In emergencies, people may trust robots too much for their own safety, a new study suggests. In a mock building fire, test subjects followed instructions from an “Emergency Guide Robot” even after the machine had proven itself unreliable – and after some participants were told that robot had broken down.
A fried breakfast food popular in Spain provided the inspiration for the development of doughnut-shaped droplets that may provide scientists with a new approach for studying fundamental issues in physics, mathematics and materials.
Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much-despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States.
A new study of both computer-created and natural proteins suggests that the number of unique pockets – sites where small molecule pharmaceutical compounds can bind to proteins – is surprisingly small, meaning drug side effects may be impossible to avoid.
A new study shows how complex biochemical transformations may have been possible under conditions that existed when life began on the early Earth. The study shows that RNA is capable of catalyzing electron transfer under conditions similar to those of the early Earth.
A new study shows how the strength and timing of competing molecular signals during brain development has generated natural and presumably adaptive differences in a brain region known as the telencephalon -- much earlier than scientists had previously believed.
Using bundles of vertical zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have fabricated arrays of piezotronic transistors capable of converting mechanical motion directly into electronic controlling signals. The arrays could help give robots a more adaptive sense of touch, provide better security in handwritten signatures and offer new ways for humans to interact with electronic devices.
Based on a study of both hatchling sea turtles and "FlipperBot" -- a robot with flippers -- researchers have learned principles for how both robots and turtles move on granular surfaces such as sand.
To study the effects of improvised explosive devices on soldiers and help provide continuing treatment, researchers have developed a sensor system that measures the physical environment of an explosion and collects data that can correlate what the soldier experienced with long-term outcomes.
Physicists have examined how Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) might be used to provide communication among the nodes of a distributed quantum computer. The researchers determined the amount of time needed for quantum information to propagate across their BEC.
Controlling the shapes of nanometer-sized catalytic and electrocatalytic particles made from noble metals such as platinum and palladium may be more complicated than previously thought.
A new separation process that depends on an easily-distinguished physical difference in adhesive forces among cells could help expand production of stem cells generated through cell reprogramming.
Researchers have won a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract to develop three-dimensional chip-cooling technology able to handle heat loads as much as ten times greater than systems commonly used today.
Researchers have developed an ultra-compact passive true time delay device that could help reduce the size, complexity, power requirements and cost of phased array designs. The device uses the difference in speed between light and sound to create nanosecond signal delays.
Using a combination of theory and experiment, researchers have developed a new approach for understanding and predicting how small legged robots – and potentially also animals – move on and interact with complex granular materials such as sand.
Researchers have for the first time shown that mechanical forces can control the depolymerization of actin, a protein critical to cells. The research suggests that forces applied externally and internally may play a larger role than previously believed in regulating a range of processes inside cells.
In a perspective article published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, biomedical engineering professor Garrett Stanley detailed research progress toward “reading and writing the neural code.” The neural code details how the brain’s roughly 100 billion neurons turn raw sensory inputs into information we can use to see, hear and feel things in our environment.
Researchers have demonstrated the use of a technique known as small angle neutron scattering (SANS) to study the effects of ions moving into nanoscale pores. The study is believed to be the first application of the SANS technique for studying ion surface adsorption in-situ.
A new study provides details of the structure and tissue properties of the unique adhesion system used by remora fish to attach themselves to sharks and other marine animals. The information could lead to a new engineered reversible adhesive.
When it comes to forming the droplets that make up clouds, a little oily and viscous organic material apparently doesn’t matter that much. And that’s good news for reducing the uncertainty of climate model predictions.
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