Microfluidic

If robots are ever going to work alongside humans in the real world, they're going to need a softer touch. Harvard researchers have developed a new method for producing small-scale squishy robots, and demonstrated it by creating a flexible robotic peacock spider, driven by a microfluidics system.

​​When it comes to hazardous fluids, the less that researchers have to finely manipulate them, the better. It was with this in mind that scientists recently developed a new material that does something special when exposed to liquid – it rolls itself into a straw-like tube.​

A new fabric developed at the University of California, Davis, has tiny channels that pull sweat through the fabric where it forms into droplets that drain away.

An experimental new type of electrical wire can heal itself back together when cut in two.

A new in-shoe device is designed to harvest the energy that is created by walking, and store it for use in mobile electronic devices.

Researchers have developed a method of laser-welding transparent pieces of plastic to one another, based on altering the wavelength of the laser light.

A high school physics teacher has invented a method of producing microfluidic devices, using little else than a photocopier and transparency film.