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Future robots need no motors![]() Hong Kong (SPX) Jun 11, 2018 To develop micro- and biomimetic-robots, artificial muscles and medical devices, actuating materials that can reversibly change their volume under various stimuli are researched in the past thirty years to replace traditional bulky and heavy actuators including motors and pneumatic actuators. A mechanical engineering team led by Professor Alfonso Ngan Hing-wan, Chair Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, and Kingboard Professor in Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, the Univer ... read more  | 
 
More building blocks of life found on MarsTampa (AFP) June 7, 2018 A NASA robot has detected more building blocks for life on Mars - the most complex organic matter yet - from 3.5 billion-year-old rocks on the surface of the Red Planet, scientists said Thursday. ... more  
Cometh the cyborg: improved integration of living muscles into robotsTokyo, Japan (SPX) Jun 12, 2018 The new field of biohybrid robotics involves the use of living tissue within robots, rather than just metal and plastic. Muscle is one potential key component of such robots, providing the driving f ... more  
Service Robotics Market worth over $22bn by 2024Washington DC (SPX) Jun 07, 2018 The last decade has witnessed service robotics market traversing alongside a lucrative growth path - right from being a subject of science fiction debates to an almost niche vertical of the electron ... more  
Aerial robot that can morph in flightMarseille, France (SPX) Jun 01, 2018 Marking a world first, researchers from the Etienne Jules Marey Institute of Movement Sciences (CNRS / Aix-Marseille Universite) have drawn inspiration from birds to design an aerial robot capable o ... more  | 
 
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New robot concept uses responsive materials to swim through waterPasadena CA (SPX) May 16, 2018 Engineers at Caltech and ETH Zurich have developed robots capable of self-propulsion without using any motors, servos, or power supply. Instead, these first-of-their-kind devices paddle through wate ... more  
NASA: Commercial Partners Key to Sustainable Moon PresenceWashington DC (SPX) May 25, 2018 As NASA shifts human exploration back to the Moon, U.S. commercial partnerships will be a key to expediting missions and building a sustainable presence on the lunar surface. The agency is orchestra ... more  
Opportunity Collects Panoramas for Site Awareness and Future Drive PlanningPasadena CA (JPL) May 25, 2018 Opportunity is still about halfway down in "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater, pursuing hypotheses as to the origin of the valley. The rover is positioned next to some t ... more  
Aerojet Rocketdyne demonstrates low-cost, high thrust space engineRedmond WA (SPX) May 24, 2018 Aerojet Rocketdyne successfully completed hot-fire testing of a new in-space engine, designated ISE-100. Developed for commercial in-space applications, ISE-100 has the potential to be a critical el ... more  
Robotic assembly of the world's smallest houseWashington DC (SPX) May 21, 2018 A French nanorobotics team from the Femto-ST Institute in Besancon, France, assembled a new microrobotics system that pushes forward the frontiers of optical nanotechnologies. Combining several exis ... more  | 
![]() Autonomous glider can fly like an albatross, cruise like a sailboat  
Robots grow mini-organs from human stem cellsSeattle WA (SPX) May 21, 2018 An automated system that uses robots has been designed to rapidly produce human mini-organs derived from stem cells. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle develop ... more  | 
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NASA engineers teach Mars rover Curiosity to drill againWashington (UPI) May 18, 2018 Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are preparing to add percussion to an improvised drill technique already being used by the Curiosity rover on Mars. ... more  
Fighting in the future: India wants lethal artificial intelligence weaponsNew Delhi (Sputnik) May 22, 2018 Not wanting to be left behind in the race to develop artificial intelligence-powered surveillance and defense system, India is getting ready to build a lethal autonomous weapon systems for warfare c ... more  
Lu resignation a blow for Baidu's push into AI, analysts sayBeijing (AFP) May 21, 2018 The resignation of a senior Baidu executive is a major setback to the Chinese internet giant's push into artificial intelligence, an analyst said Monday, as the company tries to diversify away from its search engine business. ... more  
Google pushes artificial intelligence for upgraded news appWashington (AFP) May 20, 2018 For its updated news application, Google is doubling down on the use of artificial intelligence as part of an effort to weed our disinformation and help users get viewpoints beyond their own "filter bubble." ... more  
Rutgers researchers create a 3D-printed smart gel that walks underwater, moves objectsNew Brunswick NJ (SPX) May 23, 2018 Rutgers University-New Brunswick engineers have created a 3D-printed smart gel that walks underwater and grabs objects and moves them. The watery creation could lead to soft robots that mimic ... more  | 
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Japan 'drone-brella' promises hands-free sun cover Tokyo (AFP) June 6, 2018  
 It's the hands-free experience you never knew you needed - a Japanese company has developed a drone-powered parasol it says can hover over users, protecting them from the sun. 
The drone-powered sunshade - being developed by Asahi Power Service - should be released next year, and will initially target those in need of a hands-free head covering wider than your average hat, like golfers.  ... more | 
JUICE comes in from extreme temperature test Paris (ESA) Jun 08, 2018  
This is the first entry in the JUICE Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Thermal Development Model (TDM), the Engineering Model (EM) and the Proto-Flight Model (PFM) of the spacecraft. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2022 to investigate the Jupiter system. 
One of the major challenges facing ESA's JUICE (JUpiter Icy Moon Explorer) ... more | 
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Building nanomaterials for next-generation computing Washington DC (SPX) Jun 01, 2018  
Nanoscientists at Northwestern University have developed a blueprint to fabricate new heterostructures from different types of 2-D materials. 2-D materials are single atom layers that can be stacked together like "nano-interlocking building blocks." 
Materials scientists and physicists are excited about the properties of 2-D materials and their potential applications. The researchers descri ... more | 
Ukrainian villages still suffering legacy of Chernobyl Exeter UK (SPX) Jun 11, 2018  
Milk in parts of Ukraine has radioactivity levels up to five times over the country's official safe limit, new research shows. 
Scientists from the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter and the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology sampled cow's milk from private farms and homes in the Rivne region, about 200km from the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plan ... more | 
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Iraqi refugee held in France on suspicion of IS 'war crimes' Paris (AFP) June 8, 2018  
 An Iraqi refugee in France thought to be a former senior member of the Islamic State group has been arrested in Paris and indicted on suspicion of "war crimes" over his alleged involvement in a massacre in his country. 
The 33-year-old man, referred to as Ahmed H, is accused of having participated in the June 2014 capture and execution of an estimated 1,700 young, mainly Shiite army recruits  ... more | 
'Carbon bubble' coming that could wipe trillions from the global economy Cambridge UK (SPX) Jun 11, 2018  
Fossil fuel stocks have long been a safe financial bet. With the International Energy Agency projecting price rises until 2040, and governments prevaricating or rowing back on the Paris Agreement, investor confidence is set to remain high. 
However, new research suggests that the momentum behind technological change in the global power and transportation sectors will lead to a dramatic decl ... more | 
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Physicists use terahertz flashes to uncover state of matter hidden by superconductivity Ames IA (SPX) Jun 11, 2018  
Using the physics equivalent of the strobe photography that captures every twitch of a cheetah in full sprint, researchers have used ultrafast spectroscopy to visualize electrons interacting as a hidden state of matter in a superconductive alloy. 
It takes intense, single-cycle pulses of photons - flashes - hitting the cooled alloy at terahertz speed - trillions of cycles per second - to sw ... more | 
China confirms reception of data from Gaofen-6 satellite Beijing (XNA) Jun 07, 2018  
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) confirmed that one of its institutes Monday successfully tracked and received imaging data from the newly-launched Earth observation satellite Gaofen-6. 
The Aerospace Information Research Institute said the Miyun station of China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station received the first batch of observation data from the Gaofen-6 satellite. There was  ... more | 
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Second Space Station mission for Alexander Gerst begins Paris (ESA) Jun 08, 2018  
ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst has arrived at the International Space Station together with NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor and Roscosmos commander Sergei Prokopyev, marking the start of Alexander's Horizons mission. 
The trio were launched into space on 6 June at 11:12 GMT (13:12 CEST) in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 
After 34 orbits of Eart ... more | 
Mars rover Opportunity hunkers down during dust storm Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 11, 2018  
Science operations for NASA's Opportunity rover have been temporarily suspended as it waits out a growing dust storm on Mars. 
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected the storm on Friday, June 1. As soon as the orbiter team saw how close the storm was to Opportunity, they notified the rover's team to begin preparing contingency plans. 
In a matter of days, the storm had ballo ... more | 
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US Senate introduces measure to upgrade defense against hypersonic threats Washington DC (Sputnik) Jun 11, 2018  
US lawmakers have introduced bipartisan legislation that would accelerate the development of missile defenses against hypersonic threats, US Senator Brian Schatz, who co-authored the bill, said in a press release. 
"US Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) introduced S. 2980, the Integrated Missile Defense Act of 2018," the release said on Thursday. 
"The bill .. ... more | 
Recycling plastic -- Japan style Tokyo (AFP) June 5, 2018   At a recycling plant outside Tokyo, workers in face masks pick through an unending torrent of plastic rubbish, fuelled by a national obsession with pristine packaging - and famously strict rules that ensure much of it is reclaimed and reused. 
Some 10 tonnes of recyclable plastics are brought in every day to be processed at the Ichikawa Kankyo Engineering centre, where workers hover over con ... more | 
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MIT study helps driverless cars change lanes more like humans do Boston MA (SPX) Jun 12, 2018  
In the field of self-driving cars, algorithms for controlling lane changes are an important topic of study. But most existing lane-change algorithms have one of two drawbacks: Either they rely on detailed statistical models of the driving environment, which are difficult to assemble and too complex to analyze on the fly; or they're so simple that they can lead to impractically conservative decis ... more | 
A new way to measure energy in microscopic machines Washington DC (SPX) Jun 11, 2018  
What drives cells to live and engines to move? It all comes down to a quantity that scientists call "free energy," essentially the energy that can be extracted from any system to perform useful work. Without this available energy, a living organism would eventually die and a machine would lie idle. 
In work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of M ... more | 
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JUICE comes in from extreme temperature test Paris (ESA) Jun 08, 2018  
This is the first entry in the JUICE Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Thermal Development Model (TDM), the Engineering Model (EM) and the Proto-Flight Model (PFM) of the spacecraft. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2022 to investigate the Jupiter system. 
One of the major challenges facing ESA's JUICE (JUpiter Icy Moon Explorer) ... more | 
On the origins of agriculture, researchers uncover new clues Fort Collins CP (SPX) Jun 11, 2018  
The invention of agriculture changed humans and the environment forever, and over several thousand years, the practice originated independently in a least a dozen different places. But why did agriculture begin in those places, at those particular times in human history? 
Using a new methodological approach, researchers at Colorado State University and Washington University in St. Louis hav ... more | 
 
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