Spun-fiber device designed for children with heart valve disease

August 28, 2023  |  What's New?

Strep throat is a common and treatable childhood disease in the U.S., but in less wealthy countries, children afflicted with strep can develop rheumatic fever, in which runaway inflammation attacks the body’s tissues. Rheumatic fever often damages the valves of the heart, causing rheumatic heart d…
Ink can change color on demand

August 14, 2023  |  What's New?

Inspired by cephalopods, scientists have created a new light-activated ink that can change color on demand. It’s made up of microbeads of different colors that rise or sink in response to different wavelengths of light, so that its surface appears as a specific color. This could be useful for new …
Running shoe start-up adds graphene to its material mix

July 31, 2023  |  What's New?

Quebec-based running shoe brand Norda has incorporated graphene-enhanced material from Directa Plus into its shoes. Directa Plus founder, Giulio Cesareo, said he had tried on a prototype pair of Norda shoes made with the graphene material and that the footwear fitted perfectly.
Nike’s ISPA pushes footwear innovation

July 17, 2023  |  What's New?

Nike’s ISPAnificio, an exhibition during Milan Design Week 2023, showcased the company’s ISPA shoe-making lab, taking giant steps in circularity. ISPA is a set of design principles—improvise, scavenge, protect, adapt—that breaks the mold of footwear design. The team designs shoes that can be…
Thread-like pumps can be woven into clothes

June 26, 2023  |  What's New?

Many fluid-based wearable assistive technologies today require a large and noisy pump that is impractical, if not impossible, to integrate into clothing, so wearable devices are routinely tethered to unwearable pumps. But researchers at the Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS) in the School of Enginee…
Electronic skin offers tactile feedback 

June 26, 2023  |  What's New?

A team of researchers at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently introduced a thin, wearable electronic “skin” that provides tactile feedback to users in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) environments. Called “WeTac,” the wireless electro-tactile system is made …
Scientists devise a sensing sweater for industrial robots

June 12, 2023  |  What's New?

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have designed a smart sweater for a robot that can immediately stop moving if it accidentally makes contact with an adjacent human worker. To keep from accidentally hurting their human coworkers, many industrial robots have sensors that detect physical con…
Super-charged smart textile can multi-task

June 12, 2023  |  What's New?

Scientists have developed a simple metallic coating treatment for clothing or wearable textiles which can repair itself, repel bacteria from the wearer and even monitor a person’s electrocardiogram (ECG) heart signals.