Harvard engineers designed a ‘soft wearable robot’

Posted on 19/05/2016 by Andrew Dalton

A team of engineers from Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have moved one step closer to a consumer version of a soft, assistive exosuit that could help patients with lower limb disabilities walk again. The Wys...

Gene editing discovery might treat many more diseases

Posted on 21/04/2016 by Jon Fingas

In theory, gene editing could eliminate genetic diseases by correcting the flaws in your DNA. However, there's one big obstacle: the current CRISPR technique has trouble modifying individual DNA letters. As most genetic conditions revolve around mu...

Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Posted on 16/11/2015 by Jon Fingas

Robotic surgery is no longer the stuff of science fiction. However, these robots can't really feel their way around -- the need for super-small mechanisms rules out existing approaches to touch. That's where Harvard researchers might come to save t...

Harvard soft robot explodes into action, jumps 30 times its height (video)

Posted on 10/02/2013 by Jon Fingas

Harvard University has pushed its soft robot concept in strange directions, but an exploding robot? That takes the cake. A new three-legged, silicone-based variant of the robot is filled with methane and oxygen that, when jolted with electricity, explode and trigger violent pressure that pushes the limbs off the ground. As you'd imagine, the results weren't exactly timid during testing -- the example robot jumped over 30 times its body height, and it would have jumped higher if not for additional tubing holding it down in the lab. The power easily eclipses that of pure air, and could be vital to rescue robots or other public safety machines that could very literally leap to someone's aid. Don't anticipate exploding automatons on the streets anytime soon. We'll just be glad that, if they do arrive, they'll be trying to help us rather than kill us.

Filed under: Robots, Science

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Via: Gizmag, New Scientist

Source: Wiley Online Library

Scientists develop robotic tentacle that can pick flowers, make us thumb our collars

Posted on 11/09/2012 by James Trew

Okay, it's a little too late for Johnny 5's grass hopper, but thanks to new "gentle" robotic tentacles developed at Harvard University, future generations of insects could escape a similar demise. Researchers have created a new soft appendage made from flexible plastic, that uses three compartmentalized air channels to achieve a snake-like range of movement. The touch of the tentacle is so light, that it is able to pick flowers without damage. While suggested applications include working with fragile objects, or in hard to reach locations, the team also experimented by adding cameras, suction cups and -- most terrifyingly -- syringes to the tip. The only limitation, apparently, is that the air channels prevent it from being scaled down. So while our insect friends are safe from strangle-bot, we might not be so lucky.

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Scientists develop robotic tentacle that can pick flowers, make us thumb our collars originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Scientist | source

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Harvard scientists grow human cells onto nanowire scaffold to form ‘cyborg’ skin

Posted on 29/08/2012 by Steve Dent

Growing human tissue is old hat, but being able to measure activity inside flesh is harder -- any electrical probing tends to damage the cells. But a new breakthrough from Harvard researchers has produced the first "cyborg" tissue, created by embedding functional, biocompatible nanowires into lab-grown flesh. In a process similar to making microchips, the wires and a surrounding organic mesh are etched onto a substrate, which is then dissolved, leaving a flexible mesh. Groups of those meshes are formed into a 3D shape, then seeded with cell cultures, which grow to fill in the lattice to create the final system. Scientists were able to detect signals from heart and nerve cell electro-flesh made this way, allowing them to measure changes in response to certain drugs. In the near-term, that could allow pharmaceutical researchers to better study drug interaction, and one day such tissue might be implanted in a live person, allowing treatment or diagnosis. So, would that make you a cyborg or just bionic? We'll let others sort that one out.

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Harvard scientists grow human cells onto nanowire scaffold to form 'cyborg' skin originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TG Daily | source

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Harvard makes distortion-free lens from gold and silicon, aims for the perfect image (or signal)

Posted on 25/08/2012 by Jon Fingas

Imaging has been defined by glass lenses for centuries, and even fiber optics haven't entirely escaped the material's clutch. Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences might have just found a way to buck those old (and not-so-old) traditions. A new 60-nanometer thick silicon lens, layered with legions of gold nanoantennas, can catch and refocus light without the distortion or other artifacts that come with having to use the thick, curved pieces of glass we're used to -- it's so accurate that it nearly challenges the laws of diffraction. The lens isn't trapped to bending one slice of the light spectrum, either. It can range from near-infrared to terahertz ranges, suiting it both to photography and to shuttling data. We don't know what obstacles might be in the way to production, which leads us to think that we won't be finding a gold-and-silicon lens attached to a camera or inside a network connection anytime soon. If the technology holds up under scrutiny, though, it could ultimtately spare us from the big, complicated optics we often need to get just the right shot.

Filed under: Cameras, Science

Harvard makes distortion-free lens from gold and silicon, aims for the perfect image (or signal) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phys.org | source

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Harvard stores 704TB in a gram of DNA, may have us shopping for organically-grown storage (video)

Posted on 19/08/2012 by Jon Fingas

Early research has had DNA making circuits and little factories. We haven't really seen DNA used as a storage medium, however, and it's evident we've been missing out. A Harvard team led by George Church, Sriram Kosuri and Yuan Gao can stuff 96 bits into a DNA strand by treating each base (A, C, G, T) as though it's a binary value. The genetic sequence is then synthesized by a microfluidic chip that matches up that sequence with its position in a relevant data set, even when all the DNA strands are out of order. The technique doesn't sound like much on its own, but the microscopic size amounts to a gigantic amount of information at a scale we can see: about 704TB of data fits into a cubic millimeter, or more than you'd get out of a few hundred hard drives. Caveats? The processing time is currently too slow for time-sensitive content, and cells with living DNA would destroy the strands too quickly to make them viable for anything more than just transfers. All the same, such density and a lifespan of eons could have us turning to DNA storage not just for personal backups, but for backing up humanity's collective knowledge. We're less ambitious -- we'd most like to know if we'll be buying organic hard drives alongside the fair trade coffee and locally-sourced fruit.

Continue reading Harvard stores 704TB in a gram of DNA, may have us shopping for organically-grown storage (video)

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Harvard stores 704TB in a gram of DNA, may have us shopping for organically-grown storage (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ExtremeTech | source

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Researchers create Meshworm robot, beat it up (video)

Posted on 10/08/2012 by Jamie Rigg

We've seen a number of options for controlling real worms, but never a worm robot, until now. Enter Meshworm, the latest creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. The bot is made from "artificial muscle" composed of a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel / titanium wire. The wire contracts and squeezes the tube when heated by a flowing current, but cut the power and it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion in a similar way to its living kin. Taking traditional moving parts out of the equation also makes it pretty hardy, as proven by extensive testing (read: hitting it with a hammer). DARPA is known for getting its fingers in all sorts of strange pies, and it also supported this project. We can't see it being the fastest way of gathering intel, but the potential medical applications, such as next-gen endoscopes, sound plausible enough. Full impact tests in the video after the break.

Continue reading Researchers create Meshworm robot, beat it up (video)

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Researchers create Meshworm robot, beat it up (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 06:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Robopsy is a low-cost, disposable patient-mounted medical robot

Posted on 05/08/2012 by Brian Heater

In a less gelatin-centric demo, the Harvard-based team behind the Robotically Steerable Probe showed off some Robopsy devices during our visit to the school, rings that can help medical imaging technology like CT, ultrasound and MR physically pinpoint precise locations on patients. The devices, which can hold up to ten needles, are lightweight, mounting directly on patients via adhesives or straps. The medical robots are made largely of inexpensive injection molded plastic parts, making them disposable after they've been used on a patient, popping the motors and other control electronics onto another device. In all, the team says Robopsy rings are "orders of magnitude" cheaper and lighter than other medical robotic devices. Check out a video of the one of the Robopsy devices running after the break.

Gallery: Robopsy is a low-cost, disposable patient-mounted medical robot