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‘Stalin-esque’ attitudes hold back engineering powerhouse Ukraine, says American aerospace student in Kyiv

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Ukraine could be a space technology superpower but the country is held back by “Stalin-esque” attitudes that treat experts like peasants, says American aerospace engineering student Aaron Harford who chose Ukrainian capital Kyiv for his Ph.D. studies four years ago.  A mid-life divorce prompted Harford, at that time a math professor at Henderson State University … Read more

Tracking Outbreaks Through Sewers, and Kids’ Vaccines on Hold Again | COVID Quickly, Episode 24

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Tanya Lewis: Hi, and welcome to COVID, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series. Josh Fischman: This is your fast-track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research and help you understand what it really … Read more

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

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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

The Weight Game: How Body-Size Bias Can Hold Back Health Science

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In December 1994 then former U.S. surgeon general C. Everett Koop launched a national weight-loss campaign at a White House press conference, stating that obesity had become the country’s second-largest cause of death, “resulting in about 300,000 lives lost each year.” This marked the beginning of a long, influential life for the statistic. Pundits and … Read more

Robots: Human-like hand can crush beer cans and hold eggs without breaking them

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A robot hand that has the lightness of touch to hold delicate objects and the strength to crush cans could one day be used as a prosthetic Technology 14 December 2021 By Carissa Wong A highly dexterous, human-like robotic hand with fingertip touch sensors can delicately hold eggs, use tweezers to pick up computer chips … Read more