Northwestern University scientists have developed a new bioactive material that successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of a large-animal model.

Although it looks like a rubbery goo, the material is actually a complex network of molecular components, which work together to mimic cartilage’s natural environment in the body.

In the new study, the researchers applied the material to damaged cartilage in the animals’ knee joints...

The Higgs a Particle could have Ended the Universe by now—here’s why we’re still here

Although our universe may seem stable, having existed for a whopping 13.7 billion years, several experiments suggest that it is at risk—walking on the edge of a very dangerous cliff. And it’s all down to the instability of a single fundamental particle: the Higgs boson.

In new research by me and my colleagues, just accepted for publication in Physical Letters B, we show that some models of the early universe, those which involve objects called light primordial black holes, are unlikely to be right because they would have triggered the Higgs boson to end the cosmos by now.

The Higgs boson is responsible for the mass and interactions of all the particles we know of...

A novel, water-resistant patch-wearable cardioverter-defibrillator (P-WCD) is safe and effective for patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest, according to a study published in the Aug. 6 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

John Hummel, M.D., from The Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues assessed the safety and clinical effectiveness of a novel P-WCD. The analysis included 290 patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest due to ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation who were not candidates for or refused an implantable defibrillator.

The researchers found that the clinically significant cutaneous adverse device effect rate was 2.30 percent, with no severe adverse effects...

The wing dynamics of flying animal species have been the inspiration for numerous flying robotic systems. While birds and bats typically flap their wings using the force produced by their pectoral and wing muscles, the processes underlying the wing movements of many insects remain poorly understood.

Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) and Konkuk University (South Korea) recently set out to explore how herbivorous insects known as rhinoceros beetles deploy and retract their wings. The insight they gathered, outlined in a paper published in Nature, was then used to develop a new flapping microrobot that can passively deploy and retract its wings, without the need for extensive actuators.

“Insects, including beetles, are theoretically belie...