Okay, it's a little too late for Johnny 5's grass hopper, but thanks to new "gentle" robotic tentacles developed at Harvard University, future generations of insects could escape a similar demise. Researchers have created a new soft appendage made from flexible plastic, that uses three compartmentalized air channels to achieve a snake-like range of movement. The touch of the tentacle is so light, that it is able to pick flowers without damage. While suggested applications include working with fragile objects, or in hard to reach locations, the team also experimented by adding cameras, suction cups and -- most terrifyingly -- syringes to the tip. The only limitation, apparently, is that the air channels prevent it from being scaled down. So while our insect friends are safe from strangle-bot, we might not be so lucky.

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Via: New Scientist

Source: Wiley

Growing human tissue is old hat, but being able to measure activity inside flesh is harder -- any electrical probing tends to damage the cells. But a new breakthrough from Harvard researchers has produced the first "cyborg" tissue, created by embedding functional, biocompatible nanowires into lab-grown flesh. In a process similar to making microchips, the wires and a surrounding organic mesh are etched onto a substrate, which is then dissolved, leaving a flexible mesh. Groups of those meshes are formed into a 3D shape, then seeded with cell cultures, which grow to fill in the lattice to create the final system. Scientists were able to detect signals from heart and nerve cell electro-flesh made this way, allowing them to measure changes in response to certain drugs. In the near-term, that could allow pharmaceutical researchers to better study drug interaction, and one day such tissue might be implanted in a live person, allowing treatment or diagnosis. So, would that make you a cyborg or just bionic? We'll let others sort that one out.

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Via: TG Daily

Source: Harvard

Imaging has been defined by glass lenses for centuries, and even fiber optics haven't entirely escaped the material's clutch. Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences might have just found a way to buck those old (and not-so-old) traditions. A new 60-nanometer thick silicon lens, layered with legions of gold nanoantennas, can catch and refocus light without the distortion or other artifacts that come with having to use the thick, curved pieces of glass we're used to -- it's so accurate that it nearly challenges the laws of diffraction. The lens isn't trapped to bending one slice of the light spectrum, either. It can range from near-infrared to terahertz ranges, suiting it both to photography and to shuttling data. We don't know what obstacles might be in the way to production, which leads us to think that we won't be finding a gold-and-silicon lens attached to a camera or inside a network connection anytime soon. If the technology holds up under scrutiny, though, it could ultimately spare us from the big, complicated optics we often need to get just the right shot.

Filed under: Cameras, Science

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Via: Phys.org

Source: Harvard University

Early research has had DNA making circuits and little factories. We haven't really seen DNA used as a storage medium, however, and it's evident we've been missing out. A Harvard team led by George Church, Sriram Kosuri and Yuan Gao can stuff 96 bits into a DNA strand by treating each base (A, C, G, T) as though it's a binary value. The genetic sequence is then synthesized by a microfluidic chip that matches up that sequence with its position in a relevant data set, even when all the DNA strands are out of order. The technique doesn't sound like much on its own, but the microscopic size amounts to a gigantic amount of information at a scale we can see: about 704TB of data fits into a cubic millimeter, or more than you'd get out of a few hundred hard drives. Caveats? The processing time is currently too slow for time-sensitive content, and cells with living DNA would destroy the strands too quickly to make them viable for anything more than just transfers. All the same, such density and a lifespan of eons could have us turning to DNA storage not just for personal backups, but for backing up humanity's collective knowledge. We're less ambitious -- we'd most like to know if we'll be buying organic hard drives alongside the fair trade coffee and locally-sourced fruit.

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We've seen a number of options for controlling real worms, but never a worm robot, until now. Enter Meshworm, the latest creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. The bot is made from "artificial muscle" composed of a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel / titanium wire. The wire contracts and squeezes the tube when heated by a flowing current, but cut the power and it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion in a similar way to its living kin. Taking traditional moving parts out of the equation also makes it pretty hardy, as proven by extensive testing (read: hitting it with a hammer). DARPA is known for getting its fingers in all sorts of strange pies, and it also supported this project. We can't see it being the fastest way of gathering intel, but the potential medical applications, such as next-gen endoscopes, sound plausible enough. Full impact tests in the video after the break.

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In a less gelatin-centric demo, the Harvard-based team behind the Robotically Steerable Probe showed off some Robopsy devices during our visit to the school, rings that can help medical imaging technology like CT, ultrasound and MR physically pinpoint precise locations on patients. The devices, which can hold up to ten needles, are lightweight, mounting directly on patients via adhesives or straps. The medical robots are made largely of inexpensive injection molded plastic parts, making them disposable after they've been used on a patient, popping the motors and other control electronics onto another device. In all, the team says Robopsy rings are "orders of magnitude" cheaper and lighter than other medical robotic devices. Check out a video of the one of the Robopsy devices running after the break.

Gallery: Robopsy is a low-cost, disposable patient-mounted medical robot

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Freescale Semiconductor's MPL115A2 is a tiny thing that will sit quite comfortably on the tip of your finger. It's hard not to marvel at the engineering that went into the creation of something so small, yet so sensitive. The little metal square is minute enough to be plunked into a cell phone, offering up location pinpointing technologies that supplement GPS, gauging positions based on changes in atmospheric pressure. Harvard's Biorobotics team was clearly impressed when it discovered the technology, devising a fascinating implementation that extends beyond the walls of the cell phone. The sensors would go on to form the core of the department's TakkTile open-source boards capable of bringing sensitive touch sensing to robot hands.

The I2C bus / USB-compatible boards incorporate several of the sensors, with the whole thing covered in 6mm of rubber, to help protect them. The rubber lends some durability to the TakkTile -- in fact, if you click on after the break, you can see footage of the team placing a 25 pound dumbbell on the board and banging it with a hammer (which seems to be a fairly popular activity over there). Even with that extra layer, the TakkTile is still quite sensitive -- as evidenced by the five gram weight in the video. In fact, it's even possible to get it to detect a pulse by placing it against your wrist, though the team was unable to recreate that during our visit.

Also compelling is the price -- bought in bulk, the tiny barometers will run you $1 a piece, making the tactile array relatively inexpensive to assemble. Once you buy one, you can also get the most bang for your buck by snapping off the rows for individual use, a possibility given the symmetry of the design. Or you can just make one yourself, as the department has opted to open-source the technology, to help make it even more readily accessible to interested parties.

Gallery: Tactile Array turns digital barometers into open-source robot touch senors

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Should you ever find yourself needing to discuss the state of the robotic hand in the early 21st century, Harvard professor Robert Howe seems about as good a place to start as any. The professor founded the school's BioRobotics Laboratory in 1990 and has devoted a good deal of his time to the quest for perfect robot extremities. The last few years have seen a number of breakthroughs for Howe and his team including, notably, the SDM (Shape Deposit Manufacturing) hand, an adaptable and rugged robot gripper that utilizes a single motor to manipulate its eight joints. Such machines have, in the past, often relied on precise image sensing to determine the exact size and shape of an object, in order to configure their digits perfectly before attempting to pick it up. The SDM hand is a lot more forgiving. The pulley system at play distributes equal tension to the fingers in an adaptive transmission that allows motion to continue in other fingers, should one's movement be hampered.

The joints themselves are extremely compliant as well, adapting and conforming to the shape of an object, thanks in part to their ability to pivot in three dimensions. The Shape Deposit Manufacturing technology used to create the fingers, meanwhile, adds an important level of durability, letting Howe bang them against a table (a trick he happily performed for us) and expose them to water -- both features that are quite often absent in more complex (and far more expensive) models. The SDM technology, developed at Stanford, allows for the creation of fingers that are a single piece, with their parts embedded in plastic. The larger model shown off by Howe serves as great visual when describing the benefits of the single motor system, but the team has also developed a smaller version, with the requisite motors embedded in a far more compact chassis, which we also got a peek at.

The hand will likely be targeted at home and office use, with some key applications for assisting the disabled. Check out a video of Howe describing the technology to us during our visit to the school and a clip of the SDM doing its thing in the labs, which should help feed your desire to watch robot hands get banged by hammers.

Gallery: Rethinking the robot hand at Harvard

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There's a whole sea of jellyfish out there ready to sting indiscriminately. So, why do we keep trying to make them? Scientists from Harvard and Caltech have a pretty good reason for creating fake jellies -- they hope to mend broken hearts by adapting their 'pumping' style of movement. Much like our own vital organ, the creatures are a mass of muscle adept at shifting fluid, meaning the research has several medical applications, such as bioengineered pacemakers for busted tickers. In creating the Medusoids, the team used a silicon scaffold coated in functional rat cardiac tissue, copying the muscle layout of a real jellyfish as best they could. When immersed in salt water and treated to bursts of current, the cells contract and cause the silicon sheet to move in a way eerily similar to the real thing. Next step for the team? An autonomous version that can move and potentially feed without their influence, of course. And, after seeing the little swimmers in action, we've certainly got palpitations. See what we mean after the break.

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Vanadium oxide seems to be the go-to guy in power storage right now. A new solid-oxide fuel cell -- developed at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences -- that can also store energy like a battery, also uses the stuff. In the new cell, by adding a VOx layer it allows the SOFC to both generate and store power. Example applications would be situations where a lightweight power source is required, with the potential to provide reserve juice should the main fuel source run out. The team who developed the cell usually work with platinum-based SOFCs, but they can't store a charge for much more than 15 seconds. By adding the VOx, this proof of concept extended that by 14 times, with the potential for more lifespan with further development. Especially handy if you're always running out of sugar.

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Researchers at the Braingate2 consortium have made a breakthrough that allows people with spinal cord or stroke injuries to control robotic limbs with their minds. The original project allowed subjects with motor cortex-implanted chips to move cursors on a screen with their minds, but they can now command DEKA and DLR mechanical arms to grasp foam balls and sip coffee. Researchers noted that dropped objects and missed drinks were frequent, but improved brain sensors and more practice by subjects should help. To see the power of the mind move perhaps not mountains, but good ol' java, jump to the video below.

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The grand dame of Ivy League schools is taking action against one of higher learning's pet peeves: the exorbitant price of research journals. Even though the e-reader revolution may have already touched other schoolbooks, so far academic subscription prices -- with some journals as high as $40,000 -- are becoming unsustainable, according to Harvard. To that end, it's taking the lead and pushing its own faculty toward open access publishing, and encouraging them to quit boards of journals that aren't. That could in turn prod other schools to take the same steps, and allow Harvard to focus on more, ahem, interesting pursuits.

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