Researchers from the University of California San Diego have created robotic gliders that literally fly like an eagle. They use reinforcement learning to determine how to exploit updrafts of warm air, soaring to altitudes of up to 2,300 ft.
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"Smart" internet-connected devices could indeed make life easier for us, but the things DO typically have to be equipped with battery-powered electronics. That may not necessarily be the case for much longer, however, if the Wi-Fi-based LiveTag system reaches fruition.
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One particularly active area of robotics research involves the exploration of soft parts, which are opening up new possibilities and making machines safer for humans to work around. Now they are gaining a helping hand from the amazing adhesive properties of the gecko.
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New research suggests the Sun might be headed towards a “grand minimum” of a centuries-long cycle, during which the Earth would receive much less ultraviolet radiation. If so, it may even help slow – but not stop – the progression of the climate’s general warming trend.
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An organism that is pretty good at generating biocompatible power (for itself, at least) is the electric eel, and scientists have now used the high-voltage species as a blueprint for a promising new self-charging device that could one day power things like pacemakers and prosthetics.
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Engineers have developed a new "4D" single-lens, light field camera that greatly enhances robotic vision. The new system uses a spherical lens and algorithms to capture information across a 138-degree field of view to allow robots to not only navigate, but also better understand their environment.
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Most people don’t understand sign language, to the frustration of those who rely on it to communicate. Now engineers have developed a prototype called “The Language of Glove,” a Bluetooth-enabled, sensor-packed glove that reads the hand gestures of sign language and translates them into text.
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Scientific observations have shown that nights are getting warmer faster than days so what impact do these warmer-than-usual nights have on sleep quality? If you're already finding it hard to go to sleep in the dog days of summer, be prepared to toss and turn even more.
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In the world of robotics, researchers are going soft – in their designs at least. Soft robots have advantages over their more rigid brethren but till now, they've not been able to do much other than wriggle around. A new advance has changed that, by creating a bot with highly capable soft legs.
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A team of bioengineers at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering has developed a type of artificial bone that may one day allow doctors to conduct bone marrow transplants with fewer side effects.
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