Ultrasound

Want to hear your baby’s heartbeat before it’s even born? If so, you might want to check out iBaby’s HeartSense fetal Doppler device.  Read More

Ordinarily, if scuba divers want to talk to one another underwater, they have to wear special full-face masks that leave their mouths unobstructed by the regulator. Such masks are pricey and a bit cumbersome, however, so they’re usually only used by professional divers. Today, however, Casio announced the development of a new type of underwater voice communications device that works with plain old “eyes-and-nose-only” dive masks.  Read More

Although some medications just don’t work when taken orally, the fact is that nobody likes getting injections. Research being conducted at MIT, however, could lead to a new painless method of drug delivery via the skin. Harsh though it might sound, it involves using ultrasound to blast off the outer layer of skin, so that drugs can then get into the bloodstream.  Read More

If you ever thought of soap bubbles as small floating movie capsules, you were not alone in your observation. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a system that uses such bubbles as kind of projection screen based on colloidal liquids. The bubbles are made of a thin film, and allow light to create a reflection on one section before passing through other sections. If the reflection can be controlled, then the bubble can be used as a display.  Read More

Your smartphone and/or tablet can do just about everything else, why can’t they help you catch fish? Well, if the Deeper fishfinder ends up being commercially produced, they will be able to. The floating device would be paired with the user’s Android or iOS device, and would let them know if fish were in the area.  Read More

Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (UC3M), Spain, have developed a pair of “intelligent” goggles that make getting around a bit easier for partly-sighted people, by providing them with Terminator-style vision. Using a pair of cameras mounted on a virtual reality headset connected to a tiny computer, the device scans the area ahead of the wearer and displays information about the scene as color-coded outlines that convey the distance and shapes of objects that are difficult to otherwise see or interpret.  Read More

While breast cancer screening tests are accepted as safe – and we definitely wouldn’t want to scare anyone off from a potentially life-saving test – they do have some risks associated with them. The most obvious being the exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation, which in itself is a risk factor for breast cancer. X-ray mammography can also give false positive and negative results. In the quest for a safer, more accurate alternative, Dutch researchers have provided proof of concept that photoacoustic imaging can be used to detect and visualize breast tumors.  Read More

Sonic technology that allows audio to be specifically directed at a limited audience, as opposed to booming sound out as far and as loud as possible, has been around for a good many years but has yet to penetrate the mass consumer market. That situation could well change very shortly, however, thanks to the Soundlazer. The low-cost, pocket-friendly, open source, and completely hack-friendly parametric device developed by Richard Haberkern uses ultrasonic carrier waves to transmit sound from a connected music player on a narrow beam to a select listener.  Read More

Using commercially-available ultrasound technology, scientists have successfully reduced sperm count in rats to a level that would cause infertility in men. Researchers managed to reduce motile sperm to 3 million per cauda epididymis (where sperm are stored), which equates to a Sperm Count Index of zero, measured two weeks after treatment. The research could re-open the door to the investigation of ultrasonic techniques as a practical human contraceptive.  Read More