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Category: wearables

New Material Breaks the Rules: Scientists Turn Insulator Into a Semiconductor

Once considered merely insulating, a change in the angle between silicon and oxygen atoms opens a pathway for electrical charge to flow.

A breakthrough discovery from the University of Michigan has revealed that a new form of silicone can act as a semiconductor. This finding challenges the long-held belief that silicones are only insulating materials.

“The material opens up the opportunity for new types of flat panel displays, flexible photovoltaics, wearable sensors or even clothing that can display different patterns or images,” said Richard Laine, U-M professor of materials science and engineering and macromolecular science and engineering and corresponding author of the study recently published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications.

A 41-year-old longevity doctor says his ‘biological age’ is 24. He takes 3 supplements daily

Dr. Mohammed Enayat has access to all sorts of experimental antiaging treatments at his clinic, but a core part of his longevity routine is pretty cheap and accessible: supplements.

Enayat told Business Insider that his most recent “biological age” tests, taken 18 months ago, said he was 24, or 17 years younger than his chronological age of 41. There’s no consensus on how to define or measure biological age, but Enayat used GlycanAge and TruAge PACE, which measure inflammation and epigenetics, respectively.

The primary care doctor, who’s also the founder of London’s Hum2n longevity clinic, has been closely tracking his health for the past seven years, using wearable tech, including an Oura ring and a Whoop strap, plus regular blood, urine, and microbiome tests.

A high-resolution spectrometer that fits into smartphones

Color, as the way light’s wavelength is perceived by the human eye, goes beyond a simple aesthetic element, containing important scientific information like a substance’s composition or state.

Spectrometers are that analyze by decomposing light into its constituent wavelengths, and they are widely used in various scientific and industrial fields, including material analysis, chemical component detection, and life science research.

Existing high-resolution spectrometers were large and complex, making them difficult for widespread daily use. However, thanks to the ultra-compact, high-resolution spectrometer developed by KAIST researchers, it is now expected that light’s color information can be utilized even within smartphones or wearable devices.

A ceiling full of beams: How light is replacing Wi-Fi indoors

Connectivity is no longer a luxury—it is the backbone of how we live, work and move through the world. From smart homes to wearable tech, we rely on strong, seamless wireless networks. But with traditional radio frequency systems like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth reaching their limits in spectrum and precision, it is time for a rethink. What if we could use light to communicate indoors—precisely, silently and efficiently?

That is the vision behind our latest research. We have developed a indoor optical wireless communication (OWC) system that uses finely focused infrared beams to deliver lightning-fast, interference-free connections—while drastically reducing energy use. Imagine a network where every device gets its own invisible of light, targeted like a spotlight, without the clutter and chaos of traditional wireless signals. Our research is published in the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society.

Husker engineers advance work on intelligent, self-healing technology

A University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineering team is another step closer to developing soft robotics and wearable systems that mimic the ability of human and plant skin to detect and self-heal injuries.

Husker engineer Eric Markvicka, along with graduate students Ethan Krings and Patrick McManigal, recently presented a paper at the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta, Georgia, that sets forth a systems-level approach for a soft robotics technology that can identify damage from a puncture or extreme pressure, pinpoint its location and autonomously initiate self-repair.

The paper was among the 39 of 1,606 submissions selected as an ICRA 2025 Best Paper Award finalist. It was also a finalist for the Best Student Paper Award and in the mechanism and design category.

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A Husker engineering team is another step closer to developing soft robotics and wearable systems that mimic the ability of human and plant skin to detect and self-heal injuries.

Scalable method creates self-healing, stretchable transistors and circuits

Recent technological advances have enabled the development of a wide range of increasingly sophisticated wearable and implantable devices, which can be used to monitor physiological signals or intervene with high precision in therapeutically targeted regions of the body. As these devices, particularly implantable ones, are typically designed to remain in changing biological environments for long periods of time, they should be biocompatible and capable of fixing themselves after they are damaged.

Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and other institutes in South Korea recently devised a new method to fabricate self-healing and stretchable electronic components that could be integrated into these devices. Their approach, outlined in a paper published in Nature Electronics, enables the scalable and reconfigurable assembly of self-healing and stretchable transistors into highly performing integrated systems.

“Since the mid-2000s, the development of flexible and has significantly revolutionized research fields such as artificial electronic skin and soft implantable bioelectronics,” Donghee Son, senior author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

Engineers develop self-healing muscle for robots

A University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineering team is another step closer to developing soft robotics and wearable systems that mimic the ability of human and plant skin to detect and self-heal injuries.

Engineer Eric Markvicka, along with graduate students Ethan Krings and Patrick McManigal, recently presented a paper at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta, Georgia, that sets forth a systems-level approach for a technology that can identify damage from a puncture or , pinpoint its location and autonomously initiate self-repair.

The paper was among the 39 of 1,606 submissions selected as an ICRA 2025 Best Paper Award finalist. It was also a finalist for the Best Student Paper Award and in the mechanism and design category.

Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision in humans enabled by upconversion contact lenses

Based on the principle of refractive index matching, highly transparent upconversion contact lenses (UCLs) with a high concentration of upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) were developed. These lenses efficiently convert multispectral near-infrared (NIR) light into the three primary visible colors, enabling humans to acquire wearable NIR color vision.