Having a swarm of microbots moving across your body may sound like the stuff of a horror movie, but it could actually be the future of targeted drug delivery and advanced wound healing. Scientists have developed a way to use blue and red light as a remote control to assemble and disperse swarms of biohybrid microrobots that could one day transform how we treat injuries.
Details of the research are in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.
The microrobots come in two parts. The first is a living green microalga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (CR), which uses two tail-like structures (flagella) to swim through aquatic environments and respond to light.
Modern artificial intelligence systems rely on moving large amounts of data between memory and processors, a design that limits speed and increases energy use. The human brain works differently: it combines memory and computation within synapses, allowing fast, efficient learning and perception. Replicating this approach in hardware is a central goal of neuromorphic computing, especially for tasks like vision, where most real-world information is gathered and processed.
In that context, researchers have developed a new type of artificial synapse that operates entirely with light. Unlike most existing devices, which still depend on electrical signals at some stage, this system uses optical signals both to receive information and to update its internal state. Removing electrical conversion steps could lower energy use, reduce noise, and enable faster processing, particularly in vision systems that already rely on light.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, the device is built from a rare-earth-doped crystal that emits a persistent afterglow after being illuminated. This material can store optical information in the form of trapped charge carriers. When light excites the crystal, some of these carriers emit light immediately, while others remain trapped and are released later. The balance between these pathways depends on the history of illumination, allowing the material to mimic how biological synapses change strength based on past activity.
This video features a conversation with Dario Amadei, CEO of Anthropic, discussing the intersection of AI and economics. Viewers will gain insights into how technological innovation impacts business processes and models, the future landscape of AI companies, and the potential societal ramifications of advancements in AI technology. The main theme emphasizes the evolving dynamics between innovation and established business strategies in the AI sector, as well as the importance of understanding how these changes affect both markets and society.
Freddy Gray is joined by Nate Soares, president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, to discuss the risks posed to humanity by AI. Warning that sufficiently intelligent AI may stop following human instructions entirely, Soares tells Freddy what, if anything, could keep AI from spiralling out of control.
When a person goes into deep sleep, waterlike fluid circulates around the brain, washing away metabolic waste that is linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This process, known as the glymphatic system, was first described in 2012 by Maiken Nedergaard, a pioneering neuroscientist and co-director of the University of Rochester Center for Translational Neuromedicine.
But questions remain about the system’s mechanics—notably, how quickly the fluid circulates around the brain. Studying the circulation within a living brain is difficult to do without causing irreparable harm to a subject.
“You can put a microscope on a small patch of the brain and watch what’s happening there with a lot of detail, and we’ve worked with that type of data in the past, but it’s only a tiny view of the overall process,” says Professor Douglas Kelley from the University of Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
In this exciting episode, we dive deep into the world of bio-inspired robotics with Prof. Auke Jan Ijspeert, a Swiss-Dutch roboticist and neuroscientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). As the head of the Biorobotics Laboratory, Prof. Ijspeert shares how nature serves as the ultimate blueprint for designing the robots of the future. 🌿🤖
🔑 Key Highlights:
Bio-Inspired Robotics: Explore how Prof. Ijspeert and his team are mimicking nature to create innovative robots that move and behave like animals. Neuroscience & Robotics: Learn how insights from neuroscience help reverse-engineer the sensorimotor coordination found in animals, applying it to robotic systems. From Simulation to Reality: Discover the challenges of translating robotic simulations into real-world applications. Exoskeletons & Assistive Technologies: Prof. Ijspeert discusses the development of exoskeletons for healthcare and military use, along with assistive furniture for people with limited mobility. Humanoid Robots & Autonomous Systems: Get a sneak peek into the future of autonomous robotics, from central pattern generators to humanoid robots.
💡 Why You Should Watch: Prof. Ijspeert is a trailblazer in the field of biorobotics, blending biology, neuroscience, and engineering to push the boundaries of what robots can achieve. Whether you’re a robotics enthusiast, a neuroscientist, or just curious about how nature inspires technology, this episode is packed with insights that could shape the future of robotics and artificial intelligence.
🔗 Connect with Prof. Auke Ijspeert:
https://www.epfl.ch/labs/biorob/peopl… / biorob_epfl / biorob_epfl Time Stamp 0:00 to 02:35 — Intro, Bio-Inspired Robots 02:35 to 04:13 — Neuroscience to back engineer bio-robots 04:13 to 06:22 — Mimicking nature & biorobots examples 06:22 to 07:55 — Simulation to real life translation challenges 07:55 to 09:10 — Central pattern generators & their role in robotic motion 09:10 to 10:47 — Learnings from creating bio-inspired robots 10:47 to 13:40 — EPFL Bio-Robotics laboratory 13:40 to 15:43 — Applications of Bio-robotics 15:43 to 20:05 — Exoskeleton 18:19 to 20:05 — Assertive furniture robotics 20:05 to 26:30 — exoskeleton in healthcare & military warfare 26:30 to 31:51 — Humanoid Robots 31:51 to 34:42 — Autonomous Robots 34:42 to 37:04 — Rhex Robots & Partnerships 37:04 to 40:04 — The future of robotics Watch our highest-viewed videos: 1-DR R VIJAYARAGHAVAN — PROF & PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AT TIFR India’s 1st Quantum Computer– • Quantum computer from India with Dr r vija… 2-TATA MOTORS-DRIVING THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY IN INDIA-SHAILESH CHANDRA-MD: TATA MOTORS– • TATA MOTORS-DRIVING THE FUTURE OF MOBILIT… 3-MIT REPORT PREDICTS SOCIETAL COLLAPSE BY 2040 — GAYA HERRINGTON DIR SUSTAINABILITY: KPMG • MIT Report predicts Total Societal Collaps… 4-WORLDS 1ST HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANTATION-DR SERGIO CANAVERO — • WORLDS 1ST HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANTATION-DR… 5-DR HAROLD KATCHER — CTO NUGENICS RESEARCH Breakthrough in Age Reversal– • BREAKTHROUGH IN AGE REVERSAL WITH YOUNGBLO… 6-How Neuroscience Will Change The Future Of Technology — Dr. James Giordano • How Neuroscience Will Change The Future Of… 7-STARTUP FROM INDIA AIMING FOR LEVEL 5 AUTONOMY — SANJEEV SHARMA CEO SWAAYATT ROBOTS — • SELF-DRIVING STARTUP FROM INDIA AIMING FOR… 8-MAN BEHIND GOOGLE QUANTUM SUPREMACY — JOHN MARTINIS — • MAN BEHIND GOOGLE QUANTUM SUPREMACY — JOHN… 9-BANKING 4.0 — BRETT KING FUTURIST, BESTSELLING AUTHOR & FOUNDER MOVEN — • BANKING 4.0 — BRETT KING FUTURIST, BESTSEL… 10-E-VTOL & HYPERLOOP-FUTURE OF INDIA” S MOBILITY-SATYANARAYANA CHAKRAVARTHY • E-VTOL & HYPERLOOP-FUTURE OF INDIA“S MOBI… 11-HOW NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING WILL ACCELERATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE — PROF SHUBHAM SAHAY-IIT KANPUR– • HOW NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING WILL ACCELERATE… 12-How India Is Building a Quantum Computer — Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay • How India Is Building a Quantum Computer -… Connect & Follow us at: / eddieavil / change-transform-india / changetransformindia / intothechange / changetransformindia Listen to the Audio Podcast at: https://anchor.fm/transform-impossiblehttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… https://open.spotify.com/show/56IZXdz… https://www.breaker.audio/change-i-m–… https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=… Don’t Forget to Subscribe / @toctwpodcast #robot #robotics #artificialintelligence #epfl.
A new room-temperature quantum device uses twisted light to entangle photons and electrons, overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in quantum technology. The breakthrough could pave the way for smaller, cheaper quantum systems with applications ranging from secure communications to future AI and computing platforms.
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Roman Yampolskiy has spent two decades being right about things people wished he wasn’t — and in this conversation, he’s not here to scare you, but to be precise. He makes the case that AI alignment isn’t merely unsolved but fundamentally under-defined: no agreed-upon values, no way to formalize them even if there were, and no mechanism for enforcing them on something smarter than its creators. His strongest argument isn’t a doom scenario, it’s that you cannot indefinitely control something smarter than you.
