Category Technology/Electronics

Interactive 3-D models of human joints, showing how common medical complaints have arisen and how we are likely to evolve in the future, have been created at Oxford University.

Interactive 3D models of human joints, showing how common medical complaints have arisen and how we are likely to evolve in the future, have been created at Oxford University. The Oxford researchers made the 3D computer models by compiling 128 slice CT scans of bones from humans, early hominids, primates and dinosaurs. In all, they scanned 224 bone specimens, spanning 350 million years from the Devonian period to the modern day.
By using 3-D engineering and mathematical methods the group has produced 3-D ‘morphs’ to plot changes in the shapes of species throughout the human lineage...

Illustration shows the delivery route of hydrogen sulfide to damaged cells based on two projects completed in the University of Oregon lab of Michael Pluth. Credit: Michael Pluth

Molecules with the potential to deliver healing power to stressed cells – such as those involved in heart attacks – have been created by University of Oregon researchers. The research – done at a cellular level in the lab and far from medical reality – involves the design of organic molecules that break down to release hydrogen sulfide when triggered by specific conditions such as increased oxidative stress. Oxidative stress damages cells and is tied especially to heart disease and cancer, as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

“We have discovered that small organic molecules can be engineered to release ...

Crash Test Cameras

2017 edition of NASA Spinoffs. NASA innovations we use in our daily lives. Here are some of our favorite things we bet you didn’t know use space technology.
1.Crash Test Cameras: Parachutes are a key part of the landing system for many of our spacecraft, but before we send them into orbit — or beyond — we have to make sure that they’re going to work as designed. One important component of testing is a video that captures every millisecond as the chute opens, to see if it’s working and if not, what went wrong. Integrated Design Tools built a camera for us that could do just that: rugged and compact, it can film up to 1,000 frames/s and back up all that data almost as fast...

New research shows that miniscule amounts of impurities in vacuum are being incorporated into OLEDs during fabrication and leading to large variations in lifetime. By reducing the time OLEDs spend in the deposition chamber during fabrication, impurities can be reduced and lifetime enhanced. Analysis of the impurities indicates sources that include previously deposited materials and plasticizers from chamber components. Credit: Hiroshi Fujimoto and William J. Potscavage, Jr.

Reproducibility is a necessity for science but has often eluded researchers studying the lifetime of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Recent research from Japan sheds new light on why: impurities present in the vacuum chamber during fabrication but in amounts so small that they are easily overlooked...