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This Remarkable Robot Hand Is Worthy of Luke Skywalker

Most of today’s robot hands can perform easy tasks. They’re uber-practical grippers, simple and useful. But is it really so much to ask for robotic masterworks as dextrous as Luke Skywalker’s bionic hand in Star Wars? In short, yes, yes it is. It might have been a long time ago in a galaxy far far away—but most Star Wars tech is beyond us.

Still, it’s hard not to get in a Star Wars state of mind watching this beautiful robot hand engineered by Yale postdoc Joseph (Zhe) Xu and the University of Washington’s Emanuel Todorov.

Greek scientists create artificial neuron with quantum-dot lasers

Syn. Neurons via Q-Dot Laser. Nice.


Greek researchers working at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) optical communication photonic technology laboratory have developed an artificial “neuron” that simulates fundamental functions of the human brain, at speeds that are many orders of magnitude higher.

A paper on the new breakthrough made by the Greek team, led by Prof. Dimitris Syvridis with Dr. Charis Mesaritakis as main researcher and with Alexandros Kapsalis and Adonis Bogris listed as authors, was published in the “Scientific Reports” section of the science journal “Nature” on December 19.

Simulating the action of biological neurons is the “Holy Grail” of computing; the proposal developed by Mesaritakis and his team uses an integrated all-optical neuron based on an InAs/InGaAs semiconductor quantum-dot passively mode-locked laser.

New active filaments mimic biology to transport nano-cargo

Very interesting read. The researchers created a completely artificial microscopic transport system mimicking the human body. With this technology we’re going to be able to address many areas of healthcare as well as some areas of AI.


Inspired by micro-scale motions of nature, a group of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in Chennai, India, has developed a new design for transporting colloidal particles, tiny cargo suspended in substances such as fluids or gels, more rapidly than is currently possible by diffusion.

Fluid friction determines micro-scale inertia in fluid. This means, for instance, blood cells swimming within blood encounter roughly the same amount of drag that a human would experience attempting to swim through molasses.

As the group reports in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing, they applied and then extended a model of active filaments that includes these frictional hydrodynamic interactions, specifically as they relate to the speed and efficiency analysis of transporting colloidal particles.

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