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Jan 28, 2019

Soft Radio-Frequency Identification Sensors: Wireless Long-Range Strain Sensors Using Radio-Frequency Identification

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Increasing amounts of attention are being paid to the study of Soft Sensors and Soft Systems. Soft Robotic Systems require input from advances in the field of Soft Sensors. Soft sensors can help a soft robot to perceive and to act upon its immediate environment. The concept of integrating sensing capabilities into soft robotic systems is becoming increasingly important. One challenge is that most of the existing soft sensors have a requirement to be hardwired to power supplies or external data processing equipment. This requirement hinders the ability of a system designer to integrate soft sensors into soft robotic systems. In this article, we design, fabricate, and characterize a new soft sensor, which benefits from a combination of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag design and microfluidic sensor fabrication technologies. We designed this sensor using the working principle of an RFID transporter antenna, but one whose resonant frequency changes in response to an applied strain. This new microfluidic sensor is intrinsically stretchable and can be reversibly strained. This sensor is a passive and wireless device, and as such, it does not require a power supply and is capable of transporting data without a wired connection. This strain sensor is best understood as an RFID tag antenna; it shows a resonant frequency change from approximately 860 to 800 MHz upon an applied strain change from 0% to 50%. Within the operating frequency, the sensor shows a standoff reading range of 7.5 m (at the resonant frequency). We characterize, experimentally, the electrical performance and the reliability of the fabrication process. We demonstrate a pneumatic soft robot that has four microfluidic sensors embedded in four of its legs, and we describe the implementation circuit to show that we can obtain movement information from the soft robot using our wireless soft sensors.


Soft RoboticsAhead of PrintFree AccessLijun Teng, Kewen Pan, Markus P. Nemitz, Rui Song, Zhirun Hu, and Adam A. Stokes Lijun TengThe School of Engineering, Institute for Integrated Mi…

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Jan 28, 2019

Bricks Made From Human Waste Could Be The Future of The Construction Industry

Posted by in categories: futurism, materials

I have heard the term Sh… Bricks, but never thought I would live the day to hear it literally. Waste is an issue, and a growing global population will create more waste, and it needs to be addressed. The supply of waste is endless. People who find innovatiive ways to use it as a raw material will prosper Once sewage is drained of water, treated, and dried – what the heck do you do with it? Well, some of it ends up as fertiliser, but a massive 30 percent of our poop leftovers is sent to landfill to rot, or just sits in storage. What a waste.

Especially when, according to researchers from Australia’s RMIT University, using these ‘biosolids’ in bricks could be a surprisingly effective way of repurposing all that former sludge.

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Jan 28, 2019

A cure for cancer? Israeli scientists say they think they found one

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution

A small team of Israeli scientists think they might have found the first complete cure for cancer.

“We believe we will offer in a year’s time a complete cure for cancer,” said Dan Aridor, of a new treatment being developed by his company, Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. (AEBi), which was founded in 2000 in the ITEK incubator in the Weizmann Science Park. AEBi developed the SoAP platform, which provides functional leads to very difficult targets. “Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market,” Aridor said. “Our solution will be both generic and personal.”

It sounds fantastical, especially considering that an estimated 18.1 million new cancer cases are diagnosed worldwide each year, according to reports by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Further, every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death (second only to cardiovascular disease).

Continue reading “A cure for cancer? Israeli scientists say they think they found one” »

Jan 28, 2019

The Hubble Telescope’s Deep View of the Universe Is Now Even More Astounding!

Posted by in category: space

One of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most famous images peered even deeper into the cosmos than scientists had thought.

That photo is the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF), which combines hundreds of images taken by the space telescope over multiple years into the deepest view of the universe ever created. The composite pic of a small patch of sky contains a whopping 10,000 galaxies, astronomers have estimated. (The HUDF also refers to that patch of sky, not just imagery of it.)

Now, researchers have painstakingly reprocessed the iconic image, recovering lots of additional light, a new study reports. [The Most Amazing Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries!].

Continue reading “The Hubble Telescope’s Deep View of the Universe Is Now Even More Astounding!” »

Jan 28, 2019

Evidence of life found in lake deep beneath Antarctic ice

Posted by in category: futurism

The surprise discovery of ancient crustaceans and a tardigrade emerged from a rare mission to drill into a lake sealed off by a kilometre of ice.

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Jan 28, 2019

Saturn is officially losing its rings — and they’re disappearing much faster than scientists had anticipated

Posted by in category: space

Saturn is losing its rings faster than previously thought. Scientists estimate the rings will be gone in 100 million years.

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Jan 28, 2019

Just 161 days after launching from Florida, our #ParkerSolarProbe recently completed its first orbit of the Sun, reaching the point in its orbit farthest from our star

Posted by in category: space

The NASA Sun Science probe is now preparing for its next solar flyby in April 2019: https://go.nasa.gov/2FSvd5H

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Jan 28, 2019

The emptiness of space has a structure we could use to send messages

Posted by in category: futurism

We could send messages by vibrating the structure of the vacuum of empty space — but they could only be read by a powerful laser that rips the vacuum apart.

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Jan 28, 2019

Saturn hasn’t always had rings

Posted by in category: space

The 2017 Cassini flyby allowed Earth-bound scientists to collect data to determine the weight and age of the planet’s rings.

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Jan 28, 2019

Cancer: A mutation that breaks gene interplay in 3D

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

EPFL scientists have discovered how a mutated gene can affect the three-dimensional interactions of genes in the cell, leading to various forms of cancer.

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