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• Identifying Signs of Chronic Brain Injury in Living Football Players

  A new brain-imaging technology may reveal the true risk of repetitive head injury in contact sports.

  Eight former pro football players learned this year that they have signs of a degenerative brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to depression, dementia, and memory loss. These somber findings were uncovered using a new method of brain imaging that, for the first time, enables researchers to spot signs of the condition in the living brain. Previously CTE could only be identified after a victim died.

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• An Artificial Hand with Real Feelings

  A new nerve interface can simulate a sense of touch from 20 spots on a prosthetic hand.

  There have been remarkable mechanical advances in prosthetic limbs in recent years, including rewiring nerve fibers to control sophisticated mechanical arms (see “A Lifelike Prosthetic Arm”), and brain interfaces that allow for complicated thought control (see “Brain Helps Quadriplegics Move Robotic Arms with Their Thoughts”). But for all this progress, prosthetic limbs cannot send back sensory information to the wearer, making it harder for them to do tasks like pick up objects without crushing them or losing their grip.

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• Colored Plastic Doubles Solar Cell Power

  Using plastic to absorb light could lower the cost of solar power.

  A thin sheet of dyed plastic could cut the cost of solar power, particularly for applications that require solar cells to be highly efficient and flexible.

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• Separating Hype from Reality on Amazon’s Drones

  Amazon says it wants to offer 30-minute drone delivery. But companies actually working on the technology outline the limitations.

  Amazon’s plans to deliver packages by drones, which it predicts “will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today,” has been widely dismissed as little more than clever self-promotion.

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• Diagnosis for Healthcare.gov: Unrealistic Technology Expectations

  The website for the Affordable Care Act was doomed by an inordinately complex setup that tried to link disparate databases in real time.

  The fiasco with the $600 million federal health insurance website wasn’t all bureaucratic. Forcing slow and disparate databases run by government and insurance companies to work together in real time—and then launching the service all at once—would have challenged even technology wunderkinds.

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• The Continuous Productivity of Aaron Levie

  The CEO of Box is building an online file storage system designed to reshape industries.

  Aaron Levie bounds onstage with the swagger of a standup comic. But he’s not performing at the Comedy Store. He’s in the Grand Ballroom at San Francisco’s Hilton Union Square kicking off BoxWorks, his company’s annual customer conference. Steve Jobs had his black turtleneck, Mark Zuckerberg has his gray hoodie; Levie’s uniform is a staid black suit, a capitulation to the buttoned-down enterprise software market he aims to conquer. But he spices it up with a cheeky pair of colorful sneakers. Today they’re bright red.

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• Company Makes CO2 Into Liquid Fuel, with Help from a Volcano

  An Icelandic company figures out how to make methanol from waste CO2, but the economics may not work without a nearby volcano.

  When a geothermal power plant started spewing hot water into the barren, volcanic landscape of Iceland’s Southern Peninsula in 1976, the locals turned the steaming lake into a health spa that’s now frequented by half a million people a year. Now a small Icelandic company is hoping to turn a profit from waste carbon dioxide from the same plant.

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• Fitness Trackers Still Need to Work Out Kinks

  The latest fitness-tracking wristbands need to get in better shape before they’ll earn a spot on my wrist.

  At 11:30 last Friday night I was frantically doing jumping jacks in my living room, trying to hit my activity goal for the day: 4,000 points. The more I moved, the more points I got from the Nike+ Fuelband SE fitness tracker on my wrist—and at nearly midnight I had 3,957.

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• Are Electric Vehicles a Fire Hazard?

  Lithium-ion batteries have risks, but they can be managed to prevent fires in EVs.

  In the past two months, three Tesla Motors Model S electric cars have caught fire after their lithium-ion battery packs were damaged. Last week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would investigate whether Tesla’s Model S needs to be modified to prevent further fires.

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• Printing Batteries

  New inks and tools allow 3-D printing of lithium-ion technology.

  By making the basic building blocks of batteries out of ink, Harvard materials scientist Jennifer Lewis is laying the groundwork for lithium-ion batteries and other high-performing electronics that can be produced with 3-D printers.

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