Melanie Martella

This month's examples of clever and useful sensor research includes smart paint to monitor structures, an implantable medical sensor that uses music to recharge, and a robot to remove stomach cancers.

One of the promises of wireless sensor networking is its ability to add a level of sensing and control where it didn't previously exist. That's why it's so popular in building automation as well as in industrial and process monitoring, but a couple of different projects are applying it to the...more >>

Welcome to 2012! As we start the new year, how about some intriguing research breakthroughs? This month we've got a sensitive airflow sensor that takes design pointers from crickets, microneedle sensors for real-time medical diagnostics, and wireless probes to spot termites before they destroy...more >>

Back when I was writing the Mel's Picks column for Sensors magazine, I generally devoted the December column to charitable giving. And that's what I'd like to do with this week's essay because, as we near the end of the year and start gearing up for the holiday season later this month, why not...more >>

This month we've got another festival of the tiny: a novel magnetic-field-sensitive alloy (say that three times fast, I dare you) that could lead to new sensors, a microfabricated material that gives a bigger piezoelectric effect for near-microscale devices, and using graphene foam to create a gas...more >>

So, at the beginning of the month I was lucky enough to attend the MEMS Executive Congress, wherein market analysts, people who make MEMS, people who use MEMS, and foundries that help people make MEMS all get together to discuss what's happening in the industry and how to make sure that the...more >>

All I need is another week or so in the year so that I actually have time to seriously research new-to-me sensing topics. Like, say, the glorious world of printed electronics which keeps coming up with crazy cool breakthroughs. I mean, come on, sensors printed onto a wet suit? That's clever, right?...more >>

As we get more and more attached to our portable electronics (although addicted might be a little more accurate; my husband now refers to his smartphone as The Leash), it's interesting to see the ways in which new ways of interacting with our devices are developing. Two very intriguing projects,...more >>

This month, the research and developments news that caught my eye includes a wearable antenna that can withstand being squished, bent, washed and generally abused; a technique for achieving 3D viewing for endoscopes; and a smart Petri dish.

So, this week I got to sit in on a demonstration of a technology that probably sounds like science fiction unless you've been following the interesting conjunction of the smartphone and the sensor. A cellphone, detecting dangerously elevated levels of carbon monoxide, resulted in first responders...more >>