Smart Devices Are Spying on You Everywhere, And That’s a Problem

Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Depending on where you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight – … Read more

This Weird ‘Breathing’ Cushion May Have a Surprisingly Useful Purpose

After throwing 129 volunteers into the stressful situation of a sudden group math test, researchers found that people using a huggable ‘breathing’ cushion were more relaxed in the lead up to the questions than those without one.   “We were excited to find that holding the breathing cushion, without any guidance, produced a similar effect … Read more

Drone weapons: Microwave device can be used to shoot down other drones

A compact weapon that generates a beam of microwaves can knock out electronic devices without causing harm to people Technology 14 February 2022 By David Hambling Artist’s impression of drones carrying the Leonidas Pod Epirus A microwave weapon that can be carried by a drone is powerful enough to shoot down other drones and can … Read more

New Treatment Helps Frogs Regenerate Limbs With Functioning Nerves in Just 18 Months

Our bodies connect us to the world. When people lose parts of their bodies to disease or traumatic injury, they often feel that they’ve lost a part of who they are, even experiencing a grief akin to losing a loved one.   Their sense of personal loss is justified because unlike salamanders or snarky comic … Read more

This Robotic Hand Is Precise Enough to Move a Microchip With Tweezers

Innovators at South Korea’s Ajou University have created a robotic hand that is capable of holding fragile objects like eggs. It can also crush cans and work with tools like tweezers and scissors.   An article published in Nature Communications explained all the details of the new technology. It weighs just under two and a half pounds … Read more

This Robot Learned to Solve a Maze Using Mammal-Like ‘Brain’ Circuits For Memory

Rather than engineering robotic solutions from scratch, some of our most impressive advances have come from copying what nature has already come up with. New research shows how we can extend that approach to robot ‘minds’, in this case by getting a robot to learn the best route out of a maze all by itself – even … Read more