Category Biology/Biotechnology

Researchers have developed self-healing, biodegradable, 3D-printed materials that could be used in the development of realistic artificial hands and other soft robotics applications.

The low-cost jelly-like materials, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, can sense strain, temperature and humidity. And unlike earlier self-healing robots, they can also partially repair themselves at room temperature.

The results are reported in the journal NPG Asia Materials.

Soft sensing technologies could transform robotics, tactile interfaces and wearable devices, among other applications. However, most soft sensing technologies aren’t durable and consume high amounts of energy.

“Incorporating soft sensors into robotics allows us to get a lot more information from them...

In two publications in Nature Medicine, a European-Israeli team of researchers show how major disturbances occur in the gut microbiome of patients suffering from heart disease. Given this latest evidence from microbiome research, one of the senior lead researchers, Professor Oluf Pedersen from the University of Copenhagen, calls for stronger and more focused public health initiatives to prevent or delay these common diseases that are a leading cause of premature death worldwide through plant-based and energy-controlled diet, avoidance of smoking and compliance with daily exercise.

The human gut contains trillions of bacteria, collectively called the gut microbiome, which may have positive and negative effects on human health...

A team of astronomers has discovered a rare pair of brown dwarfs that has the widest separation of any brown dwarf binary system found to date. “Because of their small size, brown dwarf binary systems are usually very close together,” said Emma Softich, an undergraduate astrophysics student at the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Earth and Space Exploration and lead author of the study. “Finding such a widely separated pair is very exciting.”

The gravitational force between a pair of brown dwarfs is lower than for a pair of stars with the same separation, so wide brown dwarf binaries are more likely to break up over time, making this pair of brown dwarfs an ex...

A WEHI-led study has identified a molecular ‘culprit’ responsible for causing damaging levels of cell death and inflammation in the body. The findings could lead to improved treatment options for a range of conditions driven by inflammatory cell death, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Cell death is an important part of the body’s immune response to infection...