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Ben Coxworth

Ben Coxworth
An experienced freelance writer, videographer and television producer, Ben's interest in all forms of innovation is particularly fanatical when it comes to human-powered transportation, film-making gear, environmentally-friendly technologies and anything that's designed to go underwater. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta, where he spends a lot of time going over the handlebars of his mountain bike, hanging out in off-leash parks, and wishing the Pacific Ocean wasn't so far away.
Top Articles by Ben Coxworth
B is a combination RC car and quadcopter, which can be driven or flown

Quadcopters are becoming more and more popular with radio-controlled model enthusiasts, but sometimes ... sometimes you still just want to remotely-control a car. If that’s the case with you, then UK-based product designer Witold Mielniczek has got you covered. His prototype vehicle, known simply as B, functions as both a quadcopter and an off-road racer.  Read More

The University of Illinois' iPhone-based biosensor

We already know that smartphones can perform many of the same features as more expensive computers, cameras and other devices. Now, a portable iPhone cradle made up of about US$200 worth of electronics is claimed to be as accurate of a biosensor as a $50,000 spectrophotometer that remains stuck in a lab.  Read More

The Seal system consists of neckbands worn by swimmers, designed to sound an alarm if anyo...

It can’t be easy, being a lifeguard at a pool full of children. The kids that catch your attention are going to be the ones who are splashing and yelling, whereas the ones that you really need to look for could be silently slipping below the surface, where they won’t be seen or heard. North Carolina-based emergency physician Graham Snyder decided that those potential drowning victims needed more attention drawn to their predicament, so he created the Seal system.  Read More

The new electrodes are made from a film consisting of graphene and silver nanowires (Image...

Transparent electrodes are in and of themselves nothing all that new – they’re currently used in things like touchscreens and flat-screen TVs. Thanks to research being conducted at Indiana’s Purdue University, however, a new class of such electrodes may soon find use in a variety of other applications, including flexible electronic devices.  Read More

Kaiba Gionfriddo, seen here with a ventilator attachment, is the recipient of a first-of-i...

Six week-old Kaiba Gionfriddo was out at a restaurant with his family, when he stopped breathing and started turning blue. It turned out that he had a severe form of tracheobronchomalacia, a rare condition in which the trachea collapses due to flaccid supporting cartilage. Although he survived that incident, he proceeded to stop breathing on a regular basis, requiring daily resuscitation. Given the seriousness of the situation, his doctors decided to go for broke and try something new – an implanted 3D-printed tracheal support splint.  Read More

Scientist have created inkjet-printable graphene-based ink, that could be used to create e...

While we hear a lot about flexible electronics that can be gently bent, how about ones that could actually be folded up? Things like the recently-developed graphite-based paper circuits definitely show promise, but now researchers from Illinois-based Northwestern University have taken another step forward – they’ve created graphene-based inkjet-printable ink.  Read More

New hope could be on the way in the search for a treatment for Alzheimer's disease (Image:...

Although no one is announcing a cure for Alzheimer’s disease just yet, research recently conducted at the University of Southern California does at least offer a glimmer of hope. Using drugs known as TSPO (translocator protein) ligands, scientists there have successfully halted and even reversed the effects of Alzheimer’s in mice.  Read More

The Turanor PlanetSolar arrives at the town of Marigot on the island of St. Martin

With its previous circumnavigation of the planet, it had already set the record for longest distance traveled by a purely solar-powered boat. Now, the Tûranor PlanetSolar (which is also the world’s largest solar-powered watercraft), has broken its own 2010 record for fastest Atlantic crossing by a solar-powered boat.  Read More

The Petcube device with creator Alex Neskin's dog, Rocky

You’re sitting in the office, but don’t you wish you could be playing with your dog or cat using a laser pointer instead? With the Petcube, you’ll be able to do both at once. Not unlike the iPet Companion, the Petcube lets users remotely play with their pets in real time, via the internet.  Read More

False-color scanning electron microscope images of some of the crystalline flowers

When we think of crystals, most of us probably either picture spiky things like snowflakes, or cube-shaped objects like grains of sugar. Researchers from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, however, have recently coaxed barium carbonate crystals to grow into very miniature replicas of soft, curved flowers.  Read More

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