Archive for the ‘clothing’ Category

Knee-protecting shoes

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Osteoarthritis of the knee is a common condition that can be relieved by reducing the force experienced by the knee when a person walks.

Since these forces are transmitted through the foot, they can be influenced by footwear. Walking barefoot significantly decreases one of the key force-related effects on the knee by 12% compared to walking with common walking shoes, say Roy Lidtke and Najia Shakoor at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, these researchers have designed a shoe with a number of separate zones that flex as it bends, allowing weight to be transferred just as in bare feet and reducing the peak load experienced by the knee.

The result is a shoe design that should help to reduce wear and tear on the knees and also to help reduce the pain of osteoarthritis in the knees.

Read the full knee-protecting shoes patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

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Blood-pressure-sensing underpants

Friday, May 23rd, 2008
Blood pressure is not hard to measure, but the necessary equipment for clinically accurate measurements – a cuff, a pump, and stethoscope or electronics – is bulky and heavy.

However, researchers have recently found that a person's "pulse wave velocity" is closely linked to blood pressure. This is the rate at which the pulse pressure wave passes through the blood circulatory system.

Sensors sewn into the waistband of a person's underpants can measure the rate of this wave, consumer electronics company Philips has discovered, and could be used to calculate blood pressure for as long as the garment is worn.

Each sensor continually measures the electrical impedance of the tissue beneath it – a property that changes as the pulse wave passes by. A pair of such sensors can calculate the speed of the pulse wave by timing how long it takes to travel from one sensor to the other.

Once calibrated with a conventional blood-pressure reading, the electrodes can then give accurate blood-pressure readings, while the wearer enjoys the comfort of their own underpants.

Read the full blood-pressure-sensing underpants patent application.

Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant

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Fabric displays

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Wearable displays have long interested electronics company Philips. They could be used to display useful information or as a fashion statement (see image).

But one problem is that the liquid crystals normally used in flexible displays usually exist in a glass-like state, which ultimately limits the extent to which they can be bent.

Now Philips says it may be possible to build much more flexible liquid crystal displays by imprinting a cell-like structure onto an ordinary fabric using a stretchy elastomeric material such as silicone to create each pixel.

The pixels can be filled with a flexible electro-optical material such as a non-glassy liquid crystal, or a plasma. Conducting fibres within the material then make each pixel addressable. The result is a display that has the same material properties as a fabric.

Read the full flexible fabric displays patent application.

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