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Closing up wounds typically calls for sutures or staples, but neither are able to create a complete seal. And when it comes to internal injuries that are harder to get to and wounds on organs that move a significant amount, such as lungs, treatment becomes even more difficult. Sealants offer a solution to those problems, but none of those available meet all of the requirements of an effective surgical tool. However, researchers have just developed a new type of sealant that may actually check all of the boxes. Their work was published this week in Science Translational Medicine. "A good surgical sealant needs to have a combination of characteristics: it needs to be elastic, adhesive, non-toxic and biocompatible," Nasim Annabi, an author of the study and a researcher at Northeastern University, said in a statement. "Most sealants on the market possess one or two of these characteristics, but not all of them. We set out to engineer a material that could have all of t...

The disaster response team of the future could be made up of an army of cheery orange robots, according to Honda. The company has unveiled a working prototype of its E2-DR disaster response robot -- first revealed in an R&D paper in 2015 -- and it can do a lot. At 1.68 meters high and weighing in at 85 kilograms, E2-DR can walk, step over objects, climb stairs and ladders, slink through narrow spaces and traverse piles of debris. It can even tolerate rain for 20 straight minutes, which is more than a lot of actual people can. To keep E2-DR's size and weight to a minimum, Honda swapped out traditional cables for rigorously-tested optical fibers. It's powered by a 1000-Wh lithium-ion battery which provides 90 minutes of juice, plus an Intel Core-i7 CPU, and is kept cool by air ducts and internal fans within its torso. All of its joints are fashioned in a labyrinth structure, keeping contaminants at bay. Its hands are equipped with cameras and 3D sensors, but they're...