MIT researchers developed a new approach to ultrasound imaging that allows the user to visualize a 3D, augmented-reality image of the object being scanned. This technique could be deployed in hospitals or used to assist training technicians in ultrasound interpretation.

In a new study, Northwestern University scientists developed a 90s-style video game to help chronic stroke survivors regain lost arm function. While wearing a small device on their impaired arm and using a laptop computer, players use their arm muscles to complete tasks such as flying a helicopter around the screen to hit a moving target. The muscle retraining helps separate the brain’s uncoordinated movement signals, enabling muscles to work independently again.

With poppy seed-sized brains, jumping spiders compute distances in a highly efficient manner. Their eyes contain multiple retinal layers, each focused at a different depth. By comparing differences in sharpness, they estimate distance. New camera mimics this strategy while consuming less energy than a nightlight. It could enable a new generation of battery-powered devices that need to gauge their surroundings, like wearable technologies, assistive devices, robots and drones.

Jaspreet Singh Randhawa, a Mississippi State assistant professor of physics, has received a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to support a $700,000 research project on the nuclear reactions that power stellar explosions and other extreme cosmic events.