Invention

Learning to walk again after breaking a leg or hip, having a stroke, prosthetic, or partial paralysis depends on a lot of persistence and an excellent rehabilitation program that can guide you through gait training.  Movement scientist Dr. Melvyn Roerdink from The Netherlands has developed a super smart, oversized treadmill that helps rehab patients gain confidence in their new gaits, with bells, whistles, and even light shows.

For the third year in a row, the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit organication that promotes the study and imitation of designs found in nature, is sponsoring the Biomimicry Student Design Challenge.  This year the Challenge, which is open to college students world-wide, is to use biomimicry to design a solution that results in more efficient use of energy and ultimately reduces greenhouse gases.  No small feat, but the Institute provides students with plenty of resources on biomimicry....

Skinput, a new technology under development, may soon allow people to dial their phones using a keypad projected onto their arms, or pause and control the volume of their music just by tapping their fingers.

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) has announced the winners of the 2011 BMEidea Competition. Awards have gone to three college groups for the invention of much needed biomedical devices and applications that will aid patients in the future: an internal bleed detector, a new therapy for dry eye disease, and a superior broad spectrum antibacterial dressing for infected wounds.

Judgment Day believers need not read this, unless May 21, 2011 has come and gone and you're still here.  For those that are interested in a more scientific analysis of their life spans, a British company, Life Length, has the technology to predict how long you will live through a small blood sample.