Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a common strategy physicians use to diagnose diseases such as cancer. The patient is placed on a table that slides into the bore of a scanner, which contains a strong magnet and various coils. The machine uses the resulting magnetic field and radio waves to create images of the patient’s insides.
Full-body MRI scanners were … Read More
The Big Picture features technology through the lens of photographers.
Every month, IEEE Spectrum selects the most stunning technology images recently captured by photographers around the world. We choose images that reflect an important advance, or a trend, or that are just mesmerizing to look at. We feature all images on our site, and one also appears on our monthly
As Verne understood, the U.S. Civil War (during which
60,000 amputations were performed) inaugurated the modern prosthetics era in the United States, thanks to federal funding and a wave of design patents filed by entrepreneurial prosthetists. The two World Wars solidified the for-profit prosthetics industry in both the United States and Western Europe, and the ongoing War on Terror helped
In Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon, members of the fictitious Baltimore Gun Club, all disabled Civil War veterans, restlessly search for a new enemy to conquer. They had spent the war innovating new, deadlier weaponry. By the war’s end, with “not quite one arm between four persons, and exactly two legs between six,” these
Why not? EVs lack tailpipe emissions, sure, but producing, operating, and disposing of these vehicles creates greenhouse-gas emissions and other environmental burdens. Driving an EV pushes these problems upstream, to the factory where the vehicle is made and beyond, as well as to the power plant where the electricity is generated. The entire life cycle of the vehicle must be
EVs have finally come of age. The total cost of purchasing and driving one—the cost of ownership—has fallen nearly to parity with a typical gasoline-fueled car. Scientists and engineers have extended the range of EVs by cramming ever more energy into their batteries, and vehicle charging networks have expanded in many countries. In the United States, for example, there are
