Category Technology/Electronics

Atomically thin TaS2 devices. (a) Ball and stick model of the crystal structure of the 2H polytype of TaS2. The dashed prism encloses the content of a single unit cell and the metal coordination geometry is highlighted by the red polyhedron. (b) Atomic force microscopy image of two devices fabricated on a 3.5-nm 2H-TaS2 flake. The scale bar is 4 μm in length. The full colour scale of the topograph corresponds to a height of 100 nm. (c) Line profile of the flake taken at the location of the white dotted line in b.

Uni of Valencia researchers show superconducting state can be maintained even when the material in question is reduced from 3 to 2 dimensions, making the efficiency gains needed for technologies like those underlying the frictionless train possible...

To make a good framework for filling in missing bone, mix at least 30% pulverized natural bone with some special human-made plastic and create the needed shape with a 3D printer. That’s the recipe for success reported by researchers at The Johns Hopkins University. Each year birth defects, trauma or surgery leave an estimated 200,000 people in need of replacement bones in the head or face. Historically, the best treatment required surgeons to remove part of a patient’s fibula (a leg bone that doesn’t bear much weight), cut it into the general shape needed and implant it in the right location. But the procedure not only creates leg trauma but also falls short because the relatively straight fibula can’t be shaped to fit the subtle curves of the face very well.

Three-Dimensional Printing of...

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...