“The drivetrain for an aerial microrobot shares many characteristics with a two-wheel-drive automobile”, said lead researcher Pratheev S. Sreetharan, a graduate student in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “Both deliver power from a single source to a pair of wheels or wings. But our PARITy differential generates torques up to 10 million times smaller than in a car, is 5 millimeters long, and weighs about one-hundredth of a gram – a millionth the mass of an automobile differential.”

To fly successfully through unpredictable environments, aerial microrobots have to negotiate conditions that change second-by-second. Insects usually accomplish this by flapping their wings in unison, a process where kinematic and aerodynamic basis remains poorly understood. Sreetharan and his co-author, Harvard engineering professor Robert J. Wood, recognized that an aerial microrobot based on an insect doesn’t have to contain complex electronic feedback loops to precisely control wing position.

“We’re not interested so much in the position of the wings as the torque they generate”, said Wood. “Our design uses ‘mechanical intelligence’ to determine the correct wing speed and amplitude to balance the other forces affecting the robot. It can slow down or speed up automatically to correct imbalances.”

Sreetharan and Wood found that even when a significant part of an aerial microrobot’s wing was removed, the self-correction engendered by their PARITy (Passive Aeromechanical Regulation of Imbalanced Torques) drivetrain allowed the device to remain balanced in flight. Smaller wings simply flapped harder to keep up with the torque generated by an intact wing, reaching speeds of up to 6,600 beats per minute.

The Harvard engineers say their passive approach to regulating the forces generated in flight is preferable to a more active approach involving electronic sensors and computation, which would add weight and complexity to devices intended to remain as small and lightweight as possible. Current-generation aerial microrobots are about the size and weight of many insects, and even make a similar buzzing sound when flying.

“We suspect that similar passive mechanisms exist in nature, in actual insects”, Sreetharan said. “We take our inspiration from biology, and from the elegant simplicity that has evolved in so many natural systems.”

Scientists at many institutions around the globe are exploring aerial microrobots as cheap, disposable tools that could be deployed in search and rescue operations, agriculture, environmental monitoring, and exploration of hazardous environments. For more information, read the paper they published in the Journal of Mechanical Design named “Passive Aerodynamic Drag Balancing in a Flapping-Wing Robotic Insect“.

Mark Cutkosky, the lead designer of the Stickybot, a professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Center for Design Research, has been collaborating with scientists around the nation for the last five years to build climbing robots. After designing a robot that could conquer rough vertical surfaces such as brick walls and concrete, Cutkosky moved on to smooth surfaces such as glass and metal. He turned to the gecko for ideas.

The toe of a gecko’s foot contains hundreds of flap-like ridges called lamellae. On each ridge are millions of hairs called setae, which are 10 times thinner than a human’s. Under a microscope, you can see that each hair divides into smaller strands called spatulae, making it look like a bundle of split ends. These split ends are so tiny (a few hundred nanometers) that they interact with the molecules of the climbing surface. It differs from other adhesions because it is directional, thus suitable for climbing and fast motion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Other adhesives are sort of like walking around with chewing gum on your feet: You have to press it into the surface and then you have to work to pull it off. But with directional adhesion, it’s almost like you can sort of hook and unhook yourself from the surface”, Cutkosky said.

The versions they use was developed in 2009, have a two-layer system, similar to the gecko’s lamellae and setae. The “hairs” are about 20 micrometers wide and support higher loads, thus allowing Stickybot to climb surfaces such as wood paneling, painted metal and glass. The material is strong and reusable, and it doesn’t damage itself or the surface it is applied to.

The team’s new project involves scaling up the material for humans. A technology called Z-Man, which would allow humans to climb with gecko adhesive, is in the works. Cutkosky and his team are also working on a Stickybot successor which would be able to turn in the middle of a climb. Because the adhesive only sticks in one direction, turning requires rotating the foot.

Cutkosky has collaborated with scientists from Lewis & Clark College, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University and a robot-building company called Boston Dynamics. His project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The research is described in a paper published online in Applied Physics Letters, “Effect of fibril shape on adhesive properties“.

“Frog skin is an excellent potential source of such antibiotic agents”, said Conlon, a biochemist at the United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi Emirate. “They’ve been around 300 million years, so they’ve had plenty of time to learn how to defend themselves against disease-causing microbes in the environment. Their own environment includes polluted waterways where strong defenses against pathogens are a must.”

Researchers have attempted to isolate germ-fighting chemicals and make them suitable for development into new antibiotics. However, the solution has been elusive because those antibiotics tend to be toxic to human cells and certain chemicals in the bloodstream easily destroy them. Conlon and colleagues described an approach to overcome these problems. They discovered a way to tweak the molecular structure of frog skin antibiotic substances, making them less toxic to human cells but more powerful germ killers. Similarly, the scientists also discovered other tweaks that enabled the frog skin secretions to shrug off attack by destructive enzymes in the blood. The result was antibiotics that last longer in the bloodstream and are more likely to be effective as infection fighters.

The antibiotic substances work in an unusual way that makes it very difficult for disease-causing microbes to develop resistance. The scientists are currently screening skin secretions from more than 6,000 species of frogs for antibiotic activity. So far, they have purified and determined the chemical structure of barely 200.

One substance isolated from the skin secretions of the Foothill Yellow-legged Frog (a species once common in California and Oregon but now facing extinction) shows promise for killing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. MRSA is a “superbug” infamous for causing deadly outbreaks of infection among hospitalized patients.  Another example is the skin of the mink frog which contains secretions that show promise for fighting “Iraqibacter” caused by multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumanni.

Conlon predicts that some of the substances could make their way into clinical trials within the next five years. He envisions that pharmaceutical companies could develop the chemicals as creams or ointments for treating skin infections or as injectable drugs for treating drug-resistant infections throughout the body.

“The research is also important because it underscores the importance of preserving biodiversity”, Conlon said. “Some frog species — including those that may contain potentially valuable medicinal substances — are in jeopardy worldwide due to loss of habitat, water pollution, and other problems.”

Visitors to the Children’s Village are greeted by interactive and informational touch screens intended to educate guests about the green design elements of the building. The 0.3 hectare (0.75 acre) site includes the Lowe’s Discovery Lab, a renovated solar heated and powered 278 square meter (3,000 square foot) 1930’s stone building, and many interactive landscapes including natural wetlands, gravity powered water works, farmers windmill, vertical axis wind turbine, solar pumps, sculptures, world vegetable garden, prairie plantings, waterwheel, Archimedes screw pump, a “Secret Garden,” art and crafts plazas, green roof demonstration, historic sheep wagon, tipi village, picnic orchard, and puppet theater.

Building envelope and energy use was optimized to save 71% of annual energy cost and 78% of total annual energy over the ASHRAE 90.1-2004 energy standard. Installed on-site photovoltaic panels, vertical axis wind turbine, and solar thermal provide renewable energy and lessen energy costs by 35%. The indoor heating is achieved in-floor radiant heating and natural cooling and ventilation. All of the indoor spaces are projected with adequate delighting.

Sustainable landscape design treats storm water on-site, reducing demand on municipal sewer system. Indoor water usage is reduced by 60% with ultra low flow water closets, waterless urinals, and low flow lavatories and faucets. Treated non-potable water is used for on-site watering, thus reducing potable water use. Landscape water needs are reduced by 70% through the selection of native and low water vegetation and the use of innovative watering techniques.

Since they performed careful deconstruction of existing on-site structures, the builders maintained over 50% of interior and non-structural building elements. Over 77% of construction waste was diverted from the landfill and more than 50% of the site was protected and restored with native vegetation and habitat. -  Selected building materials that were harvested and manufactured regionally, contain recycled content, were salvaged or repurposed, and contain low-  and no volatile organic compounds.

“We are excited to receive LEED certification. Given the fact that our Children’s Village has a theme of sustainability, we felt it was important to document our sustainability through the LEED certification process. The Friends of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens took a leap of faith in deciding to pursue the highest green certification available,” states Shane Smith, Director of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. “We were pleased with the process and enjoyed working with The Design Studio, AECOM, Dohn Construction, and the Institute for the Built Environment, who all have excellent experience in green projects.”

This system is used to simulate a response of virtual objects by providing a sense of touch and texture, as well as the feedback of forces that could occur in the virtual world. The i³Space recognizes the movement of fingers and controls a tactile sense and a kinesthetic sense (resistance) in real time in accordance with the movement to offer a feeling of touching a 3D image.

The real-time VR space creation system calculates the virtual force being applied to a 3D image from the movement of the user and the positions of fingers. Then, it generates reaction forces and modifies the 3D image accordingly. It conducts a series of processes to create responses to the user’s movement in real time.

The illusionary tactile and kinesthetic sense interface consists of the illusionary tactile and kinesthetic sense device which offers tactile and kinesthetic senses, and the illusionary tactile and kinesthetic sense controller which is a control circuit for the device. AIST used the GyroCubeSensuous, which was developed in 2005 and miniaturized in 2007, for the illusionary tactile and kinesthetic sense device.

The multi-position tracker system locates the position of a marker attached to a fingertip by surrounding the user with several cameras. Multiple cameras are used in order to track the position of the marker attached to the fingertips, and the system uses more than one camera in order to eliminate potential blind spots the user may create.

Researchers from AIST envision that the i³Space will be used for simulations (i.e. medical operations), game interfaces and in design. The design feature is pretty interesting since it offers the opportunity to hold the prototypes made in some 3D modeling program a without the usage of rapid prototyping machines. The researchers also mentioned a virtual pottery wheel as an implementation of their technology, where you could feel the rotating clay while you create various objects.

In the further development of the system, the folks from AIST intend to reduce its size, enhance its functions and collaborate with device makers in development and field tests. AIST will announce the details of the i³Space at CEDEC 2010, a conference for game developers that will take place from Aug 31 to Sept 2, 2010, in Yokohama City, Japan.

“Our use of these nanoscale field-effect transistors, or nanoFETs, represents the first totally new approach to intracellular studies in decades, as well as the first measurement of the inside of a cell with a semiconductor device”, says senior author Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Harvard. “The nanoFETs are the first new electrical measurement tool for intracellular studies since the 1960s, during which time electronics have advanced considerably.”

Lieber and colleagues say nanoFETs could be used to measure ion flux or electrical signals in cells, particularly neurons. The devices could also be fitted with receptors or ligands to probe for the presence of individual biochemicals within a cell.

Human cells can range in size from about 10 microns (millionths of a meter) for nerve cells to 50 microns for cardiac cells. While current probes measure up to 5 microns in diameter, nanoFETs have less than 50 nanometers in total size, with the nanowire probe itself measuring just 15 nanometers in diameter. Lieber and his team found that by coating the structures with a phospholipid bilayer (the same material cell membranes are made of) the devices are easily pulled into a cell via membrane fusion.

“This eliminates the need to push the nanoFETs into a cell, since they are essentially fused with the cell membrane by the cell’s own machinery”, Lieber says. “This also means insertion of nanoFETs is not nearly as traumatic to the cell as current electrical probes. We found that nanoFETs can be inserted and removed from a cell multiple times without any discernible damage to the cell. We can even use them to measure continuously as the device enters and exits the cell.”

This research builds upon previous work by Lieber’s group to introduce triangular “stereocenters” (fixed 120-degree joints) into nanowires, structures that had previously been rigidly linear. These stereocenters, analogous to the chemical hubs found in many complex organic molecules, introduce kinks into 1-D nanostructures, transforming them into more complex forms.

Lieber and his co-authors found that introducing two 120-degree angles into a nanowire in the proper cis orientation creates a single V-shaped 60-degree angle, perfect for a two-pronged nanoFET with a sensor at the tip of the V. The two arms can then be connected to wires to create a current through the nanoscale transistor.

The Seaswarm robot, which is 4.86 meters (16 feet) long and 2.13 meters (7 feet) wide, uses two square meters of solar panels in order to generate energy for its propulsion. With just 100 watts, the equivalent of one household light bulb, it could potentially clean continuously for weeks.

As the head moves through the water the conveyor belt constantly rotates and sucks up pollution. The nanowire-covered belt is then compressed to remove the oil. As the clean part of the belt comes out of the head it immediately begins absorbing oil, making the collection process seamless and efficient.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The fabric, developed by MIT Visiting Associate Professor Francesco Stellacci, is able to absorb up to twenty times its own weight in oil while being hydrophobic. By heating up the material, the oil can be removed and burnt locally and the nanofabric can be reused.

“Unlike traditional skimmers, Seaswarm is based on a system of small, autonomous units that behave like a swarm and ‘digest’ the oil locally while working around the clock without human intervention,” explained Senseable City Lab Director Carlo Ratti.

Using swarm behavior, the units will use wireless communication and GPS and manage their coordinates and ensure an even distribution over a spill site. By detecting the edge of a spill and moving inward, a single vehicle could clean an entire site autonomously or engage other vehicles for faster cleaning.

“We hope that giant oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon incident will not occur in the future, however, small oil leaks happen constantly in off shore drilling”, Ratti said. “The brief we gave ourselves was to design a simple, inexpensive cleaning system to address this problem.”

MIT researchers estimate that a fleet of 5,000 Seaswarm robots would be able to clean a spill the size of the gulf in one month. The team has future plans to enter their design into the X-Prize’s $1 million oil-cleanup competition. The award is given to the team that can most efficiently collect surface oil with the highest recovery rate.

Senseable City Lab’s initial Seaswarm prototype will be unveiled at the Venice Biennale’s Italian Pavilion on Saturday, August 28. Visitors will be able to interact with the prototype and view a video on how the vehicle was constructed and how it operates. The Venice Biennale runs from August 29 to November 21, 2010.

Each of these 240 square meters (2600 square feet) four story homes with a roof terrace has 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and a 2 car garage. Although a bit spacious for green homes, the overall energy efficiency of these homes is 56% more efficient compared to a conventionally built home. 2.1 kW PV solar panel array ensures 25% reduction in energy usage. Exterior walls with stucco and metal exterior are 15 cm (6 inches) thick, thus ensuring better insulation.

Air Conditioning used inside these homes are 96% efficient 16 SEER HVAC systems zoned to each floor. Aside the temperature regulation, the purpose of HVAC systems is to provide fresh air from the outside on hot days in Texas. Motion sensing activated vents are installed in all bathrooms and garages in order to exhaust out odors when those rooms are being used. In addition to standard smoke detectors, carbon monoxide monitors are installed on each floor to alert of any presence of harmful gas.

Water savings are 33% more efficient compared to a conventionally built home. That is achieved by usage of Toto Dual Flush Toilets and high efficiency water faucets and shower heads. Unfortunately, the homes do not have solar hot water systems and rely on tankless On-Demand water heaters.

Inside of the home is painted with all Sherwin Williams Harmony – ZERO VOC paint, primer and enamel. The house features stained concrete flooring, bamboo wood flooring, as well as tile flooring in some rooms. In order to save energy or resources, the homes have Green Label environmentally sustainable Shaw carpets, recycling systems integrated into kitchen cabinets, Energy Star compliant Low-E windows, skylights, and appliances.

REEM-H2 is 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall humanoid robot which weights 90 kg (198 pounds) and has 22 degrees of freedom. The upper part of the robot comprises of a torso with a touch-screen, two motorized arms, which give it a high degree of expression, and a head, which is also motorized. Its design is much more modern compared to the previous versions.

The robot has a mobile base with wheels, allowing it to move at 5 kilometers per hour (3.1 miles per hour). It contains a small platform, which can be used to transport objects of up to 30 kg (66 pounds) and it is able to wear additional weight of 3 kg (6.6 pound) in each arm. Robot’s mobile base contains a lithium battery that keeps it running up to eight hours.

REEM-H2 contains an advanced 12 inch multimedia touch-screen with a variety of applications. When you touch the screen you are presented with an option to choose your language. From there on you can scroll through a variety of applications, which can be completely adapted to both the REEM customer and the final user. In screensaver-mode it may be used as a dynamic way of local or national advertising, which could be exploited using a pay-per-click model.

The touch-screen contents of REEM-H2 can be easily altered depending on the event robot is used on. The software can also be updated on a regular basis, ensuring REEM can interact with the latest version of many applications. And all this can be done over a secure Internet connection in an office of a private or secure public space.

In order to find its way around, the robot uses stereo-camera, laser, ultrasounds, accelerometers and gyroscopes. Thanks to its autonomous navigation system, its user-friendly touch-screen, and its voice and face recognition system, REEM-H2 can help or entertain people in most public environments. Its developers hope the robot will be used in a wide spectrum of public spaces as hotels, museums, trade shows, special events, shopping malls, airports, hospitals or care centers.

The manufacturer, Shiken company from Japan, is paying the researchers to investigate whether the brush, which causes a chemical reaction in the mouth, does a better job of eliminating plaque and bacteria compared to a conventional toothbrush.

“I think it’s going to be very effective,” said Komiyama, who has been cleansing his pearly whites with versions of the solar-powered brush for 15 years.

His work on the semiconductor brush has been going on since 1992. The first brush they designed contained a titanium dioxide rod in the neck of the brush, just below the nylon bristles. When light shines on the wet rod, electrons are released into the mouth. Those electrons react with acid in the mouth, which helps break down the plaque that builds up on teeth.

A newer model is called the Soladey-J3X and, according to its developers, it packs twice the chemical punch compared to the original. At the base of the brush is a solar panel, which transmits electrons to the top of the tooth brush through a lead wire. It won’t work in the dark, since the brush needs about as much light as a solar-powered calculator would to operate.

In the lab, Komiyama tested the newer brush on cultures of two bacteria that are major culprits in periodontal disease. You see complete destruction of bacterial cells,” he said, pointing to magnified images of cells on a poster outside his office.

In the trial (which Komiyama hopes will be done in six months) two groups of teens will brush for four weeks with the solar-powered brush, four weeks with their regular toothbrush and four weeks with a placebo brush – just not in the same order. The subjects will visit the dental clinic four times in between different brushes, where dentists will measure the accumulation of plaque, and the degree of bleeding and inflammation on and around six pre-selected teeth.

Suppliers are already selling the old and new Soladey models in Europe, Japan and the U.S. There are a few things to be worked out as how much of the lead could chip away, since it is toxic or the freshness of the mint flavor toothpaste has to offer. On the other hand, a tube of toothpaste can kill a kid if they consume it and there are mouth washes that could help with bad breath issues.