Scientific American reporter Jeremy Hsu highlights how CSAIL researchers have developed a robot that can automatically sort recycling. The robot “uses soft Teflon ‘fingers,’ which have fingertip sensors to detect object size and stiffness,” Hsu explains.
Financial Times reporter Hugo Cox highlights how MIT researchers have developed robots that can be used to detect disease in specific regions by sampling sewage. “A local robot takes days to identify an outbreak of flu; the surge in attendance at local hospitals and surgeries typically takes weeks to register,” Cox explains. “And because the information is local, the response can be too.”
MIT startup ClearMotion Labs has developed technology that helps cars adjust to potholes in the road, making for a smoother ride, reports Robert Goulston for Boston 25 News. “As the wheels are going over bumps, those sensors are detecting those bumps and instantaneously looking to push and pull the wheels,” explains MIT alumnus and ClearMotion CEO Shakeel Avadhany.
MIT researchers have developed a new particle robotics system inspired by biological cells that can transport objects placed in their midst and squeeze through small gaps, reports Kaveh Waddell for Axios. “The particle robotics system is a departure from traditional robots, where a part failure generally breaks the entire thing,” Waddell explains.
Wired reporter Emma Bryce highlights Prof. Dina Katabi’s work developing a wireless system that can help track a person’s health and could be used to monitor Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. Katabi explains that the system “can be used to detect and understand higher level information, not just monitoring the signs and the measurements, but really being able to understand the meaning of those measurements.”
CBS This Morning correspondent Nikki Battiste visits MIT to learn more about a device developed by MIT researchers that uses wireless signals to detect food contamination. “We hope to be able to build a portable device that a person can take with them when they're trying to buy something from a supermarket or from a farmer's market,” explains Prof. Fadel Adib.
Researchers at MIT have developed an expandable pill that can stay in the stomach for a month and could potentially track issues like ulcers and cancers. “The pill is made from two types of hydrogels -- mixtures of polymers and water -- making it softer and longer-lasting than current ingestible sensors,” reports Robert Preidt for HealthDay.
Washington Post reporter Peter Holley writes that MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible, expanding pill that can remain in the stomach for up to a month and could be used to help with weight loss or to monitor conditions inside the human body. “The pills could also be used to place tiny cameras inside the body that could monitor tumors and ulcers over time,” Holley explains.
MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible pill that expands once it reaches the stomach and could be used to monitor a patient’s health, reports the BBC News. “The dream is to have a smart pill, that once swallowed stays in the stomach and monitors the patient's health for a long time, such as a month,” explains Prof. Xuanhe Zhao.
STAT reporter Casey Ross writes about how MIT researchers have developed a new ingestible Prof. Timothy Lu explains that he hopes that the sensor “opens up a really new window into how the gut and the rest of the body are connected, and hopefully provide new diagnostic strategies as well.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Jill Kiedaisch writes that MIT researchers have developed a plant cyborg, named Elowan, that can move itself towards sources of light. Kiedaisch writes that Elowan “could elevate how we interface with the world around us, leveraging the natural abilities of plants to inform how we animals express our own agency to live, and keep living, perhaps a bit more symbiotically.”
Media Lab researchers have created a new robotic plant, dubbed Elowan, that acts like a light sensor, reports Katharine Schwab for Fast Company. Schwab explains that the new plant-robot hybrid, “shows that technologists can use signals that already exist in nature–like the plant’s light-sensing capacity–to create an entirely new kind of organic interface.”
Motherboard reporter Caroline Haskins writes that Media Lab researchers have developed a new plant-robot hybrid that uses electrodes, a robot and wheels so that it can move itself towards light. Haskins explains that “bioelectrochemical signals from the plant that respond to light…are routed to a robot underneath the plant, and wheels take the plant to a spot best-suited for its survival.”
MIT researchers have developed a new system to detect contaminated food by scanning a product’s RFID tags, reports Devin Coldewey for TechCrunch. The system can “tell the difference between pure and melamine-contaminated baby formula, and between various adulterations of pure ethyl alcohol,” Coldewey explains.
This Quartz video highlights how MIT researchers are developing a self-driving boat system that can navigate waterways and can transform into different structures to move cargo, trash or build a temporary bridge. “The boats find the best path between preprogrammed locations, while using GPS, laser sensors, and cameras to avoid hitting anything,” explains Michael Tabb.