Art projects can fundamentally be anything you like, as long as you say they’re art at the end of it all. They don’t always work, or work well, but they often explore new ideas. Often, artists working on installations fall back on similar tools and techniques used by the maker community. [Julian] is no exception, and his Biotic Explorers work has many touchstones that will be familiar to the Hackaday set.

The Biotic Explorers Research Group is a broad art project, involving the creation of a fictitious scientific association. [Julian] created imaginary scientists, reports, and research to flesh out this world. The project culminates in the development of a prototype communications system, which uses pH sensors at either end of a fungal network in soil to send messages.

Liquids are applied to change the pH of the system, which can be picked up at the other end of the soil bed. The pH levels are read as digital signals, with pH levels either side of neutral reading as high and low bits. pH sensors can be expensive, so [Julian] chose the cheapest available, and tapped into their LCD display lines to read their output into an microcontroller. The system displays data using commonly available OLED displays, and hobby servo motors are used to control the dispensing of liquid.

Up until now, it was still infamously difficult to include sensors in 3D designs.

Engineers might be able to create smart hinges that can detect when a door has been opened or gears inside motors that can communicate their rotational speed to a mechanic by integrating sensors into rotational systems.

Even while improvements in 3D printing allow for the quick manufacture of rotational devices, it is still infamously difficult to include sensors in the designs.

MIT

With 3D printing, MIT engineers have now created a method for quickly integrating sensors into these devices.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it plans to invest 300 trillion Korean won ($228 billion) in a new semiconductor complex in South Korea.

Researchers have long attempted to produce a superconductor that works at room temperature and at a relatively low pressure. A team now claims that its material, dubbed “red matter”, has these properties.

By Leah Crane

A team led by Boston College has devised a new quantum sensor method to image and comprehend the source of photocurrent flow in Weyl semimetals.

In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Physics.

As the name implies, Nature Physics is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal covering physics and is published by Nature Research. It was first published in October 2005 and its monthly coverage includes articles, letters, reviews, research highlights, news and views, commentaries, book reviews, and correspondence.

Printed organic and inorganic electronics continue to be of large interest for several applications. Here, the authors propose laser printing as a facile process for fabricating printed electronics with minimum feature sizes below 1 µm and demonstrate functional diodes, memristors, and physically unclonable functions.

The OVM6948 is the only ultra small “chip on tip” camera with backside illumination, which provides excellent image quality.

Want to send your faraway lover a kiss? A Chinese contraption with warm, moving silicon “lips” appears to have just the answer.

The device, advertised as a way to let long-distance couples share “real” physical intimacy, is causing a buzz among Chinese social media users, who have reacted with both intrigue and shock.

Equipped with pressure sensors and actuators, the device is said to be able to mimic a real kiss by replicating the pressure, movement and temperature of a user’s lips.

Substance that transforms into a conductive polymer using the body’s own chemistry could improve implantable electronics.

Previous studies recommended keeping electronics at a six-inch distance from implantable cardiac devices.