News Archive - Ioana Patringenaru

Soft Robots, Tough Problems

Robots that can assist physicians during surgery. Robots that can swim. Robots that can grip delicate objects. These were some of the demonstrations on display at Robosoft, the biggest conference in the field of soft robotics, in San Diego this year.

AI Algorithms Can Determine How Well Newborns Nurse, Study Shows

A modified pacifier and AI algorithms to analyze the data it produces could determine if newborns are learning the proper mechanics of nursing, a recent study shows. Specifically, the researchers from the University of California San Diego measured if babies are generating enough suckling strength to breastfeed and whether they are suckling in a regular pattern based on eight independent parameters.

A Flexible Microdisplay Can Monitor and Visualize Brain Activity in Real-time During Brain Surgery

A thin film that combines an electrode grid and LEDs can both track and produce a visual representation of the brain’s activity in real-time during surgery–a huge improvement over the current state of the art. The device is designed to provide neurosurgeons visual information about a patient’s brain to monitor brain states during surgical interventions to remove brain lesions including tumors and epileptic tissue.

Millions of Gamers Advance Biomedical Research

4.5 million gamers around the world have advanced medical science by helping to reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories using a minigame included inside the critically and commercially successful video game, Borderlands 3.

How Do Neural Networks Learn? A Mathematical Formula Explains How They Detect Relevant Patterns

Neural networks remain a black box whose inner workings engineers and scientists struggle to understand. Now, a team led by data and computer scientists at the University of California San Diego has given neural networks the equivalent of an X-ray to uncover how they actually learn.

This Injectable Hydrogel Mitigates Damage to the Right Ventricle of the Heart

An injectable hydrogel can mitigate damage to the right ventricle of the heart with chronic pressure overload, according to a new study published March 6 in Journals of the American College of Cardiology: Basic to Translational Science.

Working Towards Toxic-Free AI

ToxicChat is a new benchmark developed by University of California San Diego computer scientists that performs better than models trained on previous toxicity benchmarks.

What Will It Take for China to Reach Carbon Neutrality by 2060?

To become carbon neutral by 2060, as mandated by President Xi Jinping, China will have to build eight to 10 times more wind and solar power installations than existed in 2022.

Five Cutting-edge Advances in Biomedical Engineering and Their Applications in Medicine

Innovations in the form of multi-scale sensors and devices, creation of humanoid avatars and the development of exceptionally realistic predictive models driven by AI can radically change our lifestyles and response to pathologies.

Detecting Pathogens—and Sepsis—Faster and More Accurately by Melting DNA

A new analysis method can detect pathogens in blood samples faster and more accurately than blood cultures, which are the current state of the art for infection diagnosis. The new method, called digital DNA melting analysis, can produce results in under six hours.