This three-fingered manipulator has just about everything you could ever want in a robotic hand. It’s relatively low-cost, it’s powerful, it’s capable of picking up objects both large and small, and it’s robust. In fact, we’ve already seen the thing used as a tee for an aluminum bat. The hand, which was developed by researchers at iRobot, Harvard and Yale, was created as part of DARPA’s ARM Hardware (ARM-H), a program track focused on the creation of inexpensive, dexterous hands. According to its creators, the key … Read More → "DARPA’s robotic hand gets put through its paces (video)"

This is RoboBee, and it may be the world’s tiniest robot. Inspired by the anatomy of aviation-inclined insects like bees and flies, it’s just a bit larger than a human fingertip. And after years of work, RoboBee has joined its organic inspirations in flight. The minuscule machine designed by researchers at Harvard took to the air for the first time last year, but the footage of its flight … Read More → "Insect-sized robots take flight, bringing your paranoid delusions one step closer to reality (video)"

Need a camera that can take a clear picture of the whole landscape before you? They’re not easy to make and take a lot of technical know-how. Lowly critters like flies and bees, though, come with these complex devices as standard equipment. Now, a team of researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois are taking a cue from those insect eyes to design a next generation camera lens that can capture … Read More → "New distortion-free camera lenses inspired by insect eyes"

Doctors announced today that two-and-a-half year old Hannah Warren just became the youngest person in history to receive a bioengineered organ transplant, a new windpipe made of a synthetic scaffold and her own stem cells. The nine-hour long procedure was performed April 9th, at Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, but … Read More → "Two-year-old girl receives new trachea made from her own stem cells"

Robots made for kids tend to move in a way that can only be described as lurching. The 14-in-1 Educational Solar Robot Kit puts that expectation to good use with its shambling Zombie-Bot model, but with thirteen other forms, it can also mimic several animals, wheeled transportation, robots, and even multiple seafaring contraptions. As it’s equipped with a solar panel you’ll never have to have to find a battery charger.
via < … Read More → "Solar-powered robot waddles, swims, rolls and lurches in 14 ways (video)"

Today, a team of IBM scientists are bypassing the big screen to unveil what they call the “world’s smallest movie.” This atomic motion picture was created with the help of a two-ton IBM-made microscope that operates at a bone-chilling negative 268 degrees Celsius. This hardware was used to control a probe that pulled and arranged atoms for stop-motion shots used in the 242-frame film. A playful spin on microcomputing, the short was made by the … Read More → "Extreme closeup! IBM makes ‘world’s smallest movie’ using atoms (video)"

As a dad who loves to read to his kids at bedtime, I was a little skeptical about Smart PJs. They’re certainly clever: Each of the jammies’ 47 unique dot patterns triggers a story or an animal lesson when the kid scans it with a smartphone or tablet. But I am wary of products that may outsource crucial parental tasks to machines. So I spoke with the inventor.

Juan Murdoch, an Idaho … Read More → "‘Smart’ story-telling pajamas invented by father of 6"

Can we all just sit and marvel at this ridiculous shot of the Moon for a second? Because that would be great. Seriously, people. Just look at it.
via io9

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One of the things that makes heart disease so problematic is the fact that after a heart attack occurs, the scar tissue that replaces the damaged heart tissue isn’t capable of expanding and contracting – it doesn’t “beat,” in other words. This leaves the heart permanently weakened. Now, however, scientists from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have developed artificial heart tissue that may ultimately provide a solution to that problem.

… Read More → "Artificial heart tissue could replace and regrow the real thing"

… Read More → "Robots teach communication to kids with autism (video)"