This glowing microneedle test could catalyze a transition from blood-based diagnostics to a stick-on patch. A river of biological information flows just beneath the outermost layers of your skin, in which a hodgepodge of proteins squeeze past each other through the interstitial fluid surrounding your cells. This "interstitium" is an expansive and structured space, making it, to some, a newfound “organ.” But its wealth of biomarkers for conditions like tuberculosis, heart attacks, and cancer has attracted growing attention from researchers looking to upend reliance on diagnostic tools they say are inefficient, invasive, and blood-centric. "Blood is a tiny fraction of…

Humans have found creative uses for bones since prehistoric times. Animal bones have been shaped into spoons, needles, musical instruments, and combs. Meanwhile, bone ash—created by grinding bones to fine powder—has been used in bone china since the 1700s. Now, a designer has brought one of the planet’s oldest raw materials into the 21st century by redesigning the humble electric socket—and fashioning it out of discarded bones from the meat-processing industry. Swiss-Tunisian designer Souhaïb Ghanmi graduated from ECAL, Switzerland’s famed design school, last summer. For his diploma project, he designed Ecol, a range of electric sockets and light switches made…

In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he’s doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery. While it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection. The patient, David Bennett, a…

More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs. Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known. “Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the…