Technology News

Daily Camera—CU Boulder researchers have created a new method to produce clean fuel that could someday give consumers a more environmentally friendly option at the gas pump. In addition to transportation, the new method could open doors to clean and sustainable energy sources for industries, including steelmaking and ammonia production.

Cyberguy—CU Boulder startup Point Designs is working to help the healthcare industry through cutting-edge technology in the form of finger prosthetics. The team at Point Designs is combining clinical care with innovative additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, to give hope to people who have received medical denials in the past when it comes to missing fingers or hands.

College of Engineering and Applied Science—Svenja Knappe and her colleagues have developed a helmet that contains 128 sensors and is customizable for different sizes of the human head. Knappe founded the Boulder-based company FieldLine and has begun to bring these sensors to market. In the not-so-distant future, they could aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of neurological conditions like epilepsy, autism and traumatic brain injuries.

CU Boulder Today—Chemists at CU Boulder have developed a new way to recycle a common type of plastic found in soda bottles and other packaging and are working with Venture Partners at CU Boulder to bring it to real-world applications. The team’s method relies on electricity and some nifty chemical reactions, and it’s simple enough that you can watch the plastic break apart in front of your eyes.

CU Boulder Today—In 2016, Pfizer began collaborating with Sabrina Spencer, a global leader in time-lapse cell imaging and member of the CU Cancer Center, to study how cancer cells respond to their potent new drugs called CDK2 inhibitors.

CU Boulder researchers have identified a surprising new player in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)—an ancient, virus-like protein. With funding from the ALS Association, the National Institutes of Health, and Venture Partners at CU Boulder, Alexandra Whiteley's lab is now working to understand the molecular pathways involved and to find a way of inhibiting the rogue protein.

NIST—Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and CU Boulder have fabricated a novel device that could dramatically boost the conversion of heat into electricity. If perfected, the technology could help recoup some of the recoverable heat energy that is wasted in the U.S. at a rate...

Interesting Engineering—The primary goal of soft robotics is to achieve smooth and complex movement by mimicking the locomotion of soft bodies found in the environment. Researchers at CU Boulder and CU Boulder startup Artimus Robotics are leading innovation with a new type of "artificial muscle" to enable life-like movements.

Say “hello” to the robots of the future: They’re soft and flexible enough to bounce off walls or squeeze into tight spaces. And when you’re done with them, you can toss these machines into a compost bin to decompose.

Scientists from CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made an important leap forward in the quest to diagnose disease using exhaled breath, reporting that a new laser-based breathalyzer—born of Nobel Prize-winning technology from CU—powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can detect COVID-19 in real-time with excellent accuracy.