In a frenzy of self-consciousness, the stethoscope was born in 1816. To avoid pressing his ear against a patient’s large chest, René Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec used a rolled-up sheet of paper on which to listen to an unwell woman’s Heart.Laennec pioneered the method of listening to sounds produced by internal organs (also known as auscultation),…
When people don’t take their drugs as recommended, it’s a big deal. According to the research, people who refuse to take their pills—an issue is known as the non adherence or non compliance—cost the American healthcare system up to $289 billion per year and account for nearly 10% of the hospitalizations. “Without exaggerating, a lot…
Observing what happens when a critical piece of technology fails suddenly is a surefire way to understand its value. E.g., most people probably don’t realize how important the Suez Canal is, but that changed in March when it was abruptly blocked by a grounded container ship. A usually dependable machine had gone down for the…
A Google AI offshoot has created an artificial intelligence (AI) network. DeepMind has taken a giant step forward in solving one of biology’s most challenging problems: identifying a protein’s three-dimensional structure from its amino-acid sequence. DeepMind’s software, dubbed AlphaFold, outperformed more than 100 other teams in the CASP (Critical Assessment of Structural Prediction) competition, short…
Faced with 3 stars on a collision course, astronomers could estimate their positions and velocities in nanometers and milliseconds, but that wouldn’t be enough to determine the stars’ fates; physicists have spent centuries wrestling with an uncomfortable reality about existence. The universe, on the other hand, often puts together groups of stars and black holes.…
The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is well-known for its extensive research. It is now grappling with what could be the most challenging problem it has ever faced: how to encourage the development of technology for three emerging sectors to harness, move, and store the climate-changing pollution of fossil fuels. The center, like other DOE…
It has become second Nature to use cell phones to navigate. You press the address on your phone and go, whether you’re going to a new place, meeting friends at a restaurant, or running errands. Before GPS, visiting and navigating unfamiliar areas necessitated planning. Parts of our route required us to ponder, consult paper maps,…
Your brand new gadget’s apps will age as well. Manufacturers release patches daily to keep systems running smoothly. However, such patches would be useless if you fail to install them. Gadget upgrades solve a variety of issues, but security may be their most significant application. When disasters occur, they mostly strike hardware that is running…
When I graduated from college twelve years ago, I was well aware of the Silicon Valley hype machine. Still, I thought that private tech company salesmanship was a world removed from the scientific facts of human biology that I had learned in neuroscience courses. I remember seeing neuroscientist Henry Markram announce in a TED talk…
Associate professor at Australian Catholic University, Sam BaronThe warp drive, a futuristic way to sneak around the universe’s absolute speed limit by twisting the structure of space, was suggested by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 as a radical invention that enables faster than light travel. It was an exciting concept — NASA’s Eagleworks laboratory has…