Bone Bonder
Imagine if weak or injured bones could be repaired simply by injecting a patient with a soft material that, once inside the body, would bond to existing bone at the molecular level, matching its hardness and strength. Researchers from Uppsala, Sweden-based Doxa have recently started human tests of just such a patching material. Today’s artificial-bone materials, usually made from calcium phosphate or polymers, either have serious side effects or are not strong enough to replace bone in certain areas, such as the spine. Doxa’s material, however, reacts to body fluids to form apatite, the body’s own ceramic, to make artificial bones just as strong as the original. If the material proves to be as good as inventor Leif Hermansson, a materials scientist at Uppsala University, claims, it could bring relief to millions of patients. In the United States alone, an estimated 10 million people suffer from osteoporosis-one of the first disease targets for which Doxa hopes to get the material approved, perhaps within the year.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language
A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.