Using a new technique they call ‘in-air microfluidics’, University of Twente scientists succeed in printing 3D structures with living cells. This special technique enable the fast and ‘on-the-fly’ production of micro building blocks that are viable and can be used for repairing damaged tissue, for example. The work is presented in Science Advances. Microfluidics is all about manipulating tiny drops of fluid with ...

Engineers at the University of Twente in The Netherlands have unveiled a pneumatically powered robot, called Stormram 4, able to take biopsy samples while inside an MRI machine. In tests conducted by the researchers on phantom models of the breast the investigators were able to achieve sub-millimeter precision in reaching their targets. Currently, scans are taken prior to a biopsy and are used to guide the needle.

Our brain does not work like a typical computer memory storing just ones and zeroes: thanks to a much larger variation in memory states, it can calculate faster consuming less energy. Scientists of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente (The Netherlands) now developed a ferro-electric material with a memory function resembling synapses and neurons in the brain, resulting in a multistate memory. They publish their ...

Robots carry out their tasks more safely if they are controlled by another technology. This makes them much more suitable for use in the care sector, as revealed by a study conducted at the Robotics and Mechatronics department at the University of Twente. Researcher Stefan Groothuis is being awarded his PhD for this work. In the coming years the use of assistive robotics, as they are known, will become ever more important due to the increased age...

Soon, industrial robots will be used at lower cost in small-scale production thanks to the operating system developed by the Dutch-German partnership SInBot. Doctoral research by Maarten Essers from the University of Twente shows that the results from preliminary tests are promising. Major companies in the manufacturing industry, such as car manufacturers, are using smart robots for mass production more and more often.

University of Twente's Robird will make its first flights at an airport location in February. Weeze Airport in Germany, just across the Dutch border near Nijmegen, will serve as the test site for this life-like robotic falcon developed by Clear Flight Solutions, a spin-off company of the University of Twente. The Robird is designed to scare away birds at airports and waste processing plants.

Solar fuels, clean fuels from sunlight, water and CO2, form an attractive way for storing solar energy in hydrogen or hydrocarbons, for example. The efficiency of this technology still needs a 'boost'. Researcher Kasper Wenderich, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente (NL), investigated special nanoplaatjes with platinum particles on them, accelerating the chemical conversion.

Scientists at the University of Twente research institute MESA+ have developed an electrode in the form of a hollow porous copper fibre which is able to convert CO2 into CO extremely efficiently. In principle the invention enables a wide variety of industrial processes, for example in the steel industry, to be made more sustainable. The researchers have applied for a patent on their invention, and their research results have been published in the...