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For a long time, scientists and engineers have drawn inspiration from the amazing abilities of animals and have sought to reverse engineer or reproduce these in robots and artificial intelligence (AI) agents. One of these behaviors is odor plume tracking, which is the ability of some animals, particularly insects, to home in on the source of specific odors of interest (e.g., food or mates), often over long distances.

A new study by researchers at University of Washington and University of Nevada, Reno has taken an innovative approach using (ANNs) in understanding this remarkable ability of flying insects. Their work, recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence, exemplifies how is driving groundbreaking new scientific insights.

“We were motivated to study a complex biological behavior, -tracking, that flying insects (and other animals) use to find food or mates,” Satpreet H. Singh, the lead author on the study, told Tech Xplore. “Biologists have experimentally studied many aspects of insect plume tracking in great detail, as it is a critical behavior for insect survival and reproduction. ”.

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Scientists from the Micro, Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials at Heidelberg University have created a new technology to assemble matter in 3D. Their concept uses multiple acoustic holograms to generate pressure fields with which solid particles, gel beads and even biological cells can be printed.

These results pave the way for novel 3D cell culture techniques with applications in biomedical engineering. The results of the study were published in the journal Science Advances.

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing enables the fabrication of complex parts from functional or . Conventional 3D printing can be a slow process, where objects are constructed one line or one layer at a time. Researchers in Heidelberg and Tübingen now demonstrate how to form a 3D object from smaller building blocks in just a single step.

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A pair of engineers at Delft University of Technology, working with a colleague at Aix-Marseille University, reports that applying ultrasound to the surface of a glass plate can mimic the feel of pressed button. Laurence Willemet, Michaël Wiertlewski and Jocelyn Monnoyer have published a paper in Journal of The Royal Society Interface describing the device they built to test the idea of using ultrasound as a haptic screen enhancer.

Currently, users pressing buttons on their smart phone screens do not receive much in the way of physical feedback—phone engineers would like to change that. In this new effort, the researchers looked into the idea of using on a plate to mimic the sensations of pushing a physical button.

The researchers created the device by merging two modules. One used blue and red lights to optically track the movement of an approaching finger. The other monitored and responded to contact. Together, the modules controlled piezo actuators that generated ultrasound at a frequency of 28.85 kHz. The device was affixed to a glass plate, which in turn was held in place by an aluminum frame. When in use, the actuators were driven by a ±200 V carrier signal.

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Deepfake technology has been around for some time, and it’s currently causing controversies for the potential threats it may bring when fallen into the wrong hands. Even India’s business tycoon Anand Mahindra sparked alarm over hyper-realistic synthetic videos.

But some personalities are redefining the way viewers perceive deepfakes. For instance, David Guetta recently synthesized Eminem’s voice to hype up an event. And it’s only one of the many examples of people using artificial intelligence (AI) for entertainment. In fact, it already came to different social media websites like Twitch that take streaming to the next level.

Bachir Boumaaza is a Youtuber who once made a name for his record-breaking games, which he used to help numerous charities. But he became inactive, with most of his fans wondering where he went, thinking it might’ve been the end of his career.

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From creator Brad Wright, who honed his expertise writing on three Stargate shows for 14 years, Travelers is a departure from traditional sci-fi tropes. It’s the kind of modern, grounded sci-fi that funnels its wriggling ball of time travel strands through the lenses of empathetic, endearing characters.

This team of time-traveling agents, called “travelers,” inhabit the bodies of people who are close to death. With the help of GPS coordinates, historical records and social media, the consciousnesses of the future travelers are inserted into the bodies of 21st century civilians. It’s the cleanest way for the travelers to go back in time and complete their mission, utilizing the lives of those who were going to die anyway.

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When it comes to DNA, one pesky mosquito turns out to be a rebel among species.

Researchers at Rice University’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) are among the pioneers of a new approach to studying DNA. Instead of focusing on as linear sequences of genetic code, they’re looking for clues on how their folded 3D shapes might determine gene expression and regulation.

For most living things, their threadlike chromosomes fold to fit inside the nuclei of cells in one of two ways. But the chromosomes of the Aedes aegypti mosquito—which is responsible for the transmission of such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, mayaro and yellow fever—defy this dichotomy, taking researchers at the CTBP by surprise.

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Nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause the failure of solid electrolytes.

A group of researchers has claimed to have found the cause of the recurring short-circuiting issues of lithium metal batteries with solid electrolytes. The team, which consists of members from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, aims to further the battery technology, which is lightweight, inflammable, energy-dense, and offers quick-charge capabilities. Such a long-lasting solution can help to overcome the barriers when it comes to the adoption of electric vehicles around the world.

A study published on January 30 in the journal Nature Energy details different experiments on how nanoscale defects and mechanical stress cause solid electrolytes to fail.

According to the team, the issue was down to mechanical stress, which was induced while recharging the batteries. “Just modest indentation, bending or twisting of the batteries can cause nanoscopic issues in the materials to open and lithium to intrude into the solid electrolyte causing it to short circuit,” explained William Chueh, senior study author and an associate professor at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

The possibility of dust or other impurities present at the manufacturing stage could also cause the batteries to malfunction.

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