Tech
For a robot to be able to "learn" sign language, it is necessary to combine different areas of engineering such as artificial intelligence, neural networks and artificial vision, as well as underactuated robotic hands. "One of the main new developments of this research is that we united two major areas of Robotics: complex systems (such as robotic hands) and social interaction and communication," explains Juan Víctores, one of the researchers from the Robotics Lab in the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation of the UC3M.
A group of Chinese scientists have recently developed a new synthetic consortium for efficient pentose-hexose co-utilization that could improve bio-manufacturing.
Converting biomass into valuable fuels and chemicals using microbes is a hot topic in bio-manufacturing. However, inefficient pentose-hexose co-utilization has hindered the conversion process.
If we want to get rid of fossil fuels nationwide, there is a lot to do. It will be a generation project, that much is clear. Empa researchers Martin Rüdisüli, Sinan Teske and Urs Elber have now calculated how long and steep the road to a sustainable energy system might be; their study was published at the end of June in the journal Energies.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered how climate change and deforestation interact to push species towards extinction
Between 2000 - 2012 an area of tropical forest bigger than India lost its ability to link tropical wildlife with a habitat that would protect them from rising temperatures
The study is the first to investigate the interaction between habitat loss and climate change over time and at such a large scale
Findings urgently demonstrate the need to fund ways to stop tropical forest loss and invest in reforestation
Scientists from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) with their colleagues developed multifunctional metal alloys that emit and absorb heat at the same time and change their size and volume under the influence of a magnetic field. This effect is caused by changes in the structure of the substance. The alloys may be used in medicine and industry. The results of the study were published in the Key Engineering Materials journal.
Autistic adults are vulnerable to many types of negative life experience, including employment difficulties, financial hardship, domestic abuse and 'mate-crime', according to new research published today in the journal Autism Research.
These negative life experiences could partially explain higher rates of anxiety and depression symptoms and lower life satisfaction in autistic adults compared to non-autistic adults.
MADISON -- The sophisticated technology that powers face recognition in many modern smartphones someday could receive a high-tech upgrade that sounds -- and looks -- surprisingly low-tech.
This window to the future is none other than a piece of glass. University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have devised a method to create pieces of "smart" glass that can recognize images without requiring any sensors or circuits or power sources.
A vegetable-picking robot that uses machine learning to identify and harvest a commonplace, but challenging, agricultural crop has been developed by engineers.
The 'Vegebot', developed by a team at the University of Cambridge, was initially trained to recognise and harvest iceberg lettuce in a lab setting. It has now been successfully tested in a variety of field conditions in cooperation with G's Growers, a local fruit and vegetable co-operative.
In a paper released today in Science Advances, UNSW researchers describe the first observation of a native ferroelectric metal.
The study represents the first example of a native metal with bistable and electrically switchable spontaneous polarization states - the hallmark of ferroelectricity.
"We found coexistence of native metallicity and ferroelectricity in bulk crystalline tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) at room temperature," explains study author Dr Pankaj Sharma.
In the first study to quantify how many trees the Earth can support, where, and how much carbon they could store, researchers report that Earth could support enough additional trees to cut carbon levels in the atmosphere by nearly 25% - levels not seen for almost a century. "We all knew restoring forests could play a part in tackling climate change, but we had no scientific understanding of what impact this could make," said study coauthor Thomas Crowther.
The Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich investigates nature-based solutions to climate change. In their latest study the researchers showed for the first time where in the world new trees could grow and how much carbon they would store. Study lead author and postdoc at the Crowther Lab Jean-François Bastin explains: "One aspect was of particular importance to us as we did the calculations: we ex-cluded cities or agricultural areas from the total restoration potential as these areas are needed for hu-man life."
Reforest an area the size of the USA
A leading public health expert is calling for a strategic initiative to develop green burial corridors alongside major transport routes because British graveyards and cemeteries are rapidly running out of room. With 500,000 deaths annually in England and Wales, it is likely that there will be no burial space left within five years.
Automatic landings have long been standard procedure for commercial aircraft. While major airports have the infrastructure necessary to ensure the safe navigation of the aircraft, this is usually not the case at smaller airports. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and TU Braunschweig have now demonstrated a completely automatic landing with vision assisted navigation that functions properly without the need for ground-based systems.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Self-assembling materials called block copolymers, which are known to form a variety of predictable, regular patterns, can now be made into much more complex patterns that may open up new areas of materials design, a team of MIT researchers say.
The new findings appear in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by postdoc Yi Ding, professors of materials science and engineering Alfredo Alexander-Katz and Caroline Ross, and three others.
Brazilian scientists at São Paulo State University (UNESP) collaborating with colleagues at the University of Maryland and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed a dairy cattle breeding method that adds a new parameter to genetic selection and conserves or even improves a population's genetic diversity.
The study, which is published in Journal of Dairy Science, was funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP and USDA.