The new optical gyroscope — shown here with grains of rice — is 500 times smaller than the current state-of-the-art device.
Credit: Ali Hajimiri/Caltech

Engineers create an optical gyroscope smaller than a grain of rice. A new tiny optical gyroscope fits on the tip of your finger and could find its way into drones and spacecraft in the future. Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every day. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning on a different axis...

A mile-long sediment core drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program helped researchers uncover how the Chicxulub crater formed.
Credit: International Ocean Discovery Program

Extremely strong vibration during large impacts, landslides and earthquakes allow rock to flow. About 99% of the Sun’s energy emitted as neutrinos is produced through nuclear reaction sequences initiated by proton-proton (pp) fusion in which hydrogen is converted into helium, say scientists including physicist Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Today they report new results from Borexino, one of the most sensitive neutrino detectors on the planet, located deep beneath Italy’s Apennine Mountains.

“Neutrinos emitted by this chain represent a unique tool for solar and neutrino physics,” the...

Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing. JAMA Network Open, 2018; 1 (6): e183605 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605

Elite performers had an 80% reduction in mortality risk when compared to lower performers. Cleveland Clinic researchers have found that better cardiorespiratory fitness leads to longer life, with no limit to the benefit of aerobic fitness.

Researchers retrospectively studied 122,007 patients who underwent exercise treadmill testing at Cleveland Clinic between Jan. 1, 1991, and Dec. 31, 2014, to measure all-cause mortality relating to the benefits of exercise and fitness. The paper was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open.

The study found that increased c...

A FlyCroTug with microspines engaged on a roofing tile so that it can pull up a water bottle.
Credit: Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service

A closed door is just one of many obstacles that poses no barrier to a new type of flying, micro, tugging robot called a FlyCroTug. Outfitted with advanced gripping technologies and the ability to move and pull on objects around it, two FlyCroTugs can jointly lasso the door handle and heave the door open.

Developed in the labs of Mark Cutkosky, the Fletcher Jones Chair in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, and Dario Floreano at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, FlyCroTugs are micro air vehicles that the researchers have modified so the vehicles can anchor themselves to various surfaces using adhesives inspired by t...