Not so much an invention but a product with possibility of real benefits to healing. Imagine if we had skin banks like we do blood banks, you could donate skin grafts and in the event of injury you had a ready supply of your own skin to help in recovery.
Products by two Hampton Roads organizations are on the cutting edge of wound care.
The nonprofit LifeNet Health in Virginia Beach offers TheraSkin, a graft made of real skin that stimulates your body to heal itself. Soluble Systems of Newport News sells TheraGauze, a covering that regulates the moisture within a wound. Continue Reading »
Like I always say, keep looking at nature because your problem may have already been solved. You just have to look a little closer.
Video cameras on your cellphone could soon be good enough to record a jazz concert, a nighttime street scene, or a candlelit dinner. A Swedish start-up has created an algorithm, inspired by dung beetles, that can be integrated into camera modules to offer high-quality video in extremely low light situations.
How would you solve a problem, especially one where you need water and normal resources are too far away? How about if you went fishing for water?
Catching fog with nets is the solution to water scarcity for people who live beyond the reach of utility lines in this sandy hillside shantytown overlooking Peru’s capital, Lima.
I love simple and I love this invention! Come on people lets start following this example and make something happen.
No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach–simply because the systems are expensive–rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours.
Now if they could only make the box eatable too, maybe as a dessert? While I love good simple effective ideas like this, it will probably have limited acceptance as most people (like me) grab a slice and go at it without a plate. Of course I rarely have leftover pizza too. Good thinking at work here…
Great idea but I wonder what kind of by-product is left over from the process if any? But this is a good start in keeping in check the overwhelming amount of by-products created by modern civilization.
Old tires are hard to bury and dirty to burn, but a New Jersey company has a new solution: microwave them.
The Global Resource Corporation, of Mount Laurel, is expected to cut the ribbon on Monday on a factory outside Chicago that makes giant microwave chambers for converting tires into three kinds of fuel: oil that can serve as a feedstock at an oil refinery, or substitute directly for diesel fuel in some applications; gases that can be burned to make electricity; and a solid material that can be burned in coal plants. Continue Reading »
Now imagine these Siftables as a shared resource. You could pick up a bunch of blocks, request specific programing from a programming kiosk and have just about any computer controlled device in an instant. The possibilities are endless…
This could be a great breakthrough and a real solution to the “dirty” CFL’s (compact fluorescent light bulb). Even though each CFL has a minute amount of mercury it will more than likely find its way into landfills. People are too used to throwing away regular light bulbs to be bothered recycling CFL’s.
A lighting revolution is on the way that could end at the flick of a switch the battle between supporters of conventional bulbs and the eco-friendly variety.
These LED's are three times more efficient than CLF's
Cambridge University researchers have developed cheap, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that produce brilliant light but use very little electricity. They will cost £2 and last up to 60 years.
Despite being smaller than a penny, they are 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and three times more efficient than the unpopular fluorescent low-energy versions. Continue Reading »
This is my favorite type of invention, observe nature, learn and then build something that imitates the process. Nature has been at it a lot longer than we have been on the planet and nature is a great teacher if you only slow down a little to watch and learn.
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Inspired by the way beetle larvae wiggle to move across water, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a low-energy and low-maintenance system for moving small robots and boats in water.
The system, which uses electrical pulses in place of paddles, sails and motors, is designed for small boats and devices that monitor the water quality in reservoirs, oceans and other bodies of water. Such devices usually rely on propellers to move about. Continue Reading »
Mathematician Andrew Hicks was in his Drexel University office, puzzling over some problem he can no longer recall, when colleague Ron Perline walked in with a challenge.
Fresh from his morning bicycle ride from Germantown, Perline was unhappy with the rearview mirror mounted on his handlebars. Its tiny surface was curved, reflecting a wide-angle view of the road behind him, but the image was badly distorted.
Could math provide the path to better reflection? Perline asked.
Indeed it could. Eight years and numerous calculations later, Hicks is now testing a prototype mirror – for a car, not a bike – and he is in talks with a foreign manufacturer. As with the bike mirror, the rounded surface provides a wide field of view – so wide that it eliminates the dreaded, driver-side “blind spot” – yet the subtle mathematics of his design result in little or no distortion. Continue Reading »
