Lifeboat Foundation

Soft robots that can complete tasks with high efficiency, accuracy and precision could have numerous valuable applications. For instance, they could be introduced in medical settings, helping doctors to carry out complex surgical procedures or assisting elderly and vulnerable patients during rehabilitation.

Soft robots are more flexible and can deform more. This can result in an increased dexterity (i.e., better manual skills when completing tasks), as well as in a reduction of payload (i.e., the robot capacity to carry a load), because they can produce smaller forces than rigid robotic systems.

Researchers at National University of Singapore and Beijing Jiaotong University have recently developed a new rod-driven soft robot (RDSR) that operates through push and pull movements. This robot, presented in a paper published in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, combines the mechanisms of two robotic system previously created by members of the research group.

I’ll admit that I didn’t see this one coming: Retraction Watch is reporting that the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center (CCDC), the world’s main repository of small-molecule crystal data, is on the way to pulling nearly a thousand deposited crystal structures because they appear to have been faked. A preprint from earlier this year from David Bimler flagged what seems to be a paper-mill operation flooding out bogus papers on metal-organic frameworks: hundreds and hundreds of weirdly worded manuscripts on nonexistent MOFs and their imaginary applications, full of apparently randomly selected “references” to the rest of the literature. And these things depositited crystal data with the CCDC, which is the step that I really didn’t expect.

After all, anyone who studies the scientific literature has (especially in recent years) seen these auto-generated papers full of crap. But faked crystal structure files? That’s nasty. The record of these papers shows a sudden jump in 2020 and 2021, leading Bimler to wonder:

The dates paint a picture of accelerating publication, as if a small-scale cottage industry had been scaled up to a production line with a larger staff. One can imagine crystallographers initially ghostwriting manuscripts as a favour for friends, moonlighting from their day job, and becoming progressively more professional, though this must remain speculation.

The US remains top dog in some scientific fields, but for how long?

Alien communication could utilize quantum physics, so SETI needs a new way to listen.

The Fermi paradox, the “where is everybody?” puzzle, is a persistent question in the search for life in the universe. It asks why, if life is not exceedingly rare in the cosmos, it hasn’t shown up on our doorstep. Equally we might ask why we haven’t even heard from alien life, through radio signals or any other means. A part of the answer could be that our present work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is actually very limited. Estimates show that we’ve only examined the equivalent of a hot tub of water compared to all the world’s oceans in our combing through the electromagnetic information that rolls in from the cosmos.¹

If you’re a glass-half-full kind of person you’ll see this as an opportunity, but the problem is that we don’t actually know what might be filling the glass in the first place. The vast majority of SETI studies look for structure in electromagnetic radiation, whether in amplitude or frequency modulations of radio waves, or regularity in pulses of light, or in multi-wavelength correlations. In other words, we assume that information might be sailing past us in representations built using classical physics. But what if that’s just wrong?

Continue reading “We Might Already Speak the Same Language As ET” »

Summary: Researchers say they have created the most bio-realistic and complex computer models of individual brain cells.

Source: Cedars Sinai.

Cedars-Sinai investigators have created the most bio-realistic and complex computer models of individual brain cells—in unparalleled quantity.

A research team succeeded in executing the world’s fastest two-qubit gate (a fundamental arithmetic element essential for quantum computing) using a completely new method of manipulating, with an ultrafast laser, micrometer-spaced atoms cooled to absolute zero temperature. For the past two decade.

“ data-gt-translate-attributes=’[{“attribute”:” data-cmtooltip”, “format”:” html”}]’quantum computing ) using a completely new method of manipulating, with an ultrafast laser, micrometer-spaced atoms cooled to absolute zero.

Absolute zero is the theoretical lowest temperature on the thermodynamic temperature scale. At this temperature, all atoms of an object are at rest and the object does not emit or absorb energy. The internationally agreed-upon value for this temperature is −273.15 °C (−459.67 °F; 0.00 K).

Continue reading “World’s Fastest 2-Qubit Gate: Breakthrough for the Realization of Ultrafast Quantum Computers” »

Rebecca Trager examines an emerging industry that is growing ‘meat’ outside of animals using cell lines cultivated in bioreactors.

Astronomers have long sought the launch sites for some of the highest-energy protons in our galaxy. Now a study using 12 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope confirms that one supernova remnant is just such a place.

Fermi has shown that the shock waves of exploded stars boost particles to speeds comparable to that of light. Called cosmic rays, these particles mostly take the form of protons, but can include atomic nuclei and electrons. Because they all carry an electric charge, their paths become scrambled as they whisk through our galaxy’s magnetic field. Since we can no longer tell which direction they originated from, this masks their birthplace. But when these particles collide with interstellar gas near the supernova remnant, they produce a telltale glow in gamma rays—the highest-energy light there is.

Continue reading “NASA’s Fermi telescope confirms star wreck as source of extreme cosmic particles” »

MIT researchers have developed a method for 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties, that sense how they are moving and interacting with the environment. The researchers create these sensing structures using just one material and a single run on a 3D printer.

To accomplish this, the researchers began with 3D-printed lattice materials and incorporated networks of air-filled channels into the structure during the printing process. By measuring how the pressure changes within these channels when the structure is squeezed, bent, or stretched, engineers can receive feedback on how the material is moving.

The method opens opportunities for embedding sensors within architected materials, a class of materials whose mechanical properties are programmed through form and composition. Controlling the geometry of features in architected materials alters their mechanical properties, such as stiffness or toughness. For instance, in cellular structures like the lattices the researchers print, a denser network of cells makes a stiffer structure.