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Innovation / Health & Medicine

A satellite image of Los Angeles

What Can Satellite Imagery Tell Us About Obesity in Cities?

A new AI can figure out which elements of the built environment might influence a city’s obesity rate

"The Right Trousers"

These Robotic Pants Could Help Some Disabled People Walk Again

‘The Right Trousers’ combine soft artificial muscles and electric stimulation to get people moving

Ketamine syringe, 10mg held by a healthcare professional.

Ketamine Works as a Fast-Acting Antidepressant, But the Full Effects Are Still Unknown

A new study suggests that ketamine activates the brain’s opioid receptors, complicating its use to treat clinical depression

Rice University scientists have programmed drones to coordinate their tracking efforts with each other.

Teaching Drones to Sniff Out Toxic Air

Swarms of the flying devices, using sensors and AI, will learn to find and track harmful gases

A concussion occurs when the brain impacts the inside of the skull with enough force to temporarily affect brain function.

How Virtual Reality and Sideline Brain Scans Could Help Diagnose Concussions

Determining if an athlete or soldier has a concussion often depends on what they tell you, but new technologies could provide a more objective approach

Oils extracted from the citronella plant are a powerful mosquito repellent.

Why Plant-Based Mosquito Repellents Are So Hard to Make

Bug sprays with DEET feel oily and smell gross. But turning natural plant oils into commercial products isn’t easy

In acoustophoretic printing, sound waves generate a controllable force that pulls each droplet off of the nozzle when it reaches a specific size and ejects it towards the printing target.

Watch This New Device Print Using Sound Waves

Harvard scientists develop a printing technique that could impact a slew of industries, from biopharmaceuticals to food and cosmetics

Could This Brain Implant Stop Epilepsy Seizures?

A new approach, which involves an implantable device delivering neurotransmitters to the brain, proves effective in mice

The hand dryer-sized device can detect E. coli, salmonella, norovirus, hepatitis A, and listeria.

This Device Tracks How Well You Wash Your Hands

Biomedical engineers have developed a wall-mounted scanner that can detect microbes that cause foodborne illness

Biobot Analytics is tracking the use of opioids, neighborhood by neighborhood, by analyzing the sewage in Cary, North Carolina.

Sewage May Hold the Key to Tracking Opioid Abuse

Public health managers are hoping to pinpoint how and when people abuse drugs in order to prevent deaths

A child tests the Superpower Glass.

“Superpower Glass” Helps Kids With Autism Understand Emotions

A new Stanford-designed technology pairs Google Glass with a face-identifying AI app that tells wearers what emotions they’re seeing

Fears materialized when a series of deadly botulism cases struck unassuming consumers throughout the country.

The Botulism Outbreak That Gave Rise to America’s Food Safety System

In late 1919 and early 1920, scientists and canners worked with the government to protect the public from the deadly toxin

Could spider plants alert you of carbon monoxide, or even the flu, lurking in your home?

Could Houseplants Keep Tabs on the Health of Your Home?

Researchers at the University of Tennessee look at the possibility of using plants as biosensors to detect dangers like mold or radon

The Boarding Glasses have two round lenses in front and two on the side, the hollow rims each half filled with blue liquid.

Could These Glasses Cure Your Motion Sickness?

These odd-looking spectacles are the latest invention to try to resolve the common ailment

Is there hope for B.O.?

Will a New Discovery About Body Odor Lead to Better Deodorants?

Biologists now understand a key part of the molecular process that results in body odor—and deodorants might just be able to disrupt it

A fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) feeding off a banana.

How Fruit Flies Stay Young at Heart

Researchers link structural alterations to fruit fly hearts to longevity-promoting changes in metabolism

A rendering of the venipuncture robot

A Robot May One Day Draw Your Blood

Scientists have developed a “venipuncture robot” that can automatically draw blood and perform lab tests, no humans needed

Soft tumors make life hard for sea turtles.

Should We Share Human Cancer Treatments With Tumorous Turtles?

They may be key to saving wild sea turtles from tumors associated with turtle-specific herpes

Scientists with Smithsonian’s Global Health Program examine a wrinkle-lipped bat, which can harbor a never-before-seen virus.

New Research

A Never-Before-Seen Virus Has Been Detected in Myanmar’s Bats

The discovery of two new viruses related to those that cause SARS and MERS marks PREDICT’s first milestone in the region

A kissing bug with an attached radio transmitter at a private home in Texas.

New Research

How Tiny Trackers Could Help Humans Avoid Kissing Bugs’ Deadly Smooch

The insects, which spread Chagas disease, can now be tracked with miniature radios to stop the spread of illness

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