Nathan Hurst

Nathan Hurst blends a love of storytelling with a passion for science and the outdoors, covering technology, the environment, and much more. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Wired, Outside, Make: and Smithsonian.

Patients wear a NIRS apparatus—typically a neoprene helmet with dozens of optical sensors sticking out of it.

Patients With Locked-in Syndrome May Be Able to Communicate After All

A new use for brain-computer interfaces gives insight to life with ALS

The structure of the battery is formed from a sheet of chromatography paper, divided into a grid of creases.

This Spit-Powered Biobattery Is Made From a Single Sheet of Paper

Researchers at Binghamton University are developing inexpensive paper biobatteries to power simple sensors that monitor things like blood sugar

Soldiers schlepping heavy gear could one day use suits like these to help them walk farther, carry more, and experience less fatigue.

This Soft Exosuit Could Help People Walk Farther, Easier

Researchers at Harvard are developing an energy-saving supersuit that you might just wear one day

This App Uses Facial Recognition Software to Help Identify Genetic Conditions

A geneticist uploads a photo of a patient’s face, and Face2Gene gathers data and generates a list of possible syndromes

Have Scientists Found a Way to Actually Reduce the Effects of Aging?

Researchers at the Salk Institute in California have successfully induced cells to behave like younger cells

MIT professor Li-Huei Tsai may have a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

Could Flickering Lights Help Treat Alzheimer’s?

A flashy MIT study changes perspective on the disease

A Farm From a Box is capable of feeding 150 people.

A San Francisco Startup Puts Everything You Need for a Two-Acre Farm in a Shipping Container

Brandi DeCarli, cofounder of Farm From a Box, wants to deploy farm kits to governments, NGOs, schools and individuals

Andreas Velten and his lab at the University of Wisconsin use this setup, complete with a fog chamber, to test their camera.

This Camera Can See Around Corners

How a superfast, supersensitive camera could shake up automotive and exploration industries, as well as photography as we know it

How Chemicals Left Behind on Your Phone Could Identify You

Mass spectrometry is finding a new role in forensic science

Students of design at the Berlin Weissensee School of Art have prototyped a new device that tracks gestures in an amputated limb and translates them to computer commands.

This Digital Prosthesis Could Help Amputees Control Computers

Designers are developing a new device that tracks gestures in an amputated limb and translates them to computer commands, like scroll and click

The Botswana Innovation Hub will be a new LEED-certified facility for technology research and development.

Step Inside a Virtual Building of the Future

Architects are embracing virtual reality and the complex designs they can create there

A California Startup Is Using Ashes to Protect Forests

Better Place Forests is accepting reservations from those who wish to have their remains scattered in a redwood forest in northern California

The technique is sort of a combination of light microscopy, which bounces light off of objects, and electron microscopy, which bounces electrons off of objects.

A New Technique Brings Color to Electron Microscope Images of Cells

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have found a way to attach artificial color to biological structures

Acelity scientists evaluate a new prototype at the company's Regenerative Medicine Laboratory in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

How Artificial Muscles Could Transform the Lives of Some Military Veterans

From pig muscle, scientists are developing an organic material that may help heal volumetric muscle loss

In the team's new approach, the whole shape of the wing can be changed, and twisted uniformly along its length, by activating two small motors that apply a twisting pressure to each wingtip.

NASA’s New, Super-Efficient Airplane Wing Comes With a Twist

The agency and several universities have designed a flexible wing that could reduce the cost of building and fueling airplanes

In the sparse Reykjanes peninsula on Iceland’s southwest side, investigators aim to drill down 5,000 meters.

Deep in the Heart of Iceland, There's a New Way to Tap the Earth’s Energy

The Iceland Deep Drilling Project has extended a borehole thousands of meters deep to produce geothermal power at a scale never before seen

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is working with dairy farms to provide on-site digesters for manure.

Why Anaerobic Digestion Is Becoming the Next Big Renewable Energy Source

A food-to-electricity plant in England is just one in a string of local efforts to make waste less wasteful

Brian Helmuth and his lab at Northeastern University engineered the little black data loggers from polyester resin.

Robot Shellfish May Tell Us About Climate Change's Impact on Marine Species

Climate scientists at Northeastern University have developed "robomussels" with sensors to track temperatures in mussel beds

Maanasa Mendu, of Mason, Ohio, presents HARVEST, her prototype renewable energy-gathering device, at the 2016 Young Scientist Challenge.

The Answer to India's Energy Crisis Could Be Blowing in the Wind

The 2016 Young Scientist Challenge winner modeled her energy harvester after a tree

The pace of drug development can be key in minimizing the scale of an outbreak.

The Story of a Resurrected Antiviral Could Hold Lessons for Combating Zika

How Stanford scientists used two genetic screening techniques in tandem to unravel the mystery of a discarded antiviral

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