Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 52. Chapters: Beowulf, Cochlear implant, Aeroponics, Wingtip device, NASA spin-off, Freeze-drying, Guidance system, NASA wind turbines, Deicing, Nanomesh, LZR Racer, Memory foam, Design review, Infrared thermometer, RAD750, Anti-fog, Freeze-dried ice cream, Space blanket, Remote Graphics Software, Rotary Cell Culture System, Dynabeads, SeaWiFS, EdGCM, Black & Decker DustBuster, Antquarium, Pill thermometer, Extensible Data Format, Common Data Format, Success Oriented Management. Excerpt: A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear. As of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants; in the United States, about 40,000 adults and over 30,000 children are recipients. The vast majority are in developed countries due to the high cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy. A small but growing segment of recipients have bilateral implants (one implant in each cochlea). Cochlear implants can restore hearing in patients suffering deafness due to loss of sensory hair cells in their cochlea. In those patients, they can often restore sufficient hearing to allow unaided understanding of speech in a quiet background, but the restored, electrical hearing is much less rich than natural hearing, and offers only very limited appreciation of musical melody, or speech understanding in noisy environments. A sound example of what speech would sound like through a cochlear implant can be found here, and here is an example of what music would sound like. The discovery that electrical stimulation in the auditory system can create a perception of sound occurred around 1790, when Alessandro Volta (the developer of the electric...