Research

Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo have created an inductively-coupled passive sensor that can detect tear glucose and blood lactate levels with high sensitivity. The sensor is a resistor loaded with either the enzyme glucose oxidase or lactate oxidase (GOD or LOD in diagram right). This is made part of a passive LCR resonant tank circuit, which is coupled, through ...

Researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) have made an edible rechargeable battery from things already eaten by humans. Inspiration came from biological redox reactions that happen inside living beings, and for an energy source the team picked bio-materials with the highest and lowest redox reduction potentials: riboflavin for the anode and quercetin for the cathode. Riboflavin is vitamin ...

For monitoring X-ray doses in patients undergoing radiotherapy for gastrointestinal cancer, a group of researcher have created a prototype swallowable dosimeter capsule that also measures gut pH and temperature. “The researchers found that the dosimeter was approximately five times more accurate than standard methods for dose determination,” according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology ...

75.5cm2/V/s mobility and high stability are claimed for amorphous oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors created at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE). The bottom-gate transistor is built with a stack of two layers: Next to the oxide-insulated silicon gate is a charge transport layer (CTL) consists of indium-rich InSnZnO “featuring large average effective coordination numbers for all cations ...

Lancaster University is creating a spinout company to develop a universal  memory called ULTRARAM. Invented by Physics Professor Manus Hayne (pictured) ULTRARAM is a novel type of memory that combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory, like flash, with the speed, energy-efficiency and endurance of a working memory, like DRAM. To do this it exploits quantum resonant tunnelling in ...

Researchers in Australia have used micromachined silicon pillars and graphene to make skin electrodes for EEG that are far less messy than the current scheme in medical use, which is wet silver – silver chloride electrodes, but are not far behind in performance. The self-imposed challenge was to be able to sense through hair on a curved area of the scalp – ...

Researchers have not yet got the additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, of metals down to a science completely. Gaps in our understanding of what happens within metal during the process have made results inconsistent but, using two different particle accelerator facilities, researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and ...

ETH Zurich has created a yarn whose capacitance varies significantly with the movement of the textile it is woven into. The researchers “integrated it into a pair of athletic leggings”, according to the university. “Simply by glancing at their smartphone, testers were able to see when they were reaching their limit and if they ought to take a break.” This ...

The UK thermal infrared satellite firm Satellite Vu is partnering with Surrey Research Park (SRP) to demonstrate the use of thermal imaging technology for the built environment. The earth observation specialist will perform a series of flights across the 70 acre landscape to map the built environment and provide data on the level of heat loss across buildings in the ...

X1 Wind’s X30 prototype floating wind turbine has delivered power though its 1.4km sub-sea cable to the Canary Islands’ Plocan off-shore laboratory. “Local teams will now enter the last phase of a test and verification programme which started with the platform installation in November 2022, in preparation of the technology industrialisation and certification for commercial scale projects currently under development,” ...