A new silicone ‘skin’ contains electronics that mimic the human body’s lightning-fast response to pain, potentially paving the way for smart prosthetics that can detect painful sensations.
Researcher Taimur Ahmed holds the newly designed chip.
Our brains create new memories, and forget old ones, by forging and breaking connections between nerve cells. Now researchers can do something similar using a light-sensitive electronic chip.
Testing new ways to navigate a complicated world.
ETH Zurich/Alessandro Della Bella
Robert Riener, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
People with disabilities are often disappointed with their devices’ performance, and choose not to use them. To encourage innovation, a new competition tests assistive technologies.
Groundbreaking new technologies are finally leaving the lab.
Alessandro Della Bella/ETH Zurich
Bionic trousers could use artificial muscles to help wearers move about – and soft robotics technology will make the clothing comfortable and maybe even stylish.
Where do inventions come from? There’s no magic formula, but there are ways to improve your creativity. One method is to look at nature. Some call this activity bionics, others call it biomimetics. Whatever…
To really get into the brain’s mechanisms, we need to build a working model.
Tankakern/Flickr
The structure of the brain reveals a network of massively interconnected electrochemically active cells. It is known that information can be represented by changes of state within this network, but that…
Our ability to grasp and manipulate objects relies on feedback from our sense of touch. Without these signals from the hand, we would have trouble performing even the most basic activities of daily living…
It’s just a twinge, doctor, but it’s every time I take my face off.
JD Hancock
If you think it’s enough of a chore trying to stop thieves stealing your credit card details and hacking your Facebook, imagine trying to stop them getting into your pancreas. Advances in healthcare mean…
A woman drinks using a robotic arm, something she hasn’t been able to do with her own arms for 15 years.
Nature
The world of brain-machine interfacing (BMI) has a new posterchild. A study on people with tetraplegia, published in Nature, has shown participants were able to control a robotic arm and hand over a broad…
In 1973, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) first aired The Six Million Dollar Man, a made-for-television movie in which Steve Austin, an astronaut test-piloting a prototype aeroplane, experienced…
Age-related macular degeneration is responsible for almost half of all cases of legal blindness in Australia.
Caduser
What is the bionic eye? Often when we talk about the bionic eye, people get the idea of some sort of artificial eye implanted to replace visual function. In reality, the “eye” comprises a series of components…
Executive Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science and Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, University of Wollongong