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Oct 20, 2023

Unbreakable Barrier Broken: New “Superlens” Technique Will Finally Allow Scientists to See the Infinitesimal

Posted by in categories: materials, physics

Researchers have developed a potentially revolutionary superlens technique that once seemed impossible to see things four times smaller than even the most modern microscopes have seen before. Known as the ‘diffraction limit’ because the diffraction of light waves at the tiniest levels has prevented microscopes from seeing things smaller than those waves, this barrier once seemed unbreakable.

Many have tried to peer below this optical barrier using a technique that researchers in the field term ‘superlensing, including making customized lenses out of novel materials. But all have gathered too much light. Now, a team of physicists from the University of Sydney says they have discovered a viable path that peeks beyond the diffraction limit by a factor of four times, allowing researchers to see things smaller than ever seen before. And the way they did, it is like nothing anyone else has tried.

Breaking the Diffraction Limit by ‘Superlensing’ without a Superlens.

Oct 20, 2023

Scientists Pump Up Lab-Grown Muscles for Robots With a New Magnetic Workout

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI

Unfortunately, these precise cell arrangements are also why artificial muscles are difficult to recreate in the lab. Despite being soft, squishy, and easily damaged, our muscles can perform incredible feats—adapt to heavy loads, sense the outside world, and rebuild after injury. A main reason for these superpowers is alignment—that is, how muscle cells orient to form stretchy fibers.

Now, a new study suggests that the solution to growing better lab-grown muscles may be magnets. Led by Dr. Ritu Raman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), scientists developed a magnetic hydrogel “sandwich” that controls muscle cell orientation in a lab dish. By changing the position of the magnets, the muscle cells aligned into fibers that contracted in synchrony as if they were inside a body.

The whole endeavor sounds rather Frankenstein. But lab-grown tissues could one day be grafted into people with heavily damaged muscles—either from inherited diseases or traumatic injuries—and restore their ability to navigate the world freely. Synthetic muscles could also coat robots, providing them with human-like senses, flexible motor control, and the ability to heal after inevitable scratches and scrapes.

Oct 20, 2023

Researchers Used Quantum Effects To Drive Engine Pistons

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, quantum physics

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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about a study that potentially created the world’s first quantum piston engine.
Links:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06469-8
https://www.oist.jp/news-center/news/2023/9/28/powering-quan…es-horizon.
#quantum #engine #breakthrough.

Continue reading “Researchers Used Quantum Effects To Drive Engine Pistons” »

Oct 20, 2023

Novel Approach Restores Brain Function after Stroke-Like Injury in Mice

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Scientists at Kyushu University report that turning brain immune cells into neurons restores brain function after stroke-like injury in mice. Their findings suggest that replenishing neurons from immune cells could be a potential avenue for treating stroke in humans.

The findings are published in PNAS in an article titled, “Direct neuronal conversion of microglia/macrophages reinstates neurological function after stroke.”

“Although generating new neurons in the ischemic injured brain would be an ideal approach to replenish the lost neurons for repairing the damage, the adult mammalian brain retains only limited neurogenic capability,” wrote the scientists. “Here, we show that direct conversion of microglia/macrophages into neurons in the brain has great potential as a therapeutic strategy for ischemic brain injury.”

Oct 20, 2023

Amazon employs Digit, its first humanoid robot at its warehouses

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The company has also introduced a new robotic system called Sequoia to assist employees in fulfilling consumer requests, which is applied to one of its fulfillment centers in Houston, Texas.

Oct 20, 2023

Tesla shares hands-free Full Self-Driving demo in Austin

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Tesla has shared a video of a hands-free drive demonstration of its Full Self-Driving suite in Austin. The FSD suite is not available to customers in a hands-free nature, but Tesla disabled the requirement for a new video it shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Tesla shared the video to demonstrate the capabilities of Software Version 11.4.7, which is the current version of the FSD Beta program.

The automaker describes in the Tweet in put up how the Full Self-Driving suite improves through data-driven techniques that refine the capabilities through analysis of other drivers’ behavior and normal navigation habits.

Oct 20, 2023

Depression linked to increased frontal brain activity during memory tasks, finds new research

Posted by in category: neuroscience

A recent study in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging revealed that individuals with high depression scores show increased activity in frontal brain regions during visuospatial memory tasks, despite similar behavioral performance to those with low depression scores. Researchers concluded that the heightened brain activity might represent a compensatory effort…

Oct 20, 2023

Toyota and Lexus are adopting Tesla’s EV charging standard

Posted by in category: futurism

Toyota has joined the growing list of companies switching to the North American Charging Standard (NACS).

Oct 20, 2023

Deep asleep? You can still follow simple commands, study finds

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Experiments suggest that sleep doesn’t cut you off from the outside world as much as scientists had thought.

Oct 20, 2023

Why scientists are reanimating spider corpses for research

Posted by in categories: materials, robotics/AI

That spider you squished? It could have been used for science!

At least, that’s what Faye Yap and Daniel Preston think. Yap is a mechanical engineering PhD student in Preston’s lab at Rice University, where she co-authored a paper on reanimating spider corpses to create grippers, or tiny machines used to pick up and put down delicate objects. Yap and Preston dubbed this use of biotic materials for robotic parts “necrobotics” – and think this technique could one day become a cheap, green addition to the field.