Digging deep

The unassuming Pacific mole crab, Emerita analoga, is about to make some waves. UC Berkeley researchers have debuted a unique robot inspired by this burrowing crustacean that may someday help evaluate the soil of agricultural sites, collect marine data and study soil and rock conditions at construction sites.

In a study published today in Frontiers in Robotics & AI, Hannah Stuart, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and her team demonstrated one of the first legged robots that can self-burrow vertically. This digging robot, called EMBUR (EMerita BUrrowing Robot), uses a novel leg design to achieve downward motion that emulates the way Pacific mole crabs bury themselves in beach sand.

Mole crabs make burrowing look easy, but, according to Laura Treers, the study’s lead author and a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering in Stuart’s Embodied Dexterity research group, it is difficult to move downward through granular media, like sand and soil. The deeper an animal digs, the harder the grains push back, impeding excavation.

To overcome this challenge and create a vertical-legged burrower, the researchers designed the legs of the robot to have an anisotropic force response, which means that they experience much greater force in one direction than another. Like a swimmer, the soft fabric legs of this robot expand for large forces during the power stroke, but fold and retract during the return stroke.

Designing a plant cuticle in the lab could yield many benefits

Yandeau-Nelson inside her lab
Photos credit Christopher Gannon | Iowa State University

Scientists are working to bioengineer a common defense mechanism that most plants develop naturally to protect against drought, insects and other environmental stresses.

The goal is to identify the genetic structure of a plant cuticle and create a roadmap for breeding plants with designer cuticles that can respond to changing climates. The cuticle is a thin, waxy layer that provides a physical barrier between the plant and its environment. The work also has potential biorenewable applications for developing value-added chemicals with industrial functions.

Marna Yandeau-Nelson, an associate professor of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State University, is leading the cross-disciplinary team that includes researchers from Iowa State, the University of Delaware and University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The project, which is funded by a $2.65-million National Science Foundation grant, includes a unique partnership with Iowa State’s Science Bound program to provide research opportunities for underrepresented students.

“If we understand what genes are required for certain compositions and what compositions of the cuticle protect against different stresses, then we have the ability for applied breeding for the production of designer cuticles with important protective functions,” Yandeau-Nelson said.

Claims AI can boost workplace diversity are ‘spurious and dangerous’, researchers argue

Co-author Dr Eleanor Drage testing the 'personality machine' built by Cambridge undergraduates.
  Credit: Eleanor Drage

Recent years have seen the emergence of AI tools marketed as an answer to lack of diversity in the workforce, from use of chatbots and CV scrapers to line up prospective candidates, through to analysis software for video interviews.

Those behind the technology claim it cancels out human biases against gender and ethnicity during recruitment, instead using algorithms that read vocabulary, speech patterns and even facial micro-expressions to assess huge pools of job applicants for the right personality type and “culture fit”.

However, in a new report published in Philosophy and Technology, researchers from Cambridge’s Centre for Gender Studies argue these claims make some uses of AI in hiring little better than an “automated pseudoscience” reminiscent of physiognomy or phrenology: the discredited beliefs that personality can be deduced from facial features or skull shape.

They say it is a dangerous example of “techno solutionism”: turning to technology to provide quick fixes for deep-rooted discrimination issues that require investment and changes to company culture.

Sikorsky Continues Progress on RAIDER X® Helicopter for U.S. Army

RAIDER X is 92% complete at Sikorsky’s Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The design is based on Sikorsky’s X2 technology, which provides unmatched potential and growth.
 Photo courtesy Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company.

Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company is completing early tests toward a safe flight test program for the RAIDER X® competitive prototype it is building for the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program.

“The RAIDER X prototype, which is 92% complete, draws on Lockheed Martin’s broad expertise in developing innovative weapons systems using the latest digital design and manufacturing techniques. These advancements will enable the Army to not only lower the acquisition cost, but also enable rapid, affordable upgrades to stay ahead of the evolving threat,” said Jay Macklin, director, Sikorsky Future Vertical Lift business development.

There are hundreds of additively manufactured parts installed on RAIDER X, including flight-critical parts. The 3D printing process has been so successful that first articles are 95% compliant, saving the team hundreds of hours compared to previous processes.

Mathematical Formula Tackles Complex Moral Decision-Making in AI

Photo credit: Andy Kelly.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a blueprint for creating algorithms that more effectively incorporate ethical guidelines into artificial intelligence (AI) decision-making programs. The project was focused specifically on technologies in which humans interact with AI programs, such as virtual assistants or “carebots” used in healthcare settings.

“Technologies like carebots are supposed to help ensure the safety and comfort of hospital patients, older adults and other people who require health monitoring or physical assistance,” says Veljko Dubljević, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor in the Science, Technology & Society program at North Carolina State University. “In practical terms, this means these technologies will be placed in situations where they need to make ethical judgments.

“For example, let’s say that a carebot is in a setting where two people require medical assistance. One patient is unconscious but requires urgent care, while the second patient is in less urgent need but demands that the carebot treat him first. How does the carebot decide which patient is assisted first? Should the carebot even treat a patient who is unconscious and therefore unable to consent to receiving the treatment?

“Previous efforts to incorporate ethical decision-making into AI programs have been limited in scope and focused on utilitarian reasoning, which neglects the complexity of human moral decision-making,” Dubljević says. “Our work addresses this and, while I used carebots as an example, is applicable to a wide range of human-AI teaming technologies.”

Taking a biochemical snapshot of sea turtle health

Green Sea Turtle 
Photo credit: Randall Ruiz

New Griffith research is using biochemical profiles from the blood of sea turtles as a tool to monitor the health of populations in the wild.

Published in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, the researchers used metabolomics, which measures the by-products of physiological processes, to determine if environmental conditions or the way in which they were captured can affect their health.

“As iconic but threatened species, there is considerable interest in adapting cutting-edge analytical techniques to evaluate the health of wild populations of sea turtles,” said Dr Steve Melvin a Research Fellow at the Australian Rivers Institute.

“Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a powerful technique that can provide a metabolic fingerprint of the physiological processes taking place in an animal. It gives a direct indication of an organism’s health and how external conditions influence an animal’s physiological response.

“Being non-lethal, metabolomics provides an attractive method for comparing populations of threatened species like sea turtles, and to understand how the environment they are living in impacts their health. However, few studies have used this method to evaluate wild populations of sea turtles.”

Male/female plumage differences in thrushes promote species recognition

A study of thrushes offers new insight into the differences in the appearance of plumage between male and female birds. Plumage of the American robin, top left and center, differs in subtle ways between female birds, left, and male birds, center. European blackbirds, top and lower right, differ dramatically between males, top, and females, bottom, while male and female song thrushes, bottom left, have no obvious differences between the sexes.
Resized Image using AI by SFLORG     
Photo credits: Female American robin: public domain photo via Pixabay; male American robin: photo by Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0; female Eurasian blackbird: photo by Charles Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, sharpphotography.co.uk; male Eurasian blackbird: photo by Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0; male and female song thrushes: photo by Tomas Grim.

In 1868, the naturalist Charles Darwin wrote that differences in plumage coloration between male and female birds of the same species were likely the result of sexual selection: Female birds – he used the peahen and peacock as an example – seemed to prefer the showiest males. A new study of thrushes offers evidence that another dynamic is at play, and helps explain why this phenomenon, called sexual dichromatism, is not universal among birds, its authors say.

They report their findings in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

“There are a number of ideas about why there can be differences in the ornamentation and appearance of plumage between male and female birds,” said Alec Luro, who led the research with ornithologist Mark Hauber, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of evolution, ecology and behavior. Luro, now a research data analyst at Maine Medical Center, was a doctoral student in Hauber’s laboratory when they conducted the study. “A key question is why males and females look different in some species and similar in others,” Luro said.

Non-native species are also beneficial to the ecosystem

A non-native species, the brown trout is, for example, highly valued by New Zealanders who have established new environmental regulations to protect the species in their waters.
Credit: Hunter Brumels

Awareness of non-native species - often called ‘‘invasive’’ - has vastly increased over the past fifty years, to the point where anyone with green conscience has heard of them and their negative effects, whether it is the zebra mussel or ragweed. However, the contribution of these species can also be positive, as some earthworms help to improve the processes involved in organic farming. This is the finding of a study conducted by a team of researchers from Brown University in the United States and University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland. These results are published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Within scientific literature, long-standing biases against non-native species have clouded the scientific process and hindered public understanding. In a recent review article published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, an international team including researchers from Brown University, the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Washington points out that the majority of studies on these species focus on their negative consequences. In this new paper, the scientists propose to shift their focus to also consider the potential benefits of non-native species for a more balanced discussion.

‘‘Positive impacts of non-native species are often explained as serendipitous surprises — the sort of thing that people might expect to happen every once in a while, in special circumstances,’’ says Dov Sax, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at Brown University. ‘‘Our new paper argues that the positive impacts of non-native species are neither unexpected nor rare, but instead common, important and often of large magnitude.’’

Miniature Permanent Magnets Can Be Printed on a 3D Printer

3D-printing technology reduces production time of magnets by 30%.
Photo credit: Oksana Meleshchuk

Scientists from the Ural Federal University and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are determining the optimal conditions for 3D printing of permanent magnets from hard magnetic compounds based on rare-earth metals. This will make it possible to start small-scale production of magnets, give them any shape during manufacturing, and create complex configurations of magnets. Such magnets are suitable for miniature electric motors and electric generators, on which pacemakers work. In addition, the technology minimizes production waste and has a shorter production cycle. A description of the method and experimental results are presented in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials.

Creating complex and small magnets is not an easy scientific and technical task, but they are in demand in various specialized applications, primarily medical ones. One of the most promising ways to create complex-shaped parts from magnetically hard materials is 3D printing. Ural scientists managed to determine the optimal parameters for 3D printing of permanent magnets using the selective laser sintering method. This is an additive manufacturing method in which magnetic material in the form of powder is sintered layer by layer into a three-dimensional product of a given shape based on a previously created 3D model. This technology makes it possible to change the internal properties of the magnet at almost all stages of production. For example, to change the chemical composition of the compound, the degree of spatial orientation of crystallites and crystallographic texture, and to influence the coercivity (resistance to demagnetization).

As ransomware attacks increase, new algorithm may help prevent power blackouts

Saurabh Bagchi, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering, develops ways to improve the cybersecurity of power grids and other critical infrastructure.
Credit: Purdue University photo/Vincent Walter

Millions of people could suddenly lose electricity if a ransomware attack just slightly tweaked energy flow onto the U.S. power grid.

No single power utility company has enough resources to protect the entire grid, but maybe all 3,000 of the grid’s utilities could fill in the most crucial security gaps if there were a map showing where to prioritize their security investments.

Purdue University researchers have developed an algorithm to create that map. Using this tool, regulatory authorities or cyber insurance companies could establish a framework that guides the security investments of power utility companies to parts of the grid at greatest risk of causing a blackout if hacked.

Power grids are a type of critical infrastructure, which is any network – whether physical like water systems or virtual like health care record keeping – considered essential to a country’s function and safety. The biggest ransomware attacks in history have happened in the past year, affecting most sectors of critical infrastructure in the U.S. such as grain distribution systems in the food and agriculture sector and the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel throughout the East Coast.