Engineering
The future of digital computing and communications will involve both electronics—manipulating data with electricity—and photonics, or doing the same with light. Together the two could allow exponentially more data traffic ...
Jul 28, 2025
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120
Robotics
Future robots could soon have a lot more muscle power. Northwestern University engineers have developed a soft artificial muscle, paving the way for untethered animal- and human-scale robots. The new muscles, or actuators, ...
Jul 28, 2025
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56
Robotics
Nature has long served as inspiration for cutting-edge engineering—especially in the realm of underwater propulsion.
Jul 23, 2025
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54
Robotics
A cheetah's powerful sprint, a snake's lithe slither, or a human's deft grasp: Each is made possible by the seamless interplay between soft and rigid tissues. Muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones work together to provide ...
Jul 16, 2025
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150
Robotics
Today's robots are stuck—their bodies are usually closed systems that can neither grow nor self-repair, nor adapt to their environment. Now, scientists at Columbia University have developed robots that can physically "grow," ...
Jul 16, 2025
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1552
Robotics
The slimy, segmented, bottom-dwelling California blackworm is about as unappealing as it gets—but get a few dozen or thousand together, and they form a massive, entangled blob that seems to take on a life of its own.
Jul 15, 2025
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53
Robotics
Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually ...
Jul 4, 2025
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70
Robotics
A new imaging technique developed by MIT researchers could enable quality-control robots in a warehouse to peer through a cardboard shipping box and see that the handle of a mug buried under packing peanuts is broken.
Jul 1, 2025
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64
Robotics
Diffusion models like OpenAI's DALL-E are becoming increasingly useful in helping brainstorm new designs. Humans can prompt these systems to generate an image, create a video, or refine a blueprint, and come back with ideas ...
Jun 30, 2025
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55
Robotics
Inspired by a simple children's toy, a jumping popper toy, researchers have unlocked a key to designing more agile and predictable soft robots. Soft robots, made from flexible materials, hold immense promise for delicate ...
Jun 30, 2025
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