Machines Like Us – Science News

A research team from the Department of Electricity and Electronics at the University of the Basque Country’s Faculty of Science and Technology in Leioa, led by Victor Etxebarria, is investigating the characteristics of various types of materials for their use in the generation and measurement of precise movements.

This is a clip from FutureWeapons documenting the Northrop Grumman X-47B UCAS (Unmanned Combat Air System). Recent advances in robotics, sensors and artificial intelligence are used to engineer a drone aircraft that can perform naval missions and land on aircraft carriers autonomously. To develop this system, virtual prototyping and simulations are linked to actual aircraft control system hardware so engineers are able to monitor how the computer will operate the aircraft. This will ensure that the robot will perform as expected before it is built.

Robots designed to toss pool-noodle trees into a river of ping-pong balls ruled over competitors focused on rescuing fuzzy toy beavers in this year's 2.007 contest, "Da (yes) MIT, or Save the Baby Beavers," held on Thursday, May 8, in the Johnson Athletic Center at MIT.

A tiny pair of robotic tweezers with the most sensitive grip yet can pick up and move individual cells without damaging them, guided by their own sense of touch. They could be used to probe the properties of living tissue, or create microscale and nanoscale devices.

In this video, a humanoid robot is shown learning to cook an omelet by whipping eggs, cutting ham and grating cheese. Through the use of a probabilistic model, the robot progressively learns to generalize the necessary skill to master various situations.

The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.

Building robots with anything akin to human intelligence remains a far off vision, but European researchers are making progress on piecing together a new generation of machines that are more aware of their environment and better able to interact with humans.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is sending a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone -- and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system.

A robot developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is made of modules that can recognize each other and automatically reassemble after being kicked apart (video).

We’re getting better at making robots that look like us, and move creepily like us, but attempting to program our perception and reasoning is proving to be an order of magnitude harder.

The first real steps towards building a microscopic device that can construct nano machines have been taken by US researchers. Writing in the peer-reviewed publication, International Journal of Nanomanufacturing from Inderscience Publishers, researchers describe an early prototype for a nanoassembler.

Minimally invasive heart bypass surgery using a DaVinci robot means a shorter hospital stay and faster recovery for patients, as well as fewer complications and a better chance that the new bypass vessels will stay open.

A small motor in the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity that began stalling occasionally more than two years ago has become more troublesome recently.

A new pharmacy robot at Loyola University Hospital is designed to eliminate the type of life-threatening human medication errors that injured actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins.

A new prosthetic hand is being tested at the Orthopedic University Hospital in Heidelberg / Grip function almost like a natural hand. It can hold a credit card, use a keyboard with the index finger, and lift a bag weighing up to 20 kg. It's the world's first commercially available prosthetic hand that can move each finger separately and has an astounding range of grip configurations.