Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a way to prevent hydrogels from dehydrating. The water-based technique could lead to longer-lasting contact lenses, stretchy microfluidic devices, flexible bioelectronics, and even artificial skin.

This week's Question: The U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) unveiled plans last week to develop a "brain modem." The implantable neural interface allows wearers to transmit data from their brains to external digital devices. DARPA's goal is to achieve this communications link in...

Stanford Biodesign fellows are testing two tiny devices that stimulate natural tear production. The technologies deliver micro-electrical pulses to the lacrimal gland.

A wireless system uses the same power as a cell phone to safely transmit energy to chips the size of a grain of rice. The technology paves the way for new "electroceutical" devices to treat illness or alleviate pain.The central discovery is an engineering breakthrough that creates a...

Scientists recently unveiled a new genre of tiny, biocompatible electronic devices that could be implanted into the body to relieve pain or battle infection for a specific period of time, and then dissolve harmlessly. These “transient electronics,” described at a meeting of the...

A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described in the Journal of...

Kessler Foundation has released preliminary research findings from its clinical study of the wearable robotic exoskeletal device, Ekso, made by Ekso Bionics. Ekso has been undergoing clinical investigation in patients with spinal cord injury at Kessler since October 2011, when the...

Professor Rick Neptune and his mechanical engineering students at the University of Texas at Austin demonstrate in this video how they're paving the way for more customized prosthetics and orthotic devices for injured soldiers.

A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard has created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that has potential as a replacement for damaged cartilage in human joints.

A new Northwestern Medicine brain-machine technology delivers messages from the brain directly to the muscles -- bypassing the spinal cord -- to enable voluntary and complex movement of a paralyzed hand. The device could eventually be tested on, and perhaps aid, paralyzed patients.The...

An inorganic, biodegradable silica gel fiber (SGF) acts as a physical scaffold to aid the growth of new cells and the collagen structure that supports them. As a scaffold, it can also be used to deliver drugs over a wide area to aid in healing. The material is integrated into the tissues and...

It's always interesting to witness the progression of companies between trade shows. Months or year(s) have gone by, and in between, exhibiting companies don't idle — they find new ways to meet the ever-growing demands of the medical industry. One of those demands is customization of orthopedic implants. At this...