Tech Xplore news

The plastic bottle you just tossed in the recycling bin could provide structural support for your future house. MIT engineers are using recycled plastic to 3D print construction-grade beams, trusses, and other structural ...

Friendly robots, the ones people love to love, are quirky: R2-D2, C-3PO, WALL-E, BB-8, Marvin, Roz and Baymax. They're emotional, prone to panic or bossy, empathetic and able to communicate like humans do—even when they ...

Despite the prevalence of synthetic materials across different industries and scientific fields, most are developed to serve a limited set of functions. To address this inflexibility, researchers at Penn State, led by Hongtao ...

Thermoelectric conversion devices offer a promising route for sustainable heat-to-energy conversion. They are particularly attractive for recovering energy from waste heat, such as that produced by conventional fossil fuel-based ...

Plants grown for biofuel have the potential to power our travel industry, but an important fraction of their chemical power has remained stubbornly difficult to recover. New research from the Center for Advanced Biofuel and ...

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling customized, cost-effective products with minimal waste. However, with the majority of 3D printers operating on open-loop systems, they are notoriously prone ...

Consider the marvelous physics of the human knee. The largest hinge joint in the body, it has two rounded bones held together by ligaments that not only swing like a door, but also roll and glide over each other, allowing ...

Over the next decades, robots are expected to make their way into a growing number of households, public spaces, and professional environments. Many of the most advanced and promising robots designed to date are so-called ...

Robots are getting better at sniffing out smells thanks to improvements in electronic noses (e-noses). A comprehensive review of the state of robot olfaction, published in the journal npj Robotics, has surveyed recent advances ...

A new study from the University at Albany shows that artificial intelligence systems may organize information in far more intricate ways than previously thought. The study, "Exploring the Stratified Space Structure of an ...

The demand for energy is ever-increasing across various industries. In recent decades, scientists have explored the electrostatic potential of particulate matter as a highly promising avenue for energy harvesting. However, ...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as the models underpinning the functioning of ChatGPT and various other online platforms, has grown exponentially over the past few years. Current hardware and electronic ...