E-nabling The Future. Learn a little about the e-NABLE Community and our history!
The e-NABLE Community is an amazing group of individuals from all over the world who are using their 3D printers to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those in need of an upper limb assistive device. They are people who have put aside their political, religious, cultural and personal differences – to come together and collaborate on ways to help improve the open source 3D printable designs for hands and arms for those who were born missing fingers or who have lost them due to war, disease or natural disaster.
Inflatable antennae could give CubeSats greater reach. The future of satellite technology is getting small — about the size of a shoebox, to be exact.
These so-called “CubeSats,” and other small satellites, are making space exploration cheaper and more accessible: The minuscule probes can be launched into orbit at a fraction of the weight and cost of traditional satellites. But with such small packages come big limitations — namely, a satellite’s communication range. Large, far-ranging radio dishes are impossible to store in a CubeSat’s tight quarters. Instead, the satellites are equipped with smaller, less powerful antennae, restricting them to orbits below those of most geosynchronous satellites. Now researchers at MIT have come up with a design that may significantly increase the communication range of small satellites, enabling them to travel much farther in the solar system: The team has built and tested an inflatable antenna that can fold into a compact space and inflate when in orbit.
‘Magic’ powder Testing an inflating idea. Radioisotope Power Systems: Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) A legacy of exploration Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, or RTGs, provide electrical power for spacecraft by converting the heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) fuel into electricity using devices called thermocouples.
Since they have no moving parts that can fail or wear out, RTGs have historically been viewed as a highly reliable power option. Thermocouples have been used in RTGs for a total combined time of over 300 years, and a not a single thermocouple has ever ceased producing power. Thermocouples are common in everyday items that must monitor or regulate their temperature, such as air conditioners, refrigerators and medical thermometers. The principle of a thermocouple involves two plates, each made of a different metal that conducts electricity. Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator The current RTG model is the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or MMRTG.
First mind-controlled bionic leg a 'groundbreaking' advance. After losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle accident four-and-a-half years ago, 32-year-old Zac Vawter has been fitted with an artificial limb that uses neurosignals from his upper leg muscles to control the prosthetic knee and ankle.
The motorized limb is the first thought-controlled bionic leg, scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago reported Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. “This is a groundbreaking development,” says lead author Levi Hargrove, a biomedical engineer and research scientist at RIC. “It allows people to seamlessly transition between walking along level ground and going up and down stairs and slopes.”
Until now, only thought-controlled bionic arms have been available to amputees. When Vawter thinks he wants to move his leg, the brain signal travels down his spinal cord and through peripheral nerves and is picked up by electrodes in the bionic leg. More electrodes pick up signals from other muscles in the residual limb. The U.S. Aimee Copeland Gets Bionic Hands. <br/><a href=" Breaking News</a> | <a href=" News Videos</a> Copy Aimee Copeland, the 25-year-old who lost her hands, both feet and her entire right leg to flesh-eating bacteria a year ago, has received two new bionic hands.
Copeland spent the week in Ohio at Touch Bionics, where she received two bionic hands free of charge. The hands cost $100,000 a piece, on average, a company spokesperson told ABCNews.com. Aimee Copeland received two new bionic hands this week from Touch Bionics in Ohio. In a 30-second video Copeland sent to WSBTV, the ABC News affiliate in Atlanta, she uses one of the new hands to pick up a potato chip and put it in her mouth.
"That was great. Copeland spent the week getting fitted for the limbs and learning how to use them. She will leave Touch Bionics to return to her Snellville, Ga., home today. Copeland cut open her right leg falling from a zip line near the Tallapoosa River in Georgia in April 2012, allowing a deadly bacterium to enter her body.