TV infomercials offer a world of potential solutions for back pain, but most of them have at least one of three problems — they’re unproven, unworkable or just plain unattractive. A team of Vanderbilt University engineers is changing that with a design that combines the science of biomechanics and advances in wearable tech to create…
DNA Duplicator Small Enough to Hold in Your Hand
Imagine a “DNA photocopier” small enough to hold in your hand that could identify the bacteria or virus causing an infection even before the symptoms appear. This possibility is raised by a fundamentally new method for controlling a powerful but finicky process called the polymerase chain reaction. PCR was developed in 1983 by Kary Mullis,…
Study Supports Natural Causes, Not Alien Activity, Explain Mystery Star’s Behavior
Sorry, E.T. lovers, but the results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby’s star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere. Public interest in the star, which sits about 1,480 light-years away in the…
Longest-lasting Stellar Eclipse Discovered
Imagine living on a world where, every 69 years, the sun disappears in a near-total eclipse that lasts for three and a half years. That is just what happens in an unnamed binary star system nearly 10,000 light years from Earth. The newly discovered system, known only by its astronomical catalog number TYC 2505-672-1, sets…
New Detector Perfect For Asteroid Mining, Planetary Research
The grizzled asteroid miner is a stock character in science fiction. Now, a couple of recent events – one legal and the other technological – have brought asteroid mining a step closer to reality. The legal step was taken when the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bill titled H.R. 2262–SPACE Act of…
Robotic Brain Surgery Through the Cheek
For those most severely affected, treating epilepsy means drilling through the skull deep into the brain to destroy the small area where the seizures originate – invasive, dangerous and with a long recovery period. Five years ago, a team of Vanderbilt engineers wondered: Is it possible to address epileptic seizures in a less invasive way?…
New Device Stores Electricity on Silicon Chips
Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists at Vanderbilt University that is described in a paper…