Oxygen

Daily insulin injections are painful and inconvenient, which is why scientists are developing implants that treat diabetes without any need for needles. A new one looks particularly promising, as it produces oxygen to feed onboard islet cells.

A new study has found that brief treatment with 100% oxygen can substantially improve motor learning in young, healthy adults. It may have opened the door to using this simple treatment with people who are re-learning motor skills they’ve lost.

A large new study has found that healthy older adults taking a long-term low dose of aspirin may be at increased risk of developing anemia. The researchers say their findings suggest that these patients may need regular monitoring.

EPFL engineers have built and tested a solar reactor that generates hydrogen gas from sunlight and water. The system is not only highly efficient at producing hydrogen, it also captures the “waste” products of oxygen and heat to put them to use too.

Respiratory ailments may hamper the body's ability to draw oxygen from the lungs, which is why patients' blood oxygen levels often need to be checked. New research now suggests that people could track those levels at home, using their smartphone.

If humans are to one day survive and thrive on Mars, ready access to breathable oxygen will be a necessity, and an interesting technology sent along with the Perseverance rover is beginning to show exciting promise on this front.

Leaves are impressive machines, converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into energy. Cambridge scientists have now created artificial leaves that can float on water, tapping into sunlight above it and water below to efficiently produce fuels.

In what's described as a key advancement for the future of systems that could help propel humans into deep space, scientists have demonstrated a method of extracting oxygen from water in microgravity using magnetism.

When treating patients for certain conditions, it's important to monitor their blood oxygen levels. A new sub-dermal photosensitive sensor provides a new means of doing so, plus it could one day be used to measure other blood-borne substances.

The Moon may look like a big dry ball, but there’s more water up there than you might expect. In a new study, scientists have shown that at least some of it could have been showered onto the lunar surface from the Earth’s atmosphere.

It's a sad fact that people with severe respiratory illnesses are often confined to hospitals, where they must breathe through ventilators. A new portable device that harvests oxygen from the air, however, may someday allow them to stay at home.

If there are two things that are essential to human life, they're water and oxygen – neither of which are easily available on the moon. Thanks to a new technique, though, astronauts may someday be able to harvest those elements from lunar soil.