Remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence have made it seem like uncannily human androids are just around the corner. But even though SIRI might be able to tell you a joke, robotics are still pretty clunky. That’s where soft robotics come in.
This is more or less like the grown-up, nerded-out scientist version of those spinny roulette toys you had as a kid that taught you that The Cow Goes Moo. Except the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library tells you that the katydid goes, uhhh, “dial-up modem noise”?
Cornell is the place to go if you like looking at small things with expensive machinery. The University recently made its $US500,000 micro-CT scanner available for public as well as academic usage.