Engineering stories whose deep dive explains biology, ready to use as a starter, a reading task or a real-world example. Each one links to the GCSE and A level curriculum.
Health
For people with any of the roughly 736,900 cochlear implants registered worldwide by December 2019, all devices currently on the market share one obvious…
Deep dive: From Electricity to Light, the Next Frontier in Cochlear Stimulation
Electronics & Communications
LED light pollution in cities is worsening despite energy-efficient streetlights. Engineers are rethinking colour temperature, shielding, and urban lighting design.
Deep dive: The Physics of LED Light Pollution in Cities
HealthBreakthroughs
A rice-sized biodegradable cancer implant delivers immunotherapy drugs directly into tumours, eliminating cancer in 60% of preclinical models.
Deep dive: How a Biodegradable Cancer Implant Controls Its Own Breakdown
Health
HemaDyne, an accordion blood flow pump developed at Texas A&M, replicates human arterial waveforms on lab-on-a-chip systems with millisecond precision.
Deep dive: how the accordion blood flow pump works
ChemicalsBreakthroughs
Scientists embedded engineered bacteria into plastic that fully self-destructs in 6 days, leaving no microplastics. Discover how this living material works.
Deep dive: how self-destructing living plastic actually works
HealthBreakthroughs
Oxford Nanopore wins the 2026 MacRobert Award for its portable DNA sequencing technology used on the ISS and in field disease outbreaks.
Health
Some bacteria navigate using the Earth's magnetic field. They produce chains of iron-rich nanoparticles inside their own cells, using them like a biological compass…
Deep dive: The Physics and Biology Behind Magnetobot Cancer Treatment
HealthBreakthroughs
MIT engineers have developed an ultrasound wearable pacemaker sticker that corrects heart arrhythmias without surgery, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Deep dive: Inside the Ultrasound Wearable Pacemaker
HealthBreakthroughs
MIT engineers built a carbon nanotube catheter that detects bladder cancer biomarkers 50,000 times better than standard tests and maps tumour location.
Deep dive: The Science Behind Nanotube Catheter Cancer Detection
Electronics & CommunicationsBreakthroughs
Northwestern University engineers have created printed artificial neurons that generate realistic electrical signals capable of activating living brain cells.
Deep dive: How Printed Artificial Neurons Work
HealthBreakthroughs
Columbia University's NOVAKnee living knee implant, a 3D-printed biodegradable scaffold seeded with stem cells, has entered preclinical testing.
Deep dive: The science behind the living knee implant
Electronics & CommunicationsBreakthroughs
A robotic underwater diving exoskeleton from Shenzhen reduces diver oxygen consumption by 40%. Here's the engineering behind real-time adaptive assistance.
Deep dive: Adapting to a Moving Target in a Viscous Medium