A research team from Carnegie Mellon University is exploring man-robot interaction by programming robots to play a special kind of soccer on teams with both human and robot players playing together.
– Bots, humans play together
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Vibrating Gel Mimicks Animal Locomotion
A strip of gel on a vibrating plate can be made to mimic three types of animal style locomotion.
– Gels Gain Life-Like Motion
NASA Helps Biologists in Chameleon Research
NASA teams with biologists to predict the geographic distribution of 11 known chameleon species in Madagascar. The model also helped lead to discovery of 7 previously unknown chameleon species.
– NASA Helps Forecast Reptile Distributions In Madagascar
Robot Does Forest Research
A solar-powered robot helps scientists monitoring environmental changes in forests.
– ‘Robot Tarzan’ helps forest work
How the Brain Predicts Other People’s Actions
An article in Nature suggests that the brain actually simulates another person’s brain processes when trying to predict their actions.
– A system in the human brain for predicting the actions of others
When People are Cheaper than Technology
Technologically minded people tend to look for technological solutions to the problems they face. Naturally so, but every technological solution can be improved. There is always another solution, simpler and better than the current one. Most inventors will admit that they know a lot of ways to improve on their solutions – an optimization here a redesign there, etc. The solutions in use are comprimises between the optimal and the practical. Necessarily so, to keep down cost.
But the improvements the designers know about are usually still within the framework originally proposed by the inventor. He or she is too involved in the work to be able to see the big picture and think of a radically new way of attacking the problem. One often overlooked solution: Use people instead of a complex technological solution.
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