Category Technology/Electronics

Robot outperformed expert surgeons and current robot-assisted surgical techniques in open bowel surgery in pigs. (stock image) Credit: © ralamst / Fotolia

Putting surgery one step closer into the realm of self-driving cars and intelligent machines, researchers show for the first time that a supervised autonomous robot can successfully perform soft tissue surgery. The robot outperformed expert surgeons and current robot-assisted surgical techniques in open bowel surgery in pigs. By taking human intervention out of the equation, autonomous robots could potentially reduce complications and improve the safety and efficacy of soft tissue surgeries, about 45 million of which are performed in the U.S. each year.

Robot-assisted surgery currently relies on the surgeon to manually control it, and o...

Iso-surface plot of Q-criterion (2500) showing the vortices generated at the transition between upstroke and downstroke at 2 m/s, viewed obliquely from above and behind. Iso-surface plot of Q-criterion (2500) showing the vortices generated at the transition between upstroke and downstroke at 2 m/s, viewed obliquely from above and behind.

Long-eared bats are assisted in flight by their ears and body, according to a study by researchers at Lund University in Sweden. The recent findings improve understanding of the bats’ flying technique and could be significant for the future development of drones etc. Contrary to what researchers previously assumed, Christoffer Johansson Westheim et al show long-eared bats are helped in flight by their large ears.

“We show how the air behind the body of a l...

Inkjet printed “lasing capsules” serve as the core of an organic laser. Figure (a) shows a schematic of the laser setup, while figure (b) shows actual lasing capsules, which would cost only a few cents to produce. OC stands for “Output Coupler” and FP stands for Febry-Perot etalon. Credit: Sanaur, et al/JAP

Ultra-low-cost, easy to fabricate ‘lasing capsules’ with an inkjet printer. Since lasers were invented more than 50 years ago, they have transformed a diverse swath of technology – from CD players to surgical instruments. Now researchers from France and Hungary have invented a way to print lasers that’s so cheap, easy and efficient they believe the core of the laser could be disposed of after each use.

“The low-cost and easiness of laser chip fabrication are the most significant aspects...

This graphic illustrates an engineered nitrogen vacancy in aluminum nitride. Credit: H.Seo, M.Govoni and G.Galli, University of Chicago

The leading method for qubit creation involves exploiting the structural defects in diamonds. But researchers found that the same defect could be engineered in cheaper aluminum nitride. If confirmed by experiments, this could significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies. Using supercomputers at NERSC at Berkeley Lab, these researchers have identified a possible candidate in aluminum nitride...