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Insect-Inspired Flying Robots: Researchers Introduce a New Generation of Tiny, Agile Drones

The technology could boost aerial robots’ repertoire, allowing them to operate in cramped spaces and withstand collisions.

If you’ve ever swatted a mosquito away from your face, only to have it return again (and again and again), you know that insects can be remarkably acrobatic and resilient in flight. Those traits help them navigate the aerial world, with all of its wind gusts, obstacles, and general uncertainty. Such traits are also hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has built a system that approaches insects’ agility.

Chen, a member of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Research Laboratory of Electronics, has developed insect-sized drones with unprecedented dexterity and resilience. The aerial robots are powered by a new class of soft actuator, which allows them to withstand the physical travails of real-world flight. Chen hopes the robots could one day aid humans by pollinating crops or performing machinery inspections in cramped spaces.

The Meaning of Life

An AI meditation on the Meaning of Life.

All the imagery is generated by the AI using a text prompt.
I inputed “The Meaning of Life” — and these are the results.

It produced a lot of content, with a lot of themes, symbology and mysterious objects. I edited the video together as if the AI was talking to me, guiding me. I tried to listen to its voice, and communicate what it was trying to say.

Resources / Code used.
https://github.com/lots-of-things/Story2Hallucination.

Creative Commons Music.
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Stellardrone.

My YouTube channel.

DARPA Announces Research Teams Selected to Semantic Forensics Program

Researchers to develop automated tools that aid analysts as they tackle the looming rise of automated multimodal media manipulation.


Today we announced the SemaFor research teams that are developing #AI tools to help detect & understand media manipulations @Kitware @LifeAtPurdue @SRI_Intl @UCBerkeley @Google @nvidia @AccentureFed @nyuniversity @LockheedMartin https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-03-02

DARPA Initiates Design of LongShot Unmanned Air Vehicle

Contracts have been awarded to @GeneralAtomics, @LockheedMartin, and @northropgrumman for the new LongShot project to develop an air-launched unmanned air vehicle that can employ multiple air-to-air weapons. https://ddmdraft.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-02-05b

Detecting multiple sepsis biomarkers from whole blood – made fast, accurate, and cheap

The Wyss Institute’s eRapid electrochemical sensor technology now enables sensitive, specific and multiplexed detection of blood biomarkers at low cost with potential for many clinical applications.


Multimedia Available

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (http://wyss.harvard.edu) uses Nature’s design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing that are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and formation of new startups. The Wyss Institute creates transformative technological breakthroughs by engaging in high risk research, and crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers, working as an alliance that includes Harvard’s Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, University of Zurich and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

World’s First Supersonic Unmanned Combat Drone Reaches Speeds Of Over 1,500mph

It can exceed the speed of sound, hitting an astonishing Mach 2.1! 😲🤯


A new combat drone has been created that can hit speeds of more than 1500mph.

The drone is much bigger than the ones you’ll have seen floating around your local parks, however, and looks more like a small spaceship.

Created by Kelley Aerospace, the supersonic drone is made up of carbon fibre and is completely unmanned; it can exceed the speed of sound, hitting an astonishing Mach 2.

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