MIT scientists have developed a new programmable fiber that can be stitched into clothing to help monitor the wearer’s health, reports Stephen Beech for FOX 28 News. “The gear has been tested by U.S. Army and Navy personnel during a month-long winter research mission to the Arctic,” Beech notes.
Dezeen reporter Rima Sabina Aouf spotlights how MIT researchers have created a “thin and flexible fiber computer and woven it into clothes, suggesting a potential alternative to current wearable electronics.” Prof. Yoek Fink explains: "In the not-too-distant future, fiber computers will allow us to run apps and get valuable health care and safety services from simple everyday apparel.” He adds: "The convergence of classical fibers and fabrics with computation and machine learning has only begun.”
MIT engineers have manufactured a programmable computer fiber that can be woven into clothing and used to help monitor the wearer’s vital signs, reports Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica. “The long-term objective is incorporating fiber computers into apparel that can sense and respond to changes in the surrounding environment and individual physiology,” Ouellette notes.
New Scientist reporter Alex Wilkins spotlights how MIT researchers have created a “computer that can be stitched into clothes, made from chips that are connected in a thread of copper and elastic fiber.” U.S. Army and Navy members will be testing the use of the fiber computer to help monitor health conditions and prevent injury during a monthlong mission to the Arctic. Prof. Yoel Fink explains: “We’re getting very close to a point where we could write apps for fabrics and begin to monitor our health and do all kinds of things that a phone, frankly, cannot do.”
Research Assistants Maisy Lam and Laura Dodds speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their work developing MiFly, a new approach that “enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments.” Dodds explains: “Our high-level idea was we can place a millimeter wave sensor on the drone, and it can localize itself with respect to a sticker that we place on the wall, a millimeter wave tag. This would allow us to provide a localization system in these challenging environments with minimal infrastructure.”
Profs. Canan Dagdeviren and Hugh Herr speak with CNN discuss their work aimed at empowering patients and doctors. Inspired by her aunt’s experience with breast cancer, Dagdeviren and her students are developing new wearable devices that could help detect cancer at an earlier stage. Says Herr of his work developing prosthetics that can be controlled by the human nervous system: “There will be a point where technology is so sophisticated that we can actually rebuild limbs after amputation that will be as good and, ultimately, they will be better than intact biological limbs.” Herr adds that in the future he hopes “the conversation will not be about human limitation anymore. It will be about human ability and human expression.”
Researchers at MIT have developed “AstroAnts,” autonomous, magnetic, robotic rovers roughly the size of a Hot Wheels toy car designed to monitor space vehicles and other hard-to-reach machinery, reports Jesus Diaz for Fast Company. “The idea is that, by constantly watching over the temperature and structural integrity of their cosmic rides, spaceships will be more resilient to the extreme conditions of space and astronauts will be safer,” explains Diaz.
CNN visits the lab of Prof. Canan Dagdeviren to learn more about her work developing wearable ultrasound devices that could help screen for early-stage breast cancer, monitor kidney health, and detect other cancers deep within the body. “Wearable technology will grow rapidly in the near future,” says Dagdeviren. “But in the far future, they will be one of the most powerful tools that we will be seeing in our daily life.”
Prof. Michael Strano joins “Somewhere on Earth” podcast host Gareth Mitchell to discuss how he and his colleagues developed tiny batteries that could be used to power cell-sized robots. Roughly the thickness of a human hair, the new battery can create a current by capturing oxygen. “I would say we're making the LEGOs, the building blocks that go into robots,” Strano says. “We’re building the parts and it's an exciting time for the field.”
After meeting at MIT, alumni Honghao Deng and Jiani Zeng founded Butr, which makes anonymous people-detecting sensors to measure movement inside buildings, reports Zoya Hasan for Forbes. The sensors could help address staffing challenges in senior living communities, and alert staff of falls or other medical issues.
Researchers at MIT have developed tiny batteries capable of powering cell-sized robots that can “execute tasks as varied as targeting drug delivery inside the human body to checking pipelines for gas leaks,” reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “Despite the barely visible size, the researchers say the batteries can generate up to 1 volt, which can be used to power a sensor, circuit or even a moving actuator.”
Researchers at MIT have created a noise-blocking sheet of silkworm silk that could “greatly streamline the pursuit of silence,” reports Andrew Chapman for Scientific American. “The silk sheet, which is enhanced with a special fiber, expands on a technology also found in noise-canceling headphones,” explains Chapman. “These devices create silence by sampling the ambient noise and then emitting sound waves that are out of phase with those in the environment. When the ambient and emitted waves overlap, they cancel each other out.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a fiber capable of suppressing sound that is made up of “silk, canvas and other common materials,” reports Charlie McKenna for MassLive. “The silk is barely thicker than human hair and is made by heating the materials and drawing them into a fiber,” explains McKenna. “Since each material flows at the same temperature, they can be pulled into a fiber while maintaining their structure.”
MIT researchers have developed “an ultra-thin silk fabric embedded with a special piezoelectric fiber that can vibrate to cancel out noise in a room,” reports Bob McDonald for CBC. “The researchers want to further study how changing elements of the fabric — such as the number of piezoelectric fibers and the voltage they apply to it, the direction they're sewn into the fabric, and the size of the pores in the fabric — can improve on their findings,” writes McDonald.
Interesting Engineering reporter Sujita Sinha spotlights how MIT researchers crafted a special silk fabric capable of blocking sound. “Inside this special material is a fiber that springs to life when an electrical charge is applied,” explains Sinha. “The fabric starts shaking when it hears sound, which helps stop noise in two different ways.”