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Blog – Page 39

Scientists inspired by the octopus’s nervous system have developed a robot that can decide how to move or grip objects by sensing its environment.

The team from the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Science and Engineering designed a simple yet smart robot which uses fluid flows of air or water to coordinate suction and movement as octopuses do with hundreds of suckers and multiple arms.

The study, published in the journal Science Robotics, shows how a can use suction flow not just to stick to things, but also to sense its environment and control its own actions—just like an octopus.

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Most sunlight received by photovoltaic panels is converted to and lost as heat, increasing their temperature and deteriorating their performance. Here, the authors propose a multi-energy generation photovoltaic leaf concept with biomimetic transpiration and demonstrate much improved performance.

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We live in extraordinary times.

I’ve been writing about this for the past decade, analysing AI and other exponential technologies and their impact on society. As you get started with Exponential View, I wanted to introduce you first to five charts — depicting key dynamics — to help you understand why the pace of change has increased.

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One of the reasons why this has never happened before is that spiders themselves are difficult organisms to work with within the laboratory. They are a diverse group, have a complex genome structure, and their cannibalistic nature means that they have to be reared individually, otherwise their cage neighbors would be gobbled up. Despite this, new developments in Parasteatoda tepidariorum have allowed this species to become a research model.

The research team looked into spider silk as the target. Spider silk is an incredibly strong and scientifically interesting substance, as it is five times stronger than a steel cable of the same weight, tear-resistant, while also being biodegradable, lightweight, and elastic.

To genetically modify this arachnophobe’s nightmare, the scientists developed an injection solution. This had a gene-editing system that also included a red fluorescent protein gene sequence. This solution was then injected into oocytes inside unfertilized female spiders, when these spiders mated with males, it resulted in the genetically modified offspring.

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