Podcasts about science robotics

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2025 6:14

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Stimmproduktion bei Wellensittichen läuft menschenähnlich +++ Tiktok-Videos zu ADHS oft irreführend +++ These zur Hüpf-Evolution bei Kängurus +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks, Nature, 19.03.2025A double-edged hashtag: Evaluation of #ADHD-related TikTok content and its associations with perceptions of ADHD, PLOS One, 19.03.2025Asymmetric gait in locomotion of Hypsiprymnodon moschatus, the most primitive extant macropodoid marsupial, Australian Mammalogy, 20.03.2025Sequential transitions of male sexual behaviors driven by dual acetylcholine-dopamine dynamics, Neuron, 19.03.2025Monopedal robot branch-to-branch leaping and landing inspired by squirrel balance control, Science Robotics, 19.03.2025**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok und Instagram .

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Training AI to read animal facial expressions, NIH funding takes a big hit, and why we shouldn't put cameras in robot pants

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2025 40:05

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins the podcast to discuss the big change in NIH's funding policy for overhead or indirect costs, the outrage from the biomedical community over the cuts, and the lawsuits filed in response. Next, what can machines understand about pets and livestock that humans can't? Christa Lesté-Lasserre, a freelance science journalist based in Paris, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss training artificial intelligence on animal facial expressions. Today, this approach can be used to find farm animals in distress; one day it may help veterinarians and pet owners better connect with their animal friends. Finally, Keya Ghonasgi, a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, talks about a recent Science Robotics paper on the case against machine vision for the control of wearable robotics. It turns out the costs of adding video cameras to exoskeletons—such as loss of privacy—may outweigh the benefits of having robotic helpers on our arms and legs. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Authors: Sarah Crespi; Christa Lesté-Lasserre; David Malakoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Training AI to read animal facial expressions, NIH funding takes a big hit, and why we shouldn't put cameras in robot pants

Privatsprache: Philosophie!

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2025 40:05

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Anthropomorphisierung (mit Benjamin und Christiane)

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2025 101:14

Benjamin und Christiane von "Autonomie & Algorithmen" sind zu Gast und wir fragen uns: Warum und in welcher Weise lesen wir menschliche Eigenschaften in künstliche Systeme wie etwa Large Language Models hinein. Wir klären, was der Begriff Anthropomorphisierung bedeutet, blicken in die Kultur-, Technik- und Wissenschafts-Geschichte und gehen den Psychologischen Grundlagen nach. Mit Daniel Dennetts "Intentional Stance" stelle ich eine philosophische Theorie der Anthropomorphisierung vor und Christiane präsentiert mehrere psychologische Studien, die die Frage nach dem "Warum" strategisch eingrenzen. Am Ende fragen wir noch nach der Moral von der Geschicht': Sollten KI-Systeme, Programme, Computer und Roboter menschenähnlich designet werden? Quellen: Autonomie und Algorithmen: https://autonomie-algorithmen.letscast.fm/ Der Geschichte des künstlichen Menschen habe ich mich hier gewidmet: https://perspektiefe.privatsprache.de/der-geist-in-der-maschine/ Meine Folge zum Androiden Data: https://perspektiefe.privatsprache.de/the-measure-of-a-man-die-philosophie-von-star-trek/ Daniel Dennett: The Intentional Stance: https://amzn.to/4jTk30j * The intentional stance in theory and practice: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel-Dennett/publication/271180035_The_Intentional_Stance/links/5f3d3b01a6fdcccc43d36860/The-Intentional-Stance.pdf?__cf_chl_rt_tk=bBjx1ddFsxZJuACwVDbqmVMInS7vJnRXqyEoNxptu0I-1739429482-1.0.1.1-aChSHpHXHglMNSA.7vG24WbtILS87p2TmOfxv9ywH_w Karel Capek (1922). Werstands Universal Robots. Tschechisch. Deutsche Übersetzung (gemeinfrei) bei: https://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/20Jh/Pick/pic_wurv.html Harald Salfellner (2019). Der Prager Golem - Jüdische Sagen aus dem Ghetto. https://amzn.to/4aXv0K1 * Alan Turing (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, 59(236), 433-460. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433 Joseph Weizenbaum (1960). ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Communications of the ACM, 9(1), 36-45. https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168 Valentino Braitenberg (1986). Vehicles - Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press. http://cognaction.org/cogs105/readings/braitenberg1.pdf Heider, F., & Simmel, M. (1944). An experimental study of apparent behavior. The American journal of psychology, 57(2), 243-259. https://doi.org/10.2307/1416950 Reeves, B., & Nass, C. I. (1996). The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. Center for the Study of Language and Information; Cambridge University Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-98923-000 Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review, 114(4), 864–886. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.864 Gazzola, V., Rizzolatti, G., Wicker, B., & Keysers, C. (2007). The anthropomorphic brain: the mirror neuron system responds to human and robotic actions. Neuroimage, 35(4), 1674-1684. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.02.003 Roesler, E., Manzey, D., & Onnasch, L. (2021). A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of anthropomorphism in human-robot interaction. Science Robotics, 6(58), eabj5425. https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abj5425 Mandl, S., Laß, J.S., Strobel, A. (2024). Associations Between Gender Attributions and Social Perception of Humanoid Robots. In: Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Ortiz, A., Boucher, X., Barthe-Delanoë, AM. (eds) Navigating Unpredictability: Collaborative Networks in Non-linear Worlds. PRO-VE 2024. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 726. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71739-0_6 *Das ist ein Affiliate-Link: Wenn ihr das Buch kauft, bekomme ich eine winzige Provision und freue mich. Oder in Amazons Formulierung: Als Amazon-Partner verdiene ich an qualifizierten Verkäufen.

Robobees – could they help solve world hunger?

Somewhere on Earth: The Global Tech Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2025 26:09

Robobees – could they help solve world hunger? A drone approximately the size of a thumb and weighing less than one gram is currently under development by a team at MIT. This team is focused on creating robotic insects that could serve various purposes, including functioning as pollinators in vertical farms—environments where crops are cultivated within tall structures designed for optimal growth conditions. The engineering challenge of designing such a tiny flying robot is huge. One major obstacle is replacing rotors with small, flapping wings. However, this approach presents its own difficulties, particularly that the wings tend to break at the hinge. The team at MIT have made some significant progress with this. Gareth spoke to co-lead author Suhan Kim. The research is published in the journal Science Robotics. The latest tech for good gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show Somewhere on Earth reporter Jez Donaldson has been to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This event is the largest of its kind globally, featuring the most recent advancements in technology and gadgets. Jez was on a mission to find tech for good. Over the coming weeks we will hear what he found. He starts with a company named OnMed, which is developing standalone hybrid telemedicine clinics that can be easily connected to a power source and the internet, allowing patients to consult with a real doctor via a screen. The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell and the studio expert is Wairimu Gitahi. Production Manager: Liz Tuohy Editor: Ania Lichtarowicz For the PodExtra version of the show please subscribe via this link: https://somewhere-on-earth-the-global-tech-podcast-the-podextra-edition.pod.fan/ Follow us on all the socials: Join our Facebook group Instagram BlueSky If you like Somewhere on Earth, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Contact us by email: hello@somewhereonearth.co Send us a voice note: via WhatsApp: +44 7486 329 484 Find a Story + Make it News = Change the World Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Climate scientists as physicians of the planet, and more

Quirks and Quarks Complete Show from CBC Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2025 54:09

Ancient human ancestors didn't eat meat, and so couldn't build big brainsOne of the main reasons scientists think we became so smart is because at some point in our evolutionary past, our ancestors started eating energy-dense meat to fuel the growth of large brains. However it hasn't been clear when this started. Using a new technology, scientists were able to analyze the tooth enamel of seven 3.5 million year old Australopithecines to directly measure their meat consumption. Tina Lüdecke, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, said it revealed they were primarily herbivores so meat eating would have had to come later in our evolutionary history. Their study was published in the journal Science. Building a robot bee that could one day pollinate cropsBees do an incredibly important job pollinating crops and wild plants. Now scientists in the US are trying to emulate their skills with a tiny robot bee that has all the agility and ability of the real insect. They hope eventually they can be used in indoor factory farms where real bees can't survive. Kevin Chen, associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at M.I.T and PhD candidate Suhan Kim were a part of this project. Their research was published in the journal Science Robotics.We are made of star stuff – but how did it get here?Elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that are essential to life were forged in supernovae billions of years ago. Now new research is helping to explain how these elements – especially essential carbon – were concentrated in such a way as to be plentifully available for the chemistry of life. The study, led in part by astronomer Trystyn Berg, discovered a cosmic conveyer belt funneling carbon in and out of our galaxy over billions of years. The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.Australia's vanishingly rare marsupial mole gets a genetic checkupIn the southern desert of Australia, there lives an elusive and unique animal - the marsupial mole. It lives under the sand and is so rare that very few people have ever seen it. Scientists have now published the very first genetic research on this animal in the journal Science Advances, thanks to tissue samples donated by a local museum. Sarah Lucas is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Münster, Germany, and was part of the team. A climate researcher makes the case for scientist-activistsThe stereotype of a scientist is a dispassionate, objective and neutral seeker of nature's truths, and many think that this makes a career in science incompatible with political activism. Canadian climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe thinks that this is a mistake. She sees her role more like that of a physician for the planet – diagnosing its ills and advocating for the health of her patient, and her patient's inhabitants. She recently co-authored a paper in the journal Nature Climate Action arguing her case.

Antarktis, Brauner Zwerg, Bienen

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2024 5:36

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Tourismus verstärkt Eisschmelze in der Antarktis +++ Brauner Zwerg ist ein Zwilling +++ Miniaufkleber hilft, Bienen zu erforschen +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Seasonal changes in black carbon footprint on the Antarctic Peninsula due to rising shipborne tourism and forest fires, Science Advances, 16.10. 2024.The cool brown dwarf Gliese 229 B is a close binary, Nature, 16.10. 2024High-resolution outdoor videography of insects using Fast Lock-On tracking, Science Robotics, 16.10.2024The illusion of information adequacy, Plos One, 9.10. 2024Natural variation in the chickpea metabolome under drought stress, Plant Biotechnology Journal, 16.10. 2024Alle Quellen findet ihr hier.**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: Tiktok, Tiktok und Instagram.

Cogumelos conduzem robot

Fricção Científica

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2024 1:25

Investigadores das universidades de Cornell e Florença conseguiram desenvolver um robot biohibrido conduzido pelo micélio de cogumelos . Estudo publciado na Science Robotics

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Pollici opponibili e pulsar lumaca

Scientificast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2024 54:50

Chi non vorrebbe, non due ma tre pollici opponibili? E avete mai sentito parlare delle pulsar lumaca? Ascoltate l'episodio 516 e avrete tutte le informazioni che vi mancano in questo momento. L'episodio 516 vede ai microfoni Andrea e Ilaria con una esterna di Leonardo che intervista Marco Zennaro, ricercatore nell'ICTP di Trieste che ci parla di ICT for development. Ilaria invece ci racconta una nuova ricerca pubblicata questa settimana su Science Robotics: usare un terzo pollice robotico, creato con una stampante 3D e comandato con un controller applicato sotto l'alluce è più facile di quello che si pensi e il 98% di chi ha provato ad usarlo è riuscito a farlo nel primo minuto di utilizzo. Volete vedere come funziona? Qui potete trovare il video del terzo pollice in azione. Andrea invece ci parla di una storia bellissima di un nuovo tipo di pulsar scoperto per caso da un gruppo di ricerca australiano: questa pulsar, a differenza di tutte le altre osservate fino ad oggi pulsa si, ma in maniera lentissima, emettendo un segnale una volta all'ora. Qui trovate l'articolo dove si descrive questa nuova osservazione.Avete già schiacciato play?Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scientificast--1762253/support.

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Sounds and smells of nature, and more...

Quirks and Quarks Complete Show from CBC Radio

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2024 54:09

The recent solar storm scrambled undersea sensorsThe solar storm that lit up the evening sky with aurora recently was also detected by Canada's Ocean Network system of undersea oceanographic observatories off both coasts of the country and up in the Arctic. The compass instruments that normally provide the direction of ocean currents fluctuated by as much as 30 degrees at the height of the solar storm and were picked up as deep as 2.7 kilometers. Kate Moran, the CEO and President of Ocean Networks Canada, said these measurements could prove to be useful for solar scientists to understand the depth of the impact geomagnetic storms can have on our electromagnetic field. Robots are stronger, and faster, and better – but still lose to animalsDespite being built to run, robots still can't beat real animals in a race, says a new study published in Science Robotics. Researchers compared the physical abilities of animals to the latest generation of agile autonomous robots and showed that while they can exceed biology in strength and speed, robots still can't match the performance of animals. Simon Fraser University professor Max Donelan explained that biology has better integrated systems, which makes animals able to respond faster to the situation at hand. How European brown rats took over North AmericaThe brown rat is the clear undisputed winner of the rat race, having established ecological dominance in most cities across the continent. A new study led by Eric Guiry from Trent University involved analyzing piles of rat bones from dig sites and centuries-old shipwrecks to put together a timeline of when and how brown rats took over North America. He found that brown rats came across the pond much earlier than expected, and surprisingly dominated over black rats very quickly, even though the two animals weren't actually in competition for the same food. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.Decoding whale talk and primate calls Scientists are turning to technology to help decode animal communication. In the Caribbean researchers sorted rhythmic sperm whale clicks into an entire alphabet, while on land, machine learning algorithms revealed a new level of complexity in the calls of orangutans in Borneo.Eavesdropping on nature sounds to save ecosystems in US National parksIn a basement at Penn State University, researchers with the Protected Areas Research Collaborative (PARC) Lab are listening to thousands of hours of recordings from the US National Park service in order to track every single noise - whether it be natural or human-made. This data is being used to understand how to preserve natural sounds in the parks, which have been shown to be beneficial to both humans, and wildlife. Now, the team is adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence to listen to more data than ever before. We spoke with co-principal investigator Peter Newman, and co-lab manager Morgan Crump. In a separate paper, recently published in Science Advances, researchers are calling attention to nature's smellscapes—the various chemicals put out by trees and animals—and how they can affect humans. The multidisciplinary, international team, led by Gregory Bratman from the University of Washington, provides a conceptual framework for investigating nature's smells, to fill in the gaps about what those scents are doing to humans, but also, to know what we're doing to those scents.

Holden Thorp: Straight Talk from the Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals

Ground Truths

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2024 60:37

There was so much to talk about—this is the longest Ground Truths podcast yet. Hope you'll find it as thought-provoking as I did!Transcript, with audio and external links, edited by Jessica Nguyen, Producer for Ground TruthsVideo and audio tech support by Sinjun Balabanoff, Scripps ResearchEric Topol (00:00:05):This is Eric Topol from Ground Truths, and I am delighted to have with me Holden Thorp, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the Science journals. We're going to talk about Science, not just the magazine journal, but also science in general. This is especially appropriate today because Holden was just recognized by STAT as one of the leaders for 2024 because of his extraordinary efforts to promote science integrity, so welcome Holden.Holden Thorp (00:00:36):Thanks Eric, and if I remember correctly, you were recognized by STAT in 2022, so it's an honor to join a group that you're in anytime, that's for sure, and great to be on here with you.Eric Topol (00:00:47):Well, that's really kind to you. Let's start off, I think with the journal, because I know that consumes a lot of your efforts and you have five journals within science.Holden Thorp (00:01:02):Oh, we have six.Eric Topol (00:01:03):Oh six, I'm sorry, six. There's Science, the original, and then five others. Can you tell us what it's like to oversee all these journals?Overseeing the Science JournalsHolden Thorp (00:01:16):Yeah, we're a relatively small family compared to our commercial competitors. I know you had Magdalena [Skipper]on and Nature has I think almost ninety journals, so six is pretty small. In addition to Science, which most people are familiar with, we have Science Advances, which also covers all areas of science and is larger and is a gold open access journal and also is overseen by academic editors, not professional editors. All of our other journals are overseen by professional editors. And then the other four are relatively small and specialized areas, and probably people who listen to you and follow you would know about Science Translational Medicine, Science Immunology, Science Signaling and then we also have a journal, Science Robotics which is something I knew nothing about and I learned a lot. I've learned a lot about robotics and the culture of people who work there interacting with them.Holden Thorp (00:02:22):So we have a relatively small family. There's only 160 people who work for me, which is manageable. I mean that sounds like a lot, but in my previous jobs I was a provost and a chancellor, and I had tens of thousands of people, so it's really fun for me to have a group where I at least have met everybody who works for me. We're an outstanding set of journals, so we attract an outstanding group of professionals who do all the things that are involved in all this, and it's really, really fun to work with them. At Science, we don't just do research papers, although that's a big, and probably for your listeners the biggest part of what we do. But we also have a news and commentary section and the news section is 30 full-time and many freelancers around the world really running the biggest general news operation for science that there is. And then in the commentary section, which you're a regular contributor for us in expert voices, we attempt to be the best place in the world for scientists to talk to each other. All three of those missions are just really, really fun for me. It's the best job I've ever had, and it's one I hope to do for many years into the future.Eric Topol (00:03:55):Well, it's extraordinary because in the four and a half years I think it's been since you took the helm, you've changed the face of Science in many ways. Of course, I think the other distinction from the Nature Journals is that it's a nonprofit entity, which shows it isn't like you're trying to proliferate to all sorts of added journals, but in addition, what you've done, at least the science advisor and the science news and all these things that come out on a daily basis is quite extraordinary as we saw throughout the pandemic. I mean, just reporting that was unparalleled from, as you say, all points around the world about really critically relevant topics. Obviously it extends well beyond the concerns of the pandemic. It has a lot of different functions, but what I think you have done two major things, Holden. One is you medicalized it to some extent.Eric Topol (00:04:55):A lot of people saw the journal, particularly Science per se, as a truly basic science journal. Not so much applied in a medical sphere, but these days there's more and more that would be particularly relevant to the practice of medicine, so that's one thing. And the other thing I wanted you to comment on is you're not afraid to speak out and as opposed to many other prior editors who I followed throughout my career at Science, there were pretty much the politically correct type and they weren't going to really express themselves, which you are particularly not afraid of. Maybe you could comment about if you do perceive this medicalization of science to some extent, and also your sense of being able to express yourself freely.Capturing the Breakthroughs in Structural BiologyHolden Thorp (00:05:48):Yeah, well, you're kind to say both of those things are certainly things we have worked at. I mean, I do come from a background, even though I'm trained as a chemist, most of what I did towards the latter end of my career, I mean, I did very basic biochemistry when I was a researcher, but the last part of my research career I worked in on development of a drug called Vivjoa, which is an alternative to the fluconazole family that doesn't have the same toxicity and is currently on the market for chronic yeast infection and hopefully some other things in the future when we can get some more clinical trials done.Holden Thorp (00:06:35):And I've hung around biotech startups and drug development, so it is part of the business that I knew. I think the pandemic really gave us an opening because Valda Vinson, who's now the Executive Editor and runs all of life sciences for us and policies for the journal, she was so well known in structural biology that most of the first important structures in Covid, including the spike protein, all came to us. I mean, I remember crystal clear February of 2020, she came in my office and she said, I got the structure of the spike protein. And I said, great, what's the spike protein? Turned out later became the most famous protein in the world, at least temporarily. Insulin may be back to being the most famous protein now, but spike protein was up there. And then that kind of cascaded into all the main protease and many of the structures that we got.Holden Thorp (00:07:45):And we seized on that for sure, to kind of broaden our focus. We had the Regeneron antibodies, we had the Paxlovid paper, and all of that kind of opened doors for us. And we've also, now we have two clinical editors at Science, Priscilla Kelly and Yevgeniya Nusinovich, and then the Insights section, somebody that you work with closely, Gemma Alderton, she is very fluent in clinical matters. And then of course we've had Science Translational Medicine and we seek continue to strengthen that. Science Immunology was very much boosted by Covid and actually Science Immunology is now, I think probably if you care about impact factors, the second highest specialized immunology journal after Immunity. I've put some emphasis on it for sure, but I think the pandemic also really helped us. As far as me speaking out, a lot of people maybe don't remember, but Don Kennedy, who was the editor in the early 2000s who had been the Stanford president, he was similarly outspoken.Confronting ControversiesHolden Thorp (00:09:15):It's funny, sometimes people who disagree with me say, well, Don Kennedy would never say anything like that. And then I can dig up something that Don Kennedy said that's just as aggressive as what I might've said. But you're right, Bruce Alberts was very focused on education, and each one of us has had our own different way of doing things. When Alan Leshner hired me and Sudip Parikh reinforced this when he came on, I mean, he wanted me to liven up the editorial page. He explicitly told me to do that. I may have done more of it than he was expecting, but Alan and Sudip both still remain very supportive of that. I couldn't do what I do without them and also couldn't do it without Lisa Chong, who makes all my words sound so much better than they are when I start. And yeah, it kind of fed on itself.Holden Thorp (00:10:21):It started with the pandemic. I think there was an inflection when Trump first said that Covid was just the flu, and when he said some really ridiculous things about the vaccine, and that's where it started. I guess my philosophy was I was thinking about people who, they've got a spouse at home whose job might be disrupted. They got children they've got who are out of school, and somehow they managed to get themselves to the lab to work on our vaccine or some other aspect of the pandemic to try to help the world. What would those people want their journal to say when they came home and turned the news on and saw all these politicians saying all this ridiculous stuff? That was really the sort of mantra that I had in my head, and that kind of drove it. And now I think we've sort of established the fact that it's okay to comment on things that are going on in the world. We're editorially independent, Sudip and the AAAS board, treat us as being editorially independent. I don't take that for granted and it's a privilege to, as I sometimes tell people, my apartment's four blocks from the White House, sometimes I'm over there typing things that they don't like. And that tradition is still alive in this country, at least for the time being, and I try to make the most of it.Eric Topol (00:12:11):Well, and especially as you already touched on Holden, when there's a time when the intersection of politics and science really came to a head and still we're dealing with that, and that's why it's been so essential to get your views as the leader of such an important journal that is publishing some of the leading science in the world on a weekly basis. Now, one of the things I do want to get into this other track that you also alluded to. You went from a chemist, and you eventually rose to Dean and chancellor of University of North Carolina (UNC) and also the provost of Washington University, two of our best institutions academically in the country. I would imagine your parents who were both UNC grads would've been especially proud of you being the chancellor.Holden Thorp (00:13:05):It's true. Yeah. Unfortunately, my father wasn't there to see it, but my mother, as I always tell people, my mother very much enjoyed being the queen mother of her alma mater.On Stanford University's President ResignationEric Topol (00:13:16):Yeah, I would think so, oh my goodness. That gives you another perspective that's unique having been in the senior management of two really prestigious institutions, and this past year a lot has been going on in higher education, and you have again come to the fore about that. Let's just first discuss the Stanford debacle, the president there. Could you kind of give us synopsis, you did some really important writing about that, and what are your thoughts looking back on the student who happens to be Peter Baker's and Susan's son, two incredible journalists at the New York Times and New Yorker, who broke the story at the Stanford Daily as a student, and then it led to eventually the President's resignation. So, what were your thoughts about that?Holden Thorp (00:14:16):Yeah, so it's a complicated and sad story in some ways, but it's also fascinating and very instructive. Two of the papers were in Science, two of the three main ones, the other one was in Cell. And we had made an error along the way because Marc had sent a correction in which for some reason never got posted. We searched every email server we had everything we had trying to find exactly what happened, but we think we have a website run by humans and there was something that happened when the corrections were transmitted into our operations group, and they didn't end up on the website. So, one of the things I had to do was to say repeatedly to every reporter who wanted to ask me, including some Pulitzer Prize winners, that we had looked everywhere and couldn't find any reason why somebody would've intentionally stopped those corrections from posting.Holden Thorp (00:15:36):And one thing about it was I didn't want, Marc had enough problems, he didn't need to be blamed for the fact that we botched that. So I think people were maybe impressed that we just came out and admitted we made a mistake, but that's really what this area needs. And those things happened before I became the editor in chief, but I was satisfied that where that error happened was done by people who had no idea who Marc Tessier-Lavigne even was, but because of all that, and because we had to decide what to do with these papers, I talked to him extensively at the beginning of this, maybe as much as anybody, now that I look back on it. And I think that for him, the error that happened is very common one. You have a PI with a big lab.Holden Thorp (00:16:33):There are many, many incentives for his coworkers and yours to want to get high profile publications. And what we see is mostly at the end when you kind of know what's happening, some corners get cut doing all the controls and all of the last things that have to be done to go into the paper. And someone in his lab did that, and he didn't notice when the jails were sent in. The committee that investigated it later found something that I was certain at the beginning was going to be true, which is he didn't have any direct involvement in and making the problematic images or know that they were there. Every time we see one of these, that's almost always the story.Holden Thorp (00:17:32):And if he hadn't been the president of Stanford, he probably would've, I mean, a couple of the papers that were attracted might even could have been just big corrections. That's another topic we can talk about in terms of whether that's the right thing to do but because he was the president of Stanford, it triggered all these things at the university, which made the story much, much more complicated. And it is similar to what we see in a lot of these, that it's the institution that does the most to make these things bigger than they need to be. And in this case, the first thing was that young Theo Baker who I've talked on the phone extensively with, and I just had a long lunch with him in Palo Alto a couple weeks ago, it's the first time we ever met in person. He's finishing up his book, which has been optioned for a movie, and I've told him that I want Mark Hamill to play me in the movie because I don't know if you saw this last thing he did, Fall of the House of Usher but he was a very funny curmudgeonly.Holden Thorp (00:18:46):And so, I think he would be a lot like me dealing with Theo, but Theo did great work. Did everything that Theo write add up precisely. I mean, he was teaching himself a lot of this biochemistry as he went along, so you could always find little holes in it, but the general strokes of what he had were correct. And in my opinion, and Marc would've been better served by talking to Theo and answering his questions or talking to other reporters who are covering this and there are many excellent ones. This is something I learned the hard way when I was at North Carolina. It's always better for the President to just face the music and answer the questions instead of doing what they did, which is stand up this long and complicated investigation. And when the institutions do these long investigations, the outcome is always unsatisfying for everybody because the investigation, it found precisely what I think anybody who understands our world would've expected that Marc didn't know about the fraud directly, but that he could have done more to create a culture in his laboratory where these things were picked up, whether that's making his lab smaller or him having fewer other things to do, or precisely what it is, people could speculate.Managing a Crisis at a UniversityHolden Thorp (00:20:37):But of course, that's what always happens in these. So the report produced exactly what any reporter who's covered this their whole lives would've expected it to produce, but the people who don't know the intimate details of how this works, were not satisfied by that. And he ended up having to step down and we'll never know what would've happened if instead of doing all of that, he just said, wow, I really screwed this up. I'm responsible for the fact that these images are in here and I'm going to do everything I can to straighten it out. I'd be happy to take your questions. That's always what I encourage people to do because I was in a similar situation at North Carolina with a scandal involved in athletics and an academic department, and we did umpteen investigations instead of me just saying, hey, everybody, we cheated for 30 years. It started when I was in middle school, but I'm still going to try to clean it up and I'll be happy to answer your questions. And instead, we get lawyers and PR people and all these carefully worded statements, and it's all prolonged. And we see that in every research integrity matter we deal with and there are a lot of other things in higher education that are being weighed down by all of that right now.Eric Topol (00:22:06):Yeah. One of the things that is typical when a university faces a crisis, and we're going to get into a couple others in a moment, is that they get a PR firm, and the PR firm says, just say you're going to do an investigation because that'll just pull it out of the news, take it out of the news. It doesn't work that way. And what's amazing is that the universities pay a lot of money to these PR companies for crisis management. And being forthright may indeed be the answer, but that doesn't happen as best as we can see. I think you're suggesting a new path that might be not just relevant, but the way to get this on the right course quickly.Holden Thorp (00:22:58):Just on that, there's a person in that PR space who I really like. There are a few of them that are really good, and he's the person who helped me the most. And he used to refer doing the investigation as putting it on the credit card.Eric Topol (00:23:16):Yeah. Yeah, exactly.Holden Thorp (00:23:17):Okay, because you still have to pay the credit card bill after you charge something.Eric Topol (00:23:25):Yeah, better to write a check.Holden Thorp (00:23:27):It's better to write a check. Yes, because that 18% interest can add up pretty quickly.Resignations of the Presidents at Harvard and PennEric Topol (00:23:32):I like that metaphor entirely appropriate. That's a good one. Now, in the midst of all this, there's been two other leading institutions besides Stanford where the president resigned for different reasons, at least in part one was at Harvard and one at Penn. And this is just a crisis in our top universities in the country. I mean three of the very top universities. So, could you comment about the differences at Harvard and Penn related to what we just discussed at Stanford?Holden Thorp (00:24:09):Yeah, so I don't know Claudine Gay, but I've exchanged emails with her, and I do know Liz Magill and I know Sally Kornbluth even better. Our kids went to middle school together because she was at Duke. And I think Sally is in good shape, and she did a little bit better in the hearings because I think she was a little more forthcoming than Liz and Dr. Gay were but I think also Liz was in a pretty weakened state already when she went in there. And I think that what happened that day, and it was a devastating day for higher education. I cleared my calendar, and I watched the whole thing and I couldn't sleep that night. And it was, I thought, oh my goodness, my way of making a living has just taken a death blow. I just felt so much compassion for the three of them, two of whom I knew, one of whom I could imagine having been through similar things myself.Holden Thorp (00:25:20):And I think what my take on the whole thing about free speech and the war and all this stuff is that higher education has got a problem, which is that we have promised to deliver a product that we can't really deliver, and that is to provide individualized experiences for students. So, I'm back on the faculty now at GW. I have 16 people in my class, I know every single one of them. I was teaching during the fall, last fall. I teach on Monday nights, which Yom Kippur was on a Monday night, which was before October 7th. And so, I knew precisely how many Jewish kids I had in my class because they had to make up class for that Monday night.Holden Thorp (00:26:18):I was basically able to talk to each one of them and make sure. And then GW is a very liberal university, so I had a whole bunch that were all the way on the other side also. I was just able to talk to each of them and make sure they had what they needed from the university. But the institutions don't really have luxury. They don't have somebody who's been doing this for 35 years teaching 16 people who can make sure they're getting what they need, but they write letters to all their students saying, you're going to join a diverse student body where we're going to give you a chance to express yourself and explore everything, but there's too many of them to actually deliver that. And none of them want to say that out loud. And so, what happens in a situation like this?Holden Thorp (00:27:19):And everybody says, well, don't send out the statements, don't send out the statements, but how else are you going to communicate with all those people? I mean, because the truth is education is a hands-on individualized deal. And so, the students who are experiencing antisemitism at Harvard or Penn or anywhere else, were feeling distress. And the university wasn't doing what they promised and attending to that, and similarly to the students who wanted to express themselves in the other direction. And so, what really needs to happen is that universities need to put more emphasis on what goes on in the classroom so that these students are getting the attention that they've been promised. But universities are trying to do a lot of research and you're at a place that's got a little simpler mission but some of these big complicated ones are doing urban development and they're trying to win athletics competitions, and they're running hotels and fire departments and police departments, and it's really hard to do all and multi, multi-billion dollar investment vehicles.Holden Thorp (00:28:47):It's really hard to do all that and keep the welfare of a bunch of teenagers up at the top of the list. And so, I think really what we need around this topic in general is a reckoning about this very point. Now as far as how to gotten through the hearing a little better, I mean what they said was technically correct, no question about that. But where they struggled was in saying things that would cause them to admit that they had failed at doing what they promised for the people who are feeling distressed. And again, that's kind of my mantra on all these things, whether it's student affairs or research integrity or anything else, the universities have made massive commitments to do probably more things than they can, and rather than fessing up to that, they just bury the whole thing in legalistic bureaucracy, and it's time for us to cut through a lot of that stuff.Eric Topol (00:30:09):I couldn't agree more on that.Holden Thorp (00:30:10):And in Claudine's case, I think the plagiarism thing, I wrote a piece in the Chronicle that just kind of tried to remind people that the kinds of plagiarism that she was punished for, in my opinion, too much of a punishment is stuff that we routinely pick up now with authenticate and other tools in scholarly publishing, and people just get a report that says, hey, maybe you want to reward this, and that's it. If it doesn't change the academic content of the paper, we hardly ever even pay attention to that. She was being subjected to a modern tool that didn't exist when she wrote the stuff that she wrote. And it's same thing with image analysis, right? When Marc Tessier-Lavigne made his papers, Elisabeth Bik wasn't studying images, and we didn't have proof fig and image twin to pick these things up, so we're taking today's tools and applying them to something that's 20 years old that was produced when those tools didn't exist. You can debate whether that matters or not, but in my opinion it does.Generative A.I. and Publishing ScienceEric Topol (00:31:31):Yeah, that's bringing us to the next topic I wanted to get into you with, which is AI. You've already mentioned about the AI detection of image, which we used to rely on Elisabeth as a human to do that, and now it can be done through AI.Holden Thorp (00:31:51):Well, it doesn't get everything, so I keep telling Elisabeth she doesn't have to worry about being put out of business.Eric Topol (00:31:58):But then there's also, as you said about text detection, and then there's also, as you've written in Science, the overall submission of papers where a GPT may have had significant input to the writing, not just to check the spelling or check minor things. And so, I want to get your views because this is a moving target of course. I mean, it's just the capabilities of AI have just been outpacing, I think a lot of expectations. Where do you see the intersection of AI and Science publishing now? Because as you said, it changes the ground rules for picking up even minor unintended errors or self-plagiarism or whatever, and now it changes the whole landscape considerably.Holden Thorp (00:32:54):Yeah. So, I think you said the most important thing, which is that it's a moving target, and you've been writing about this for medicine for longer than just about anybody, so you've been watching that moving target. We started off with a very restrictive stance, and the reason we did that was because we knew it would keep moving. And so, we wanted to start from the most restrictive possible place and then sort of titrate in the things that we allowed because we didn't want to go through the same thing we went through with Photoshop when it first came along. Like all these altered images that we keep talking about by far the most papers that surface are from the period between when Photoshop became a tool and when we finally had sort of a consensus as a community in terms of what was okay and what wasn't okay to do with your gels when you process the images.Holden Thorp (00:33:55):And we didn't want the same thing with words where we allowed people to use ChatGPT to write, and then a few years later decided, oh, this thing wasn't permissible, and then we have to go back and re-litigate all those papers. We didn't want to do that again. So, we started off with a pretty restrictive stance, which we've loosened once and we'll probably loosen more as we see how things evolve. What we keep looking for is for entities that don't have a financial interest to issue guidelines, so if it's another journal, especially a commercial journal that makes money on the papers, well, you can imagine that these tools are going to give us even more papers. And for a lot of these entities that charge by the paper, they have a financial incentive for people to use ChatGPT to write papers. We look for societies and coalitions of academics who have come together and said these things are okay.Holden Thorp (00:35:04):And the first one of those was when we decided that it was okay, for example, if you are not an English speaker natively to have ChatGPT work on your pros. Now there are lots of people who disagree about that ChatGPT is good at that. That's a separate matter, but we felt we got to a point, I forgot when it was a couple months ago, where we could amend our policies and say that we were going to be more tolerant of text that had been done by ChatGPT. As long as the people who signed the author forms realize that if it makes one of these hallucinating errors that it makes and it gets into the paper that's on them, whether that actually saves you time or not, I don't know.Holden Thorp (00:36:03):I also have my doubts about that, but that's kind of where we're going. We're watching these things as they go. We're still very restrictive on images and there was this debacle in this Frontiers paper a couple of weeks ago with a ridiculous image that got through. So right now, we're still not allowing illustrations that were generated by the visual counterparts of ChatGPT. Will we loosen that in the future? Maybe, as things evolve, so when we did our first amendment, some of the reporters, they're just doing their jobs saying, well, you can't make your mind up about this. And I'm like, no, you don't want us to make up our mind once and for all. And by the way, science is something that changes over time also. So, we're watching this develop and we expect everybody jokes about how we spend too much time talking about this, but I think everybody's gotten to the point now where they're realizing we're going to talk about it for years to come.Eric Topol (00:37:17):Oh my goodness, yes because we're talking about truth versus fake and this is big stuff. I mean, it affects whether it's the elections, whether it's every sector of our lives are affected by this. And obviously publishing in the leading peer review journal, it couldn't be more important as to get this right and to adjust, as you said, as more evidence, performance and other issues are addressed systematically. That does get me to self-correcting science, something else you've written about, which is kind of self-correcting as to how we will understand the use of large language models and generative AI. But this, you get into science in many different ways, whether it's through the celebrity idea, how it has to adapt and correct that there's a miscue from the public about when evolves and it's actually that science. So maybe you could kind of give us your perspective about you are continuing to reassess what is science as we'll get into more about that in a moment. Where are you at right now on that?Holden Thorp (00:38:40):Yeah, so my general sort of shtick about science is to remind people that it's done by human beings. Human beings who have all different kinds of different brains who come from different backgrounds, who have all the human foibles that you see in any other profession. And I think that unfortunately a lot of, and we brought some of this on ourselves, we've kind of taken on an air of infallibility from time to time or as having the final answer when, if you go back just to the simplest Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn early writings in the philosophy of science, it's crystal clear that science is something that evolves. It's something done by sometimes thousands or even hundreds of thousands of millions of people depending on the topic. And it's not the contributions of any individual person hardly ever.Holden Thorp (00:39:54):But yet we continue to give Nobel prizes and hold up various individual scientific figures as being representative. They're usually representative of many, many people. And it's a process that continues to change. And as always point out, if you want to get a paper in science, it's not good to say, hey, here's something everybody thought and we tested it and it's still correct. That's usually not a good way to get a science paper. The right thing to do is to say, hey, the W boson might weigh more than we expected it to, or it turns out that evolution occurs in ways that we didn't expect, or that's how you get a science paper and that's how you get on the cover of Science. Those are the things that we look for, things that change the way people think about science. And so that's what we're all actively looking for, but yet we sometimes portray to the public that we always have everything completely figured out, and the journalists sometimes don't help us because they like to write crisp stories that people can get something out of. And we like to go on TV and say, hey, I got the answer.Holden Thorp (00:41:23):Don't wear a mask. Do wear a mask. This is how much the temperature is going to go up next year. Oh, we refined our, and it turns out it's another 10th of a degree this way or that way. I mean, that's what makes what we do interesting and embedded in that is also human error, right? Because we make errors in interpretation. We might see a set of data that we think mean one thing, but then somebody else will do something that helps us interpret it another way. In my opinion, that's certainly not misconduct. We hardly ever publish corrections or retractions over interpretation. We just publish more papers about that unless it's some very egregious thing. And then we also have greed and ambition and ego and lots of other things that cause people to make intentional errors that get most of the attention. And we have errors that are unintentional, but still may relate to fundamental data in the paper.Holden Thorp (00:42:36):So when you put all this together, the answer isn't to try to catch everything because there's no way in the world we're going to catch everything and we wouldn't want to, even if we could for some of it, because as John Maddox, who ran my competitor journal for many years in a brilliant way at Nature, someone once asked him how many papers in Nature were wrong? And he said, all of them, because all of them are going to be replaced by new information. And so, what we'd be better off trying to convince the public that this is how science works, which is much harder than just going to them with facts. I mean, that takes a lot of work and doing a better job of telling each other that it's okay when we have to change the record because the biggest thing that erodes trust in science is not the fact that we make mistakes, is that when it turns into a drama over whether we are going to correct the record or not, that's what all these, the Stanford case is probably the biggest in people's minds. But if you look at, we've had this behavioral economic stuff at Harvard, I have this superconductivity at Rochester, Dana Farber's having a big event right now. All of these things don't have to be this dramatic if we would do a better job of collaborating with each other on maintaining an accurate scientific record rather than letting ambition and greed and ego get in the way of all of it.Who Is A Scientist?Eric Topol (00:44:21):Well, you got some important threads in there. The one thing I just would also comment on is my favorite thing in Science is challenging dogma because there's so much dogma, and that's obviously part of what you were getting into and many other aspects as well. But that's the story of Science, that nothing stands. If it does, then you're not doing a good job of really interrogating and following up on whatever is accepted at any particular moment in time. But your writings, whether it's in Science and editorials or science forever, your Substack, which are always insightful but I think one of the most recent ones was about, who is a scientist? And I really love that one because I'll let you explain. There are some people who have a very narrow view and others who see it quite differently. And maybe you could summarize it.Holden Thorp (00:45:23):Well, I had the privilege to moderate a panel at the AAAS meeting that included Keith Yamamoto, who was our outgoing president, Willie May, who was our incoming president, Peggy Hamburg, who ran the FDA and many, many other things. Kaye Husbands Fealing who was a social scientist, and Michael Crow, who was the president of Arizona State. These are all extraordinary people. And I just asked him a simple question, so who was the scientist? Because I think one thing that I see in my work, and you probably see in the communication work and writing that you do, that not all of our colleagues who work in the laboratory think that the rest of this stuff is science.Holden Thorp (00:46:17):And the place that breaks my heart the most is when somebody says, one of our professional editors isn't qualified to reject their paper because they don't have their own lab. Alright, well you've interacted with a lot of our editors, they read more papers than either one of us. They know more about what's going on in these papers than anybody. They are absolute scholars in every sense of the word and if someone thinks they're not scientists, I don't know who a scientist is. And so, then you can extend that to science communicators. I mean, those are obviously the problems we've been talking about, the people we need the most great teachers. If someone's a great science teacher and they have a PhD and they worked in lab and they're teaching at a university, are they still a scientist even if they don't have a lab anymore?Holden Thorp (00:47:11):So in my opinion, an expansive definition of this is the best because we want all these people to be contributing. In fact, many of the problems we have aren't because we're not good in the laboratory. We seem to be able to do a good job generating that. It's more about all these other pieces that we're not nearly as good at. And part of what we need to do is value the people who are good at those things, so I pose this to the panel, and I hope people go on and watch the video. It is worth watching. Keith Yamamoto was in the group that said, it's only if you're doing and planning research that you're a scientist. He knew he was going to be outnumbered before we went out there. We talked about that. I said, Keith, you're my boss. If you don't want me to ask that question, I won't. But to his credit, he wanted to talk about this and then Michael Crow was probably the furthest on the other side who said, what makes humans different from other species is that we're all scientists. We all seek to explain things. So somewhere in the middle and the others were kind of scattered around the middle, although I would say closer to Michael than they were to Keith.Holden Thorp (00:48:33):But I think this is important for us to work out because we want everybody who contributes to the scientific enterprise to feel valued. And if they would feel more valued if we called them scientists, that suits me but it doesn't suit all of our academic colleagues apparently.Eric Topol (00:48:54):Well, I mean, I think just to weigh in a bit on that, I'm a big proponent of citizen scientists, and we've seen how it has transformed projects like folded for structural biology and so many things, All of Us program that's ongoing right now to try to get a million participants, at least half of whom are underrepresented to be citizen scientists learning about themselves through their genome and other layers of data. And that I think may help us to fight the misinformation, disinformation, the people that do their own research with a purpose that can be sometimes nefarious. The last type of topic I wanted to get to with you was the University of Florida and the state of Florida and the Surgeon General there. And again, we are kind of circling back to a few things that we've discussed today about higher education institutions as well as politics and I wonder if we get some comments about that scenario.What's Happening in Florida?Holden Thorp (00:49:59):Yeah. Well, I'm coming to you from Orlando, Florida where I have a home that I've had ever since I moved to a cold climate, and I spent the whole pandemic down here. I observed a lot of things going on in the state of Florida firsthand. And I think in a way it's two different worlds because Florida does make a massive investment in higher education more than many other states and that has really not changed that much under Governor DeSantis despite his performative views that seem to be to the contrary. And so, I think it's important to acknowledge that Florida State and Florida and UCF and USF, these are excellent places and many of them have thrived in terms of their budgets even in this weird climate, but the political performance is very much in the other direction. This is where the Stop WOKE Act happened. This is where, again, I live in Orlando. This is a company town that Ron DeSantis decided to take on the Walt Disney Corporation is the second biggest city in Orlando, and it's a company town, and he took on the employer.Holden Thorp (00:51:32):It doesn't make a whole lot of political sense, but I think it was all part of his national political ambitions. And down at the base of this was this all strange anti-vax stuff. Now I got my first vaccines down here. I went to public places that were organized by the Army Corps of Engineers that were at public properties. It was at a community college here in Orlando, was extremely well organized. I had no problem. I was there 10 minutes, got my vaccines. It was extremely well organized but at the same time, the guys on TV saying the vaccine's not any good. And he hires this person, Joseph Ladapo, to be his Surgeon General, who I think we would both say is an anti-vaxxer. I mean he just recently said that you didn't need to get a measles vaccine and then in the last couple of days said, if you're unvaccinated and you have measles, you don't have to quarantine for 21 days. Now really would be disastrous if measles came back. You know a lot more about that than I do but I'm a generation that had a measles vaccine and never worried about measles.Holden Thorp (00:52:59):So the part of it that I worry about the most is that this person, the Surgeon General, also has a faculty appointment at the University of Florida. And you can see how he got it because his academic resume has been circulated as a result of all of Florida's public records laws and he has a very strong, credible resume that would probably cause him to get tenure at a lot of places. The medical faculty at Florida have tried to assert themselves and say, we really need to distance ourselves from him, but the administration at the University of Florida has not really engaged them. Now, I did ask them last week about the measles thing. I was going to write about it again, and I wrote to them and I said, if you guys aren't going to say anything about what he is saying about the measles, then I'm going to have another editorial.Holden Thorp (00:54:05):And they sent me a statement, which I posted that you probably saw that they still didn't condemn him personally, but they did say that measles vaccination was very important, and it was a fairly direct statement. I don't know if that will portend more stronger words from the University of Florida. Maybe now that their president is somebody who's close to the governor, they'll feel a little more comfortable saying things like that. But I think the bigger issue for all of us is when we have academic colleagues who say things that we know are scientifically invalid, and this always gets to the whole free speech thing, but in my opinion, free speech, it is within free speech to say, yes, all these things about vaccines are true, but I still don't think people should be compelled to get vaccinated. That's an opinion. That's fine. But what's not an opinion is to say that vaccines are unsafe if they've been tested over and over again and proven to be effective.Academic FreedomHolden Thorp (00:55:24):That's not an opinion. And I personally don't think that that deserves certainly to be weighted equally with the totality of medical evidence. I think that it's within bounds for academic colleagues and even institutions to call out their colleagues who are not expressing an opinion, but are challenging scientific facts without doing experiments and submitting papers and having lots of people look at it and doing all the stuff that we require in order to change scientific consensus. And this happens in climate change in a very parallel way. I mean, it's an opinion to say the climate is changing, humans are causing it, but I still don't think we should have government regulations about carbon. I think we should wait for the private sector to solve it, or I don't think it's going to have as bad of an effect as people say. Those are policy debates that you can have.Holden Thorp (00:56:28):But alleging that climate scientists are falsifying their projection somehow when they're not is in my opinion, not covered by free speech. And I think the best evidence we had of this is this recent verdict with Michael Mann, where it was the people who were criticizing him were found to be defamatory when they said that he committed research fraud. They could say he's exaggerating the threat. They could say they could dislike his style. He does have a very bombastic style. They can say all kinds of things about their opinions about him personally but if you accuse him of committing research fraud, and the paper that was in question was one of the most highly litigated papers of all time. It's been investigated more times than you can count. That's not something that's protected by free speech because it's defamatory to say that, and the jury found that. I think we have a lot of work to do to get within our own world, our colleagues, to get their arms around these two forms of debate.Eric Topol (00:57:51):Right. Well, I think this is, again, another really important point you're making during the pandemic parallel to the Michael Mann climate change case is that leading universities, as we recently reviewed in a podcast with Jonathan Howard, who wrote a book about this leading universities like Stanford, UCSF, Johns Hopkins and many others, didn't come out about the people that were doing things, saying things that were truly potential public harm. Not like you're saying, expressing an opinion with the truth, but rather negating evidence that was important to keep people protected from Covid. This is a problem which is thematic in our discussion I think Holden, is that universities have to get with it. They have to be able to help not put things on the credit card, be very transparent, direct quick respond, and not hide behind worried about social media or journalists or whatever else. This has been an incredible discussion, Holden, I got into even more than I thought we would.Eric Topol (00:59:15):You're a phenom to defend the whole science landscape that is challenging right now. I think you would agree for many reasons that we've discussed, and it affects education in a very dramatic, serious way. I want to thank you all that you're doing at Science with your team there to lead the charge and stand up for things and not being afraid to stimulate some controversies here and there. It's good for the field. And so, I hope I didn't miss anything and this exhaustive, this is the longest podcast I've done on Ground Truths, I want you to know that.Holden Thorp (00:59:59):Well, I'm flattered by that because you've had some great people on, that's for sure. And thank you for all you're doing, not just in science, but to spread the word about all these things and bring people together. It means a lot to all of us.Eric Topol (01:00:15):Oh, much appreciated. And we'll convene again soon to discuss so many dimensions of what we just have been reviewing and new ones to come. Thanks very much.Holden Thorp (01:00:25):Okay. Always good talking to you.*******************************************************Thanks for listening or reading this episode of GT.Please share if you found this podcast informative.Ground Truths is open-access. All content (newsletters and podcasts) is free.All proceeds from voluntary paid subscriptions support Scripps Research and have provided major funding for our summer internship program. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

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Engineering Health: Dr. Khalil Ramadi's Vision of Bioengineering and Neuromodulation

RealPharma: Conversations with Pharma Pathfinders

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2024 60:30

Dr. Khalil Ramadi, an assistant professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, discusses the field of bioengineering and his work in neuromodulation and ingestible electronics. He explains that bioengineering encompasses tinkering with biology and physiology, and its focus has shifted from building hardware tools for the clinic to devices that can be implanted in the body.Dr. Ramadi's interest in neuromodulation stems from the need to improve brain technologies and find non-invasive ways to target specific areas of the body. He also explores the potential applications of neuromodulation in areas such as obesity, eating disorders, and diabetes. The challenges in bioengineering include regulatory issues, access to innovations, and the scalability of devices. In this conversation, Khalil Ramadi discusses the field of bioengineering and its potential impact on healthcare. He shares insights on the future of bioengineering education, emphasizing the need for innovation and commercialization.Khalil also predicts advancements in personalized care and the potential for new technologies to diagnose and treat diseases. He highlights the importance of finding inspiration and overcoming challenges in the field. Lastly, he introduces Project Prana Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on developing technologies for decentralized care.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Dr. Khalil Ramadi03:47 Defining Bioengineering06:33 Dr. Ramadi's Journey into Bioengineering10:30 The Role of a Bioengineer11:56 Focus on Neuromodulation and Ingestible Electronics16:41 The Gut-Brain Connection17:26 Applications of Neuromodulation20:38 Neuralink and the Future of Bioengineering25:05 Neuromodulation and GLP-1 Agonists29:27 Challenges in Bioengineering33:33 The Future of Pharma and Bioengineering36:18 Ensuring Access to Bioengineering Innovations40:20 The FLASH Pill and Appetite Stimulation47:02 The Future of Bioengineering Education51:10 Predictions for the Next 10 Years55:00 Finding Inspiration and Overcoming Challenges58:31 Project Prana FoundationResourcesDr. Khalil Ramadi:https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalil-ramadi/Ramadi Lab:RamadiLab.comIngestible electronics: Science Robotics paper for gastric stimulation: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ade9676Project Prana: https://www.projectprana.org/isaveNano Robots Shrink Bladder Cancer: https://www.irbbarcelona.org/en/news/scientific/nanorobots-shrink-bladder-tumours-90Light Powered Yeast:https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-engineer-first-light-powered-yeastDNA Detection Advances:https://scitechdaily.com/rapid-disease-diagnosis-bioengineering-breakthrough-boosts-dna-detection-sensitivity-by-100x/

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Topforscher ChatGPT, Krankheitswelle, Nord-Stream-Lecks

tiktok nature chatgpt deutschland ihr nord stream quellen schweden die themen rangliste naturv krankheitswelle science robotics

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2023 5:56

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ KI-Chatbot schafft es bei Nature in Rangliste der Topforschenden +++ Acht Millionen in Deutschland husten und schniefen +++ Schweden hat wegen Nord-Stream-Lecks schlechtere Klimabilanz +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Nature-Rangliste der einflussreichsten Forschenden 2023Wochenbericht zu Atemwegserkrankungen in Deutschland, Robert Koch InstitutSchwedische Klimabilanz 2022, Naturvårdsverket (Schwedisch)GDF15 linked to maternal risk of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, Nature 13.12.23Cellular atlases of the entire mouse brain, Nature 13.12.23Human motor augmentation with an extra robotic arm without functional interference, Science Robotics 13.12.23**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: Tiktok und Instagram.

Evacuazione di Gaza: scontro Israele-ONU

Effetto giorno le notizie in 60 minuti

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 13, 2023

Israele dà ordine di evacuare Gaza in 24 ore, l’ONU si oppone. Il segretario di Stato Blinken, dopo aver fatto visita a Netanyahu, oggi è in Qatar. Sentiamo Roberto Bongiorni, inviato del Sole 24 Ore a Gerusalemme, e Marco Di Liddo, direttore del Centro Studi Internazionali. In cima alla classifica delle notizie positive della settimana la pubblicazione di uno studio su Science Robotics sul controllo naturale di una mano bionica grazie ad un’innovativa interfaccia uomo-macchina. Con noi il prof. Christian Cipriani, direttore dell’Istituto di BioRobotica dell’Università Sant’Anna di Pisa e coordinatore del progetto europeo DeTOP, all’interno del quale è stato realizzato lo studio.

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The AI special issue, adding empathy to robots, and scientists leaving Arecibo

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2023 27:30

Science's NextGen voices share their thoughts on artificial intelligence, how to avoid creating sociopathic robots, and a visit to a historic observatory as researchers pack their bags As part of a Science special issue on finding a place for artificial intelligence (AI) in science and society, Producer Kevin McLean shares voices from the next generation of researchers. We hear from students about how they think human scientists will still need to work alongside AI in the future. Continuing the AI theme, we learn about instilling empathy to get better decisions from AI. Researcher Leonardo Christov-Moore, a neuroscientist at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, discusses his Science Robotics piece on the importance of feelings for future iterations of AI with host Sarah Crespi. Finally, the status of the Arecibo Observatory. Sarah talks with Contributing Correspondent Claudia López Lloreda in Puerto Rico about scientists wrapping up their work at the facility, and the uncertain future of both their work prospects and the site itself. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Claudio Lopez Lloreda Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj7011See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The AI special issue, adding empathy to robots, and scientists leaving Arecibo

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2023 27:30

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Long Covid, Roboter-Muskeln, Party-Mathematik

covid-19 tiktok ihr condition ramsey prozent long covid quellen roboter muskeln die themen mathematik nachlesen science advances jama internal medicine partyg science robotics

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 24, 2023 5:24

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Meta-Studie zeigt 40 Prozent niedrigeres Long-Covid-Risiko bei mehrfach Geimpften +++ Kompostierbare Muskeln für Roboter +++ Die Mathematik hinter der richtigen Partygäste-Mischung +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Risk Factors Associated With Post−COVID-19 Condition, JAMA Internal Medicine, 23.03.2023Biodegradable electrohydraulic actuators for sustainable soft robots, Science Advances, 22.03.2023An exponential improvement for diagonal Ramsey, Preprint auf arxiv.org, 16.03.2023The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people, Plos Global Public Health, 22.03.2023A robotic honeycomb for interaction with a honeybee colony, Science Robotics, 22.03.2023**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: Tiktok und Instagram.**********Weitere Wissensnachrichten zum Nachlesen: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/nachrichten

Waldzustand, Body-Mass-Index, Komplimente

tiktok art ihr ern quellen landwirtschaft metropolitan museum die themen fmri nachlesen komplimente bundesministerium uav nature medicine body mass index icij affective neuroscience social cognitive science robotics

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2023 5:30

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Waldzustand 2022 unverändert +++ Alternativer Body-Mass-Index entwickelt +++ Komplimente machten tut einem auch selbst gut +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Ergebnisse der Waldzustandserhebung 2022/ Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, 21.03.2022Multiomic signatures of body mass index identify heterogeneous health phenotypes and responses to a lifestyle intervention/ Nature Medicine, 20.03.2023Neural responses to instructed positive couple interaction: an fMRI study on compliment sharing/ Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 28.02.2023More than 1000 artifacts in Metropolitan Museum of Art catalog linked to alleged looting and trafficking figures/ ICIJ, 20.03.2023A self-rotating, single-actuated UAV with extended sensor field of view for autonomous navigation/ Science Robotics, 15.03.2023@thehistoryguy/ Twitter 19.03.2023**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: Tiktok und Instagram.**********Weitere Wissensnachrichten zum Nachlesen: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/nachrichten

Falling In Love With Science -- Adventures in Learning with Science Editor in Chief H. Holden Thorp

Dr. Diane's Adventures in Learning

Play Episode Play 58 sec Highlight Listen Later Feb 15, 2023 28:56 Transcription Available

Why is science so important in our lives? And how can we do a better job of preparing young children to love science and to embrace the wide range of STEM careers available to them? We discuss all this and more with Holden Thorp, Editor-In-Chief of the Science family of journals.I've known Holden since we were kids growing up in Fayetteville, NC, and he was one of my first role models for someone who seamlessly blended a love of science with a love of the arts. H. Holden Thorp is the Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, holding appointments in both chemistry and medicine.Holden previously served as Washington University's provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and as the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also served as Morehead Planetarium's director and was instrumental in the establishment of the North Carolina Science Festival, the first statewide celebration of its kind in the nation. He earned his Ph.D in inorganic chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, and completed postdoctoral work at Yale University.Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed, general science journal in the world. The Science family of journals includes Science, Science Translational Medicine, Science Signaling, Science Robotics, Science Immunology, and the open-access journal, Science Advances.To follow Holden's thoughts and blogs, check out Twitter @hholdenthorp, LinkedIn, mastodon, blog posts, substack, and more.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast laun Start for FREEDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showRead the full show notes, visit the website, and check out my on-demand virtual course. Continue the adventure at LinkedIn or Instagram. *Disclosure: I am a Bookshop.org. affiliate.

Howie Choset - Robotics Professor, Entrepreneur and Inventor

Crazy Hard Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2022 34:27

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is known all over the world for great research in robotics. Howie Choset is one of the most well-known robotics professors at CMU. For decades he and his students have taken on some of the most interesting and challenging research projects in robotics. They are well known for their many attempts to and iterations of building snake robots, and they are now working on robots for automating recycling tasks and more. Howie is even working on how to put snake robots on the moons of Saturn! In addition to that, Howie and many of his students have founded robotics companies all over the world. From robotic surgery with snake robots, to navigation software, to modular robotic components, the companies Howie has helped found are solving super interesting problems. Tune in to Crazy Hard Robots to hear Howie and Tom talk about some of the hardest problems in the world of robots. In this episode: The technical challenges of snake robots Starting a robotic surgery company Howie gives a live demonstration to compare how people think vs. robots Landing snake robots on the moons of Saturn About Howie Choset Howie Choset is a Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University where he serves as the co-director of the Biorobotics Lab and as director of the Robotics Major. He received his undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Business from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. Choset received his Masters and PhD from Caltech in 1991 and 1996. Choset's research group reduces complicated high-dimensional problems found in robotics to low-dimensional simpler ones for design, analysis, and planning. Motivated by applications in confined spaces, Choset has created a comprehensive program in modular, high DOF, and multi- robot systems, which has led to basic research in mechanism design, path planning, motion planning, and estimation. This work has been supported by both industry and government; DOD support includes two MURIs, one of which Choset received the CO-PI, a young investigator award, and multi-PI awards for modular systems. Choset.s group has produced over 60 journal papers (including 2 in Science and one in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science), 180 conference papers and 15 patents. Choset.s work has also been recognized by several best paper awards and nominations at ICRA, IROS and other robotics meetings. Choset's research program has made contributions to challenging and strategically significant problems in diverse areas such as surgery, manufacturing, infrastructure inspection, and search and rescue. In addition to publications, this work has led to Choset, along with his students, to form several companies including Medrobotics, for surgical systems, Hebi Robotics, for modular robots, and Bito Robotics for autonomous guided vehicles. Recently, Choset.s surgical snake robot cleared the FDA and has been in use in the US and Europe since. Choset also leads multi-PI projects centered on manufacturing: (1) automating the programming of robots for auto-body painting; (2) the development of mobile manipulators for agile and flexible fixture-free manufacturing of large structures in aerospace, and (3) the creation of a data-robot ecosystem for rapid manufacturing in the commercial electronics industry. This year, Choset co-lead the formation of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, which is a $250MM national institute advancing both technology development and education for robotics in manufacturing. Finally, Choset is a founding Editor of the journal Science Robotics.

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Shyam Gollakota - Episode 26

ACM ByteCast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2022 43:02

In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Rashmi Mohan hosts 2020 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient Shyam Gollakota. He is a Torode Professor and leads the Networks and Mobile Systems Lab at the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Shyam is the recipient of many awards and recognitions, including a SIGMOBILE Rockstar award, 2021 Moore Inventor Fellowship, MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35, Popular Science ‘brilliant 10,' and the Forbes' 30 Under 30 list (twice). His group's research has earned Best Paper awards at many top conferences, appeared in interdisciplinary journals like Nature, Nature Communications, Science Translational Medicine, and Science Robotics, and was named as an MIT Technology Review Breakthrough Technology of 2016 as well as Popular Science top innovations in 2015. Shyam's research covers a variety of topics, including mobile machine learning, networking, human-computer interaction, battery-free computing, and mobile health. He works across multiple disciplines including computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, biology, and medicine. His work has been licensed by ResMed Inc, led to three startups (Jeeva Wireless, Sound Life Sciences, and Wavely Diagnostics), and is in use by millions of users. Shyam, who didn't know how to type on a keyboard until the age of 16, relates how he got into CS and discovered that more than just programming, it's also a toolkit people can use to build systems like an artist and solve some of the world's most pressing problems. He describes his work around the ambient backscatter, which uses existing radio frequency signals to power devices, and wind dispersal powered devices (and how the common dandelion provided inspiration for this research). Shyam and Rashmi also talk about his work on devices used for sleep apnea and tracking and the broader promise of ubiquitous computing in healthcare, such as democratizing medical attention to areas that don't have the same resources as the Western world. Finally, Shyam gives some insights into the entrepreneurial journey and looks toward the future of healthcare technology.

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Protecting birds from brightly lit buildings, and controlling robots from orbit

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2022 37:59 Very Popular

On this week's show: Saving birds from city lights, and helping astronauts inhabit robots First up, Science Contributing Correspondent Josh Sokol talks with host Sarah Crespi about the millions of migrating birds killed every year when they slam into buildings—attracted by brightly lit windows. New efforts are underway to predict bird migrations and dim lights along their path, using a bird-forecasting system called . Next, we hear from Aaron Pereira, a researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and a guest researcher at the human robot interaction lab at the European Space Agency. He chats with Sarah about his Science Robotics paper on controlling a robot on Earth from the International Space Station and the best way for an astronaut to “immerse” themselves in a rover or make themselves feel like it is an extension of their body. In a sponsored segment from Science and the AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for custom publishing, interviews Alberto Pugliese, professor of medicine, microbiology, and immunology at the University of Miami, about a program he leads to advance research into type 1 diabetes. This segment is sponsored by the Helmsley Charitable Trust and nPod (the Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes). This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: M. Panzirsch et al., Science Robotics (2022); Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: remote-controlled rover with podcast symbol overlay] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Josh Sokol Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq5907 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Protecting birds from brightly lit buildings, and controlling robots from orbit

robotics molecular hess saper gadiel science robotics

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2022 37:59

Jonathan Rossiter "Liquid-Amplified Zipping Actuators For Micro-Air Vehicles"

Soft Robotics Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2022 32:31

For more details about the published work at Science Robotics journal here: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/scirobotics.abi8189?af=R&utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ROBeToc&utm_content=alert&et_rid=759248285&et_cid=4116116

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Henry Hess & Gadiel Saper "Molecular Robotics"

Soft Robotics Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2021 43:03

For more details about Gadiel and Henry's Science Robotics paper: Robotic end-to-end fusion of microtubules powered by kinesin: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abj7200

News Mash-up: Recent Research

レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2021 1:35

A robot's gaze can affect the human brain It has long been known that making eye contact with a robot can be an unsettling experience. Scientists even have a name for the queasy feeling: the “uncanny valley.” Now, thanks to researchers, we also know it's more than just a feeling. A team at the Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia in Genoa has shown how a robot's gaze can trick us into thinking we are socially interacting and slow our ability to make decisions. “Gaze is an extremely important social signal that we employ on a day-to-day basis when interacting with others,” said Agnieszka Wykowska, lead author of the research, published on Sept. 1 in the journal Science Robotics. (Reuters) Antibacterial bandages made from durian Scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are tackling food waste by turning discarded durian husks into antibacterial gel bandages. The process extracts cellulose powder from the husks of the fruits after they are sliced and freeze-dried, then mixes it with glycerol. This mixture becomes soft hydrogel, which is then cut into bandage strips. Compared to conventional bandages, the organo-hydrogel bandages are able to keep wound areas cooler and moist, which can help accelerate healing. The researchers say using waste materials and yeast for the antimicrobial bandages is more cost-effective than for the production of conventional bandages. (Reuters) These articles were provided by The Japan Times Alpha.

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Science Robotics Official Sponsor & Give Away One Year Subscription

Soft Robotics Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2021 2:20

This give away will be granted to one of our listeners, you can reach directly to me why do you think having this subscription would help you. You can also fill the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdiSMusW0qQzW1VNxPELjkaYj3Ld-gKcQGBHkQteSUAmYn2lg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0 Thank you all :)

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This Bipedal Drone Robot Can Walk, Fly, Skateboard, and Slackline

Singularity Hub Daily

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2021 4:09

Most animals are limited to either walking, flying, or swimming, with a handful of lucky species whose physiology allows them to cross over. A new robot took inspiration from them, and can fly like a bird just as well as it can walk like a (weirdly awkward, metallic, tiny) person. It also happens to be able to skateboard and slackline, two skills most humans will never pick up. Described in a paper published this week in Science Robotics, the robot's name is Leo, which is short for Leonardo, which is short for LEgs ONboARD drOne. The name makes it sound like a drone with legs, but it has a somewhat humanoid shape, with multi-joint legs, propeller thrusters that look like arms, a “body” that contains its motors and electronics, and a dome-shaped protection helmet. Leo was built by a team at Caltech, and they were particularly interested in how the robot would transition between walking and flying. The team notes that they studied the way birds use their legs to generate thrust when they take off, and applied similar principles to the robot. In a video that shows Leo approaching a staircase, taking off, and gliding over the stairs to land near the bottom, the robot's motions are seamlessly graceful. “There is a similarity between how a human wearing a jet suit controls their legs and feet when landing or taking off and how LEO uses synchronized control of distributed propeller-based thrusters and leg joints,” said Soon-Jo Chung, one of the paper's authors a professor at Caltech. “We wanted to study the interface of walking and flying from the dynamics and control standpoint.” Leo walks at a speed of 20 centimeters (7.87 inches) per second, but can move faster by mixing in some flying with the walking. How wide our steps are, where we place our feet, and where our torsos are in relation to our legs all help us balance when we walk. The robot uses its propellers to help it balance, while its leg actuators move it forward. To teach the robot to slackline—which is much harder than walking on a balance beam—the team overrode its feet contact sensors with a fixed virtual foot contact centered just underneath it, because the sensors weren't able to detect the line. The propellers played a big part as well, helping keep Leo upright and balanced. For the robot to ride a skateboard, the team broke the process down into two distinct components: controlling the steering angle and controlling the skateboard's acceleration and deceleration. Placing Leo's legs in specific spots on the board made it tilt to enable steering, and forward acceleration was achieved by moving the bot's center of mass backward while pitching the body forward at the same time. So besides being cool (and a little creepy), what's the goal of developing a robot like Leo? The paper authors see robots like Leo enabling a range of robotic missions that couldn't be carried out by ground or aerial robots. “Perhaps the most well-suited applications for Leo would be the ones that involve physical interactions with structures at a high altitude, which are usually dangerous for human workers and call for a substitution by robotic workers,” the paper's authors said. Examples could include high-voltage line inspection, painting tall bridges or other high-up surfaces, inspecting building roofs or oil refinery pipes, or landing sensitive equipment on an extraterrestrial object. Next up for Leo is an upgrade to its performance via a more rigid leg design, which will help support the robot's weight and increase the thrust force of its propellers. The team also wants to make Leo more autonomous, and plans to add a drone landing control algorithm to its software, ultimately aiming for the robot to be able to decide where and when to walk versus fly. Leo hasn't quite achieved the wow factor of Boston Dynamics' dancing robots (or its Atlas that can do parkour), but it's on its way. Image Credit: Caltech Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies/Science Robotics

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Mensen gedragen zich anders als er robot mee kijkt

Focus Wetenschap

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 2, 2021 23:40

Een paar uur geleden publiceerde Science Robotics een bijzonder onderzoek. Mensen gedragen zich anders als er robot mee kijkt. Wat zegt dat over hoe wij ons verhouden tot robots? Joanna van Dorp is directeur van de Stichting Buitenplaats Doornburgh. De ontmoeting tussen kunst en wetenschap is erg belangrijk. Mirthe van der Drift in gesprek met Joanna van Dorp.

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490 Snake Robots, Innovation, and w/ Howie Choset

Going Deep with Aaron Watson

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2021 32:23

Howie Choset is a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a serial entrepreneur. With his students, Howie has formed several companies including Medrobotics, for surgical systems, Hebi Robotics, for modular robots, and Bito Robotics for autonomous guided vehicles. Further, Choset co-lead the formation of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, which is $250m national institute advancing both technology development and education for robotics in manufacturing. He is aksi a founding Editor of the journal ‘Science Robotics. In this conversation, Howie and Aaron discuss the series of startups he has founded, how to delegate & develop teams, and the patience required to see technological innovation turn from idea to reality. Sign up for a Weekly Email that will Expand Your Mind. Howie Choset's Challenge; Have good students actively teach students that are further behind. Go into fields that seem too difficult. Find applications for snake robots. Connect with Howie Choset Linkedin Biorobotics Lab Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 306 with Bryan Salesky where we discuss raising billions of dollars to develop self-driving cars. Text Me What You Think of This Episode 412-278-7680 Underwritten by Piper Creative Piper Creative makes creating podcasts, vlogs, and videos easy. How? Click here and Learn more. We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs. Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Instagram Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | Spotify

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Could You Adapt to Having an Extra Thumb?

Curiosity Daily

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2021 12:52

Learn about a robotic “third thumb”; how measuring time increases entropy; and how to distinguish friends from foes. People's brains adapted to having a robotic "third thumb" by Steffie Drucker UCL. (2021, May 19). Robotic “Third Thumb” use can alter brain representation of the hand. UCL News. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/may/robotic-third-thumb-use-can-alter-brain-representation-hand ‌Kieliba, P., Clode, D., Maimon-Mor, R. O., & Makin, T. R. (2021). Robotic hand augmentation drives changes in neural body representation. Science Robotics, 6(54), eabd7935. https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abd7935 Video: https://vimeo.com/551468278 Teen turns prosthetic arm into glitter-shooting unicorn horn [VIDEO] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf91U06GII8 Measuring time increases the entropy in the universe by Briana Brownell Pearson, A. N., Guryanova, Y., Erker, P., Laird, E. A., Briggs, G. A. D., Huber, M., & Ares, N. (2021). Measuring the Thermodynamic Cost of Timekeeping. Physical Review X, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.11.021029 O'Callaghan, J. (2021, May 20). How does time work? Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/how-does-time-work.html ‌Schirber, M. (2021). Keeping Time on Entropy's Dime. Physics, 14. https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/s54 Crane, L. (2020). Measuring time accurately increases the entropy in the universe. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2277050-measuring-time-accurately-increases-the-entropy-in-the-universe/ A clock's accuracy may be tied to the disorder it creates. (2021, April 28). Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clock-time-accuracy-entropy-disorder To Scope Someone Out, See How They Judge Others by Anna Todd What you say about others says a lot about you, research shows. (2021). ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100802165441.htm Wood, D., Harms, P., & Vazire, S. (2010). Perceiver effects as projective tests: What your perceptions of others say about you. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(1), 174–190. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019390 Schwantes, M. (2017, March 27). Asking This 1 Question Will Instantly Reveal Someone's Personality. Inc.com; Inc. https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/how-to-read-people-instantly-by-asking-1-simple-question.html Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Increase in stalkerware installations

Digital Planet

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2020 43:32

New data shows an increase in stalkerware use. This is software that grants a remote user the ability to monitor the activity on another user’s device without their consent, and can be preloaded in technology given as gifts. It’s an increasing problem around the world according to the cybersecurity form Kaspersky. Tara Hairston from Kaspersky and Sachiko Hasumi, Manager of Information Security & Compliance at UN Women highlight the growing problem as part of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women this week. Robots are not immune to bias and injustice An editorial in Science Robotics is calling on roboticists and AI developers to consider racial biases and inequalities when developing new technology. Professor Ayanna Howard who co-leads the organisation “Black in Robotics” wants the robotics community to welcome and employ a more racially diverse workforce as current developers do not reflect the global population and both robotics and AI are therefore being developed without many people in mind. Military tech adapted to find the blue whales of South Georgia Scientists who have discovered the return of critically endangered Antarctic blue whales to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia - 50 years after whaling all but wiped them out - used military sonobuoys to track the animals. This tech is usually deployed from aircraft into the sea to track submarines. The team looked at 30 years of data – reports of sightings, photographs and underwater sea recordings – to track the world’s largest mammal back to these waters. The new study follows recent research that humpback whales are also returning to the region. Lead author of the study, Susannah Calderan of the Scottish Association for Marine Science explains how they are using sonobuoys to track blue whales hundreds of miles away. The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson. (Image: Getty Images) Studio manager: John Boland Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

FDA clinical trial protection failures, and an AI that can beat curling's top players

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2020 28:44

Investigative journalist Charles Piller joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his latest Science exclusive: a deep dive into the Food and Drug Administration's protection of human subjects in clinical trials. Based on months of data analysis and interviews, he uncovered long-term failures in safety enforcement in clinical trials and potential problems with trial data used to make decisions about drug and device approvals. Sarah also talks with Klaus-Robert Müller, a professor of machine learning at the Technical University of Berlin, about an artificial intelligence (AI) trained in the sport of curling—often described as a cross between bowling and chess. Although AI has succeeded in chess, Go, and poker, the constantly changing environment of curling is far harder for a nonhuman mind to adapt to. But AIs were the big winners in competitions with top human players, Müller and colleagues report this week in Science Robotics. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF). ++Meta [Image: Cory Denton/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Charles Piller See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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FDA clinical trial protection failures, and an AI that can beat curling's top players

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2020 28:44

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FDA clinical trial failures, and an AI that can beat curling’s top players

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2020 28:36

Investigative journalist Charles Piller joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his latest Science exclusive: a deep dive into the Food and Drug Administration’s protection of human subjects in clinical trials. Based on months of data analysis and interviews, he uncovered long-term failures in safety enforcement in clinical trials and potential problems with trial data used to make decisions about drug and device approvals. Sarah also talks with Klaus-Robert Müller, a professor of machine learning at the Technical University of Berlin, about an artificial intelligence (AI) trained in the sport of curling—often described as a cross between bowling and chess. Although AI has succeeded in chess, Go, and poker, the constantly changing environment of curling is far harder for a nonhuman mind to adapt to. But AIs were the big winners in competitions with top human players, Müller and colleagues report this week in Science Robotics. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

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Smart City del giorno 18/09/2020: RoBeatle, il micro robot che cammina senza elettricità

Smart City

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2020

Si chiama RoBeatle ed è un nuovo micro-robot, simile nell'aspetto, come dice il nome, a uno scarafaggio. È stato sviluppato dagli scienziati dell'Università della California Meridionale ed è pesante solo 88 mg e lungo 15 mm, ciò che ne fa uno dei robot autonomi più piccoli e leggeri mai creati. Robot di questo tipo potrebbero trovare utilizzo nell'ispezione di infrastrutture, nel monitoraggio ambientale o per attività quali l'impollinazione artificiale. E naturalmente anche nello spionaggio.Ma l'aspetto più interessante del progetto, descritto dettagliatamente su Science Robotics, è il sistema che questo piccolo robot insetto utilizza per spostarsi. RoBeatle infatti non fa alcun ricorso all'elettricità, ma utilizza come fonte di energia del metanolo, che conserva all'interno di un piccolissimo serbatoio. Ospite Matteo Cianchetti, ricercatore dell'Istituto di Bio-Robotica della Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa.

A Camera For Insects | Earth Wise

Earth Wise

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2020 2:00

Electronic devices get smaller and smaller all the time. We are used to carrying around phones in our pockets that incorporate a whole host of sophisticated devices. But we can still be amazed by miniaturization. Recently, scientists at the University of Washington announced the development of a tiny, wireless camera small enough to be worn […]

Payden Littlefield - Enhancing Student Learning using Robotics

UEN Homeroom

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2020 30:49

This week Dani and Jared interview Payden Littlefield, a Science/Robotics teacher at Syracuse Jr. High in Davis School District. As part of their conversation they look at the role robotics can play in helping students develop critical thinking skills. In addition, they cover topics such as: the biggest impacts for teachers who implement robotics into their classroomsgood first steps into using robots in instructionhow technology helps students of all different backgrounds and ability levels learnResourceshttps://www.roboticseducation.org/ - This is the foundation that helps organize the competitions that we have attended.https://www.roboticseducation.org/resources/ - This is the resources page from that same website. it includes a place to apply for grants to help with the cost of robotics kits.https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/education/iq-curriculum - This link has a free robotics curriculum that you can download to use with the VEX robotics kits. https://code.org/ - It is a great resource for students and teachers getting started with coding or computer programming.https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexcode-vr - This final link is a virtual reality robot that you can program. It includes more lessons with problems for students to solve.

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Coronavirus spreads financial turmoil to universities, and a drone that fights mosquito-borne illnesses

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2020 24:57

Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Mervis joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how universities are dealing with the financial crunch brought on by the coronavirus. Jeff discusses how big research universities are balancing their budgets as federal grants continue to flow, but endowments are down and so is the promise of state funding. Read all our coronavirus coverage. Mosquito-borne infections like Zika, dengue, malaria, and chikungunya cause millions of deaths each year. Nicole Culbert and colleges write this week in Science Robotics about a new way to deal with deadly mosquitoes—using drones. The drones are designed to drop hundreds of thousands of sterile male mosquitoes in areas with high risk of mosquito-borne illness. The idea is that sterile male mosquitoes will mate with females and the females then lay infertile eggs, which causes the population to decline. They found this drone-based approach is cheaper and more efficient than other methods of releasing sterile mosquitoes and does not have the problems associated with pesticide-based eradication efforts such as resistance and off-target effects. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF).

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Episode 1: LSB, Cyborgs are Basically A Thing Now

Long Story, But...

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2020 39:58

"Everybody has something compelling to say, they just need to figure out the best way to say it." -Ellen Kress Alex Chavez details the advancement and innovation in prosthetics. Get in touch! Email: longstorypod@gmail.com Instagram: @longstorypod Twitter: @lsbpod Facebook: Long Story, But Website: longstorypod.com Resources from Alex: Nationwide Support Group: https://www.amputee-coalition.org/ Alex's Volunteer Organization: http://angelcitysports.org/ CAF, assists with funding sports limbs and equipment: https://www.challengedathletes.org/ Suggested Reading: Prosthesis with neuromorphic multilayered e-dermis perceives touch and pain by Luke E. Osborn et al. in Science Robotics (3) June 2018 Music in this episode: Intro: Boardroom Theme by Unicorn Heads Now Launch by The Brother Records Komputo by Franics Preve Flickering by VYEN The Urban Symponia by Unicorn Heads

Internet partially restored in Kashmir

Digital Planet

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2020 33:33

Internet in Kashmir partially back on Following a court ruling in India, the internet has been partially restored in Kashmir. There is still no access to social media but the Indian government was forced to allow some access. Mishi Choudhary, founder of the Software Freedom Law Centre in New Delhi updates us on the situation. Pigeonbot Imagine a robot that’s as graceful as a swooping and gliding bird. It could get into crowded environments where drones currently can’t be used. The latest research, published in Science Robotics, into flying robots delivers just that. Laura Matloff from Stanford University in USA is one of the team who designed PigeonBot and joins us on the programme. Will Brazil become a data colony? Brazilians are neither happy with the way in which companies handle their personal data or trust them, according to a new survey by IBM. Sau Paulo based Technology Writer Angelica Mari explains why there are growing concerns that soon private companies may control most citizen’s data. (Photo: Kashmiri youth hold placards during a protest against an Internet, SMS and prepaid mobile services blockade. Credit: EPA/Farooq/Khan) Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

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丽莎老师讲机器人之加州理工微机器人体内实时成像调控并治疗疾病

丽莎老师讲机器人

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 6, 2019 4:08

丽莎老师讲机器人之加州理工微机器人体内实时成像调控并治疗疾病欢迎收听丽莎老师讲机器人，想要孩子参加机器人竞赛、创意编程、创客竞赛的辅导，找丽莎老师！欢迎添加微信号：153 5359 2068，或搜索微信公众号：我最爱机器人。科幻接近现实，加州理工微机器人体内实时成像调控并治疗疾病想象一下，未来某天我们会制造出如细胞般大小，具有微纳米尺度的马达、汽车、飞机、潜水艇、甚至机器人。这些微纳米尺度的马达或机器人可以在我们的血液中游弋，携带药物运动到病患区域、最终治疗威胁人类生命的疾病。今年，加州理工学院研究团队设计的可在肠道内实时定位并控制的微米机器人系统，正在向这些科幻作品中的情节一步步靠近……这项合作完成的突破今天以《微机器人体内实时成像调控并治疗疾病》为题，发表于Science Robotics，引起微纳机器人界的广泛关注。常规的药物递送主要依靠血液循环运输完成，这种被动扩散方法受到多重生物屏障的阻碍不但导致有效剂量严重不足同时引发全身性的毒副作用，难以完成精准药物递送的需求。微纳机器人因其可在生物流体中进行可控自主运动，被认为是靶向药物递送的理想方案。但是，对于微纳机器人的实际医学应用，如何让微纳机器人实现在体内实时成像与控制仍然面临着挑战。面对微纳机器人体内深层组织下实时成像与控制的难题，该研究成果为解决微纳米机器人生物医疗中体内成像和控制的瓶颈难题提供了思路。研究团队设计了基于光声断层扫描技术实现动物体内实施成像并控制的微机器人系统。将微米机器人包裹于具有保护层的微胶囊内以免于胃酸等流体的侵蚀，借助光声断层成像技术，包裹在微胶囊内的载药微纳机器人可在动物体内的实时定位，当微机器人胶囊抵达体内病患区域（比如肠道肿瘤）时，外源近红外光可以穿透深层组织并引发胶囊破裂从而释放微机器人。释放出的微机器人依靠其高效游动可穿越生物屏障最终实现在病患区域的滞留和持久的药物传递。这种微米机器人可以穿透消化道的粘液并在那里停留很长时间。这有助于提高药物的供给，由于这种微米机器人主要由镁组成，因此具有生物相容性和生物可降解性。设想构建到达患病区域后可按需激活微型机器人，下一步的研究将着力于这种机器人的治疗效果。(“These micromotors can penetrate the mucus of the digestive tract and stay there for a long time. This improves medicine delivery, but because they're made of magnesium, they're biocompatible and biodegradable. We demonstrated the concept that you can reach the diseased area and activate the microrobots. The next step is evaluating the therapeutic effect of them.”)对于生物医学微纳米机器人的未来做了进一步的思考：“The microrobot concept is really cool because you can get micromachinery right to where you need it. It could be drug delivery, or a predesigned microsurgery." （可以把这种微型机器人微放在任何需要的地方，它们未来可以被用于药物递送或者智能微手术）

science robotics

Exosuit Fits Like a Pair of Shorts

IEN Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 4, 2019 1:58

A research team has designed a new portable exosuit that could soon help people walk and run. You know what, it's just nice to report a new exoskeleton that doesn't have a tail. You wear the hip exosuit on your waist and thighs with the actuation system attached to your lower back. The system uses an algorithm to predict when you're going to switch from running to walking, or vice versa, by analyzing how your center of mass is moving. That way, it doesn’t give you too much of a boost when your walking. According to the researchers, the new suit is lightweight and uses a cable actuation system that applies force from the waist belt, and thigh wraps to generate torque that works in concert with the gluteal muscles.The device weighs a little more than 11 pounds, but most of the weight which is around your trunk.In initial tests, the exosuit reduced metabolic rates in walkers by 9.3 percent and in runners by 4 percent. In subsequent experiments, it helped users more efficiently walk uphill walking, run at various speeds, and traverse multiple terrains. The hip exosuit was actually developed as part of DARPA’s former Warrior Web program and is the result of years of soft exosuit R&D. The team previously developed a multi-joint exosuit that was licensed by ReWalk Robotics. In April 2018, the previous suit was used by a paralyzed man to complete a marathon. The team includes researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the University of Nebraska Omaha, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Their work was recently published in Science Robotics. Next, the team will try to make an even smaller, lighter, and quieter version of the robotic shorts.

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Episode 9: E-skin detects direction of applied pressure

MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2019 5:06

Sophia Chen of MRS Bulletin interviews Zhenan Bao of Stanford University about her research team’s development of a biomimetic soft electronic skin (e-skin) composed of an array of capacitors capable of effectively measuring and discriminating shear force in real time. Read the abstract in Science Robotics. CHEN: Zhenan Bao is a professor at Stanford University whose research team developed this robot. She says the key design of the robot is a network of force sensors on its fingertip that tell the robot when to retract. BAO: Without sensor feedback, the robot would not know how much it can press on an object before it should stop. CHEN: They’ve also shown that the robot can respond to feedback to place a ping-pong ball into an arrangement of different round holes. She says that this type of tactile robot could be useful in all sorts of situations.BAO: Any robot that will need to have the ability to manipulate objects and being in contact with objects will need this type of sensing feedback.CHEN: Basically, it works because they’ve invented a stretchable electronic skin covered in sensors that can sense force from multiple directions. It can sense forces perpendicular to the skin, or normal force, as well as forces parallel to the skin, known as shear force. And both forces are necessary for grabbing, holding, and placing objects. Try it. Grab a coin or something between your fingers—you’ll notice how you need to apply pressure to hold it, but also sense shear force to keep it from sliding. Previously, electronic skins couldn’t sense shear force very effectively. The sensors were fragile and they also could only be placed sparsely on the robot. But Bao has figured out a way for the robot to sense the shear force, and she’s placed those sensors at high density on the skin. The more sensors crammed onto a surface, the better you can control the robot’s sense of touch. Bao says some of the tactile properties of the electronic skin are comparable to the sensitivity of human skin. For example, if the skin experiences a shear pressure increase of 1 pascal, the electronic signal output of the skin will triple in size. 1 Pascal is about the pressure of a dollar bill resting on a table. BAO: We are able to use fingertips to feel the most delicate texture and structures on the surface. CHEN: In fact, to create this electronic skin, she’s borrowed a design element from human skin itself, a structure called the spinosum, which lies between the epidermis and dermis. They’re these little hill-like structures for sensing the direction a force is coming from.BAO: If you add this hill-like structure, then depending on whether the force comes from left side or right side, because this dome or hill will be pressed from an angle, then only mechanoreceptor that’s on the opposite side of the direction of the force will be pressed and activated. This gives us a sense of direction of the shear force. CHEN: The hill structures are pretty small—a fraction of a millimeter in size—and she can pack them densely onto the electronic skin. But if you zoom in even further, you can see the other key structural design on their electronic skin. Bao’s group has fabricated tiny pyramids, tens of microns wide at the base. BAO: After a force is applied, these pyramids allow the elastic material to bounce back to its original shape once the force is removed.CHEN: And in the future, Bao wants to borrow even more design elements from human physiology. She wants the sensors to pre-process some of the signal, like neurons do. BAO: This neural-like signal processing lets humans gather a large amount of information and train our brain to learn the patterns of information with very little consumption of energy.

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Nanotech News #5: Cancer-Killing Nanobots?

NanoJunkie

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2019 16:53

I finally got to record an episode about nanobots, which is a HOT topic in nanotechnology. Many news outlets have covered nanobots in recent years, particularly because of their potential to target and destroy tumors in the body. But...what exactly is a nanobot? How can we make a nanobot kill cancer cells? We should probably learn more about them before we stick them in our bloodstream. That's what this episode is for!Reference to publication about controlling nanoscale beads in cells:X. Wang et al. "Intracellular manipulation and measurement with multipole magnetic tweezers." Science Robotics, Vol. 4, Issue 28, March 2019. DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aav6180Nanotechnology World article about nanoscale bead control:https://www.nanotechnologyworld.org/single-post/2019/03/18/Researchers-create-nano-bot-to-probe-inside-human-cellsA free-to-view review about nanorobotics:http://ijpsr.com/bft-article/nanorobots-a-review/?view=fulltextSome random patent from the 2000s involving nanorobotics:https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2008063473&tab=PCTDESCRIPTION&maxRec=1000My contact info: nanotechjunkie@gmail.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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How far out we can predict the weather, and an ocean robot that monitors food webs

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2019 18:07

The app on your phone tells you the weather for the next 10 days—that's the furthest forecasters have ever been able to predict. In fact, every decade for the past hundred years, a day has been added to the total forecast length. But we may be approaching a limit—thanks to chaos inherent in the atmosphere. Staff writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how researchers have determined that we will only be adding about 5 more days to our weather prediction apps. Also this week, host Meagan Cantwell interviews Trygve Fossum from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim about his article in Science Robotics on an underwater autonomous vehicle designed to sample phytoplankton off the coast of Norway. The device will help researchers form a better picture of the base of many food webs and with continued monitoring, researchers hope to better understand key processes in the ocean such as nutrient, carbon, and energy cycling. This week's episode was edited by Podigy. Download the transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts About the Science Podcast [Image: Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

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How far out we can predict the weather, and an ocean robot that monitors food webs

WIRED Science: Space, Health, Biotech, and More

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2019 16:53

The app on your phone tells you the weather for the next 10 days—that’s the furthest forecasters have ever been able to predict. In fact, every decade for the past hundred years, a day has been added to the total forecast length. But we may be approaching a limit—thanks to chaos inherent in the atmosphere. Staff writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how researchers have determined that we will only be adding about 5 more days to our weather prediction apps. Also this week, host Meagan Cantwell interviews Trygve Fossum from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim about his article in Science Robotics on an underwater autonomous vehicle designed to sample phytoplankton off the coast of Norway. The device will help researchers form a better picture of the base of many food webs and with continued monitoring, researchers hope to better understand key processes in the ocean such as nutrient, carbon, and energy cycling. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download the transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts About the Science Podcast [Image: Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

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A Robot Teaches Itself to Play Jenga. But This Is No Game

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 1, 2019 6:36

Global thermonuclear war. The slight possibility that a massive asteroid could boop Earth. Jenga. These are a few of the things that give humans debilitating anxiety. Robots can't solve any of these problems for us, but one machine can now brave the angst that is the crumbling tower of wooden blocks: Researchers at MIT report today in Science Robotics that they've engineered a robot to teach itself the complex physics of Jenga.

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Cuddly Robots Feel Hugs

Naked Scientists, In Short Special Editions Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2018 4:53

When we think of robots we might think of the Terminator, West World, or even something completely different like Big Hero Six - a story about a young boy and his soft medical robot companion Baymax. Doughy and malleable, a robot like Baymax is kind of the holy grail for scientists who are working on making Soft Robots - robots which aren't made of metal or plastic but instead of stretchable, supple materials like rubber, gels, or fabric. Eva Higginbotham spoke to Ilse Van Meerbeek, a PhD student at Cornell University who recently published a paper in Science Robotics about new progress in... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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Cuddly Robots Feel Hugs

Naked Scientists Special Editions Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2018 4:53

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丽莎老师讲机器人之套上神奇皮肤秒变机器人

丽莎老师讲机器人

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 16, 2018 4:34

欢迎收听丽莎老师讲机器人，想要孩子参加机器人竞赛、创意编程、创客竞赛的辅导，找丽莎老师！欢迎添加微信号：153 5359 2068，或搜索微信公众号：我最爱机器人。丽莎老师讲机器人之套上神奇皮肤秒变机器人。有没有羡慕《复仇者联盟》里的钢铁侠，一旦穿上他那高科技战甲，就拥有了超级力量，超级耐力，与多种超级武器，战斗力瞬间爆表。最近，来自耶鲁大学的研究人员就开发了一项新型“机器皮肤”技术，日常的用品一旦穿上这件“机器人皮肤”，瞬间就能变为机器人。一改普通机器人僵硬、笨重，通常为某种特定的目的而建造的印象。这款机器皮肤由耶鲁大学的机械工程与材料科学助理教授雷比卡.克拉默的实验室开发。通过使用这一技术，用户能够设计出自己的机器人系统，同时这项技术将来可以应用于搜救机器人到可穿戴技术的各个领域。这项工作成果近期发表在了《科学·机器人》（Science Robotics）杂志上。机器皮肤由弹性板制成，在弹性板上嵌入了由实验室开发的传感器和执行器。该项技术主要是通过将机器皮肤固定在可变形物体表面上，比如毛绒动物玩具或泡沫轴，借由机器皮肤的结构使得物体运动起来。同时，根据所固定的柔软物体的属性和应用机器皮肤方式的不同，这种临时组成的机器人就还可以执行不同的任务。我们可以用这些机器皮肤包裹住某个物体，执行某种任务——例如让这个物体移动一段距离，然后把机器皮肤拿下来，再放在另一个物体上，执行另一个任务，比如抓取和移动别的物体。传统意义上的机器人通常只具有设计者设定的某些功能。然而，机器皮肤则允许用户根据自己的需要快速创造出具有多种功能的机器人。这意味着它们可以被应用于设计者都没想到的情形。此外，通过使用多个机器皮肤的组合使用，物体还能实现更为复杂的运动。将皮肤分层，然后就可以用每层皮肤的组合实现不同类型的运动。现在我们可以实现联合运动——例如，在压缩某个物体的同时弯曲它。为了演示机器皮肤能的功能实现，研究人员制作了一些机器人原型：一款像蠕虫一样蠕动的泡沫轴，一款用于纠正不良姿势的衬衫式可穿戴设备，以及一款可以抓住并移动物体的夹持器。这个项目的灵感来源于几年前，当时NASA正呼吁人们开发软机器人系统。这项技术就是与NASA合作设计的，其多功能和可复用的特性将令宇航员能够使用相同的可复用材料完成一系列不同的任务。比如，一块包裹在泡沫塑料上用来制作机械手臂的皮肤，可以摘下来再用来制作能在粗糙表面上翻滚的“火星漫游者”机器人。有了机器皮肤，从气球到皱巴巴的纸团，任何东西都有潜力被制成有用途的机器人。在设计机器皮肤时，研究人员非常看重多功能性，特别是对于深空探索来说，环境是不可预知的，如何为未知的情况做好准备是非常重要的问题。为了支持继续开展此类研究，实验室最近获得了由美国国家科学基金会提供的高达200万美元的资助，这项技术将作为该基金会“研究和创新的新前沿”项目的一部分。实验室的下一步计划将致力于简化设备，并尝试借助使用3D打印组件制作机器人皮肤。

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Ancient volcanic eruptions, and peer pressure—from robots

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2018 21:00

Several thousand years ago the volcano under Santorini in Greece—known as Thera—erupted in a tremendous explosion, dusting the nearby Mediterranean civilizations of Crete and Egypt in a layer of white ash. This geological marker could be used to tie together many ancient historical events, but the estimated date could be off by a century. Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a new study that used tree rings to calibrate radiocarbon readings—and get closer to pinning down a date. The findings also suggest that scientists may need to change their standard radiocarbon dating calibration curve. Sarah also talks to Tony Belpaeme of Ghent University in Belgium and Plymouth University in the United Kingdom about his Science Robotics paper that explored whether people are susceptible to peer pressure from robots. Using a classic psychological measure of peer influence, the team found that kids from ages 7 to 9 occasionally gave in to social pressure from robot peers, but adults did not. This week's episode was edited by Podigy, with help from Meagan Cantwell. Download a transcript of this episode (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Softbank Robotics; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

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Ancient volcanic eruptions, and peer pressure—from robots