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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Engineering: Robotics Research

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Most animals can quickly transition from walking to jumping to crawling to swimming if needed without reconfiguring or making major adjustments. Most robots cannot. But researchers have now created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming, for example, or crawling to rolling using a bistable actuator made of 3D-printed soft rubber containing shape-memory alloy springs that react to electrical currents by contracting, which causes the actuator to bend. The team used this bistable motion to change the actuator or robot's shape. Once the robot changes shape, it is stable until another electrical charge morphs it back to its previous configuration.

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Researchers have discovered artefacts produced by old world monkeys in Thailand that resemble stone tools, which historically have been identified as intentionally made by early hominins. Until now, sharp-edged stone tools were thought to represent the onset of intentional stone tool production, one of the defining and unique characteristics of hominin evolution. This new study challenges long held beliefs about the origins of intentional tool production in our own lineage.

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Researchers have developed an ultra-soft and highly stretchable tissue-adhesive hydrogel-based multifunctional implantable sensor for monitoring of overactive bladder.

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Comparing the colors on pieces of ancient Peruvian pottery revealed that potters across the Wari empire all used the same rich black pigment: a sign of the empire's influence.

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Researchers have discovered evidence of horse riding by studying the remains of human skeletons found in burial mounds called kurgans, which were between 4500-5000 years old. The earthen burial mounds belonged to the Yamnaya culture. The Yamnayans had migrated from the Pontic-Caspian steppes to find greener pastures in today's countries of Romania and Bulgaria up to Hungary and Serbia.

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Moving parts in mechanical come into regular contact, leading to wear and tear. Now, researchers have developed a contact control system, driven by artificial intelligence, to greatly reduce contact between damaged parts.

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With the help of an underwater robot, known as Icefin, a U.S.- New Zealand research team has obtained an unprecedented look inside a crevasse at Kamb Ice Stream -- revealing more than a century of geological processes beneath the Antarctic ice.

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An international team of researchers analyzed the genomes of 180 indigenous Africans from a dozen ethnically, culturally, linguistically, and geographically diverse populations. The results shed light on the origin of modern humans, historical migrations, linguistic evolution, and local adaptation, and lay the groundwork for more people to benefit from precision medicine.

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Future space missions likely will send robots to scout out underground habitats for astronauts. Engineers have now developed a system that would enable autonomous vehicles to explore caves, lava tubes and even oceans on other worlds on their own.

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A large Bronze Age debris deposit in Mycenae, Greece provides important data for understanding the history of animal resources at the site, according to a new study.

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Large-scale genomic analysis documents the migrations of Ice Age hunter-gatherers over a period of 30,000 years -- they took shelter in Western Europe but died out on the Italian peninsula.

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A new study reports on genomic data from a 23,000-year-old individual who lived in what was probably the warmest place of Europe at the peak of the last Ice Age. The oldest human genome recovered from the southern tip of Spain adds an important piece of the puzzle to the genetic history of Europe.

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Researchers have discovered what they believe is the earliest use of steel in Europe -- on Iberian stone pillars from the Final Bronze Age.

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A tiny robot that could one day help doctors perform surgery was inspired by the incredible gripping ability of geckos and the efficient locomotion of inchworms.

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Octopus arms coordinate nearly infinite degrees of freedom to perform complex movements such as reaching, grasping, fetching, crawling, and swimming. How these animals achieve such a wide range of activities remains a source of mystery, amazement, and inspiration. Part of the challenge comes from the intricate organization and biomechanics of the internal muscles.

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Although many measures are in place to prevent contamination, pollutants, such as mercury and lead, can still end up in the environment. Sensing them often requires complicated processes, but what if you could detect them with the tap of a fingertip? Researchers have now developed a self-powered nanosensor that can discover small amounts of mercury ions and immediately report the result.

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Engineering researchers are successfully using a robot to help keep children with learning disabilities focused on their work.

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A new study explores 'balancing selection' by analyzing thousands of modern human genomes alongside ancient hominin groups, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. The research has 'implications for understanding human diversity, the origin of diseases, and biological trade-offs that may have shaped our evolution,' says evolutionary biologists.

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Biomedical engineers present a robust new method for accurately measuring and identifying eight antidepressants most commonly prescribed to women.

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Along the shores of Africa's Lake Victoria in Kenya roughly 2.9 million years ago, early human ancestors used some of the oldest stone tools ever found to butcher hippos and pound plant material, according to new research. The study presents what are likely to be the oldest examples of a hugely important stone-age innovation known to scientists as the Oldowan toolkit, as well as the oldest evidence of hominins consuming very large animals. Excavations at the site, named Nyayanga and located on the Homa Peninsula in western Kenya, also produced a pair of massive molars belonging to the human species' close evolutionary relative Paranthropus. The teeth are the oldest fossilized Paranthropus remains yet found, and their presence at a site loaded with stone tools raises intriguing questions about which human ancestor made those tools.