Ben Coxworth

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

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

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

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

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

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

While there are plenty of important components and accessories that are mounted on a bike’s handlebars, the bars themselves are just empty hollow tubes that don’t really do anything ... right? Well, that isn’t the case with Helios Bars. Created by California-based inventor Kenny Gibbs (who previously brought us The Slug), they feature an integrated headlight, signal lights, tracking system, and several other clever features.  Read More

Because moths need to use every little bit of light available in order to see in the dark, their eyes are highly non-reflective. This quality has been copied in a film that can be applied to solar cells, which helps keep sunlight from being reflecting off of them before it can be utilized. Now, a new moth eye-inspired film may further help solar cells become more efficient.  Read More