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Engineering researchers at North Carolina State University and Temple University have developed soft robots inspired by jellyfish that can outswim their real-life counterparts. More practically, the new jellyfish-bots highlight a technique that uses pre-stressed polymers to make soft robots more powerful. “Our previous work focused on making soft robots that were inspired by cheetahs — […] More
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated that they can combine iPhone videos shot “in the wild” by separate cameras to create 4D visualizations that allow viewers to watch action from various angles, or even erase people or objects that temporarily block sight lines. Imagine a visualization of a wedding reception, where dancers can be […] More
Whether it’s sending the grandparents a few pictures of the kids, streaming a movie or music, or surfing the Internet for hours, the volume of data our society generates is increasing all the time. But this comes at a price, since storing data consumes huge amounts of energy. Assuming that data volumes continue to grow […] More
In one of the more memorable scenes from the 2002 blockbuster film Minority Report, Tom Cruise is forced to hide from a swarm of spider-like robots scouring a towering apartment complex. While most viewers are likely transfixed by the small, agile bloodhound replacements, a computer engineer might marvel instead at their elegant control system. In […] More
Although it might be tempting to rely on your fitness tracker to catch early signs of COVID-19, Northwestern University researchers caution that consumer wearables are not sophisticated enough to monitor the complicated illness. The Northwestern team, led by bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers, published a perspective today (July 1) in the journal Science Advances, in […] More
A team of quantitative biology researchers from Northwestern University have uncovered new insights into the impact of stochasticity in gene expression, offering new evolutionary clues into organismal design principles in the face of physical constraints. In cells, genes are expressed through transcription, a process where genetic information encoded in DNA is copied into messenger RNA […] More
Predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravitational waves are ripples in space-time generated by certain movements of massive objects. They are important to study because they allow us to detect events in the universe that would otherwise leave little or no observable light, like black hole collisions. In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory […] More
There are about 75 different types of cells in the human brain. What makes them all different? Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have developed a new set of computational tools to help answer this question. Although different cell types from the same organism carry the same DNA, they look and function differently because a […] More
