and overload prevention. The thin, flexible insole also measures balance, foot temperature, and acceleration, data that is then tra...

A team from Netherlands decided to develop a wearable, that will make the snorer turn to its side, as soon as the snoring starts. Research has shown that 70% of the snorers only snore, when they are sleeping on their back. Developers of the device decided to develop a wearable, that will make the snorer turn to its side, as soon as the snoring starts. Turning to your side opens your airway and stops the snoring. The Anti-Snore Wearable is controlled by the Do I Snore smartphone application...

Luxottica Group and Intel announced the launch of the new smart eyewear Radar Pace, which features a real-time voice activated coaching system. Combining Luxottica’s Oakley brand’s performance-centric design with Intel’s experience-driven technology, Radar Pace aims to deliver an innovative and personal training device for athletes. Radar Pace, which was launched on Oakley.com and in select Oakley retail stores, creates dynamic and custom training programs, tracks performances, coaches in ...

Very preterm infants -- those born before 29 weeks of pregnancy -- appear to have a bigger risk of high blood pressure in young adulthood, two small, preliminary Canadian studies suggest. In one study, researchers found that the risk for high blood pressure was tied to smaller-than-normal kidneys at birth. A second study by the same researchers found a link between high blood pressure and impaired function in the cells that line blood vessels. "These studies highlight how important it is for t...

Researchers in Singapore have artificially generated new mouse blood and immune cells from skin cells. This is a significant first step towards the eventual goal: the engineering of new human blood cells from skin cells or other artificial sources. One of the major challenges of regenerative medicine is to manufacture new blood and immune cells for patients in need. This development could lead to a robust source of new blood or immune cells becoming available to treat patients with immune dis...

Researchers from Caltech and UCLA have developed a new approach to removing cellular damage that accumulates with age. The technique can potentially help slow or reverse an important cause of aging. Led by Nikolay Kandul, senior postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering in the laboratory of Professor of Biology Bruce Hay, the team developed a technique to remove mutated DNA from mitochondria, the small organelles that produce most of the chemical energy within a cell. A paper...

At least a quarter of the universe is invisible. Unlike x-rays that the naked eye can't see but equipment can measure, scientists have yet to detect dark matter after three decades of searching, even with the world's most sensitive instruments. But dark matter is so fundamental to physics that scientists supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Science are searching for it in some of the world's most isolated locales, from deep underground to outer space. "Without dark matter, it'...

Under the motto “Building bridges, transcending borders”, 23 start-up companies presented their research projects at the Falling Walls Venture science competition on 8 November in Berlin. The company nominated by Max Planck Innovation, Vaxxilon, emerged as the winner and was proclaimed the “Science Start-Up of the Year 2016” for its development of a carbohydrate-based agent. The new agent should make vaccinations against bacterial infections cheaper in the future and thereby also improve a...

A growing body of research has linked sugary beverage consumption to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions including high blood sugar and excess body fat, which can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes. Lack of sleep is also associated with a higher risk for metabolic disease. Recently, several studies have linked the two factors in school-age children, showing that children who get less sleep are more likely to drink soda and other sugary beverages during the day, said Prather, who is also...

Oklahoma State University, used the domain-specific risk-taking scale (DOSPERT) to assess five areas of risk-taking, namely ethical, social, financial, recreational and health. The research tested the hypothesis that childhood relationships with parents were related to risk-taking by young adults. Prior research has shown that risk-taking by young children is related to their interactions with mothers and fathers. What makes some young adults behave in ways that have the potential to harm ...

A 51-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying a bizarre constellation of symptoms. Her behavior is erratic. She shows signs of paranoia as well as auditory hallucinations, disorientation, and severe memory impairment. Asked to write her own name, she manages “Mrs.,” then lingers over the page, unable to remember the rest. “I have lost myself,” she tells the attending physician. Over time, she will withdraw into her own inscrutable universe, before dying on Ap...

In mathematical physics, the Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem is an unsolved problem and one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems defined by the Clay Mathematics Institute, which has offered a prize of US$1,000,000 to the one who solves it. In physics, confinement of particles is such an important phenomenon that the Clay Mathematics Institute has even pledged an award of a million dollars to anyone who can give a convincing and exhaustive scientific explanation from a mathematical...

A spacecraft mission's entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase is one of the most dangerous parts of the vehicle's journey, so it must be carefully planned. However, EDL concepts are impossible to fully test on the ground, so design engineers rely on modeling and simulation to learn how different methods can be expected to perform during the mission. Researchers in NASA's Entry Systems Modeling (ESM) Project play a key role in the design of successful EDL systems by identifying and developing pr...

The agency released on Tuesday its popular NASA app for a new platform, the fourth-generation Apple TV. This version joins the app’s other versions available for iOS in iPhone and iPad versions, Android and Fire OS. The NASA app has been downloaded more than 17 million times across all platforms. “The NASA app has been a fantastic way for the public to experience the excitement of space exploration from their mobile devices,” said David Weaver, NASA associate administrator for Communications....

Studies have shown that the United States has one of the highest incidences of fatal anaphylaxis in the world. For anaphylaxis treatment in community settings, epinephrine intramuscular injection using an auto-injector, e.g. EpiPen®, in the thigh is universally recommended. Despite this, many people at risk of anaphylaxis in community settings do not carry their prescribed auto-injectors consistently and hesitate to use them when anaphylaxis occurs. Mutasem Rawas-Qalaji, B. Pharm., Ph.D., ass...

The improper and excessive use of antibiotics has led to the rise of “superbugs,” treatment-resistant bacteria causing a public health crisis of global proportions. To help combat this problem, Ahmad “Mo” Khalil, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Boston University College of Engineering (ENG), has been awarded a New Innovator Award under the High-Risk, High-Reward program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His proposed project will focus on developing new...

A mycorrhiza (Greek: μυκός, mykós, "fungus", and ρίζα, riza, "root", pl. mycorrhizae or mycorrhizas) is a symbiotic association composed of a fungus and roots of a vascular plant. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plant's roots, either intracellularly as in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF or AM), or extracellularly as in ectomycorrhizal fungi. They are an important component of soil life and soil chemistry. The association is generally mutualistic, but occasionally we...

Competition to source a system that routes and collects human waste away from the body, hands-free, for fully suited astronauts. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeks proposed solutions for urine, fecal and menstrual management systems to be used in the crew’s launch and entry suits over a continuous duration of up to 144 hours. An in-suit waste management system would be beneficial for contingency scenarios or for any long duration tasks. Waste management syste...

New research shows that excess weight increases the risk that a benign blood disorder will progress into multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. The study, by a team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Carrying extra weight increases a person's risk that a benign blood disorder will develop into multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. This is particularly true for older, African-American men. Being overweight...

ImageWare Systems is betting that businesses want better authentication — particularly for remote access from smartphones, tablets and laptops. GoVerifyID is an end-to-end mobile biometric user authentication Software as a Service. It allows an organization to easily and inexpensively add face, voice, and fingerprint authentication into any existing security process. It's so easy, you can authenticate with biometrics anywhere. You become the password. ImageWare Systems a San Diego based...

NASA-led citizen science project, eight people with no formal training in astrophysics helped discover what could be a fruitful new place to search for planets outside our solar system – a large disk of gas and dust encircling a star known as a circumstellar disk. A paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and coauthored by eight citizen scientists involved in the discovery, describes a newly identified red dwarf star, AWI0005x3s, and its warm circumstellar disk, the kind associa...

Propeller Health offers solutions, such as Bluetooth-connected inhaler sensors and patient apps, to help enhance compliance and treatment outcomes for respiratory patients, such as those with asthma or COPD. The system monitors how often patients take their medication and can send alerts to caregivers if the disease is considered poorly controlled. FDA approved the Propeller platform for use with GSK’s Ellipta inhaler.” David Van Sickle, CEO and co-founder of Propeller said, “Inclusion of GSK...