Two years ago, a group of Duke University engineering undergrads traveled to Uganda in an Engineers Without Borders project to address some of the most pressing needs of a small community. Among other projects, they planned to help villagers connect to the outside world through the Internet and to improve the ability of local coffee […]
Fixing Equipment, Saving Lives
Who says you need buckets of cash and huge government bureaucracies to make a profound difference in the standard of living for people in developing countries? A handful of dedicated Duke undergraduate engineering students, with support from the GE Foundation, will later this year initiate an educational program in Rwanda that could have a significant […]
Genetically Editing Out Human Disease
Many of the world’s most devastating diseases – such as hemophilia, cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy – are the result of a single gene defect, or mutation. If the Encyclopedia Britannica represented the human genome, such diseases would be analogous to one typographical error rendering the massive tome unreadable. The daunting task then is to […]
Secrets from High-Tech Poking
Physicians use hi-tech scanners all the time to produce crisp and detailed images to help them diagnose illness. But they may not be getting the whole picture. CT or MRI scanners are unable to provide potentially important clues about a tissues health namely, how it feels. Duke University biomedical engineers believe information about the stiffness […]