Duke University engineers are layering atom-thick lattices of carbon with polymers to create unique materials with a broad range of applications, including artificial muscles.

The lattice, known as graphene, is made of pure carbon and appears under magnification like chicken wire. Because of its unique optical, electrical, and mechanical properties, graphene is used in electronics, energy storage, composite materials, and biomedicine.

We often contemplate cyborgs, people enhanced by machines, but what would a civilization built upon cybernetics be like?

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Credits:
Cyborg Civilizations.
Episode 454a; July 7, 2024
Produced, Written \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur.
Graphics:
Bryan Versteeg.
Jeremy Jozwik.
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.

In neuroscience and biomedical engineering, accurately modeling the complex movements of the human hand has long been a significant challenge.

Robotic exoskeletons are an increasingly popular method for assisting human labor in the workplace. Those that specifically support the back, however, can result in bad lifting form by the wearer. To combat this, researchers at the University of Michigan have built a pair of robot knee exoskeletons, using commercially available drone motors and knee braces.

“Rather than directly bracing the back and giving up on proper lifting form,” U-M professor Robert Gregg notes, “we strengthen the legs to maintain it.”

Test subjects were required to move a 30-pound kettlebell up and down a flight of stairs. Researchers note that the tech helped them maintain good lifting form, while lifting more quickly.

A research team led by Prof. Ye Hong from the University of Science and Technology of China has developed an alumina ceramic bionic wick with finger-like pores inspired by the stomatal array of natural leaves. Their research is published in Langmuir.

As the performance of electronic chips continues to improve, their power consumption also increases, posing new challenges for cooling strategies. Loop heat pipes (LHPs) are a compelling cooling solution due to their high heat transfer capability, antigravity heat transfer, and absence of moving parts.

However, the differing requirements for flow resistance and capillary force make designing the pore structure of the capillary wick within an LHP challenging. Specifically, larger pores are needed for gaseous working fluids to reduce flow resistance, while smaller pores are necessary to provide sufficient capillary force for liquid suction.

Randal Koene discusses Whole Brain Emulation on the H+ Magazine podcast. He touches on the subjects of connectomics, neural mapping, optogenetics, and neural prosthesis.

Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed hexagon-shaped robotic components, called modules, that can be snapped together LEGO-style into high-speed robots that can be rearranged for different capabilities.

The team of researchers from the Robotic Materials Department at MPI-IS, led by Christoph Keplinger, integrated artificial muscles into hexagonal exoskeletons that are embedded with magnets, allowing for quick mechanical and electrical connections.

The team’s work, “Hexagonal electrohydraulic modules for rapidly reconfigurable high-speed robots” was published in Science Robotics on September 18, 2024.

A team of roboticists at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics finds that combining traditional internal force-torque sensors with machine-learning algorithms can give robots a new way to sense touch.

In their study published in the journal Science Robotics, the group took an entirely new approach to give robots a sense of touch that does not involve artificial skin.

For living creatures, touch is a two-way street; when you touch something, you feel its texture, temperature and other features. But you can also be touched, as when someone or something else comes in contact with a part of your body. In this new study, the research team found a way to emulate the latter type of touch in a robot by combining internal force-torque sensors with a machine-learning algorithm.

AI and tiny worms team up to get to treats.

By Matthew Hutson