The SPECS lab puts their stuff on display in Barcelona!
The Spanish Society of Neuroscience, has declared 2012 Neuroscience Year in Spain. The year-long celebration serves as a way to bring neuroscience to the public and promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge ; a series of exhibitions, conferences, and a variety of other events have been taking place around the country throughout the year.
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Researchers at MIT envision a bag of tiny machines that can assemble into just about anything…
Remember that scene in the 1964 Mary Poppins film where Julie Andrews manages to retrieve everything from plants to coat hangers out of her hand bag? Well… there’s no magic involved however, the Distributed Robotics Lab (DRL) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lab (CSAIL) at MIT are currently working on something rather similar.
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A South Korean effort to reduce stress among corrections officers
Prison guards often face high levels of stress due to under staffing, overtime and rotating shift work associated with their work. This often results in burnout, health problems, high turnover rates and even low life expectancy.
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Jumping and rolling to places we can’t get to
This little contraption probably won’t be found at the beach and it’s not about to bite anyone’s toes either. In fact, all it really wants to do is take a look around. The latest version of the Sand Flea, developed by Boston Dynamics, is able to jump up to 10m thanks to the help of a CO2 powered piston. Sand Flea can perform about 25 of these types of jumps before it needs to refuel.
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Using machines to study social behaviour
How does culture emerge in human societies and those of other social animals? To tackle this question, a study funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) lead by the University of Bristol and 5 other UK universities, is combining the expertise of researchers from diverse disciplines including : Computer science, social science, philosophy, theoretical biology, art history and cultural theory and robotics.
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Designed, programmed and printed!
The video above displays three prototypes resulting from a new project lead by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). With a 10 million USD grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the collaboration of teams from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, researchers hope to develop technology that could enable anyone to manufacture their own customized robot.
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Check out some of the most life-like robots out there!
The HRP-4C Humanoid robot was developed by The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of Japan and Kawada Industries. As you can see above, this robot can put on quite the show! Created mainly for entertainment purposes, this robot has even hit fashion runways! Actroid- DER3, developed by Osaka University and the robotics company Kokoro, is also being used for similar purposes.
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They’re doing their best to walk the walk and talk the talk
Humans may not have the fastest or strongest bodies on earth but they are super multifunctional. Sure, we can’t jump as high as frogs, or swim as well as dolphins but we’re still able to achieve both forms of motion. The versatility of our physical ability has inspired us to create a world filled with tools and structures that would be impossible for many other animals to use – can you picture a cat using a door handle or a fish using stairs?
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Municipalities save time, money and create new jobs
This month, a team of robots will be working their way through the underground of Peachtree City, USA to inspect sewer pipes. RedZone Robotics has developed the Solo: a light weight, autonomous sewer inspection robot. The main advantage this new technology provides is time–saving. The Peachtree water and city authority will end up with an inspection of all their collection pipes in the system in just a little over a year;an assessment that would normally take about 15 years to carry out but without the help of the robots.
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This robot’s not snacking on shrimp or plankton to get its energy
Many of us consider jellyfish a nuisance when we’re walking along the beach or swimming in salty waves. While some species are highly hazardous, and others are nothing but harmless, for a bunch of (essentially) brainless animals, they sure do have some moves!
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