Monday 3 June 2019

'Slothbot' takes a leisurely approach to environmental monitoring

For environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, infrastructure maintenance and certain security applications, slow and energy efficient can be better than fast and always needing a recharge. That's where "SlothBot" comes in.

* This article was originally published here

New mineral classification system captures Earth's complex past

The first minerals to form in the universe were nanocrystalline diamonds, which condensed from gases ejected when the first generation of stars exploded. Diamonds that crystallize under the extreme pressure and temperature conditions deep inside of Earth are more typically encountered by humanity. What opportunities for knowledge are lost when mineralogists categorize both the cosmic travelers and the denizens of deep Earth as being simply "diamond"?

* This article was originally published here

2-D crystals conforming to 3-D curves create strain for engineering quantum devices

A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory explored how atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) crystals can grow over 3-D objects and how the curvature of those objects can stretch and strain the crystals. The findings, published in Science Advances, point to a strategy for engineering strain directly during the growth of atomically thin crystals to fabricate single photon emitters for quantum information processing.

* This article was originally published here

Germline gene therapy pioneer, teenage son make case for safe treatment

An internationally known embryologist and his son make the case for using gene-editing tools to prevent inherited disease, in an editorial published today in the journal Nature Medicine.

* This article was originally published here

No benefit from pazopanib in advanced kidney cancer after surgery to remove metastases

The E2810 research study was conducted to determine whether taking the oral drug pazopanib (Votrient) following surgery to remove further metastases in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma would improve their disease-free survival. The trial was designed and conducted by researchers in the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group with funding from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. Results from the study were presented today at the 2019 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, showing that the study did not meet its primary endpoint of disease-free survival (Meeting Abstract 4502).

* This article was originally published here

'Law as Data' explores radical leap for legal analysis

Four thousand years ago, human societies underwent a fundamental transition when the rules governing how people interact shifted from oral custom to written laws: first captured in stone tablets such as the Code of Hammurabi, then migrating to scrolls and eventually printed law books. In recent years, the law has leaped from the analog to the digital, breaking out of the law library and onto any computer, tablet, or phone with an internet connection. This shift has the potential to radically revise how law is experienced, practiced, and studied.

* This article was originally published here

Simplifying soft robots

A soft robot developed by researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) could pave the way to fully untethered robots for space exploration, search and rescue systems, biomimetics, medical surgery, rehabilitation and more.

* This article was originally published here