Autonomous Crawling Soft ‘Ringbots’ Can Navigate Narrow Gaps

Researchers at North Carolina State University have created a ring-shaped soft robot capable of crawling across surfaces when exposed to elevated temperatures or infrared light. The researchers have demonstrated that these “ringbots” are capable of pulling a small payload across the surface – in ambient air or under water, as well as passing through a gap that is narrower than its ring size.

The ringbots are made of liquid crystal elastomers in the shape of looped ribbon, resembling a bracelet. When you place the ringbot on a surface that is at least 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit), which is hotter than the ambient air, the portion of the ribbon touching the surface contracts, while the portion of the ribbon exposed to the air does not. This induces a rolling motion in the ribbon. 

Similarly, when researchers shine infrared light on the ringbot, the portion of the ribbon exposed to the light contracts, while the portion shielded from the light does not. This also induces a rolling motion in the ribbon.

In practical terms, this means that the crawling ringbot moves from the bottom up when placed on a hot surface. But when exposed to infrared light, the movement begins from the top down.

One of the things that drives this continuous motion is the fact that the ringbots are bistable, meaning that there are two shapes when it is at rest. If the ribbon begins to twist, it will either snap back to its original shape, or snap forward into the other bistable state.

UiB scientists discover 80 000-year-old bone tools

80 000 Year Bone Tools: From left to right: experimental debarking in Africa, the bone tool tip after use, Francesco d'Errico taking replicas in the field of an experimental bone tool.
Resized Image using AI by SFLORG
Photo Credit: UiB, SapienCE

Until the beginning of this century, the production of fully worked bone tools was considered an innovation introduced in Europe around 40,000 years ago by modern humans. Research carried out over the last two decades has led to the discovery of bone tools in several regions of Africa, some of which could date back 100,000 years. But these early bone tools are rare and non-standardized in shape.

Key cultural innovations

The discovery of 23 bone tools from the Sibudu rock shelter, Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa, all with a flattened ogival-shaped end, found in archaeological layers dated to between 80 000 and 60 000 years ago, changes the picture.

“Our new study documents the technology and function of the earliest fully shaped bone tools from this region. The discovery of these tools contributes to a better understanding of when and how these innovations arose, and what they were used for,” Francesco d’Errico says. He is the lead author on the paper just published in Scientific Reports.

d’Errico is part of the SapienCE team at the University of Bergen. The SapienCE Centre of Excellence, funded by Norwegian Research Council, consists of an interdisciplinary team of world leading scientists. The aim for SapienCE is to improve our understanding of how and when Homo sapiens evolved into who we are today.

Sandia studies vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure

Kaedi Sanchez plugs in her car at a City of Albuquerque electric vehicle charger before heading to work. Sandia National Laboratories researchers have been studying the vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, including public chargers, to better inform policymakers.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

With electric vehicles becoming more common, the risks and hazards of a cyber-attack on electric vehicle charging equipment and systems also increases. Jay Johnson, an electrical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, has been studying the varied vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure for the past four years.

Johnson and his team recently published a summary of known electric vehicle charger vulnerabilities in the scientific journal Energies.

“By conducting this survey of electric vehicle charger vulnerabilities, we can prioritize recommendations to policymakers and notify them of what security improvements are needed by the industry,” Johnson said. “The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocates $7.5 billion to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. As a part of this funding, the federal government is requiring states to implement physical and cybersecurity strategies. We hope our review will help prioritize hardening requirements established by the states. Our work will also help the federal government standardize best practices and mandate minimum security levels for electric vehicle chargers in the future.”

Cosmic chocolate pralines: general neutron star structure revealed

The study of the sound speed has revealed that heavy neutron stars have a stiff mantle and a soft core, while light neutron stars have a soft mantle and a stiff core – much like different chocolate pralines Illustration Credit: P. Kiefer/L. Rezzolla

Through extensive model calculations, physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt have reached general conclusions about the internal structure of neutron stars, where matter reaches enormous densities: depending on their mass, the stars can have a core that is either very stiff or very soft. The findings were published simultaneously in two articles today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

So far, little is known about the interior of neutron stars, those extremely compact objects that can form after the death of a star: the mass of our sun or even more is compressed into a sphere with the diameter of a large city. Since their discovery more than 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their structure. The greatest challenge is to simulate the extreme conditions inside neutron stars, as they can hardly be recreated on Earth in the laboratory. There are therefore many models in which various properties – from density and temperature – are described with the help of so-called equations of state. These equations attempt to describe the structure of neutron stars from the stellar surface to the inner core.

15 ways to reforest the planet

 A family plants trees for forest restoration in Thailand.
Photo Credit: University of the Sunshine Coast Professor Andy Marshall

International scientists are calling for a ‘decade of global action’ to reforest the planet, following the overnight publication of a themed international journal led by researchers from Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast.

The landmark issue of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions reveals the latest scientific advances in forest restoration with the aim of benefiting people as well as nature.

“This paves the way for evidence-based, on-the-ground action plans for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,” said Professor Andy Marshall of UniSC’s Forest Research Institute.

Professor Marshall said it was exciting to see the strong focus on forests at this week’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) underway in Egypt, with Australia joining world leaders in committing to halting forest loss and land degradation by 2030.

He said the recommendations in the new journal issue combined research findings with knowledge and experience from many countries.

“Our goals are ambitious and intend to deliver long-term success by learning from the past – from choosing the right location and restoration method through to mitigating socioeconomic pressures, weather extremes and people-wildlife interactions,” he said.

Unimon - A new qubit to boost quantum computers for useful applications

Artistic impression of a unimon qubit in a quantum processor.
Illustration Credit: Aleksandr Kakinen.

A group of scientists from Aalto University, IQM Quantum Computers, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have discovered a new superconducting qubit, the unimon, to increase the accuracy of quantum computations

A group of scientists from Aalto University, IQM Quantum Computers, and VTT Technical Research Centre have discovered a new superconducting qubit, the unimon, to increase the accuracy of quantum computations. The team has achieved the first quantum logic gates with unimons at 99.9% fidelity — a major milestone on the quest to build commercially useful quantum computers. This pivotal piece of research was just published in the journal Nature Communications.

Of all the different approaches to building useful quantum computers, superconducting qubits are on the lead. However, the qubit designs and techniques currently used do not yet provide high enough performance for practical applications. In this noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, the complexity of the implementable quantum computations is mostly limited by errors in single- and two-qubit quantum gates. The quantum computations need to become more accurate to be useful.

From cell walls to photosynthesis: How does manganese get to where it needs to go in plants?

The team coupled a so-called reporter gene to the gene switch of the manganese transporter BICAT3 to track its activity in the plant. The blue spots show where the BICAT3 gene is active in the plant.
Photo Credit: Uni Halle / Jie He

The protein BICAT3 is one of the most important manganese distributors in plants. If defective, this can have devastating effects on a plant's growth; its leaves grow significantly smaller and it produces fewer seeds than usual. A team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) has recently uncovered a transport pathway for manganese in plants and the role that BICAT3 plays in this process. The results could lay the groundwork for improved crop growth. The study was published in the journal Plant Physiology.

Manganese is an important nutrient for all living creatures. The trace element is a component of enzymes, the proteins that control all the chemical reactions in cells. In humans, it plays a vital role in building connective tissue, cartilage and bones. "In plants, the enzymes that build cell walls need manganese to function. Manganese also plays a key role in photosynthesis," explains Professor Edgar Peiter, a plant researcher from MLU. For the study, his team investigated how manganese is supplied to the enzymes responsible for building cell walls.

The researchers conducted extensive experiments on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The team was able to show that the protein BICAT3 is responsible for transporting manganese to where it needs to go in plant cells. "Genes are like a blueprint for proteins. In order to investigate the role of the BICAT3 protein more closely, the corresponding gene in the plants was mutated so that the plants could no longer produce the protein," says Peiter. This had clear consequences for the plants. "The plants were unable to compensate for the subsequent lack of manganese and displayed various growth defects. Their cell walls did not form like they normally would, and their leaves were significantly smaller than those of plants with an intact gene," says Dr Jie He, the lead author of the study. The growth of the pollen tube was also disrupted, which meant that the plants developed fewer seeds.

Uterine fibroid growth activated by chemicals found in everyday products

Uterine fibroids
Credit: Hic et nunc CC BY-SA 3.0

For the first time, scientists at Northwestern Medicine have demonstrated a causal link between environmental phthalates (toxic chemicals found in everyday consumer products) and the increased growth of uterine fibroids, the most common tumors among women.

"These toxic pollutants are everywhere, including food packaging, hair and makeup products, and more, and their usage is not banned.”

Dr. Serdar Bulun

Corresponding study author, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician

Manufacturers use environmental phthalates in numerous industrial and consumer products, and they’ve also been detected in medical supplies and food. Although they are known to be toxic, they are currently unbanned in the U.S.

“These toxic pollutants are everywhere, including food packaging, hair and makeup products, and more, and their usage is not banned,” said corresponding study author Dr. Serdar Bulun, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. “These are more than simply environmental pollutants. They can cause specific harm to human tissues.”

The hunt for disrupted brain signals behind autism

The researchers delete one copy of a gene in specific neurons in mice to examine where circuit changes go wrong in ways that could lead to symptoms associated with autism.
Image Credit: National Institutes of Health

Part of understanding the underlying causes of autism spectrum disorder relies on figuring out which cells’ signaling patterns in the brain are disrupted, and when during nervous system development the disruption occurs.

New research findings in mouse models of one genetic risk for autism support the idea that loss of a specific gene interferes with cells in the brain whose role is to inhibit signaling. Though there are fewer of these cells than other neurons and their signals don’t travel very far, they have enormous influence on patterns of information transmission within the brain and to the rest of the body.

Ohio State University researchers found that deleting a copy of the autism-risk gene Arid1b from specific brain cells decreased the number of inhibitory cells and lowered signaling between inhibitory cells and the excitatory cells they help control. Previous research has suggested reduced inhibitory signals in mouse models of the disorder result in a range of autism-related behaviors.

In separate experiments, the scientists found that signaling changes linked to inhibitory cells can be seen in the same genetic mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) very shortly after birth, but the disruption might not be strong enough to interfere with normal brain development powered by a host of other genes.

California Academy of Sciences researchers produce first-ever ‘family tree’ for aquarium-bred corals

Two-year-old corals sampled for this study in the Academy's Coral Spawning Lab.
Photo Credit: California Academy of Sciences

Corals bred in public aquaria provide novel research opportunities and a healthy stock for outplanting into the wild, essential components of a thriving future for coral reef ecosystems, which support around 25% of all life in Earth’s oceans. But the long-term success of such efforts hinges in part on maintaining genetic diversity in aquarium-bred corals which leads to increased resilience to threats like ocean warming and acidification. In a study published today in Frontiers in Marine Science, a diverse team of Steinhart Aquarium biologists and researchers from the California Academy of Sciences' Coral Spawning Lab produce the first-ever pedigree, or ‘family tree’, for corals bred in an aquarium and provide a list of best practices to maintain genetic diversity in aquarium-bred corals.

“Genetic diversity is what enables species to adapt to the myriad threats resulting from climate change,” says Academy Curator Rebecca Albright, PhD, who founded the Coral Spawning Lab, one of only a handful of facilities on Earth capable of successfully breeding corals. Albright’s work is an integral part of the Academy’s Hope for Reefs initiative, which is aimed at halting the decline of coral reefs in this generation. “For facilities like ours at the Coral Spawning Lab, ensuring each generation of corals is diverse allows us to conduct more robust experiments, which is a critical element of better understanding how corals can thrive on our changing planet. For organizations that do outplantings, increased genetic diversity translates to a greater chance of survival in the wild.”