Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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Antarctic test of novel ice drill poised to begin
Any day now, a team of 40 scientists and support personnel expects to begin using a warm, high pressure jet of water to bore a 30 centimeter hole through 83 meters of ice. Once it breaks through to the sea below, they’ll have a few days to quickly sample life from water before the hole begins freezing up again. It's just a test. But if all goes well, in a few weeks the team will move 700 miles and bore an even deeper hole to sample for freshwater life that may have been living for eons outside even indirect contact with Earth’s atmosphere.
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Printed robot moves with a beat
Tiny device created with a 3-D printer employs heart cells to make it move.
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Building robots that slither
Howie Choset is a roboticist, but his team’s creations bear little resemblance to C-3PO or R2-D2. Instead, Choset finds inspiration in nature — specifically, snakes.
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Tiny muscles pull a big punch
Coated carbon nanotubes form the basis of this smart new material.
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Beginnings of Bionic
Electronics that bend with the human body may soon make their way into medical devices to track health, deliver treatments and improve surgery.
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Plastic fantastic seals in speeding projectiles
Layered nanomaterial shows how bulletproof polymers wrap around penetrating particles.
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Degradable devices vanish after use
Technique combines silicon, magnesium and silk for medical implants, transistors and digital cameras that can melt away.
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Facebook peer pressure gets out the vote
People were more likely to take part in the November 2010 election when they were told that their online friends already had.
