While the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t an experience anyone wants to repeat, infections disease experts like [Dr. Pardis Sabeti] are looking at what we can do to prepare for the next one. While the next pandemic could potentially be anything, there are a few high profile candidates, and bird flu (H5N1) is at the top of […]
Brain-to-speech interfaces have been promising to help paralyzed individuals communicate for years. Unfortunately, many systems have had significant latency that has left them lacking somewhat in the practicality stakes. A team of researchers across UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco has been working on the problem and made significant strides forward in capability. A new system […]
Continuous glucose meters (CGMs) aren’t just widgets for the wellness crowd. For many, CGMs are real-time feedback machines for the body, offering glucose trendlines that help people rethink how they eat. They allow diabetics to continue their daily life without stabbing their fingertips several times a day, in the most inconvenient places. This video by […]
For all their education, medical practitioners sometimes forget that what’s old hat to them is new territory for their patients. [David Revoy] learned that when a recent visit to the veterinarian resulted in the need to monitor his cat’s pulse rate at home, a task that he found difficult enough that he hacked together this […]
Ever wanted your own X-ray machine? Of course you have! Many of us were indoctrinated with enticing ads for X-ray specs and if you like to see what’s inside things, what’s better than a machine that looks inside things? [Hyperspace Pirate] agrees, and he shows you the dangers of having your own X-ray machine in […]
You might think you don’t need a hearing aid, and you might be right. But in general, hearing loss eventually comes to all of us. In fact, you progressively lose hearing every year, which is why kids can have high-pitched ringtones their parents can’t hear. You’d think hearing aids would be pretty simple, right? After […]
More and more of the ‘smart’ gadgets like watches and phones that we carry around with us these days come with features that we’d not care to ever need. Since these are devices that we strap onto our wrists and generally carry in close proximity to our bodies, they can use their sensors to make […]
Lucid dreaming is the state of becoming aware one is dreaming while still being within the dream. To what end? That awareness may allow one to influence the dream itself, and the possibilities of that are obvious and compelling enough that plenty of clever and curious people have formed some sort of interest in this […]
While we’d like to think that pandemics and lockdowns are behind us, the reality is that a warming climate and the fast-paced travel of modern life are a perfect storm for nasty viruses. One thing that could help us curb the spread of the next pandemic may already be on your wrist. Researchers at Aalto […]
Money, status, or even survival – there’s no shortage of incentives for faking results in the scientific community. What can we do to prevent it, or at least make it noticeable? One possible solution is cryptographic signing of measurement results. Here’s a proof-of-concept from [Clement Heyd] and [Arbion Halili]. They took a ThermoFisher Scientific 7500 […]