Jul 16, 2025 08:35 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 16, 2025 08:57 PM by C C.)
Robots that grow by consuming other robots
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091345
INTRO: Today’s robots are stuck—their bodies are usually closed systems that can neither grow nor self-repair, nor adapt to their environment. Now, scientists at Columbia University have developed robots that can physically “grow,” “heal,” and improve themselves by integrating material from their environment or from other robots.
Described in a new study published in Science Advances, this new process, called "Robot Metabolism," enables machines to absorb and reuse parts from other robots or their surroundings.
"True autonomy means robots must not only think for themselves but also physically sustain themselves," explains Philippe Martin Wyder, lead author and researcher at Columbia Engineering and the University of Washington. "Just as biological life absorbs and integrates resources, these robots grow, adapt, and repair using materials from their environment or from other robots."
This new paradigm is demonstrated on the Truss Link—a robotic magnet stick inspired by the Geomag toy. A Truss Link is a simple, bar-shaped module equipped with free-form magnetic connectors that can expand, contract, and connect with other modules at various angles, enabling them to form increasingly complex structures.
The researchers showed how individual Truss Links self-assembled into two-dimensional shapes that then could morph into three-dimensional robots. These robots then further improved themselves by integrating new parts, effectively "growing" into more capable machines. For example, a 3D tetrahedron shaped robot integrated an additional link that it could use like a walking stick to increase its downhill speed by more than 66.5%... (MORE - details, no ads)
Super-resolution microscopes showcase the inner lives of cells
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/art...ails-cells
EXCERPTS: . . . by 1873, scientists realized there was a limit to the level of detail. When light passes through a lens, the light gets spread out through diffraction. This means that two objects can’t be distinguished if they’re less than roughly 250 nanometers (250 billionths of a meter) apart — instead, they’ll appear as a blur. That put the inner workings of cell structures off limits.
[...] Now, however, optics engineers and physicists have developed sophisticated tricks to overcome the diffraction limit of light microscopes, opening up a new world of detail. These “super-resolution” light microscopy techniques can distinguish objects down to 100 nanometers and sometimes even less than 10 nanometers. Scientists attach tiny, colored fluorescent tags to individual proteins or bits of DNA, often in living cells where they can watch them in action. As a result, they are now filling in key knowledge gaps about how cells work and what goes wrong in neurological diseases and cancers, or during viral infections.
“We can really see new biology — things that we were hoping to see but hadn’t seen before,” says molecular cell biologist Lothar Schermelleh, who directs an imaging center at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Here’s some of what scientists are learning in this new age of light microscopy.
Super-resolution microscopy uses a variety of techniques to detect detail that would normally be hidden by the diffraction limit, Schermelleh explains. Single-molecule localization microscopy, for instance, takes advantage of the fact that spots on an image are easier to localize with precision when they appear in isolation rather than clustered together. Scientists label the molecules of interest with fluorescent tags designed to spontaneously emit light. As the probes twinkle on and off, computational models estimate exactly where each molecule is located — and reconstruct a high-resolution image of the sample.
Another technique, stimulated emission depletion, scans the samples with lasers that are surrounded by a second, donut-shaped ring of lasers that cancel out the fluorescent light around the area of interest, sharpening the microscope’s resolution. A third method, called structured illumination microscopy, illuminates samples with a striped pattern of light. These stripes interfere with the light emanating from the sample in ways that allow scientists to infer additional detail about the image.
The fundamentals of these techniques were developed in the early 2000s, but they’ve only recently become widespread and accessible enough for biologists to use routinely, Schermelleh says. “We now have really lots of projects that use super-resolution microscopy as a genuine tool for biological discovery,” he says, “not just for making nice images.” (MORE - missing details)
Breaking Through the Limits--- Super-Resolution Microscopy ... https://youtu.be/OXqB8i6E4Mw
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OXqB8i6E4Mw
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091345
INTRO: Today’s robots are stuck—their bodies are usually closed systems that can neither grow nor self-repair, nor adapt to their environment. Now, scientists at Columbia University have developed robots that can physically “grow,” “heal,” and improve themselves by integrating material from their environment or from other robots.
Described in a new study published in Science Advances, this new process, called "Robot Metabolism," enables machines to absorb and reuse parts from other robots or their surroundings.
"True autonomy means robots must not only think for themselves but also physically sustain themselves," explains Philippe Martin Wyder, lead author and researcher at Columbia Engineering and the University of Washington. "Just as biological life absorbs and integrates resources, these robots grow, adapt, and repair using materials from their environment or from other robots."
This new paradigm is demonstrated on the Truss Link—a robotic magnet stick inspired by the Geomag toy. A Truss Link is a simple, bar-shaped module equipped with free-form magnetic connectors that can expand, contract, and connect with other modules at various angles, enabling them to form increasingly complex structures.
The researchers showed how individual Truss Links self-assembled into two-dimensional shapes that then could morph into three-dimensional robots. These robots then further improved themselves by integrating new parts, effectively "growing" into more capable machines. For example, a 3D tetrahedron shaped robot integrated an additional link that it could use like a walking stick to increase its downhill speed by more than 66.5%... (MORE - details, no ads)
Super-resolution microscopes showcase the inner lives of cells
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/art...ails-cells
EXCERPTS: . . . by 1873, scientists realized there was a limit to the level of detail. When light passes through a lens, the light gets spread out through diffraction. This means that two objects can’t be distinguished if they’re less than roughly 250 nanometers (250 billionths of a meter) apart — instead, they’ll appear as a blur. That put the inner workings of cell structures off limits.
[...] Now, however, optics engineers and physicists have developed sophisticated tricks to overcome the diffraction limit of light microscopes, opening up a new world of detail. These “super-resolution” light microscopy techniques can distinguish objects down to 100 nanometers and sometimes even less than 10 nanometers. Scientists attach tiny, colored fluorescent tags to individual proteins or bits of DNA, often in living cells where they can watch them in action. As a result, they are now filling in key knowledge gaps about how cells work and what goes wrong in neurological diseases and cancers, or during viral infections.
“We can really see new biology — things that we were hoping to see but hadn’t seen before,” says molecular cell biologist Lothar Schermelleh, who directs an imaging center at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Here’s some of what scientists are learning in this new age of light microscopy.
Super-resolution microscopy uses a variety of techniques to detect detail that would normally be hidden by the diffraction limit, Schermelleh explains. Single-molecule localization microscopy, for instance, takes advantage of the fact that spots on an image are easier to localize with precision when they appear in isolation rather than clustered together. Scientists label the molecules of interest with fluorescent tags designed to spontaneously emit light. As the probes twinkle on and off, computational models estimate exactly where each molecule is located — and reconstruct a high-resolution image of the sample.
Another technique, stimulated emission depletion, scans the samples with lasers that are surrounded by a second, donut-shaped ring of lasers that cancel out the fluorescent light around the area of interest, sharpening the microscope’s resolution. A third method, called structured illumination microscopy, illuminates samples with a striped pattern of light. These stripes interfere with the light emanating from the sample in ways that allow scientists to infer additional detail about the image.
The fundamentals of these techniques were developed in the early 2000s, but they’ve only recently become widespread and accessible enough for biologists to use routinely, Schermelleh says. “We now have really lots of projects that use super-resolution microscopy as a genuine tool for biological discovery,” he says, “not just for making nice images.” (MORE - missing details)
Breaking Through the Limits--- Super-Resolution Microscopy ... https://youtu.be/OXqB8i6E4Mw