Professor George Bittner and his colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin Center for Neuroscience have developed a simple and inexpensive procedure to quickly repair severed peripheral nerves. The team took advantage of a mechanism similar to that which permits many invertebrates to regenerate and repair nerve damage. The new procedure, based on timely application of common chemicals to the severed nerve ends, could help patients to recover nearly full function in days or weeks. Read More

Anyone who has done a bit of traveling in the rear seat of older model cars will likely have encountered the case of the missing buckle, where the seat-belt buckle has wormed its way down in the gap between the upholstery. While that may not be so much of a problem nowadays, Mercedes-Benz has developed an active seat-belt buckle that not only emerges from the upholstery when the rear doors are opened to make finding the buckle easier, but also improves safety by reducing the belt slack once the passenger is strapped in. Read More

Ducati recently finished its first series of official MotoGP testing at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia, beset by the typically hot and humid conditions and rain that interrupted track time. Nicky Hayden had a painful shoulder injury that limited valuable time on the bike, but Valentino Rossi continued until the rain arrived, finishing the session with the fifth-best time. Read More

After receiving European market approval for its Argus II Retinal Prosthesis in 2011, Second Sight has published interim results of an international clinical trial showing encouraging results in blind patients suffering degenerative eye conditions that lead to incurable blindness. Read More

When data is transmitted as pulses of light along a fiber optic cable, chips at either end of that cable must convert the data from and back into an electronic signal - this is what allows an outgoing video image to be converted into light pulses, then back into video at the receiving end, for instance. There are a number of technical challenges in coupling chips to fibers, however. Now, an international team of scientists are developing an alternative ... fiber optics with the electronics built right into the fiber. Read More

Some day, meshes made from nanowires could be used in devices such as video displays, LEDs, thin-film solar cells, and touch-screens. According to research performed so far, such meshes would be very electrically conductive, cost-effective, and easy to process. What has proven challenging, however, is finding a way of getting the criss-crossed nanowires to fuse together to form that mesh – if pressed or heated, the wires can be damaged. Now, engineers from Stanford University may have found the answer ... just apply light. Read More

Judging by the number of folks who fall prey to food-borne illness each year, food safety is serious business, especially when you consider that pathogens such as Campylobacter and Salmonella contaminate over 70 percent of the raw chicken meat tested. Now, recent research from a food safety team at Pennsylvania's Drexel University offers proof-of-concept for what may one day be a common approach to preventing food-borne illness from raw poultry and meat products - the use of high-energy, low temperature plasma to eliminate unwanted bacteria while leaving the food basically unchanged. Read More

Want to get your computer to run faster? Well, consider its graphics processing unit (GPU) and central processing unit (CPU). The two work away at their own tasks, each one rarely helping the other shoulder its workload. Researchers from North Carolina State University, however, are in the process of changing that. They have already developed a technique that allows GPUs and CPUs located on a single chip to collaborate on tasks, and it has resulted in a processing speed increase of over 20 percent. Read More

This incredible 4 x 4 meter (13 x 13 foot) family home pushes architectural boundaries outside of the box. Situated in the highly dense and populated city of Tokyo, "Small House" is Unemeri Architects' solution to living functionally on a block of land that is smaller than the average-sized bedroom. Spread over four levels, this residential building features two bedrooms, open living and dining room, bathroom and rooftop terrace. Read More