Add one more thing to the list of tasks your smartphone can perform. University of Houston researchers have released an open-source dataset offering instructions to people interested in building their own smartphone microscope.

A team of researchers from the University of Houston has reported a breakthrough in stretchable electronics that can serve as an artificial skin, allowing a robotic hand to sense the difference between hot and cold, while also offering advantages for a wide range of biomedical devices. The work, reported in the journal Science Advances, describes a new mechanism for producing stretchable electronics, a process that relies upon readily a...

University of Houston researchers in the Department of Health and Human Performance are helping patients with Parkinson's disease regain stable balance and confidence in performing daily activities in their own homes. A research team is developing the Smarter Balance System (SBS), a smartphone-based biofeedback rehabilitation system that guides patients through a series of balance exercises using wearable technology.

A study by researchers at the University of Houston College of Optometry, published in Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics, found that blue light emitted from digital devices could contribute to the high prevalence of reported sleep dysfunction. Study participants, ages 17-42, wore short wavelength-blocking glasses three hours before bedtime for two weeks, while still performing their nightly digital routine.

Invasive surgical techniques - cutting through the breastbone for open heart surgery or making a large incision to inspect an abdominal tumor - allow physicians to effectively treat disease but can lead to sometimes serious complications and dramatically slow healing for the patient. Scientists instead want to deploy dozens, or even thousands of tiny robots to travel the body's venous system as they deliver drugs or a self-assembled interven...

  Researchers know that more, and more dangerous, storms have begun to occur as the climate warms. A team of scientists has reported an underlying explanation, using meteorological satellite data gathered over a 35-year period.

With energy conservation expected to play a growing role in managing global demand, materials and methods that make better use of existing sources of energy have become increasingly important. Researchers reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have demonstrated a step forward in converting waste heat - from industrial smokestacks, power generating plants or even automobile tailpipes - into electri...

   The researchers at the University of Houston and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made a substantial advance in generating electricity through a combination of concentrating solar power and thermoelectric materials.

Researchers from the University of Houston have reported the first explanation for how a class of materials changes during production to more efficiently absorb light, a critical step toward the large-scale manufacture of better and less-expensive solar panels. The work, published this month as the cover story for Nanoscale, offers a mechanism study of how a perovskite thin film changes its microscopic structure upon gentle heating, said Yan...

Researchers from the University of Houston have reported a technique to determine the chemical composition of materials using near-infrared light. The work could have a number of potential applications, including improving downhole drilling analysis in the oil and gas industry and broadening the spectrum of solar light that can be harvested and converted to electricity, said Wei-Chuan Shih, associate professor of electrical and computer engineeri...