How Paralympic Wheelchairs and Prostheses Are Optimized for Speed and Performance

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August 31, 2021

Dear Reader, During the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, a wide array of assistive technology is on display. This week's lead story looks at how prosthetic limbs and competitive chairs are optimized for a specific athlete playing a specific sport, whether that requires maximum stability, speed or maneuverability.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Sports How Paralympic Wheelchairs and Prostheses Are Optimized for Speed and Performance The engineering and designs vary widely from sport to sport and athlete to athlete By Sophie Bushwick

Public Health YouTube's Plan to Showcase Credible Health Information Is Flawed, Experts Warn Search results may include a special section with videos from sources that are deemed reliable By Grant Currin

Agriculture In-Hive Sensors Could Help Ailing Bee Colonies The technology could help beekeepers reduce short-term losses, but it doesn't address long-term problems facing honeybees By Allison LaSorda

Natural Disasters Home Seismometers Provide Crucial Data on Haiti's Quake A volunteer network helps to monitor aftershocks and illuminate the country's earthquake hazards By Alexandra Witze,Nature magazine

Public Health U.S. Forces Are Leaving a Toxic Environmental Legacy in Afghanistan Legal and practical obstacles make it difficult to clean the burn pits and health-damaging chemicals that remain at military bases By Kelsey D. Atherton

Behavior Apple's New Child Safety Technology Might Harm More Kids Than It Helps Features designed to guard against sexual abuse carry the potential for unintended consequences By Elissa Redmiles

Transportation Chip Shortage Could Slow Electric Vehicle Rollouts And no one is certain how long the shortage will last By Corbin Hiar,E&E News

Climate Change The Technology to Reach Net Zero Carbon Emissions Isn't Ready for Prime Time, But ... It's already under development in research labs By Daniel T. Schwartz

Electronics Flexible Microprocessor Could Enable an 'Internet of Everything' Researchers have developed a microprocessor built on high-performance plastic rather than silicon—and they say it could enable smarter food labels and supply chain management. By Christopher Intagliata | 04:16

FROM THE STORE Special Editions Volume 30, Issue 4s

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), designed to analyze images, have been used to good advantage in a wide range of applications, including recognizing faces and helping to pilot self-driving cars. Why not also use them to authenticate art?" Steven J. Frank, IEEE Spectrum

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Blade Runners: Do High-Tech Prostheses Give Runners an Unfair Advantage? Four years after Oscar Pistorius made history at the London Olympics, the question remains unanswered By Larry Greenemeier | August 2016

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