New tech aids stroke recovery:
A groundbreaking new robotic hand that can feel touch like a human one and pave the way for new prosthetics and robots.
This led to the creation of a “bionic eye” that uses a combination of AI and several advanced scanning techniques, including optical imaging, thermal imaging, and tomography (the technique used for CT scans), to capture differences between parts of the scrolls that were blank and those that contained ink — all without having to physically unroll them.
Where’s Plato? On April 23, team leader Graziano Ranocchia announced that the group had managed to extract about 1,000 words from a scroll titled “The History of the Academy” and that the words revealed Plato’s burial place: a private part of the garden near a shrine to the Muses.
The recovered text, which accounted for about 30% of the scroll, also revealed that Plato may have been sold into slavery between 404 and 399 BC — historians previously thought this had happened later in the philosopher’s life, around 387 BC.
A 20-second video from inside a Chinese humanoid robot factory is causing some consternation today around social media. It shows a range of highly realistic-looking, partially skinned humanoids under construction.
The video, uploaded by user ‘meimei4515,’ is uncredited, but shows several moving androids with human-like hair and skin – in stark contrast to most of the general-purpose humanoids we’d normally cover, which are designed to look like robots, rather than trying to fool anyone.
Continue reading “Chinese humanoid factory video plunges back into the uncanny valley” »
Source: University of Cambridge.
Researchers have developed tiny, flexible devices that can wrap around individual nerve fibers without damaging them.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, combined flexible electronics and soft robotics techniques to develop the devices, which could be used for the diagnosis and treatment of a range of disorders, including epilepsy and chronic pain, or the control of prosthetic limbs.
In 2021, he heard about a trial of a visual prosthesis at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Researchers cautioned that the device was experimental and he shouldn’t expect to regain the level of vision he had before. Still, he was intrigued enough to sign up. Thanks to the chips in his brain, Bussard now has very limited artificial vision—what he describes as “blips on a radar screen.” With the implant, he can perceive people and objects represented in white and iridescent dots.
Bussard is one of a small number of blind individuals around the world who have risked brain surgery to get a visual prosthesis. In Spain, researchers at Miguel Hernández University have implanted four people with a similar system. The trials are the culmination of decades of research.
There’s interest from industry, too. California-based Cortigent is developing the Orion, which has been implanted in six volunteers. Elon Musk’s Neuralink is also working on a brain implant for vision. In an X post in March, Musk said Neuralink’s device, called Blindsight, is “already working in monkeys.” He added: “Resolution will be low at first, like early Nintendo graphics, but ultimately may exceed normal human vision.”
Neuroprosthetics, a technology that allows the brain to control external devices such as robotic limbs, is beginning to emerge as a viable option for patients disabled by amputation or neurological conditions such as stroke.
In recent years, technology’s allure has drawn in an increasing number of individuals, promising a faster and easier life. Now, some pioneers are venturing a step further, merging their bodies with technology to enhance their capabilities and extend their sensory perception, giving rise to real-life cyborgs.
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Continue reading “Rise of the Cyborgs: Merging Humanity with Technology” »
Diamond is a promising material for the biomedical field, mainly due to its set of characteristics such as biocompatibility, strength, and electrical conductivity. Diamond can be synthesised in the laboratory by different methods, is available in the form of plates or films deposited on foreign substrates, and its morphology varies from microcrystalline diamond to ultrananocrystalline diamond. In this review, we summarise some of the most relevant studies regarding the adhesion of cells onto diamond surfaces, the consequent cell growth, and, in some very interesting cases, the differentiation of cells into neurons and oligodendrocytes. We discuss how different morphologies can affect cell adhesion and how surface termination can influence the surface hydrophilicity and consequent attachment of adherent proteins.
Whether it’s a powered prosthesis to assist a person who has lost a limb or an independent robot navigating the outside world, we are asking machines to perform increasingly complex, dynamic tasks. But the standard electric motor was designed for steady, ongoing activities like running a compressor or spinning a conveyor belt – even updated designs waste a lot of energy when making more complicated movements.
Researchers at Stanford University have invented a way to augment electric motors to make them much more efficient at performing dynamic movements through a new type of actuator, a device that uses energy to make things move. Their actuator, published March 20 in Science Robotics, uses springs and clutches to accomplish a variety of tasks with a fraction of the energy usage of a typical electric motor.
“Rather than wasting lots of electricity to just sit there humming away and generating heat, our actuator uses these clutches to achieve the very high levels of efficiency that we see from electric motors in continuous processes, without giving up on controllability and other features that make electric motors attractive,” said Steve Collins, associate professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of the paper.
