Robots

In a first, scientists believe they have confirmed we have another sense – a “remote touch” that we share with others in the animal kingdom, like some shorebird species that can sense prey beneath sand without seeing or touching it first.

Many persistent sinus infections involve biofilms – colonies of bacteria that group together to resist efforts to kill them. Now, researchers have developed biofilm-blasting bots that could handily deal with these, and other, bacterial infections.

It's never a good thing, when a bacterial biofilm forms on the surface of a medical implant. There could soon be a new way of eradicating such films, however, using tiny remote-control liquid-bodied robots.

Clear Robotics is expanding its fleet of autonomous marine trash collectors. Its Class 3 vessel boasts more onboard storage capacity plus towed barge potential for extended cleanup operations, and has also been designed to tackle invasive weeds.

In what sounds more like the opening scene from a B-grade sci-fi/horror flick, head transplant operations performed entirely by AI-robot surgeons could be coming to a hospital near you within a decade, if startup BrainBridge is to have its way.

Scientists have long puzzled over why some dinosaurs had feathers and wings long before they evolved the ability of flight. Experiments with a robot dinosaur may now have revealed the answer – they used them for hunting.

Researchers have developed a plant-based hydrogel to create shape-changing, navigable small-scale robots with potential applications in biomedicine, including conducting medical procedures and delivering therapeutic cargo to cells and tissues.

Although it is possible to control devices using brain waves, doing so involves having electrodes and conductive gel applied to one's head. Now, however, scientists have developed a new type of "dry" electrode – and it's been used to control a robot.

Students with learning disabilities struggle often require additional, individualized support to fill educational gaps. A team of researchers and experts have found that a cute little robot may help children with learning disabilities stay focused.

While we've heard about a number of "electronic noses," the devices are rarely as sensitive as their natural counterparts. That's why Israeli scientists have taken a new approach, by incorporating a locust antenna into an odor-identifying robot.

Subsurface oceans on moons are some of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth. NASA is now funding a project to develop a swarm of small swimming robots that would explore these alien oceans for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Scientists have developed first-of-a-kind "Xenobots" from frog cells with the ability to self-replicate, a technology that could find use in regenerative medicine and and reveals a type of biological reproduction never before observed in science.