Lifeboat Foundation

Carnegie Mellon mechanical engineering researchers have developed a new scalable and reproducible manufacturing technique that could accelerate the mainstream adoption and commercialization of soft and stretchable electronics.

The next generation of robotic technology will produce soft machines and robots that are safe and comfortable for direct physical interaction with humans and for use in fragile environments. Unlike rigid electronics, soft and stretchable electronics can be used to create wearable technologies and implantable electronics where safe physical contact with biological tissue and other delicate materials is essential.

Soft robots that safely handle delicate fruits and vegetables can improve food safety by preventing cross-contamination. Robots made from soft materials can brave the unexplored depths of the sea to collect delicate marine specimens. And the many biomedical applications for soft robots include wearable and assistive devices, prostheses, soft tools for surgery, drug delivery devices, and artificial organ function.

A tiny bubble popping within a liquid seems more fanciful than traumatic. But millions of popping vapor bubbles can cause significant damage to rigid structures like boat propellers or bridge supports. Can you imagine the damage such bubbles could do to soft human tissues like the brain? During head impacts and concussions, vapor bubbles form and violently collapse, creating damage to human tissue. Purdue University fluid mechanics researchers are now one step closer to understanding these phenomena.

“When a bubble collapses inside a liquid, it generates pressure shock waves,” said Hector Gomez, professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator. “The process of forming a vapor cavity and its collapse is what we call cavitation.”

“Cavitation has been studied since the 1800s,” said Pavlos Vlachos, the St. Vincent Health Professor of Healthcare Engineering and director of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. “It’s a very complex field of study because it involves non-equilibrium thermodynamics, continuum mechanics, and many other factors on a scale of micrometers and microseconds. After hundreds of years of research, we are only just now starting to understand these phenomena.”

There are a number of constants in the basic laws of physics and initial conditions of the universe that are such that, for life to be possible, the values of those constants needed to fall in an exceedingly narrow range. Many scientists and philosophers think there must be an explanation of why, of all the values they might have had, these constants have precisely the values needed in order for life to be possible. There are deep difficulties with both of the standard explanations of this ‘fine-tuning’ of the laws of nature: theism and the multiverse hypothesis. I will argue that if one adopts a certain form of panpsychism, one can explain the fine-tuning in terms of the mental capacities of the universe, and that this constitutes a significantly less problematic and significantly more parsimonious explanation of the fine-tuning.

Philip Goff is Associate Professor in philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest (a unique and wonderful institution). His main research interest is consciousness, although he also has a sideline in political philosophy (taxation, globalisation, social justice). He recently finished his first book, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (published with Oxford University Press August 2017), which argues against materialism and defends panpsychism. He is now working on a book on these themes aimed at a general audience. He has written for The Guardian and Philosophy Now, and writes a blog at www.conscienceandconsciousness.com. www.philipgoffphilosophy.com @philip_goff

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