In a new study published in Science, researchers from the Model-Based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and their international collaborators have constructed a detailed timeline for bacterial evolution and oxygen adaptation. Their findings suggest some bacteria could use trace oxygen long before evolving the ability to produce it through photosynthesis. 

The University of Pittsburgh professors Kurt Beschorner and Tevis Jacobs and four Pitt scholars have tested and validated an important model that can predict shoe-floor friction. Their research, published in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Journal of Tribology, is titled “Validation of a Multiscale Hysteresis Mechanics Model in Predicting Oily Shoe-Floor Friction Across Surfaces with Varying Finishes.” 

Developed by engineers at Duke University, Text2Robot is a novel computational robot design framework that allows anyone to design and build a robot simply by typing a few words describing what it should look like and how it should function.

MIT researchers developed a manufacturing technique that rapidly generates large quantities of nanoparticles coated with drug-delivering polymers, which hold great potential for treating cancer. The particles can be targeted directly to tumors, where they release their payload while avoiding many of the side effects of traditional chemotherapy.

In a major leap forward for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, researchers have unveiled a novel miniaturized accelerometer that can boost sensitivity, reducing noise and bias instability while maintaining compact chip size.

In twisted moiré photonic crystals, how the layers twist and overlap can change how the material interact with light. By changing the twist angle and the spacing between layers, these materials can be fine-tuned to control and manipulate different aspects of light simultaneously — meaning the multiple optical components typically needed to simultaneous measure light’s phase, polarization, and wavelength could be replaced with one device. Now researchers have developed an on-chip twisted moiré photonic crystal sensor that uses MEMS technology to control the gap and angle between the crystal layers in real time. The sensor can detect and collect detailed polarization and wavelength information simultaneously.