INSIDER

Flexible “Skeletons” for Soft, Muscle-Powered Robots

Our muscles are nature’s perfect actuators — devices that turn energy into motion. For their size, muscle fibers are more powerful and precise than most synthetic actuators. They...

Building Bionic Jellyfish for Ocean Exploration

Jellyfish can't do much besides swim, sting, eat, and breed. They don't even have brains. Yet, these simple creatures can easily journey to the depths of the oceans in a way that humans,...

Treating Liver Cancer with Microrobots Piloted by a Magnetic Field

The idea of injecting microscopic robots into the bloodstream to heal the human body is not new. It’s also not science fiction.

Integrating Dimensions to Get More Out of Moore’s Law

Moore's Law, a fundamental scaling principle for electronic devices, forecasts that the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years, ensuring more computing power —...

Bringing Together Real-World Sensors and VR to Improve Building Maintenance

A new system that brings together real-world sensing and virtual reality would make it easier for building maintenance personnel to identify and fix issues in...

This Tiny, Tamper-Proof ID Tag Can Authenticate Almost Anything

A few years ago, MIT researchers invented a cryptographic ID tag that is several times smaller and significantly cheaper than the traditional radio frequency tags (RFIDs) that...

Coherent Establishes 6-inch InP Wafer Fabrication Capability

Coherent has established what the company describes as the "world's first capability for 6-inch indium phosphide (InP) wafer fabrication." The compound semiconductor and...

Researchers Claim Lowest Ever Microwave Noise on a Integrated Photonic Chip

In a new Nature study, Columbia Engineering researchers have built a photonic chip that is able to produce high-quality, ultra-low-noise microwave signals using...

Processing Trillions of Images Per Second

Achieving speed records is not just for athletes. Researchers can also achieve this kind of feat thanks to their discoveries. This is the case of professor at the National Institute of Scientific...

Restoring Sight to Euclid's Visible Instrument System

A newly devised procedure to de-ice Euclid's optics has performed significantly better than hoped. Light coming in to the visible ‘VIS’ instrument from distant stars was gradually...

Squishy, Metal-Free Magnets Power Robots and Guide Medical Implants

“Soft robots,” medical devices and implants, and next-generation drug delivery methods could soon be guided with magnetism — thanks to a metal-free magnetic gel...

How To Shift Gears in a Molecular Motor

Scientists have long strived to develop artificial molecular motors that can convert energy into directed motion. Researchers at Linköping University have now presented a solution to a challenging...

Dragonfly Wings Used to Study Motion

Scientists from Hiroshima University undertook a study of dragonfly wings in order to better understand the relationship between a corrugated wing structure and vortex motions. They discovered that...

Researchers Explore the Phenomenon of Holonomy

BB-8 of Star Wars fame is known for its adorable beeps, dome-shaped head, and spherical body. But fighting alongside the Resistance is just one of its many talents. As this spherical robot...

Roboticists Develop Robots for Resilient Extraterrestrial Habitats

Justin Werfel, Senior Research Fellow in Robotics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is leading a team tasked with developing...

A Self-Driving Needle Steers Through Living Lung Tissue

The lungs are one of the most difficult organs for physicians to navigate. They have a dense network of blood vessels, bronchi, and other critical anatomical structures that makes...

Tiny Power Converters Run on Vibrational Energy

Scientists at the University of California San Diego and CEA-Leti have developed a ground-breaking piezoelectric-based DC-DC converter that unifies all power switches onto a single chip to...

An Electrifying Improvement in Copper Conductivity

A common carbon compound is enabling remarkable performance enhancements when mixed in just the right proportion with copper to make electrical wires. It’s a phenomenon that defies...

A New Carbon Material Sets Energy-Storage Record, Likely to Advance Supercapacitors

Guided by machine learning, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor...

Are Shapeshifting “Soft Machines” In Our Future?

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have furthered a new type of soft material that can change shape in response to light, a discovery that could advance “soft...

Scientists Design a Two-Legged Robot Powered by Muscle Tissue

Compared to robots, human bodies are more flexible, capable of fine movements, and can efficiently convert energy into movement. Drawing inspiration from human gait, researchers...

DNA Origami Folded into Tiny Motor

Scientists have created the world’s first working nanoscale electromotor, according to research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The science team designed a turbine engineered from DNA...

Piezo Composites with Carbon Fibers for Motion Sensors

An international research group has engineered a novel high-strength flexible device by combining piezoelectric composites with unidirectional carbon fiber (UDCF), an anisotropic...

Researchers Create First Functional Semiconductor Made from Graphene

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held...

Self-Powered Sensor Automatically Harvests Magnetic Energy

MIT researchers have developed a battery-free, self-powered sensor that can harvest energy from its environment.

Expanding Copernicus’s Earth Observation Program With Hyperspectral Imaging

Last June, the European Commission and the European Space Agency awarded Kuva Space a €5M commercial contract to be the sole provider of hyperspectral data...

Photonics West 2024: 5 New Technologies on Display This Year

The largest optics and trade show in North America, SPIE Photonics West 2024, is just a few days away from its annual collection of exhibitions, conferences and courses at San...

Network of Robots Can Successfully Monitor Pipes Using Acoustic Wave Sensors

An inspection design method and procedure by which mobile robots can inspect large pipe structures has been demonstrated with the successful inspection of multiple...

Could an Electric Nudge to the Head Help Your Doctor Operate a Surgical Robot?

People who received gentle electric currents on the back of their heads learned to maneuver a robotic surgery tool in virtual reality and then in a real setting...