We’ve seen plenty of robots scale walls over the years, from models that emit supersonic streams of air to gecko-inspired creations, but few can carry more than their own weight, much less handle rough terrain. Enter this unique Swiss-made machine, which handles both tasks with aplomb thanks to the rapid melting and cooling of its thermoplastic adhesive feet. Created by the whiz kids over … Read More → "Climbing robot melts and cools plastic to get its footing (video)"

Animals can jump. It’s one of the things that makes them so good at getting around. To be more specific, though, animals can generally jump in addition to whatever other method of movement that they employ. We’ve seen lots of robots that can run, and lots of robots that can jump, but with a few exceptions, there hasn’t been a lot of effective crossover, because building a robot … Read More → "This robot’s acrobatic leaps are super cool (video)"

… Read More → "Xerox’s new grading copiers will finally make Scantron obsolete"

German start-up Nanoscribe is commercialized a 3D “micro printer”that uses a near-infrared laser to print tiny structures with features as small as 30 nanometers. (A human hair is roughly 50,000 – 100,000 nanometers wide.) The device uses an infra-red laser beam moving in three dimensions to solidify a light-sensitive material into the desired shape. The additive manufacturing system, much faster than existing technology, could be used to “print” the components of medical devices, electromechanical systems, and, er, robot … Read More → "Microscale 3D printer"

Building robots is difficult, expensive work. Wouldn’t it be great if robots could just somehow build themselves? We’ve seen robots that can be printed and robots that can be folded, but this little guy manages to do both of those things all by himself.
via IEEE Spectrum

… Read More → "This crawling inchworm robot can be printed out and folds itself (video)"

The fidelity is not particularly strong, but the tunes that Amanda Ghassaei etched into this wooden record are clearly identifiable. She used a laser cutter to do it:

These records were cut on an Epilog 120 Watt Legend EXT to a theoretical precision of 1200dpi (the kerf of the cut and some tricks I used to avoid crashing the laser cutter dropped the actual precision down by ~1/6).  The audio on … Read More → "Functional wooden record (video)"

When most people think of the nervous system, they think of it as a hub of activity. Sensations trigger nerves, which activate the ones they’re connected to, eventually producing a response. What’s often overlooked is the fact that shutting nerves down is just as important. Entire classes of nerves exist solely to tell their neighbors to quiet down, while Parkinson’s disease is caused by the failure of a circuit that ultimately helps … Read More → "Injecting new neurons helps tone down epileptic seizures"

If you grew up playing checkers, transitioning to chess and keeping track of which piece is which and what moves where can be tricky. So to smooth out the learning curve, OneSavesSolutions created this 3D printed Typographical Chess Set with the name of each piece integrated into its design.
via Gizmodo

Read More → "Typographical chess lets novices easily recognize each piece"

The Atlantic sturgeon, which is one of the world’s oldest species of fish, can live up to 60 years, reaching a length of of 15 feet (4.6 meters) and a weight of over 800 pounds (360 kg). It’s also endangered, due to past overfishing for its caviar. In order to protect the sturgeon that are left, it’s important to keep fishermen from catching them accidentally. That’s why researchers at the University of … Read More → "Underwater robot seeks out endangered sturgeons"

It has been nearly 100 years since the reflection seismic method was first used to image the subsurface, and since then it has evolved to deliver increasingly accurate 3D geological models and more reliable inversion to reveal indicators of rock properties. While developments in seismic sources and sensors have improved the frequency bandwidth that can be input to the subsurface and subsequently recorded back at the surface, achieving truly 3D high-resolution images … Read More → "Isometric marine seismic technology delivers true 3D"