Blossoming movement: Dynamic plants inspire artificial actuators
From Tsinghua University Press 20/09/23 Scientists are looking to plant tissues that are capable of motion to inspire the design and fabrication of artificial actuators. These bioinspired actuators hold significant potential in applications, such as soft robotics, prosthetics, and smart biomedical devices. A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has published a perspective […]
We’re closer to engineering blood vessels
From University of Melbourne 08/08/23 University of Melbourne researchers have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue. Co-led by ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Daniel Heath and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Shanahan Chair in Frontier Medical Solutions Andrea O’Connor, both from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the […]
New sensor mimics cell membrane functions to detect hard-to-diagnose cancers
By MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 04/08/23 Drawing inspiration from natural sensory systems, an MIT-led team has designed a novel sensor that could detect the same molecules that naturally occurring cell receptors can identify. In work that combines several new technologies, the researchers created a prototype sensor that can detect an immune molecule called CXCL12, down […]
New bioinspired robot flies, rolls, walks, and more
From Caltech 03/07/2023 A newly created real-life Transformer is capable of reconfiguring its body to achieve eight distinct types of motion and can autonomously assess the environment it faces to choose the most effective combination of motions to maneuver. The new robot, dubbed M4 (for Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot) can roll on four wheels, turn its […]
Microplastic-eating bionic fish
By Charles Carter, 02/11/22 The Natural Robotics Contest built a prototype of this year’s winning entry from Eleanor Mackinstosh: Gillbert, a bionic fish that eats microplastic by filtering it from ingested water using mesh gills. Eleanor’s idea was to mimic how fish swim and extract oxygen from water to help clean up microplastic pollution in […]
Alien-like synthetic tentacles
By Charles Carter, 25/10/22 Innovators from Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created rubbery pneumatic tentacles that can entangle objects and pick them up – shades of the aliens from Independence Day. This new approach to robotic grasping is much simpler than existing methods with no need for embedded sensors […]
Amphibious undulating bionic bot
By Charles Carter, 23/09/22 US startup Pliant Energy Systems has developed an amphibious robot, Velox, that mimics ray, millipede, squid and snake locomotion to travel across water, ice, snow and sand. It’s highly maneuverable and versatile, which makes it suitable for a range of applications including sea rescue missions, inspecting coral reefs and providing thrust […]
Microplastic-eating bionic fish
By Charles Carter, 02/11/22 The Natural Robotics Contest built a prototype of this year’s winning entry from Eleanor Mackinstosh: Gillbert, a bionic fish that eats microplastic by filtering it from ingested water using mesh gills. Eleanor’s idea was to mimic how fish swim and extract oxygen from water to help clean up microplastic pollution in […]