Columbia University

Taking inspiration from the traditional cane, a team of researchers has come up with a LiDAR-enabled robotic assistant which offers light-touch support for the mobility-impaired. Dubbed Canine, the device improves the user's spacial self-awareness, and thus, their walking stability.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of the disease, thanks largely to the fact that the tumors tend to be much more solid. But now researchers have identified a promising new drug candidate that could linger for longer to worm its way in, and works when paired with other cancer drugs.

A landmark study has described a new method to detect signs of consciousness in unresponsive brain-injured patients using a simple EEG scan​. The research also suggests the EEG data can predict which patients have a high chance of regaining consciousness and recovering.

Declassified spy satellite photos have revealed that compared to the last quarter of the 20th century, Himalayan glaciers have been melting twice as fast this century. In a rare piece of good news, a separate study has shown that a Greenland glacier has gained ice for the third year in a row.

Hearing aids can have trouble separating a voice a listener wants to hear from all the background noise. Through a new form of artificial intelligence scientists believe they have come up with a solution that could be of huge benefit to those with hearing impairments.

Transplanting any organ is a complicated process, but lungs are particularly vulnerable to damage. Now, researchers have developed a way to repair that damage, keeping the lungs of pigs alive outside the body for up to 36 hours and allowing them to bring the organ up to a transplantable quality.

​Two new studies build on a growing body of evidence linking depression with mechanisms in our gut.​ While one team has uncovered a connection between serotonin and gut dysfunction, another team found microbiome transplants can transfer symptoms of depression from one animal to another.

"Hypersaline brine" is industrial waste-water with salt levels that exceed even that of seawater. It’s a big, expensive, destructive problem which a team of engineers at Columbia University in New York City hope to solve with their solvent-based method of desalination.

One of the most important transitions in human history was when we stopped hunting and gathering for food and settled down to become farmers. Now, to reconstruct the history of one particular archaeological site in Turkey, scientists have examined the salts left behind from human and animal pee.

Most robots are usually made to do one particular job, so they’re not very adaptable to new situations. But researchers at MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Cornell Universities have developed particle robots – simple circular devices that can connect to each other magnetically to move and work as a swarm.

Scientists at Columbia University have developed flexible, functional, waterproof transistors. These could find use in building miniaturized medical sensors, brain-machine interfaces, or long-term implants.

Researchers from Columbia Engineering have gone and done it, giving a robot arm some form of self-awareness – at least in a rudimentary sense, which allows it to better adapt to changing conditions.