Researchers, led by the University of Melbourne’s Professor Laura Mackay, a Laboratory Head and Immunology Theme Leader at the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), in collaboration with Pfizer, have discovered new insights into possible future treatments for breast cancer.

A new dual-target drug that has been shown to supercharge cancer-fighting immune cells in mice may support a new treatment approach for patients, potentially paving the way for improved outcomes in breast cancer care.

Breast cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in Australia, with more than 20,000 Australians diagnosed per year. Over 1,000 of those diagnosed are young Australian women under 40. There is an urgent need to discover more effective treatments for breast cancer.

Soft robots excel in safety and adaptability, yet their lack of structural integrity and dependency on open-curve movement paths restrict their dexterity. Conventional robots, albeit faster due to sturdy locomotion mechanisms, are typically less robust to physical impact. We introduce a multi-material design and printing framework that extends classical mechanism design to soft robotics, synergizing the strengths of soft and rigid materials while mitigating their respective limitations. Using a tool-changer equipped with multiple extruders, we blend thermoplastics of varying Shore hardness into monolithic systems. Our strategy emulates joint-like structures through biomimicry to achieve terrestrial trajectory control while inheriting the resilience of soft robots. We demonstrate the framework by 3D printing a legged soft robotic system, comparing different mechanism syntheses and material combinations, along with their resulting movement patterns and speeds. The integration of electronics and encoders provides reliable closed-loop control for the robot, enabling its operation across various terrains including sand, soil, and rock environments. This cost-effective framework offers an approach for creating 3D-printed soft robots employable in real-world environments.

Soft mechanism driven robots, made via multi-material 3D printing, combine soft and rigid components for robust, adaptable locomotion. This framework balances flexibility and strength, enabling effective operation across varied terrains.

Soft actuators produce the mechanical force needed for the functional movements of soft robots, but they suffer from critical drawbacks since previously reported soft actuators often rely on electrical wires or pneumatic tubes for the power supply, which would limit the potential usage of soft robots in various practical applications. In this article, we review the new types of untethered soft actuators that represent breakthroughs and discuss the future perspective of soft actuators. We discuss the functional materials and innovative strategies that gave rise to untethered soft actuators and deliver our perspective on challenges and opportunities for future-generation soft actuators.

For pneumatic actuators, the pneumatic pumps serve an essential role in generating a mechanical force by using compressed gas or moving the liquid for the rapid fluid pressure increase. Yet, the incorporation of the pneumatic pump into the soft robotics would impair the mobility and the core functionalities of the soft robots because the pumps are usually relatively bulky and heavy when compared to the soft robots themselves. To address this issue, several recent studies demonstrated pump-less pneumatic actuation by employing the phase change materials that generate the volume change as the materials switch between liquid and gaseous states, thus resulting in the inflation and deflation of actuators. Here, the pump-less pneumatic actuators can be defined as the soft actuators that do not use the actual pump but generate a pneumatic force by the phase change of material just as if utilizing the pneumatic pump. In other words, the pump-less pneumatic actuators just reproduce the end effect of the pump by a different working mechanism without using the actual pump. The absence of the pneumatic pump in the robotic design also eliminates the need for pneumatic tubes to infuse/extract air into/from the actuator, thereby making the design completely untethered.

Likewise, external stimuli can deliver a considerable amount of mechanical displacement and force needed to actuate the soft robots in an untethered manner: the external stimuli in this article include magnetic field, heat, electricity, light, and humidity. Hence, without physically connecting the electrical tethering to the soft actuators to provide the power source, the external stimuli can enable the soft actuator to produce mechanical displacement since the materials are designed to actuate as programmed. As opposed to the pneumatics-based soft actuators that require the onboard power source (such as a battery or self-powering energy harvesting devices) to supply power to induce pneumatic force, some of these actuators receive the power to induce mechanical displacement in a completely untethered fashion. For example, systematic manipulation of a magnetic field can control the movement of the magnet-driven soft actuator as intended without any type of wiring. Similarly, if the antennas are incorporated into the soft robotic system, electromagnetic waves can be utilized to provide power wirelessly to operate the soft actuators^5,6,7,8, or it also enables the remote control of the actuators via wireless communication^9,10 Therefore, external stimuli-driven soft actuators retain the potential to represent the breakthrough in the field of soft robotics although there exist considerable limitations to be resolved. In this light, it would be a highly valuable resource to introduce untethered soft actuators and discuss the future perspective of new types of soft robots. There are a considerable number of review articles on soft actuators and robotics^{11,12,13,14,15}. However, no review paper has dealt with recent advances in untethered soft actuators for soft robotics that demonstrated meaningful outcomes within a few years. Recently, roboticists and researchers proposed an explosive number of soft actuators for soft robots based on innovative structural designs and functional materials that represent breakthroughs in the field of soft robotics. Furthermore, as the field of soft actuators is relatively new and drawing a substantial amount of interest in the related fields, there exists a demand for an article that systematically reviews the current trend and informs the opportunities to contribute to the field. In this regard, we believe that the timely and thorough review of the recent advances in untethered soft actuators will be informative for the general readers who wish to draw insights and gain potential perspectives in the field.

In this article, we introduce the representative works of the untethered soft actuators that serve as breakthroughs in soft robotics and further discuss the imminent challenges of the soft actuators to be addressed. Soft actuators can also be applied to rigid robots since the actuators reviewed in this paper operate in an untethered configuration. However, we intentionally circumscribed the scope and focused mainly on soft actuators for soft robots because the incorporation of soft actuators into the soft robot can make the entire robot soft and compliant. There exist specific applications where the soft robots exhibit comparative strengths over rigid robots such as navigating through the tortuous space^16,17, exploring deep-sea at extremely high pressure¹⁸, or minimally invasive surgery¹⁹. Furthermore, to present these works systematically, the paper categorizes the soft actuators by four representative working mechanisms (1. pneumatically/hydraulically-driven, 2. magnetically-driven, 3. heat-driven, and 4. electrically-driven) and further examines each actuating mechanism in relation to the untethered soft robots as illustrated in Fig. 1. The paper examines the strengths and limitations of each actuating method and concludes with the future perspective of untethered soft actuators for soft robotics. Box 1 provides the general summary that addresses the strategies to provide the power source for actuation control of the soft robots. Additionally, Table 1 draws the overall comparison of each soft actuating method to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, and other key features such as response time and output force range. On the other hand, Table 2 captures key highlights of representative soft actuators that operate based on a variety of mechanisms and thus delivers a more specific comparison.

Impact of multiplexing noise on multilayer networks of bistable maps.

In a major medical breakthrough, MBM researchers have “printed” the world’s first 3D vascularised engineered heart using a patient’s own cells and biological materials. Until now, scientists in regenerative medicine — a field positioned at the crossroads of biology and technology — have been successful in printing only simple tissues without blood vessels.

“This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers,” says Prof. Tal Dvir.

Every year, more than 5 million people in the USA are diagnosed with heart valve disease, but this condition has no effective long-term treatment. When a person’s heart valve is severely damaged by a birth defect, lifestyle, or aging, blood flow is disrupted. If left untreated, there can be fatal complications.

Valve replacement and repair are the only methods of managing severe valvular heart disease, but both often require repeated surgeries that are expensive, disruptive, and life-threatening. Most replacement valves are made of animal tissue and last up to 10 or 15 years before they must be replaced. For pediatric patients, solutions are extremely limited and can require multiple reinterventions.

Now, Georgia Tech researchers have created a 3D-printed heart valve made of bioresorbable materials and designed to fit an individual patient’s unique anatomy. Once implanted, the valves will be absorbed by the body and replaced by new tissue that will perform the function that the device once served.

In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly closer to large-scale practical use, scientists at Oxford University’s Department of Physics have demonstrated the first instance of distributed quantum computing. Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked two separate quantum processors to form a single, fully connected quantum computer, paving the way to tackling computational challenges previously out of reach. The results have been published in Nature.

UC Davis Health is pleased to announce that Neurosurgeon David Brandman and his team at UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab were selected for a 2025 Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Award. The Clinical Research Forum presents this award to honor 10 outstanding clinical research studies published in peer-reviewed journals in the previous year. This year’s Top 10 Awards ceremony will be held on April 14 in Washington, D.C.

Brandman and his team are recognized for their groundbreaking work in developing a new brain-computer interface (BCI) that translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy — the most accurate system of its kind. Their work was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Our team is very honored that our study was selected among the nation’s best published clinical research studies. Our work demonstrates the most accurate speech neuroprosthesis (device) ever reported,” said Brandman, co-director of the Neuroprosthetics Lab. He is an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Neurological Surgery.

This is probably a repost, but cool anyways.

CSHL Professor Lloyd Trotman and his team have discovered that menadione kills prostate cancer cells in mice by depleting a lipid known as PIP. Their findings set the stage for pilot studies in human prostate cancer patients and point to a potential treatment target for myotubular myopathy, a rare and fatal disease diagnosed in infant boys.

Prostate cancer is a quiet killer. In most men, it’s treatable. However, in some cases, it resists all known therapies and turns extremely deadly. A new discovery at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) points to a potentially groundbreaking solution. CSHL Professor Lloyd Trotman’s lab has found that the pro-oxidant supplement menadione slows prostate cancer progression in mice. The supplement is a precursor to vitamin K, commonly found in leafy greens. The story begins more than two decades ago.

A professor at South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has developed BeeVi, an eco-friendly toilet that uses human waste to generate electricity to power a building.

The BeeVi toilet, developed by Professor Cho Jae-weon, is equipped with a vacuum pump that sends human waste into an underground tank.

A team of researchers has unveiled an innovative additive that significantly enhances the lifespan and efficiency of lithium-air batteries. This advancement, announced on Feb. 10, potentially more than doubles the driving range of vehicles compared to those using traditional lithium-ion batteries. The research was spearheaded by Prof. Kwak Won-jin from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), in collaboration with Prof. Seo Seong-eun from Ajou University and Prof. Chen Shuming from Oberlin College in the United States.

Lithium-air batteries, known for their high energy density, use lithium as the anode and oxygen from the air as the cathode, offering up to five times the capacity of conventional lithium-ion batteries. However, these batteries face challenges due to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during operation, which can degrade battery components and reduce efficiency. The newly developed additive, a ‘redox mediator’ named BAC, addresses these challenges by maintaining a consistent charging voltage level of 3.5V, even after exposure to singlet oxygen, a particularly reactive form of oxygen.

The redox mediator, although comprising only 5% of the battery electrolyte’s weight, plays a crucial role in determining the energy efficiency and lifespan of lithium-air batteries. By reducing the voltage required for charging, the BAC mediator enhances energy efficiency and minimizes battery overload, thereby extending its lifespan. Researcher Lee Hyun-wook, the first author of the study, explained, “We were able to develop such a redox mediator through a design method that analyzes the molecular stereostructure.”