1. Fireflies’ luminescence, which is how they communicate with each other, is serving as scientific inspiration for a team at MIT. They’ve developed a flapping-wing robot—about the size and weight of a paper clip—based on that luminescence.
The insect-sized robot is driven by soft artificial muscles called dielectric elastomer actuators, which are made of very thin carbon nanotube electrodes that surround soft elastomer. Zinc sulfide particles are embedded inside the elastomer, and under a strong and high-frequency electric field, those particles produce light in the robot during flight.
The researchers use three smartphone cameras to track the robot’s position and altitude, since it’s too small to carry its own sensors. Small aerial robots like this one could potentially communicate with each other the way real fireflies do for things like search-and-rescue missions or studying insect behaviors.
2. Researchers at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China have created a way to better detect potentially serious heart conditions, with a new AI-based model that can automatically detect plaque erosion in the heart’s arteries using intravascular OCT images.
The new technique involves a neural network model that uses original OCT images and explicit shape information to predict and identify areas of artery plaque erosion. A post-processing algorithm is then used to refine those initial predictions for better analysis. Already, the new method has proven effective enough to correctly predict 80% of the plaque erosion cases studied.
Taking their work a step further, the researchers are looking to better incorporate 3D information and more unlabeled data to improve the performance of the new AI-based model. This could ultimately lead to new, more effective heart disease treatment and strategies.
3. Smartwatches, fitness trackers, and wearable heart monitors provide some pretty comprehensive and useful information, but they can’t measure a body’s chemical signatures, which can be crucial for accurate medical diagnosis. Recognizing this, researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed an ultrathin sensor coated in gold mesh that can measure chemicals, biomarkers, and potentially medications in the body. Gold doesn’t react when touching skin, so it can measure things like disease biomarkers in sweat without chemically altering substances. And the gold mesh on the new sensor—the functionality of which relies on low-power laser light—is so ultrafine, it offers a large surface that biomarkers can bind to.
The new sensor could potentially be used for more accurate blood glucose monitoring and virus detection.
