Minifacture, Alternative Manufacturing Research

Shaped to roll along a programmed periodic path

Eat This Drone Most delivery drones can only carry about one-third of their mass as payload, because most of their mass is both critical, like wings, and comes in the form of things that are essentially useless to the end user, like wings. But EPFL researchers have invented a drone with wings made from rice cakes.

Trichromatic ability for the cost of olfactory sensor

Loss of Olfactory Receptor Genes Coincides with the Acquisition of Full Trichromatic Vision in Primates Olfactory receptor (OR) genes constitute the molecular basis for the sense of smell and are encoded by the largest gene family in mammalian genomes. Previous studies suggested that the proportion of pseudogenes in the OR gene family is significantly larger ...

Music typewriter from 1936 🎶

Faster Microfiber Actuators Mimic Human Muscle UCSD researchers make an artificial muscle prototype from liquid crystals

Capillary action

Why leaky pipes can be better for moving water Researchers have taken inspiration from trees and developed a system for moving water around that depends on capillary action and surface tension. They 3D pr...

Michelin Puts Puffy Sails on Cargo Ships The move could boost a vessel’s fuel efficiency by 20 percent