University of San Diego

With its chunky fat tires, 14-speed gears and centrally-located electric motor, the Hanebrink all-terrain vehicle looks like a fun ride. Built to cope with a multitude of off-road situations with style and speed, the pedal-assist electric bike is classified as a bicycle throughout the U.S. so should also be good for popping down to the

Programming robots to mimic human behavior remains difficult Ever since Rosey the Robot took care of “The Jetsons” in the early 1960s, the promise of robots making everyday life easier has been a bit of a tease. Rosey, a metallic maid with a frilly apron, “kind of set expectations that robots were the future,” said

VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland, is currently field testing a prototype large-scale solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that the organization hopes will provide efficient, cheap grid power from natural gas and biogas. The VTT system is unique in that it uses a single 10 kW planar SOFC stack to produce a year’s worth

Johns Hopkins bioethicists lead a call to reform the ethical foundation of the changing American healthcare system In what they acknowledge as a seismic shift in the ethical foundation of medical research, practice and policy, a prominent group of interdisciplinary healthcare experts, led by bioethicists at Johns Hopkins, rejects an ethical paradigm that has guided

Electrical stimulation, brain “cooling” and drug-delivery devices are all being developed as antiseizure tools Epilepsy affects some 2.7 million Americans—more than Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) combined. More than half of patients can achieve seizure control with treatment, yet almost a third of people with epilepsy have a refractory

  Zebrafish eyed as answer to restoring sight of people with damaged retinas Zebrafish, the staple of genetic research, may hold the answer to repairing damaged retinas and returning eye-sight to people. University of Alberta researchers discovered that a zebrafish’s stem cells can selectively regenerate damaged photoreceptor cells. Lead U of A researcher Ted Allison

Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you. I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. And Thiel – the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist – not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious. Some people

The 4-inch-tall device could be used in portable transmitters for rescue missions and other challenging applications demanding high mobility. A new type of pocket-sized antenna, developed at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, could enable mobile communication in situations where conventional radios don’t work, such as under water, through the ground and over

Catching a Wave, and Measuring It Mr. Gosling is transforming a fleet of robots that move out in the ocean to measure everything from weather to oil slicks, sharply reducing many of the costs of ocean-related businesses. If his plans sound rather extreme, consider this: Mr. Gosling designed of one of the most influential and

New research in The FASEB Journal suggests that a chimera design of DNA and small DNA with a companion contrast agent to facilitate uptake allows antibodies to cross cell membranes Scientists have identified a quantitative method to measure changes in biomarkers, which may reduce or eliminate the need for invasive biopsies. The method, described in