Show Notes 14 April 2023
Story 1: New electric watercraft robot captures plastic and debris in rivers and lakes
Source: Electrek.com Story by Peter Johnson
Link: https://electrek.co/2023/03/30/wasteshark-is-an-electric-catamaran-that-eats-plastic-in-the-water/
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT4Qoe0B9tU&t=4s
- An outfit in Rotterdam, the Netherlands called RanMarine Technology has developed a sleek, low-profile, aquatic robot they call the “WasteShark” that features a large opening, or “mouth”, at one end.
- It looks like a catamaran boat without a sail and is designed to capture floating plastic or other waste.
- Its size is 5 feet, 3 feet 7 inches by 1 foot, 7 inches.
- The new WasteShark can navigate autonomously for 3 miles, collecting more than 1,100 pounds of plastic and other waste using its open mouth to trap debris floating on the surface.
- The 1,100 is an estimate of the total that could be capture over the period of its run time, and with periodic emptying of its catch “basket”.
- According to Reuters, the plastic-eating shark is now devouring waste in the River Thames, removing the equivalent of more than 22,700 plastic bottles daily
- Powered by two electric thrusters and controlled via wireless 4G communications, the WasteShark robot can cruise [on a single charge] for up to 6 hours in autonomous mode or 8 hours with manual remote control.
- Normal full recharge period is 5 hours, with 80% capacity usually achieved in 2.5 hours.
- In addition to cleaning plastic, it can also collect natural materials such as algae, duckweed, and other aquatic plants.
- And it also can collect water quality data as it does its job.
- Some examples of what it can measure include oxygen, nitrogen, turbidity, and temperature, along with PH levels and nutrient levels.
- WasteSharks can be purchased for roughly $24,600 or leased for around $1,200 per month.
Story 2: Scientists have discovered that plants have voices
Source: Popular Mechanics Story by Jackie Appel
- A new study has shown that plants, even though they are silent to us, actually produce a lot of noise.
- Using highly sensitive equipment and artificial intelligence analysis programs, researchers at Tel Aviv University report they’ve discovered that plants issue sounds that seem to correlate to when they’re thirsty, hurt, or doing well.
- Human ears are geared to pick up sounds with frequencies of up to about 16 kilohertz, but the sounds that plants produce are up in the 40-80 kilohertz range. That’s dog whistle territory.
- To determine if plants make sounds, and if they have any meaning, the researchers gathered plants, largely tomato and tobacco, in various different states of distress—some were dehydrated, some had their stems cut, and some were totally healthy.
- They then placed those plants into an acoustic box with ultrasonic microphones and isolated them from as much ambient sound as possible.
- Over time, the microphones picked up a series of ultrasonic noises that sounded like popcorn popping coming from each plant.
- Plants that were totally healthy released sound less than once an hour, but the plants that were stressed from dehydration or injury issued the popcorn popping sounds dozens of times in that same time span.
Story 3: New Robotic hand can identify objects with just one grasp
Source: MIT News Story by Adam Zewe
Link: https://news.mit.edu/2023/robotic-hand-can-identify-objects-just-one-grasp-0403
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a robotic hand that uses high-resolution touch sensing to accurately identify an object after grasping it just one time.
- Many robotic hands pack all their powerful sensors into the fingertips, so an object must be in full contact with those fingertips to be identified, which can take multiple grasps.
- Other robotic hand designs to date use lower-resolution sensors spread along the entire finger, but these don’t capture as much detail, so multiple regrasps are often required.
- Instead, the MIT team built a robotic finger with a rigid skeleton encased in a soft outer layer that has multiple high-resolution sensors incorporated under its transparent “skin.”
- The sensors, which use a camera and LEDs to gather visual information about an object’s shape, provide continuous sensing along the finger’s entire length. Each finger captures rich data on many parts of an object simultaneously.
- Using this design, the researchers built a three-fingered robotic hand that could identify objects after only one grasp, with about 85 percent accuracy.
- And the rigid skeleton makes the fingers strong enough to pick up a heavy item, such as a drill, while the soft skin enables them to securely grasp a pliable item, like an empty plastic water bottle, without crushing it.
Story 4: Astronauts will grow cultures of an incurable cancer in space to unlock its secrets
Source: Braintumourresearch.org
- Researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK recently announced plans to send a form of cancer that causes incurable tumors to the International Space Station.
- The launch is expected to take place in 2025, and experiments will be conducted by astronauts on board, with samples expected to be returned to Earth about six months later.
- The cancer in question is diffuse midline glioma.
- Diffuse midline gliomas are primary central nervous system tumors. This means they begin in the brain or spinal cord.
- Diffuse midline glioma primarily affect children but can occasionally be found in adults as well.
- The scientists want to see how this deadly cancer spreads in microgravity, which could help pave the way to understanding more about the mechanics of this deadly tumor.
- The goal behind the experiments on the International Space Station is to improve the understanding of how diffuse midline glioma cancer cells interact with each other within three-dimensional structures, and hopefully lead to new ideas for disrupting tumor growth.
- Researchers believe that the microgravity conditions will allow their 3D cultures to grow to much larger sizes than on Earth, allowing much larger extensive models in which to study how cancer cells interact.