Learners often experience information overload when viewing and listening to presentations on PowerPoint. Addressing this, researchers in Japan proposed a ‘cumulative presentation’ design, in which visual content is segmented, and each segment appears alongside the relevant verbal explanation. By analyzing learners’ test scores and eye movements, researchers found that compared to the traditional format, in which information appeared all at once, cumulative presentation directed learners’ attention to relevant information and improved learning.

Built from flexible, compliant materials, soft robots are gaining relevance for tasks ranging from minimally invasive surgery to deep-sea exploration but remain held back by a fundamental constraint. To sense their surroundings and react, most soft robots rely on separate electronic sensors, signal-processing circuits and powered actuators, all coordinated by computers. This chain of components adds weight, complexity and points of failure, particularly in wet, hot or high-pressure settings where electronics are highly susceptible to disruption.

A research team at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS CDE), has developed a mechanical soft force sensor that eliminates this electronic chain entirely. The sensor converts an applied force directly into fluid flow that drives actuators, creating a complete sensing-to-action loop with no computation or external energy. The approach could lead to soft robots that are simpler to build and capable of operating in environments that compromise conventional electronics.

A high-performance biodegradable pressure sensor has been developed as a key technology for wearable AI healthcare robotics and user-friendly robotic systems.

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a research team led by Professor Tae-Woo Lee in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has developed an eco-friendly artificial spiderweb pressure sensor* inspired by the multiscale architecture of natural spiderwebs. The sensor simultaneously achieves high sensitivity, fast response time, and excellent mechanical stability.

* Artificial spiderweb pressure sensor: A flexible pressure sensor that mimics the multilayered fiber and mesh structures of spiderwebs to efficiently transmit pressure and convert it into electrical signals.

Capable of real-time detection of human pulse, respiration, vocalization, and finger movements, the sensor can be integrated with robotic hand control systems and is expected to find broad applications in Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation assistive devices, eco-friendly wearable devices, and user-friendly robotics.

The research was published on July 4 in Nature Communications, a world-renowned international academic journal.

Researchers from Donghua University (Shanghai, China) have developed a high-performance and sustainable food packaging film based on deacidified chitin nanofibers (ChNFs) and tannic acid (TA), termed as CTF. The novel CTF film exhibits outstanding mechanical properties (tensile strength of 145.1 MPa), excellent antioxidant activity (>95% free-radical scavenging rate), significant antibacterial effects, and effective UV shielding. In strawberry preservation tests, the CTF film kept fruits intact and mold-free for 7 days, outperforming commercial polyethylene (PE) films and demonstrating great potential as an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based packaging materials.