Day: February 13, 2012

Posted on

From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Video: Robotic Lego Forearm Can Wave Hello and Pour You a Drink

Lego Hand Max Shepherd via YouTube

A robotic hand made entirely of Legos is one of the most realistic robo-hands we have seen, matching the entire range of motion of a real one. It moves pretty slowly, but that’s OK – slow and steady wins the race, and pours the drink without splashing.

Builder Max Shepherd used Lego motors and pneumatics to move the arm, which he says can only lift a couple of pounds. The goal was to mimic the full range of motion of a human hand, not to lift tons of weight. It’s an impressive show of what can be done with some mad Lego skills.

The softest grippy hands we have seen don’t look human at all, so this is quite a feat. Watch the fingers curl softly around a water bottle or other object.

[Tinkernology via Engadget]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

Posted on

From Ars Technica: NMR imaging used to catch performance-killing flaws inside batteries


Batteries based on lithium now power everything from our watches to our cars, and we’ve made major strides towards stuffing more energy into them more quickly over the last several years. But there are limits to how quickly a battery can charge, and pushing past them can cause the lithium to form metallic microstructures within the battery. These can do ugly things like creating a short between the electrodes or puncturing the membranes that contain the battery’s electrolyte.

Most techniques that could image these miscrostructures involved taking the battery apart, meaning that we could only take static images of the impact of charge/discharge cycles on the battery. One of the best techniques for non-invasive imaging, NMR, relies on radiofrequency signals that simply don’t penetrate beyond the surface of a battery. Now, some researchers have figured out that there are conditions that enable the use of NMR to peek inside a battery—and they happen to be the formation of the microstructures we care about.

Read the rest of this article...

 

from Ars Technica

Posted on

From Morning Edition: You Too Can Stash Cash In An Offshore Account

WTH?!  Really?!  Mitt has a Swiss bank account?!  I thought we had basics like “if you own an off-shore bank account, you cannot be a president of the USA”.. ?!

=====================================================

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney made news when he disclosed he had a Swiss bank account. Many affluent Americans do. Now an AP writer has assembled a step-by-step guide on how you can do it. The hardest part may be step one, which is get a million dollars.

 

from Morning Edition

Posted on

From Morning Edition: Obama’s Budget To Invest In Community Colleges

This is the first in Obama’s presidency that I actually approve for once!

================================================================

The Obama administration officially lays out its economic blueprint for the next fiscal year on Monday. He’ll announce the 2013 budget at Northern Virginia Community College, where he’ll push for more investment in community colleges and job training.

 

from Morning Edition