{"id":232621,"date":"2026-03-05T10:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/using-tiny-ripples-at-skin-level-to-monitor-for-possible-health-problems-below"},"modified":"2026-03-05T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:16:07","slug":"using-tiny-ripples-at-skin-level-to-monitor-for-possible-health-problems-below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/using-tiny-ripples-at-skin-level-to-monitor-for-possible-health-problems-below","title":{"rendered":"Using tiny ripples at skin level to monitor for possible health problems below"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BjRMelzc0n0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Caltech scientists have developed a method that detects tiny, imperceptible movements at the surface of objects to reveal details about what lies beneath. By analyzing the physics of waves traveling across the surface of an object\u2014whether that be a manufactured product or the human body\u2014the new technique can determine both the stiffness and thickness of the underlying material or tissue. This lays the groundwork for the project\u2019s ultimate goal of enabling inexpensive, at-home health monitoring using little more than a smartphone camera.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is information scattered all around us in plain sight that we just haven\u2019t learned to tap into. Our work is trying to leverage that information to recover material properties from inside objects by studying tiny movements on the surface,\u201d says Katie L. Bouman, professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy at Caltech and both a Rosenberg Scholar and a Heritage Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Investigator.<\/p>\n<p>Bouman and her colleagues from Caltech presented the technique, called visual surface wave elastography, and its medical applications in a <a href=\"https:\/\/openaccess.thecvf.com\/content\/ICCV2025\/html\/Ogren_Visual_Surface_Wave_Elastography_Revealing_Subsurface_Physical_Properties_via_Visible_ICCV_2025_paper.html\" target=\"_blank\">paper<\/a> presented at the <a href=\"https:\/\/iccv.thecvf.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">International Conference on Computer Vision in Honolulu<\/a> last fall. The lead authors are Alexander C. Ogren, Ph.D., and Berthy T. Feng, Ph.D., who completed the work while at Caltech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caltech scientists have developed a method that detects tiny, imperceptible movements at the surface of objects to reveal details about what lies beneath. By analyzing the physics of waves traveling across the surface of an object\u2014whether that be a manufactured product or the human body\u2014the new technique can determine both the stiffness and thickness of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,1495,1512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-health","category-mobile-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}