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Conceptual art showing brain with two targeted areas being affected by ultrasound waves. Using the tools of sonogenetics, focused ultrasound beams can deliver drugs or gene therapy to targets in the brain with millimeter precision.

Sounding out the brain

Ultrasound isn’t just for images. Sonogenetics and other promising technologies let researchers use focused sound waves to control genes and entire cells deep in the tissues of living animals, without surgery.

Photo shows lines of cars, flanked by construction cones, waiting in front of big white tents with Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium visible in the background.

Health & Disease

The race to develop paper-based tests for coronavirus

Scientists are working at breakneck speed to develop inexpensive tools that take only minutes to tell if someone is infected — a feat that could pave the way for a safer return to normalcy

Two robotic arms hover over a draped form. In background a monitor shows a length of intestine gripped by clamps.

Technology

Handing the surgeon’s scalpel to a robot

After decades of merely assisting doctors, are sophisticated machines ready to take charge?

Graphic shows conceptual illustration of a microrobot on a blue background. It has five golden grasping arms and a curly, teal-colored tail, plus other components including visible microcircuitry inside a lightbulb-shaped body.

Technology

Making microbots smart

What would it take to create a truly intelligent microbot, one that can operate independently? A roboticist describes the fascinating minutiae and the medical jobs these tiny machines could do for us.

Technology

Monitoring our health with smartwatches

VIDEO: Wearable devices are increasingly used for tracking health data and identifying problems. Learn from health researchers about exploring the promise and pitfalls of personal tech.

Health & Disease

Sell-by dates | Things to Know

VIDEO: Time stamps on packaging prompt consumers to toss a lot of food, but what do they actually say about safety?

Technology

How 3-D printing could help shape surgery

Technology is enabling increasingly lifelike models of organs to help doctors practice operations.

Silhouette of a pig and a human overlap with a heart shared between them.

Health & Disease

Pig organs in people: The future of cross-species transplants

Can genetically modified animals help ease the shortage of organs? After years of research into xenotransplantation, the field is at a turning point — yet risks and ethical issues remain.

Technology

The body electric

Batteries are the weak link for wearable and implantable devices. But what if you could harvest energy from the heat, sweat or vibrations of the wearer?

Illustration shows an eye overlaid with a neural circuit diagram, suggesting the bio-electronic interface within an artificial retina.

Technology

Polymers promise a more flexible artificial retina

Organic semiconductors can link up with brain cells to send and receive signals. They may find a use in sight-restoring prostheses.

Photograph of a tan-colored mechanical device with several chambers and tubes inside a glass case.

Health & Disease

The heart of invention

PODCAST: Replacing or assisting the human heart with a machine would save countless lives. But the quest to build an artificial heart has had many gruesome missteps and caused researchers to reimagine how to keep our blood flowing. (Season 1/Episode 2)

Living World

Microbes in the medical bag

Genetically engineered gut bacteria hold promise for safe, targeted therapies

Health & Disease

Organs grown to order

Genetic advances may make it possible to grow transplantable tissues in other species. That could solve immunity and availability issues, but raises ethical concerns.

Photo of an MRI head scan. Nearly 400 million MRIs, X-rays, ultrasounds and other types of medical scans are done each year in the USA.

Technology

Truly, neurally, deeply

Scientists are developing AI systems called deep neural nets that can read medical images and detect disease — with astonishing efficiency

Photograph of human and robotic arms shaking hands. Scientists are devising ways for people with paralysis to control computers, robotic prosthetics and even their own limbs with their thoughts.

Technology

Bypassing paralysis

By decoding brain activity with electrical implants, computers can help disabled people move a robotic arm — or their own

Society

How to detect clandestine nuclear weapons programs

A “policy physicist” explores practical ways to sniff out uranium processing from afar

Illustration of two kidneys, ureters and some major blood vessels, with some yellow blobs depicting a drug.

Health & Disease

Targeting the racial disparity in kidney disease

Some people of West African descent face a higher risk of renal failure. New drugs based on gene research may help right the ship — if they can reach everyone who needs them.

An ilustration shows two scientists wearing lab coats looking at strands of DNA; the faces of children are superimposed on some spots along the DNA strands.

Health & Disease

Hope for haploinsufficiency diseases

Genetic conditions like Dravet syndrome, which causes severe childhood epilepsy, are hard to tackle with traditional gene therapy. New approaches in the works include using antisense therapy to boost mRNA splicing.