Stress

While it’s always disturbing to hear about the unexpected collapse of a bridge or building, technology is being developed to lessen the chances of such incidents occurring. Increasingly, this is taking the form of sensors that are implanted within structures, that measure and transmit data on the stresses that the surrounding material is experiencing. If the mechanical strain causes one of those sensors to break, however, it won’t be much good anymore – depending on its location, it also may be impossible to replace. Fortunately, researchers at North Carolina State University have created a self-healing structural stress sensor. Read More

If someone does a lot of arm curls at the gym, the typical result is that the bones and muscles in their arms will get stronger. Recently, researchers at Houston’s Rice University inadvertently created a nanocomposite that behaves in the same way. Although the material doesn’t respond to static stress, repeated mechanical stress will cause it to become stiffer. Read More

Chances are that if you're calling 9-1-1 (or 9-9-9, or whatever it is where you are), you're not likely to tell the operator that your case isn't all that urgent, and that it can wait. The problem is, sometimes emergency dispatch centers are so overloaded with callers – all of them stating that they need assistance right now – that some sort of system is required in order to determine who should get help first. Dutch researchers claim to have developed just such a system, which analyzes callers' voices to determine how stressed-out they are. Read More

If you’ve seen Avatar or Aliens, then you’ve seen futuristic versions of exoskeletons – mechanical systems that human users wear over their bodies, to augment their own physical abilities. While exoskeletons are already available and in use today, they’re sometimes a bit more machine than what is needed. After all, why put on an expensive full- or half-body contraption, when you’re performing a task that mostly just requires the use of one arm? That’s where the x-Ar exoskeletal arm support comes in. Users wear it on their dominant arm, and it moves with them, providing support as they do things such as holding tools out in front of themselves. Read More

While conducting research into brain-gut interactions, a team led by researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Administration may have inadvertently stumbled across a new treatment for hair loss. During an investigation into the affect of stress on gastrointestinal function, the researchers believe they may have found a chemical compound that induces hair growth by blocking a stress-related hormone associated with hair loss. Read More

Industrial Design PhD student Miguel Bruns Alonso from the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology has created a prototype pen that he claims can identify short-term stress in its user, and that can then proceed to alleviate some of that stress. The “anti-stress pen” doesn’t measure a persons heart rate or their galvanic skin response – instead, it detects when it’s being fidgeted with, and gets the user to stop. Read More

The phenomenon of social networking allows fragmented friends and families to keep in touch and empowers users to share their lives with the world. Four female students from MIT think that such a medium could also help to alleviate something else that many members of the global community share and suffer from - stress. The SOS: stress outsourced system consists of wearable units containing wireless signaling technology. Should a wearer feel the burden of stress, sending out an SOS to fellow users around the globe generates a haptic massage from the relief signals sent in response. Read More

Stress balls are a great way to relieve tension and help combat repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. They’re also an easy answer for office workers looking for a gift when social convention states you need to get a little something for someone you work with, but don’t really know that well. Since no gift is complete nowadays unless it comes with a USB cable dangling from it, this tech-take on the stress ball could be the answer. The USB Stress Ball not only provides some physical stress relief, but some virtual stress relief as well. Read More

Working within the Holst Centre program on Micropower Generation and Storage, researchers have developed a small piezoelectric device capable of harvesting 85 microwatts of electricity from vibrations. Fabricated using MEMS technology, the fully autonomous temperature sensor generates enough power to wirelessly measure and transmit environmental data to a base station every 15 seconds. Read More