New Atlas

Materials Audio available

Together at last – device quickly bonds metal to plastic

Ben Coxworth January 29, 2019

Ordinarily, if you want to join metal and plastic items together, you have to use either adhesives or rivets. Engineers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology, however, have developed a bonding "gun" that they claim makes for a much faster and cheaper joining process.

Electronics Audio available

Pocket scanner blasts food with infrared light to determine its freshness

David Szondy January 3, 2019

Every year, millions of tonnes of perfectly good food are wasted around the world because people aren't sure it's still fresh. To cut down on this, researchers at Fraunhofer are developing an infrared pocket scanner that will let food handlers determine if a food item has gone bad.

A pocket scanner under development at Fraunhofer relies infrared light to determine the freshness of food

Medical Audio available

Fraunhofer develops adjustable-length artificial hip

Ben Coxworth December 3, 2018

When someone gets a hip replaced, it's not uncommon for that leg to subsequently be a little longer or shorter than it was before. Thanks to a new system developed by German scientists, however, that may soon no longer be the case.

The artificial hip's ball and socket components are connected by a sliding screw, which can be ...

Materials

Hybrid foam combines strengths of wood and metal

Ben Coxworth October 1, 2018

Back in 2014, we heard how scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research had developed a wood-based foam that could be used as eco-friendly insulation. Now, they've combined it with metal to create a composite that has a much wider range of potential applications.

A close-up view of one of the metal sponges, which gets coated in wood fibers

Medical

Eyemate glaucoma-monitoring implant hits the European market

Ben Coxworth August 3, 2018

In recent years, we've heard of at least two different implants designed to measure the intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients' eyes, potentially preventing blindness. Yet another such implant, this one known as Eyemate, recently became commercially available in Europe.

The current version of the Eyemate implant is less than 12 mm in diameter

Science

Tomato DNA could be used to thwart breast implant counterfeiters

Ben Coxworth August 1, 2018

We've already heard about an experimental technique for detecting counterfeit olive oil, that involves adding synthetic DNA to the genuine product. Now, German scientists are exploring the possibility of using added tomato DNA to keep bogus breast implants off the market.

Dr. Joachim Storsberg examines a breast implant that's leaking silicone gel

Health & Wellbeing

LED stool shows you how to sit

Ben Coxworth June 5, 2018

We all know that it's important to sit up straight, and to not stay seated for too long. With that in mind, researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institutes for Industrial Engineering and for Silicate Research have developed an LED-equipped stool that coaches people in their sitting.

The demo system, which can be seen on the MS Wissenschaft exhibition ship

Health & Wellbeing

High-tech headphones are promised to vanquish vertigo

Ben Coxworth March 1, 2018

Vertigo is a very common condition, but it can be difficult to assess and to treat. It was with this in mind that a German consortium developed the headphone-based EQUIVert biofeedback system. It is claimed to be able to make the condition easier to understand, and to cure.

Is there new hope for the chronically dizzy?

Robotics

Dual-armed robot to lend a helping hand or two come cucumber harvesting time

David Szondy February 15, 2018

To help keep German cucumber farms viable, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK) is developing a simple, lightweight, and intelligent two-armed robot to automate harvesting of the vegetable.

A prototype of the dual-arm robot system during the first field tests

Marine

Autonomous sub finds long-lost supersonic aircraft from the 50s

Ben Coxworth December 1, 2017

Last year, we first heard about Fraunhofer's DEDAVE unmanned submersible. Then this July, we got word of an initiative aimed at locating sunken flight models of a famous Canadian jet fighter. Now, the two have come together – a DEDAVE has located a couple of of the models.