Researchers at the University of Washington have created MilliMobile, a tiny, self-driving robot powered only by surrounding light or radio waves. It’s about the size of a penny and can run indefinitely on harvested energy. (UW Photo / Mark Stone)University of Washington researchers are rolling out another tiny robotic breakthrough, this time in the form of an autonomous device that relies on surrounding light or radio waves to move in short bursts.The robot, dubbed MilliMobile, is about the size of a penny and weighs as much as a raisin, and a typical power source, such as a battery, has been kicked to the curb in favor of more environmentally friendly approach.MilliMobile has a solar panel-like energy harvester that sits above four tiny wheels, enabling the robot to roll — in incremental steps — about the 30 feet in an hour across surfaces such as concrete or packed soil.Carrying three times its own weight in equipment such as cameras and sensors, the device takes internet-of-things style data collection and makes it mobile. Such tiny robots can be used on a smart farm to track humidity and soil moisture or in a factory to seek out electromagnetic noise to find equipment malfunctions — especially when deployed in a swarm.“We took inspiration from ‘intermittent computing,’ which breaks complex programs into small steps, so a device with very limited power can work incrementally, as energy is available,” said the UW’s Kyle Johnson. “With MilliMobile, we applied this concept to motion. We reduced the robot’s size and weight so it takes only a small amount of energy to move. And, similar to an animal taking steps, our robot moves in discrete increments, using small pulses of energy to turn its wheels.”MilliMobile was tested both indoors and out and in very low light situations, and was still able to inch along. The robot is also able to steer itself, navigating with onboard sensors and tiny computing chips.Johnson, a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, was co-lead author on research that the team will present Monday at the ACM MobiCom 2023 conference in Madrid, Spain. READ MORE...
Scientists have developed organoids from stem cells capable of producing dental enamel proteins. The research aims to use these advancements for dental treatments, including repairing damaged teeth or entirely regenerating lost ones.
This advance is viewed as a pivotal initial step toward innovative therapies for the repair and regeneration of teeth.
Stem cells have been used to produce organoids that release the proteins responsible for forming dental enamel, a substance that shields teeth from harm and decay. This initiative was led by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle.
“This is a critical first step to our long-term goal to develop stem cell-based treatments to repair damaged teeth and regenerate those that are lost,” said Hai Zhang, professor of restorative dentistry at the UW School of Dentistry and one of the co–authors of the paper describing the research.
The findings are published today in the journal Developmental Cell. Ammar Alghadeer, a graduate student in Hannele Ruohola-Baker’s laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry at the UW School of Medicine was the lead author on the paper. The lab is affiliated with the UW Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine.
The researchers explained that tooth enamel protects teeth from the mechanical stresses incurred by chewing and helps them resist decay. It is the hardest tissue in the human body.
Enamel is made during tooth formation by specialized cells called ameloblasts. When tooth formation is complete, these cells die off. Consequently, the body has no way to repair or regenerate damaged enamel, and teeth can become prone to fractures or be subject to loss. READ MORE...
A series of studies have uncovered a causal relationship between mindfulness meditation and decreased feelings of guilt. The findings have been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Several studies have found that mindfulness meditation draws people’s focus inward and reduces negative emotions. But some negative emotions provide useful social feedback. For example, feelings of guilt help to push individuals to atone for their transgressions against others. The new study provides evidence that mindfulness can lead to undesirable outcomes by dampening feelings of guilt.
“I was interested in doing this research because, after I started studying meditation and meditating myself, I noticed that I was using it as almost a default way of reacting to stressors,” said study author Andrew C. Hafenbrack, an assistant professor at the University of Washington. “This was great when I was overly ruminating or overreacting to some minor problem, and is a powerful sleep aid. Sometimes, however, this meant that I would meditate or focus on my breath in situations that there was actually a significant problem and it would have been better if I had faced it directly and immediately.”
“I had some confidence that I was not alone in this when I read a Harvard Business Review article by medical doctor and executive coach David Brendel in 2015, where he described that he ‘worked with clients who, instead of rationally thinking through a career challenge or ethical dilemma, prefer to disconnect from their challenges and retreat into a meditative mindset. The issue here is that some problems require more thinking, not less.'”
“I also know several people who are into mind-body practices, including but not limited to mindfulness meditation, but who are unusually flaky or otherwise don’t treat other people particularly well. So I wondered what was going on. It seemed to go against the essence of what I thought mindfulness and meditation were supposed to do, which is largely due to the associations I had based on the traditional or religious forms.”
The researchers conducted eight separate experiments, which included more than 1,400 participants. In the studies, the participants were randomly assigned to either listen to an 8-minute guided meditation recording created by a professional mindfulness meditation instructor or an 8-minute recording by the same speaker in which they were instructed to think of whatever came to mind. READ MORE...
