Now Microrobots can Propel Themselves Through your Body
As much progress as we’ve made with minuscule micro machines, we’ve long suffered the problem of not being able to propel them through our bodies. Sure, we now have tiny robots capable of targeting cancer cells, manipulate building blocks, etc, but they haven’t been able to actually move, rendering them all but useless.
Until now. At the International Solid State Circuit Conference, engineer Ada Poon, an assistant professor at Stanford, demonstrated a remote controlled micro machine navigating through a liquid, specifically blood. Power was delivered wirelessly. Basically this means that we finally have a method for driving...
We've Found a Gene that May Let us Live Longer
Humans hate dying. Its ingrained into our very makeup that we hate death. and yet, for the entire span of our existence, we’ve been able to do little more than preventive maintenance to keep us running. That might be changing though.
A gene found in humans proves to lengthen the lives of mice by 15%. And while mice are a long way from humans, they’re much closer than worms, where another gene was found that (falsely) was thought to lengthen life span, sirtuin 2.
The new gene comes from the sirtuin family again, this time sirtuin 6. ...
Single Atom Transistor Demolishes Moore's Law
In 1965 Gordon E. Moore coined ‘Moore’s Law’ in what proved to be an amazing bout of prognostication. His law stated that the number of components on a semiconducting circuit would double every year. He originally expected his formulation to hold for around 10 years, but it has been nearly constant for most of the history of computing since. That, however, is changing.
We’ve been approaching the edges of what it is possible to achieve with our technology for years, exploiting more and more clever workarounds to keep boosting speed. But you can only shrink a circuit...
Future Micro-robots Could be made like Pop-up Books
A clever new building technique inspired by pop-up books for children could lead to the mass production of teeny tiny robots with, usually, are much too hard to build in large quantities. That means that building a robotic dragonfly can now be done cheaply and easily.
The technique is functionally similar to how they make plywood. Laser cutters burn away a sheets of plastic, metal and paper as needed, cutting out different shapes. Then those layers are stacked and laminated together, so that they are a single, unified whole. The finished product is a hexagonal chunk of...
Nanotechnology could have one fatal flaw - Explosions
Nanotechnology promises to make the future much more interesting, quite possibly more amazing, too. But it seems like there might be one serious flaw to the tech: that smaller particles means bigger booms.
Dust blows up more than more solid objects do. This is why a fuel air bomb is so effective: because they make the gas molecules as small as possible. The reason this works is all down to surface area. If you have a big chunk of explosive material, only part of it can combust at any given time. If you break if up,...
New USB Stick Sequences DNA in Moments
The human genome was first mapped in 2003 for the low, low sum of $3 billion. It took 15 years to complete. Now, 9 years later we’re able to stick the technology into a USB stick. Granted, sequencing a human genome would take many hours, but the device is more than capable of handling simple genomes. And it is a harbinger of the future to come.
Built by UK firm Nanopore, the small device--called the minION--can sequence the genomes of viruses and bacteria in seconds. The data is relayed directly to your computer, since it is,...
China Launching Astronauts to Space Laboratory in March
China is on a space warpath, having managed to go from not having any space-faring capability to having a space station in mere years. Now the nation has announced that it will launching 3 astronauts to their newly minted space laboratory by August.
China has dreams of conquering space, and they haven’t been shy about it. They’ve been throwing money at the problem for years, but recently things have really been picking up. In the span of a year, China has demonstrated space docking and long-term atmospheric stability. They are moving at the pace we did during...
DARPA wants Avatar-esque Robot Surrogates
Who says Avatar wasn’t good scifi? DARPA, of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, the government group dedicated to strange, far fetched science ideas that have a spooky record of becoming realized, wants robotic surrogates.
Proposed in DARPA’s 2013 budget is $7 million for what they refer to as the “Avatar” project, a program that would aim to "develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate." Basically, think terminator robots controlled by humans. Scared yet?
As out there as this may seem,...
Xombie Rocket Lander Proves Capable of Landing on Mars
Good news for the space buffs in the audience: the human race is continuing its march toward the stars. Now a small, private company has successfully demonstrated a rocket-powered lander in Earth’s gravity field, meaning that the craft would be more than capable of handling the gravity on Mars or the moon.
Built by Masten Aerospace Systems, the rocket demonstrated, during a test for NASA, that it is capable of launching off the ground and navigating. It successfully managed to take off, fly up 164 feet, move just about as far horizontally, before settling back down after a 67...
Cornell Creates Awesome Robotic Hand Unlike Any Other
The human hand is a complex and intricate piece of machinery. Which has meant that practically all attempts to duplicate it have been complex, fragile and expensive.
Since most grippers designed to do complex tasks have been based on it, that means most precision grippers are enormously expensive. Not so with Cornell’s new gripper, however, thanks to one clear fact: it’s not based on the human hand.
Cornell’s new hand is cheap. Like, really cheap. But then, the prototype is literally just a rubber balloon filled with sand. Which begs the question: how does it grip? ...
NASA Building Platform for Testing Space Communications
You know, as many satellites as we have in orbit, you would think that keeping in touch with space stations in orbit would be simple. Turns out, however, that it’s not! And if we want future space inhabitants to be able to reliably keep in contact with the ground, we need a whole suite of new tech.
Which is exactly what NASA’s Glenn Research Center built over the course of the last three years. Now it is ready to be launched into orbit.
The new platform is known as SCaN, or the Space Communications and Navigation testbed. It...
Scientists use Quantum Dots to Control Brain Cells
Scientists have managed to do the impossible, controlling brain cells with small nanoparticles that could be delivered to nerve cells sans surgery. Which means that they can be used to treat debilitating conditions like Alzheimer’s, depression and epilepsy, all with a simple injection. And, further in the future, these things could be used as part of brain computer interfaces.
We are able to stimulate the brain right now, but our techniques are crude. The most effective way is with an electrode, but getting the electrode into position requires the skull to be opened up. Another way that...
Your Heartbeat Could Be Your Password, in the Future
For all out trying, we have yet to find a biometric system more secure than a good ol’ password. Iris and full-face scanners can be beater with pictures or videos, voice recognition can be beaten with a recording, and fingerprint scanners can be beaten by flour, masking tape and a tossed can.
But scientists, undaunted by the challenge of creating a unique personal identifier, have come up with a new possible solution: your heartbeat.
Everyone has a slightly different heart beat. We have a different rhythm, a different cadence, etc. Much like our irises and fingerprints, our heartbeat is...
NASA Wants Space Taxis, and Wants them Now
With the retirement of the Shuttle, NASA has no craft capable of ferrying astronauts to and from space. This is the first time we’ve had that problem since, well, we first launched a man into space. But NASA isn’t sitting idly by, waiting for the taxis to come to them.
Instead, they are proactively trying to make them happen. NASA wants space taxis. As soon as is humanly possible, please.
NASA revealed a few days ago that they were looking for at least two firms to build new astronaut-ferrying crafts. They are willing to pay a lot...
Paper Robots - Solution to Making Robots Not Crush Humans
Robotics has a problem: while there are hundreds of different ways of powering a robotic arm, the vast majority can crush and kill a human being. Scaling down the force until they won’t renders the robots too weak to interact.
But there’s a new proposal that might change this state of affairs: robots made out of paper.
Paper is very, very cheap. Paper also doesn’t stretch. It turns out, those two factors make it ideal for building robots that work closely with humans. The previous state of the art in non-Terminator robots had been plastic muscles, which have...
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