Researchers from Columbia Engineering have gone and done it, giving a robot arm some form of self-awareness – at least in a rudimentary sense, which allows it to better adapt to changing conditions.
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Although it’s basically a sure thing that exomoons are out there, astronomers haven’t been able to spot any – until now. Scientists using NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes have found evidence of a large moon orbiting a gas giant planet some 8,000 light-years away.
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In many parts of the world, particularly developing nations, people paint buildings' roofs white in order to reflect sunlight and thus keep those buildings cooler. A new paint-like polymer could make that approach more effective than ever.
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Medical devices such as catheters extend from within a patient's body out through an opening in their skin, and unfortunately those openings often become infected. Thanks to new research, however, ultraviolet optical fibers may eventually keep such infections from occurring.
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Converting bad fat to good could help us lose weight and avoid obesity-related illness. Now researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a transplant method, where white fat is removed from the body, cultivated in a lab for a few weeks, then reinserted into the body as brown fat.
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While it's already possible to relay information via barcodes or QR codes, those codes are entirely visible when included in a document. Using Columbia University's FontCode system, however, users can hide messages within unrelated text via virtually-invisible changes to the displayed letters.
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Models have long suggested that Earth's orbit shifts from circular to elliptical and back again over hundreds of thousands of years, which plays a part in natural climate swings. Now, scientists have found the first physical evidence for the cycle, and traced it back to before the dinosaurs.
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Scientists have long searched for proof of the decades-old theory that black holes surround the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy. By tweaking their approach just a little, astronomers have now turned up the first direct evidence that they do in fact exist.
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Although you may not realize it, there are car-racing video games that blind people can play. Brian A. Smith, however, thinks they leave something to be desired. That's why he created the RAD, an audio-based interface that he claims can be integrated into almost any racing game.
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For decades, it's been known that broad-spectrum UVC light kills viruses and bacteria. Unfortunately, it also causes skin cancer and cataracts in people. Now, however, scientists have discovered that a narrow spectrum of UVC can eradicate airborne viruses without harming humans.
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