Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Tech
Unlocking the Gaits: Robot tests locomotion switch
A blocky, bright-yellow robot that would look at home in a toy chest moves like a salamander, just as its inventors intended.
- Tech
Transferred Touch: Sensory rewiring to improve prosthetics
Transferring a lost limb's nerves to other areas of the body might one day permit an amputee to feel the heat of a coffee cup with an artificial hand.
- Tech
Wrinkle, wrinkle, little polymer
Scientists have developed a cheap and easy way to create specific patterns of tiny wrinkles on the surface of a flexible and commonly used polymer, a technique that could be used to fabricate an assortment of microdevices.
- Tech
Making a 3-D Microscope: Technique brings entire sample into focus
A new imaging technique creates microscopic three-dimensional views of tissues within a patient's body and can update those images several times a second.
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- Tech
A backpack with a suspension system
A new backpack design that uses elastic cords to minimize the pack's vertical motion could lessen bodily strain on wearers and reduce the effort required to carry a load.
- Computing
Digital Fingerprints
New methods to identify Internet users by their behavior can uncover criminals online, but these techniques may also track millions of innocent users.
- Tech
Loopy Light: Rings that delay photons may advance microchips
Chains of tiny, high-precision, light-conducting loops of silicon may open the door to using optical circuits to carry enormous data flows within computer chips.
- Tech
Ahead of the Curve: Novel morphing wing may reduce aircraft’s fuel use
A prototype aircraft wing has demonstrated in its first flight tests that its morphing might save fuel.
- Tech
Shape shifter shifts twice
Certain plastics known as shape-memory polymers switch to predetermined shapes when triggered by heat or light. Now, researchers have developed more-versatile versions of such polymers. When heated, each of the new triple-shape polymers switches to a second shape. Then, at a higher temperature, the plastic changes to a third form. “For some applications, [these] more-complex […]
- Computing
What a Flake
New ways to simulate ice-crystal growth yield patterns remarkably similar to the beautiful and intricate shapes of snowflakes and may shed light on how those real-life shapes come about.
- Tech
A nano–cheese slicer
Stringing a carbon nanotube between two needles yields a nanoscale cheese knife that could improve slicing of biological samples.
