Micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVs as they're called in the elusive underground, are far from new, but a team from NC State University is hoping to advance the field with an all new critter. The Robo-Bat is a remote controlled creature that relies on a super elastic shape-memory metal alloy for the joints, which is said to provide a full range of motion while enabling it to "always return to its original position -- a function performed by many tiny bones, cartilage and tendons in real bats." The crew is also utilizing other "smart materials" in the muscular system, giving it the ability to react in real time to environmental changes such as sudden wind gusts. Ideally, this bionic chiropteran would be used to chivvy those who dare step foot on Franklin Street or inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, but in less malicious situations, it could help well-meaning scientists get the bottom of that whole "aerodynamics" thing.

We've seen all sorts of devices that learn over time, though most of them fall into the humanoid category. Now, a team of gurus over in the UK has developed an entire home that can learn from those dwelling in it and react in order to curb energy waste and even prevent unauthorized entry. InterHome, a model designed by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire, is scheduled to be unveiled at the Microsoft Imagine Cup finals, and it should make other home automation systems look rather antediluvian in comparison. By sensing how the owner(s) like their climate and such, it can reportedly save up to £300 a year in energy costs alone. Furthermore, it can "take decisive action and text if it is being burgled or the door has been left unlocked," and the whole system can be monitored remotely and controlled via the web. Too bad we're terrified that it could one day turn on the owner and refuse to allow entry to anyone other than leaders of The Resistance, but other than that, it sounds pretty nifty.

Not that we haven't seen this trick pulled before, but there's still something magical about the forthcoming Aquasar. Said supercomputer, which will feature two IBM BladeCenter servers in each rack, should be completed by 2010 and reach a top speed of ten teraflops. Such a number pales in comparison to the likes of IBM's Roadrunner, but it's the energy factor here that makes it a star. If all goes well, this machine will suck down just 10KW of energy, while the average power consumption of a supercomputer in the top 500 list is 257KW. The secret lies in the new approach to chip-level water cooling, which will utilize a "fine network of capillaries" to bring the water dangerously close to the processors without actually frying any silicon. While it's crunching numbers, waste heat will also be channeled throughout the heating system at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, giving students and dorm room crashers a good feel for the usefulness of recycled warmth.

If NC State's athletic branches had even half the aptitude as its medical researchers, maybe then those blue boys down the road wouldn't have so much right to bang us up. Personal beefs aside, we're simultaneously stoked and amazed by a new machine crafted down in Raleigh, one that enables scientists to keep a heart pumping even after it has been removed from the body, but for research purposes only. Andrew Richards, a bright young mechanical engineering student, designed the so-called dynamic heart system, which "pumps fluid through a pig heart so that it functions in a very realistic way." Obviously, such a device has a multitude of benefits, including time / money savings compared to alternative approaches, the ability to record the inner workings of a pumping heart and scoring the creator some serious street cred in the industry. Mind-blowing video is just after the break.

[Via Neatorama]

Man, the mad scientists are really on a roll of late. First we hear that Li-ion cells are set to magically double in capacity, and now we're learning that a new form of invisibility cloak is totally gearing up for its Target debut. As the seemingly endless quest to bend light in such a way as to create a sheath of invisibility continues, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Nicholas Fang has reportedly developed a metamaterial that acts as a type of acoustic superlens. In theory, at least, this approach would rely on phreaking with sound rather than light in order to intensely focus ultrasound waves; by doing so, one could hypothetically "hide ships from sonar." To be fair, this all sounds entirely more believable than hiding massive vessels from human sight, but we're still not taking our skeptic hat off until we see (er, don't see?) a little proof.

[Via Slashdot]

Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let's be honest -- even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn't apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what's likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse -- which creates a "unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament" -- could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power. Per usual, there's no telling when this new hotness is likely to hit the commercial realm, but one's thing for sure: we bet GE's paying attention.

[Via Physorg]

[Via Digg]

For the longest while, scientists have been flummoxed by the incessant coruscating emitted by individual molecules; no matter their methods, they could never quite seem to overcome a troubling optical quirk known sensibly as "blinking." Thanks to a brilliant crew at the University of Rochester, however, we now understand the basic physics behind the phenomenon, and together with a team from Eastman Kodak, a nanocrystal has been created that can constantly emit light. In theory, the discovery could lead to "dramatically less expensive and more versatile lasers, brighter LED lighting, and biological markers that track how a drug interacts with a cell at a level never before possible." Indeed, one could envision that future displays could be crafted by painting a grid of differently sized nanocrystals onto a flat surface, making even OLED TVs look chubby in comparison. Now, if only we had a good feeling that such a device was destined for a CES in our lifetime...

Here's an interesting new mandate for all of Missouri School of Journalism's incoming freshman: equip themselves with iPhones and iPod touches. Actually, let's go ahead and clarify what "mandate" means here, as associate dean Brian Brooks has stated that no one will a be punished for not buying / owning one. While noting the audio recording and playback capabilities were motivation for this decision, he explains the reason it's classified as a requirement is because it lets students include it in their financial need estimate -- wholly beneficial when you're figuring out scholarships and loans. It doens't look like there'll be any direct discounts from U of M, however, unlike some other schools with similar initiatives. It's a clever loophole, to be sure, but we'd wager there's more than a few undergraduates who are none too pleased at the Apple favoritism, and to be honest, we love nothing more right now than imagining a large group of S60 and Zune supporters gathering in a field for frisbee, picnic, and lots of protesting.

[Via Macworld]

Pardon the alliteration, but we're excited about the proposition here. For years -- millenniums, even -- scientists have been trying to figure out how to manipulate minuscule devices with magnets, and at long last, we've got a breakthrough in the field. Metin Sitti, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, is credited with creating a new control technique that could allow microscopic machines to "one day deliver drugs directly to a sickly cell or a tumor." Essentially, the diminutive bots glide across a glass surface covered with a grid of metal electrodes, and you're just a click away (it's the Read link, just so you know) from seeing a live demonstration on how they can be used to "anchor one or more microbots while allowing others to continue to move freely around the surface." Good times.

Color shifting has been a pipe dream for about as long as alchemists have claimed their studies to be legitimate, but now a brilliant team from the New University of Lisbon can finally say a breakthrough has been found. Essentially, these inventors have conjured up a transistor that changes the color of practically any surface (paper, glass, plastics, ceramics and metals, just to name a few). For what it's worth, this same team already has quite a bit of display cred, as it has developed technology currently used within Samsung panels. With the help of a few good men and woman at the University of Texas at Austin, the team was able to register for a patent right here in the US, and with any luck, they'll be giving OLEDs and e-paper a run for their money before we can snap our fingers twice and run around the block. Check a video (narrated in Portuguese) after the break.

[Thanks, Nelson]

We've seen an orchestra's worth of robotic musicians, but we've yet to see one that integrates this perfectly into a piece without any human intervention. Shimon -- a robotic marimba player created by Georgia Tech's Guy Hoffman (formerly of MIT), Gil Weinberg (the director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology) and Roberto Aimi of Alium Labs -- recently made its stage debut by sensing the music from a piano and reacting accordingly in order to provide complementary percussion. Unlike many alternatives, there's absolutely no delay here. Instead, it analyzes the classification of chords, estimates the human's tempo and attempts to extract features from the human's melodic phrases and styles. What you're left with a robot musician that goes beyond call-and-response and actually meshes with the Earthling's playing throughout. The full performance is posted after the break, and make sure to leave a donation as you exit through the doors on the left.

[Thanks, Guy!]

The Gators may not be in the Final Four this year, but the brainiacs on campus are still toiling away, regardless. Researchers at the institution (that'd be the University of Florida) have just stumbled onto a remarkable discovery that could eventually "starve cancer tumors and prevent side effects from a wide range of drugs." The magic find? A "lock-like molecule" that clasps or unclasps based on exposure to light. Sure, we've seen our fair share of newfangled drug delivery tools, but none that have been this noninvasive or simple to activate. In tests, gurus found that they could use visible or ultraviolet light to open or close a clasp, letting blood flow or creating a clot; in theory, this could one day be used to "prevent the formation of tiny blood vessels that feed tumors." Everything about this sounds just fantastic on the surface, but seriously, can you imagine how dead we'd be if the robots ever got ahold of this?

[Via Physorg, image courtesy of NanotechNow]

8GHz (with the help of liquid nitrogen) not quick enough? Leave it to the folks at MIT to make sure your zaniest desires are well taken care of. As research forges ahead on graphene, carbon nanotubes and buckyballs (remember those?), gurus at the university have discovered a breakthrough that could eventually lead to microchips that make existing silicon-based CPUs weep. In fact, the research could lead to practical systems in the 500 to 1,000 gigahertz range. The magic all ties back to advancements on a graphene chip known as a frequency multiplier, and while the nitty-gritty of all this is far too complicated for the layperson to grasp, all you really need to know is this: finally, you can rest assured that you'll one day own a chip capable of handling Duke Nukem Forever.

[Via InformationWeek]

You know what's hard to find these days? Consistency and reliability -- in anything, really. But we've learned that when MIT touches something, it not only gets done, but it gets done right. Thus, we're absolutely elated to hear that a few of its students have dreamed up a fully autonomous greenhouse, utilizing real plants, sensors and gardening robots to ensure the greenest, most healthy crop possible. In fairness, we've already seen oodles of robotic plant tending apparatuses, but this is just something special. Thus far, gurus have used "re-imagined versions of iRobot's Roomba" in order to tell what a plant needs and then respond accordingly, and apparently, things have been going quite well early on. Check out a demonstration vid just past the break.

[Via MAKE]