Here's a soft robotic stingray made of light-controlled rat heart muscle

Mark Frauenfelder 8:50 am Fri Jul 8, 2016

A bio-engineering team at Harvard made a tiny robotic stingray from "a pinch of rat cardiac cells, a pinch of breast implant, and a pinch of gold," says Kit Parker, who lead the project. "That pretty much sums it up, except for the genetic engineering."

From PopMech:

Parker's robotic stingray is tiny—a bit more than half an inch long—and weighs only 10 grams. But it glides through liquid with the very same undulating motion used by fish like real stingrays and skates. The robot is powered by the contraction of 200,000 genetically engineered rat heart-muscle cells grown on the underside of the bot. Even stranger, Parker's team developed the robot to follow bright pulses of light, allowing it to smoothly twist and turn through obstacle courses. The fascinating robot was unveiled today in the journal Science.

Quadruped robot patrols sidewalks to urge social distancing

University of Hong Kong researchers are testing a mobile robot to patrol sidewalks, track clusters of pedestrians, and encourage social distancing. At this point though, I think this approach is… READ THE REST
Alien-looking robot to stock convenience store shelves

This robot, named Model-T, is now stocking shelves at a FamilyMart convenience store in Japan. For this trial use, the alien-looking robot is controlled by an operator in a remote… READ THE REST
Excellent absurd video of Boston Dynamics SPOT robot wearing a horse head

Someone outfitted a Boston Dynamics SPOT mobile robot with a silly fake horse head and suddenly the future of robotics looks a lot less scary. As esteemed futurist Jim Dator… READ THE REST
Short Post, just one paragraph

Dessert cheesecake wafer bear claw fruitcake. Fruitcake chupa chups donut candy canes marzipan. Apple pie sweet roll tart chocolate cake macaroon marshmallow carrot cake gummi bears sweet. Pastry sugar plum… READ THE REST
Save 50% on a 1-year subscription to Dashlane's premium password manager

We all know vital information about ourselves and our private digital accounts can be compromised by cybercriminals. However, many would be frightened to know just how compromised they and their… READ THE REST
The Bite Helper removes the itch of a mosquito bite in seconds

While mosquitoes have certainly earned their title as the deadliest animal on earth, their impact on most of our lives is usually a lot less consequential. But even though they… READ THE REST