Using a transparent elastomer, Iowa State University scientists have created tiny tentacles that robots can wrap around delicate objects to handle them safely. The spiraling microrobotic tentacles are described in a research paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. Demonstrating how one of the tentacles encircled an ant’s thorax, softly trapping the insect, lead researcher […]
Developed by chemists at UCLA, a new photosynthesis-like technology is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks without the use of batteries. The advance, detailed in the journal Science, could change the way we think about photovoltaic cells and energy storage. Sarah Tolbert, a senior researcher on the project, said the new […]
New images of the dwarf planet Ceres, taken from 2,700 miles above by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, show the surface of this mysterious world in sharper detail than ever before. The new images are of the brightest spots, which are located in a crater about 55 miles across. The largest bright area in this crater is […]
Researchers at Stanford have built a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets. The droplet processor is significantly slower than an electronic computer, but the research team says that speed is not their aim; rather, they want to develop a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and […]
In a discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. That these vessels could have escaped detection when the lymphatic system has been so thoroughly mapped throughout the […]
The more that hunter-gatherers in the Congo smoke cannabis, the less they are infected by parasitic intestinal worms, according to Washington State University (WSU) researchers who say that the tribe may unconsciously be, in effect, smoking medical marijuana. Ed Hagen, a WSU Vancouver anthropologist, explored cannabis use among the Aka foragers to see if people […]
A new paper to be published in Physical Review Letters has made a significant step toward unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics by explaining how spacetime emerges from quantum entanglement. The international collaboration of physicists and mathematicians who authored the paper hope it will prove to be a first step toward the long sought Theory […]
New Canadian research into human echolocation suggests that as well as being able to locate objects, some blind people can also discern the shape and texture of those objects. The new findings, presented last week at the 9th Annual Canadian Neuroscience Meeting in Vancouver, build onprevious work from the UK that established some of the […]
An international group of scientists has observed a sudden increase in ice loss on the Southern Antarctic Peninsula, what was previously thought to be a stable region of Antarctica. Led by scientists from the University of Bristol (UK), the group has published their observations in the latest edition of Science. Using measurements of the elevation […]
Video gamers spend a collective three billion hours per week in front of their screens. And while the average young person will have spent 10,000 hours gaming by the time they are 21, the effects of video gaming on the brain are only beginning to be understood. Now, a new study published in the journalProceedings […]
