Electronics-free robots can walk right off the 3D-printer

This robot can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. Credit: David Baillot/University of California San Diego

Imagine a robot that can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material.

That is exactly what roboticists have achieved in robots developed by the Bioinspired Robotics Laboratory at the University of California San Diego. They describe their work in an advanced online publication in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems.

To achieve this feat, researchers aimed to use the simplest technology available: a desktop 3D-printer and an off-the-shelf printing material...

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Cancer researchers identify the ‘switch’ that allows intestinal cells to regenerate after injury

Cancer researchers identify the 'switch' that allows intestinal cells to regenerate after injury
Suppressing H3K36 methylation induces the accumulation of abnormal secretory cells. Credit: Nature Cell Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41556-024-01580-y

Researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center have solved a cellular mystery that may lead to better therapies for colorectal and other types of cancer.

Peter Dempsey, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics–developmental biology in the CU School of Medicine, and Justin Brumbaugh, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at CU Boulder, recently published a paper in the journal Nature Cell Biology showing the importance of the H3K36 methylation process in regulating plasticity and regeneration in intestinal cells.

“The intestine has an enormous ability to regenerate itself after injury, an...

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‘Mars and Earth are even more different than we thought’: Condensing 20 years of atmospheric wave observations

For the first time on a global scale, 20 years of observations on Mars have been condensed into a single study led by Francisco Brasil and Pedro Machado, both researchers from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon (CIÊNCIAS ULisboa). This study, an extensive and comprehensive analysis of the red planet’s atmospheric waves, has just been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Atmospheric waves are “wave-shaped disturbances that travel through the planet’s atmosphere, much like waves moving across the surface of water,” explains the study “Atmospheric Gravity Waves in Mars’ Lower Atmosphere: Nadir Observations From OMEGA/Mars Express Data.”

The researchers focused on this energy, which has a significant impact on the planet’s climate...

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An at-home smell test could pave the way for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease

An at-home smell test could pave the way for early detection of Alzheimer's disease
AROMHA Brain Health Test. Following online prescreening and online consent, the web-based program instructs you through the 5 bilingual (English / Spanish) cards (A). Card A comprises a practice odor P followed by the 9 odor labels comprising the OPID9 test. Adjacent in the blue box (B) is the workflow for these tests as directed by the testyourbrainhealth.com software to generate the OPID9, OPID9noguess, and average intensity scores. After a 10-minute break, participants are instructed to work through Cards B and C using the workflow in the green box (B) to generate the POEM, OPID18, and OPID18noguess scores. Then participants are instructed to move on to Cards D and E using the workflow in the purple box (B) to generate an OD10 odor discrimination score. Credit: Scientific Reports (202...
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