Body-degradable metals are not a new innovation; in fact, they've been in use for over a hundred years. So why is it such a big deal that a new $1.5 million grant by the National Science Foundation will now allow researchers included in a consortium of universities to develop medical implants made of dissolving metals?... Continue Reading →

A man paralyzed for two years is now walking again, albeit with a frame, after a transplant to his spine. The treatment, to be published in this month's Cell Transplantation, has been under discussion for a while, but has only now shown success. In 2010, Darek Fidyka was repeatedly stabbed, rendering him paralyzed from the... Continue Reading →

We’ve all been there: running out of power on your cell-phone with no prospect of a charger in the near future. It’s one of the most frightening possible scenarios for a lot of people these days. Naomi Kizhner, an Israeli graduate student, may have solved that problem. Naomi designs jewelry that harnesses your body’s energy... Continue Reading →

October skywatchers are in for a treat (not a trick) this week. The 2014 Orionid meteor shower will peak early Tuesday morning, Oct. 21, and it should be quite a show. "We expect to see about 20 meteors per hour," Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a written statement. "With no... Continue Reading →

Rising sea levels, hotter global temperatures, wildly fluctuating precipitation patterns, and more frequent extreme weather systems will likely intensify global instability, hunger, and poverty. These events could very well lead to acute food and water shortages, an explosion of pandemic diseases, waves of destitute refugees, and violent conflagrations over dwindling natural resources — a likelihood... Continue Reading →

Those who say graffiti doesn't accomplish much haven't seen the work of Skid Robot, an anonymous street artist in Los Angeles who uses his medium to draw attention to the homeless -- a population he laments is so often overlooked. Skid Robot humanizes the homeless by incorporating them into his art, creating scenes in which... Continue Reading →

The only way doctors can currently treat patients with uncontrollable epilepsy is through brain surgery, which involves isolating or removing the part of the brain that is responsible for seizures. The procedure is extremely invasive and dangerous, as it involves drilling deep into the skull. A team of Vanderbilt University engineers in the US were... Continue Reading →

A two-week-old baby’s very complicated heart surgery was made much simpler thanks to a 3D printed replica of the infant’s tiny heart. Born with congenital heart defects, the patient had life-saving surgery at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital this past July. “The baby’s heart had holes, which are not uncommon with CHD, but the... Continue Reading →

It's given us robot cars and internet-enabled glasses -- but when it came to creating a "Street View" of a desert, Google hit on a low-tech solution. It hired a camel. The beast has become the first animal to carry Google's Trekker camera, which is typically hoisted by humans to capture 360-degree images of destinations... Continue Reading →

In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch... Continue Reading →